Fritz, a German pet form of Friedrich, was popular in both World War I and World War II. Roosevelt also referred to the German people in this way, saying that an Allied invasion into Southern France would surely "be successful and of great assistance to Eisenhower in driving the Huns from France." Fritzīritish soldiers employed a variety of epithets for the Germans. Later that year Churchill referred to the invasion of the Soviet Union as "the dull, drilled, docile brutish masses of the Hun soldiery, plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts." During this time American President Franklin D. For example in 1941, Winston Churchill said in a broadcast speech: "There are less than 70,000,000 malignant Huns, some of whom are curable and others killable, most of whom are already engaged in holding down Austrians, Czechs, Poles and the many other ancient races they now bully and pillage." The usage of the term "Hun" to describe Germans resurfaced during World War II, although less frequently than in the previous war. īy coincidence, Gott mit uns ("God is with us"), a motto first used in the Kingdom of Prussia and later the German Empire, may have contributed to the popularization of 'Huns' as British Army slang for Germans by misreading 'uns' for 'Huns'. The French songwriter Théodore Botrel described the Kaiser as "an Attila, without remorse", launching "cannibal hordes". This usage, emphasising the idea that the Germans were barbarians, was reinforced by the propaganda utilized throughout the war. The comparison was helped by the spiked Pickelhaube helmet worn by German forces until 1916, which would be reminiscent of images depicting ancient warrior helmets (not necessarily that of actual historical Huns). The term "Hun" from this speech was later used for the Germans by British and other Allied propaganda during the war. Kommt ihr vor den Feind, so wird derselbe geschlagen! Pardon wird nicht gegeben! Gefangene werden nicht gemacht! Wer euch in die Hände fällt, sei euch verfallen! Wie vor tausend Jahren die Hunnen unter ihrem König Etzel sich einen Namen gemacht, der sie noch jetzt in Überlieferung und Märchen gewaltig erscheinen läßt, so möge der Name Deutsche in China auf 1000 Jahre durch euch in einer Weise bestätigt werden, daß es niemals wieder ein Chinese wagt, einen Deutschen scheel anzusehen!Īn American World War I fundraising poster. What is dubbed the " Hun speech" ( Hunnenrede) was delivered on 27 July 1900, when he bade farewell to the German expeditionary corps sailing from the port of Bremerhaven to take part in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion. The wartime association of the term with Germans is believed to have been inspired by an earlier address to Imperial German troops by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Beginning in World War I it became an often used pejorative seen on war posters by western Allied powers and the basis for a criminal characterisation of the Germans as barbarians with no respect for civilisation and humanitarian values having unjust reactions. Hun (or The Hun) is a term that originally refers to the nomadic Huns of the Migration Period. Many pejorative terms for Germans in various countries originated during the two World Wars.Ī First World War Canadian electoral campaign poster Other terms are serious or tongue-in-cheek attempts to coin words as alternatives to the ambiguous standard terms. Some terms are humorous or pejorative slang, and used mainly by people from other countries, although they can be used in a self-deprecating way by German people themselves. Until the German unification, people living in what is now Germany were named for the region in which they lived: examples are Bavarians and Brandenburgers. During the early Renaissance, "German" implied that the person spoke German as a native language. In English the demonym, or noun, is German. JSTOR ( March 2008) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.įind sources: "List of terms used for Germans" – news Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.
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