BRD

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since July 2006 . (help, talk)

This article or section is missing citations and/or footnotes.

To meet Wikipedia's style guidelines and conform to our policies regarding neutral point of view, original research, and verifiability, please provide appropriate inline citations and/or footnotes.
For guidance in this area, see Wikipedia:Footnotes#How to use.
This article has been tagged since December 2006.

BRD is an unofficial abbreviation for Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the German name of the Federal Republic of Germany. It was used as the derogatory name for the "class enemy" by the German Democratic Republic since 1968.

[edit] History

In the first years after 1949 the abbreviation was sometimes used in Federal Republic of Germany without any special connotations. The German Democratic Republic at first used the name "West Germany" (abbreviated "WD") for the Federal Republic of Germany. However, since the 1950s the communist authorities insisted on calling the Federal Republic of Germany "Deutsche Bundesrepublik" (abbreviated "DBR"), because they considered the German Democratic Republic part of Germany, and thus would not permit the democratic government in West Germany using the name "Germany".

However, this changed in 1968 with the new constitution of the German Democratic Republic. The communists no longer strove for German reunification, and the name "BRD" was introduced as a propagandistic counter-term to the term "DDR", trying to express the equality of the states. Because of this, the term "BRD" has since been considered communist jargon in the Federal Republic of Germany.

To distance themselves from the term "BRD", the government of the Federal Republic of Germany officially used the abbreviations BR Deutschland, BR Dt., BRDt., BR Dtld. or simply Dtld. until German reunification. After the German Democratic Republic was abolished, "Germany" ("Deutschland) is always used as the official short name.

The use of the term "BRD" is officially unwanted. For example a decree by the educational authorities of the state of Schleswig-Holstein of October 4, 1976 declare the term to be nicht wünschenswert, undesirable. In many schools the term was sanctioned as an error.

The term has thus become a symbolic border. One's deliberate usage or avoidance of the term in effect declares one's stance on the German Democratic Republic and communism.

Also, in some extreme right-wing groups, which do not recognize the current government of Germany, the term "BRD" is also used in the same way the communists used it, to express their view that the government of the Federal Republic of Germany is not the legitimate German government.

A similar ideological question was the question whether to use "Berlin (West)" (the officially preferred name) or "West Berlin". The naming of the German Democratic Republic was also a controversial issue, West Germans at first preferring the names "Middle Germany" and "SBZ" (Soviet Occupation Zone), which was only changed under Willy Brandt when the West Germans started using the official name, German Democratic Republic or "DDR". However, many German newspapers, for example those owned by the conservative Springer company, always wrote "DDR" in quotation marks until 1989.