Nazi

False Narrative

Artical Nutshell: National Socialists never called themselves Nazis.

A rude word

1930, noun and adjective, from Ignatz, a term used in Bavaria for a backwards or clumsy peasant. The insult was first applied to National Socialists by Konrad Heiden, a jewish Communist, or mote specifically, a [[judeo-Marxist.

The NSDAP once attempted to adopt the Nazi designation as what the Germans call a "despite-word," (They tried to "own" it, to spite the enemies who invented it.) eventually giving up; the NSDAP generally avoided the term, with the notable exception of the pamphlet "Nazi-Sozi" published by Joseph Goebbels originally in 1926. In the 1927 re-publishing, however, it was changed to Verlag der Nationalsozialistischen Briefe. Before 1930, party members had been called in English “National Socialists”, which dates from 1923. The use of Nazi Germany, Nazi regime, Nazism and any other term derived from "Nazi" was largely popularized as a derogatory epithet by German exiles abroad. From them, it spread into other languages, and eventually was brought to the spotlight in Germany only after the war; in general, in the pre-war period the NSDAP was referred to solely as Fascist by its opponents, despite controversy within the party regarding the label. Particularly in the USSR, the terms National Socialist and Nazi were said to have been forbidden after 1932, presumably to avoid any taint to the “good” word Socialist. Soviet literature refers to the National Socialists solely as Fascists.

To many modern critical social justice activists, the word Nazi has become a very broad derogatory slang word, like "nigger", except directed at any authoritative figure or person of European heritage that they may take issue with. The word Nazi is often used interchangeably to mean “authoritarian”, “racist”, “conservative” "hillbilly", or "ignorant person". This is common to the degree that it spurred popular memes to criticize the phenomenon.