Quizzes & Puzzles1 min ago
The Nazi salute
8 Answers
Watching the many television programmes about the Second World War, I have been struck by the inconsistency of the so-called Nazi salute. The army seems to know how to do it - right arm stuck out at 45 degrees, palm open. But the heirarchy, including Hitler, have a variety of versions. Sometimes he sticks his arm out straight from his body, sometimes at the 45 degree angle, and other times he just flaps his hand up to some indistinct point behind his right ear in a curiously effeminate gesture.
And while you're on the subject, inkie, who had the pronunciation right? Churchill or the yanks (i.e. nahzee or nartzee)? My limited knowledge of German would indicate that nahzee sounds more accurate.
And while you're on the subject, inkie, who had the pronunciation right? Churchill or the yanks (i.e. nahzee or nartzee)? My limited knowledge of German would indicate that nahzee sounds more accurate.
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Aren't we making a few assumptions there?
The salute inconsistency was more widespread than you think, though the effeminate arm flap was Hitler trying to do an army salute. If you look at Goebbels doing it he looks like half an albatross. The Army version was normally best done by the SS, the rest of the army had a standard salute, many of the officers refusing to use the Nazi one, hence the occasional ear tickle by AH, to keep them sweet. The SS regiments were the other way round, largely.
I think the point is that as a poltical salute it was not defined very rigidly at first, and so the people who had done it longest did it worst, so to speak.
I think it was originally designed by Ernst Rohm any way. Like much else. His thanks was to be assassinated for being a leather pervert drag queen. And not hushing it up like Goering.
The salute inconsistency was more widespread than you think, though the effeminate arm flap was Hitler trying to do an army salute. If you look at Goebbels doing it he looks like half an albatross. The Army version was normally best done by the SS, the rest of the army had a standard salute, many of the officers refusing to use the Nazi one, hence the occasional ear tickle by AH, to keep them sweet. The SS regiments were the other way round, largely.
I think the point is that as a poltical salute it was not defined very rigidly at first, and so the people who had done it longest did it worst, so to speak.
I think it was originally designed by Ernst Rohm any way. Like much else. His thanks was to be assassinated for being a leather pervert drag queen. And not hushing it up like Goering.
Thanks for your input, JML. Slight problem here - my 1990s Collins German/English dictionary gives national as the German for national, although it does confirm the pronunciation as natsional (can't quite do the phonetic symbols here!) It gives nazi for nazi, though. Question: I seem to recall the Germans 'modernising' their spelling etc. in the last few decades. Did they clean up the spelling of 'national' at the same time, or is 'nazional' just one of our pre(mis)conceptions?
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