4 ms·

I don't speak German, so it was somewhat surprising to me when I learned that Führer means "leader" (or "guide", according to Wikipedia). And that that word is

by tacon 9y ago

I don't speak German, so it was somewhat surprising to me when I learned that Führer means "leader" (or "guide", according to Wikipedia). And that that word is essentially dead in modern German speech. So how do you refer to the "leader" now?, I asked. I didn't get a good answer to that question, but it would probably take more understanding of German as to how they get by without the obvious word. I wonder if "news" may be dead in English in the near future.

im3w1l 9y ago
Leiter, I believe.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  Yes, when I lived in Germany I heard "Leiter" a lot when I expected "Führer". To me it sounds like it should mean "conductor". Can real German speakers tell me if "Leiter" was always a very common word for this usage or merely a not-unreasonable word that won out post-war because it happens to be a bit like the English word? (In fact I suspect they are cognate, maybe that's why electrical conductors are sometimes called "leads").
  - InternetOfStuff 9y ago
    Native speaker here. Führer and Leiter seem similar in meaning, but are really quite distinct, both in denotation and connotation. And, contrary to what grandparent poster said, Führer is by no means dead. "Führer" means guide. As in, a mountain guide ("Bergführer"), tourist guide ("Reiseführer" - both guide book and person), or driver of a vehicle: driving license ("Führerschein"). Similarly, "Anführer" is a leader of a like-minded group, often in the sense that he is not a formal leader. To pick an example from current affairs: Carles Puigdemont is (formally) the president of Catalunya, and (informally) the leader ("Anführer") of the independence movement. There is quite a number of words derived from Führer. The verb "leiten" means to direct. Thus, a "Leiter" is somebody who gives directions: a director. This was, and is, a reasonable word, especially in a professional context. To explain the Nazi diction a bit. Think of uses like Bergführer ("mountain guide"): somebody who leads his charges skillfully through treacherous terrain. I suppose that was the kind of image the Nazis wanted to project on Adolf Hitler (who you are of course referring to). It's true that Führer may sound politically piquant to German ears, but only in quite specific contexts. It's a pretty normal word.
    - adrianratnapala 9y ago
      Thanks for your explanation. It tallies well with what I observed living there. But I still sense there is a post-war avoidance of the word: to you it might seem very common but I hardly ever heard it except as part of a larger compound. Compound words are so common in German, that the omission might not be obvious to people who are too familiar with it.
dguest 9y ago
Führer isn't dead in modern german unless you're talking about a person who leads. Most guide books are still called Reiseführer, and most germans have a Führerschein (driver's licence) etc.
pvg 9y ago
Why would 'news' become dead? Nazism had a substantial impact on German both on its way in and out - it developed/repurposed its own special phraseology and terms and those terms later fell out of use (or at least, in out of use in the contexts of their Nazi use). But this happened through focused effort, up to and including laws. Nothing of the sort has happened or is likely to happen to the word 'news'.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  As far as I know, there's never been a post-war effort to ban the word "Führer", nor did the Nazis try to remove the ordinary meaning. Heck, calling Hitler "The Leader" was in no way an abuse of language. And yet the word has become uncommon because of a kind of shared embaressment. Now I think tacon is wrong to think that "news" will go a similar way, but if it can happen to simple and basic words like "leader", then it's a reasonable thing to speculate about.
  - pvg 9y ago
    Germany was occupied and actively de-nazified so the idea that this stuff disappeared out of a genteel embarrassment seems ahistorical.
  - schoen 9y ago
    I want to suggest that "Führer" did have an unusual specific ideological connotation in the Third Reich that is very different from just saying "Adolf Hitler was the leader of Germany and FDR was the leader of the United States". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerprinzip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerprinzip
    - adrianratnapala 9y ago
      Correct, but that is still in line with it being an appropriate use of language. In Iran Ayatollah Khamenei has the unofficial title of "Supreme Leader". This is a very specific title within Iran, and has a specific ideological connotation. And yet it is also a perfectly normal and accurate use of the word "Leader".
musage 9y ago
There's still "Anführer", which is a leader of a group and makes sense to me, as opposed to "leadership" without any qualifiers. That is, "leadership" seems to be often used not to describe the fact that someone leads or is in the lead, but for some shifting cloud of properties that lead to them being leader or in the lead, or making it a good thing they are. Totally off-topic, but my pet peeve of American English. I bet there's a German equivalent, but I sleep better not knowing it (it's not "Führerschaft", that I know). Come to think of it, English "news" is more like the German "Neuigkeiten", while "Nachrichten" is more like the English "messages". But German news are as sensationalistic as everywhere else, so that seems to have no effect.
InternetOfStuff 9y ago
German native speaker here. > that word [Führer] is essentially dead in modern German speech. This is not at all the case. It's a perfectly ordinary word. It's merely burnt in specific (but not even all) political contexts. I went in more detail in another reply further down the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15414994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15414994

by tacon 9y ago

im3w1l 9y ago

Leiter, I believe.

adrianratnapala 9y ago
Yes, when I lived in Germany I heard "Leiter" a lot when I expected "Führer". To me it sounds like it should mean "conductor". Can real German speakers tell me if "Leiter" was always a very common word for this usage or merely a not-unreasonable word that won out post-war because it happens to be a bit like the English word? (In fact I suspect they are cognate, maybe that's why electrical conductors are sometimes called "leads").
- InternetOfStuff 9y ago
  Native speaker here. Führer and Leiter seem similar in meaning, but are really quite distinct, both in denotation and connotation. And, contrary to what grandparent poster said, Führer is by no means dead. "Führer" means guide. As in, a mountain guide ("Bergführer"), tourist guide ("Reiseführer" - both guide book and person), or driver of a vehicle: driving license ("Führerschein"). Similarly, "Anführer" is a leader of a like-minded group, often in the sense that he is not a formal leader. To pick an example from current affairs: Carles Puigdemont is (formally) the president of Catalunya, and (informally) the leader ("Anführer") of the independence movement. There is quite a number of words derived from Führer. The verb "leiten" means to direct. Thus, a "Leiter" is somebody who gives directions: a director. This was, and is, a reasonable word, especially in a professional context. To explain the Nazi diction a bit. Think of uses like Bergführer ("mountain guide"): somebody who leads his charges skillfully through treacherous terrain. I suppose that was the kind of image the Nazis wanted to project on Adolf Hitler (who you are of course referring to). It's true that Führer may sound politically piquant to German ears, but only in quite specific contexts. It's a pretty normal word.
  - adrianratnapala 9y ago
    Thanks for your explanation. It tallies well with what I observed living there. But I still sense there is a post-war avoidance of the word: to you it might seem very common but I hardly ever heard it except as part of a larger compound. Compound words are so common in German, that the omission might not be obvious to people who are too familiar with it.

dguest 9y ago

Führer isn't dead in modern german unless you're talking about a person who leads. Most guide books are still called Reiseführer, and most germans have a Führerschein (driver's licence) etc.

pvg 9y ago

Why would 'news' become dead? Nazism had a substantial impact on German both on its way in and out - it developed/repurposed its own special phraseology and terms and those terms later fell out of use (or at least, in out of use in the contexts of their Nazi use). But this happened through focused effort, up to and including laws. Nothing of the sort has happened or is likely to happen to the word 'news'.

adrianratnapala 9y ago
As far as I know, there's never been a post-war effort to ban the word "Führer", nor did the Nazis try to remove the ordinary meaning. Heck, calling Hitler "The Leader" was in no way an abuse of language. And yet the word has become uncommon because of a kind of shared embaressment. Now I think tacon is wrong to think that "news" will go a similar way, but if it can happen to simple and basic words like "leader", then it's a reasonable thing to speculate about.
- pvg 9y ago
  Germany was occupied and actively de-nazified so the idea that this stuff disappeared out of a genteel embarrassment seems ahistorical.
- schoen 9y ago
  I want to suggest that "Führer" did have an unusual specific ideological connotation in the Third Reich that is very different from just saying "Adolf Hitler was the leader of Germany and FDR was the leader of the United States". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerprinzip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerprinzip
  - adrianratnapala 9y ago
    Correct, but that is still in line with it being an appropriate use of language. In Iran Ayatollah Khamenei has the unofficial title of "Supreme Leader". This is a very specific title within Iran, and has a specific ideological connotation. And yet it is also a perfectly normal and accurate use of the word "Leader".

musage 9y ago

There's still "Anführer", which is a leader of a group and makes sense to me, as opposed to "leadership" without any qualifiers. That is, "leadership" seems to be often used not to describe the fact that someone leads or is in the lead, but for some shifting cloud of properties that lead to them being leader or in the lead, or making it a good thing they are. Totally off-topic, but my pet peeve of American English. I bet there's a German equivalent, but I sleep better not knowing it (it's not "Führerschaft", that I know). Come to think of it, English "news" is more like the German "Neuigkeiten", while "Nachrichten" is more like the English "messages". But German news are as sensationalistic as everywhere else, so that seems to have no effect.

InternetOfStuff 9y ago

German native speaker here. > that word [Führer] is essentially dead in modern German speech. This is not at all the case. It's a perfectly ordinary word. It's merely burnt in specific (but not even all) political contexts. I went in more detail in another reply further down the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15414994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15414994