NSDAP not NAZI

[Hektor]

Well, in Goebbels' diaries he uses the term Nazi affectionately. He is complaining about people like Ribbentrop and Seyss-Inquart (both later hanged an Nuremberg) as not being sufficiently "Nazi."....

Those diaries were meant as private conversation. So no official formal use of language there.
The formally correct term is Nationalsozialist.... Colloquially one may use the term NAZI, but as soon as this is used in more serious discourse, it isn't any longer....

[Scott]

Colloquially one may use the term NAZI, but as soon as this is used in more serious discourse, it isn't any longer....

I think that is an overstatement.

Unfortunately, even if you ask Germans from the before-time, assuming that you can find any still alive, their opinions are tainted by the eighty or so years that have happened since ─ a completely immersive environment where Hitler is the greatest demon of all time.

Goebbels was a master of propaganda, and yet he did not regard the colloquial terminology "Nazi" in a negative fashion. This is what he truly believes, like drinking sparkling spring water or breathing fresh air from an open window.

Goebbels was truly proud of the term Nazi. I find any view to the contrary to be ahistorical and frankly bizarre. Why is this even an issue?

However, I am not the orthodox terminology police. There is nothing wrong with the term National Socialist, so there is no reason not to use it as needed, especially when and if fomality is preferred.

The important thing in my mind is not Nazi or NS in the jargon wars, but simply that National Socialism was the only non-Marxist "socialism."

Nazi (or NS if you prefer) emphasizes the "Nazi" or National aspects of Socialism, and deliberately and completely purges Marx & Engels, which is factually correct anyway.

[Hektor]

Colloquially one may use the term NAZI, but as soon as this is used in more serious discourse, it isn't any longer....

I think that is an overstatement.

Unfortunately, even if you ask Germans from the before-time, assuming that you can find any still alive, their opinions are tainted by the eighty or so years that have happened since ─ a completely immersive environment where Hitler is the greatest demon of all time.
....

A German that was soldier in World War Two would be close to 100 years or even older. Anyone that was mature in a responsible position would exceed 100 years. Even if you can find someone like this, I doubt they will be much of a conversation.


I do however still recall some Germans that indeed were grown ups in the era. And they simply didn't have those prejudices post-war Germans are so famous for. Also no political correctness. Simple people that just wanted to modestly enjoy what they worked hard for. Distanced to politics in general. Also critical on how Germany or the West developed especially after the 1960s. Now most of them didn't 'deny the Holocaust openly'... But all admitted to have heard about it only after WW2, apparently surprising to them as well. Some seemed to wonder as this was true.

With the decades Germans absorbed plenty of the reeducation dogmata, without being aware that they are exactly that. And naturally this also tainted their view on history as well. So don't expect to hear a genuine experiential German position on matters from them....

[Scott]

Yes, exactly my point. Unfortunately we can't go back to the 1930s and ask Germans whether they think that the word "Nazi" is disparaging or just informal. I don't think they felt that way, but other than the sentiments of Dr. Goebbels, who was affectionate for the term, the idea remains mostly untestable.