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 s

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.