# völkisch



## sedmont

*Would "nationalist-racist" or perhaps "ethno-racial nationalist" be a good translation of "völkisch"?:*

Nach Störungen völkischer Kreise bei Vorträgen in München und Elberfeld am 15. und 17. May 1922 wurden ab der Jahresmitte keine öffentlichen Vortragstourneen großen Stils mehr veranstaltet ...


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## berndf

_Ethno-racial nationalist_ sounds of course awfully bulky and clumsy but it indeed conveys what is meant by _völkisch_. I can't think of anything better either.


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## sedmont

Thank you very much, berndf.


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## HilfswilligerGenosse

In this time context, you could frankly use just _fascist_.


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## Frank78

HilfswilligerGenosse said:


> In this time context, you could frankly use just _fascist_.



Certainly not. The ethno-racial part is exactly the thing which distinguishes fascism from national-socialism.


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## Kajjo

I recommend to simply write "racial". It's not a perfect match covering all facets, but it is closer than all toher suggestions.


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## bearded

Kajjo said:


> I recommend to simply write "racial". It's not a perfect match covering all facets, but it is closer than all toher suggestions.


But would 'racial circles' or 'racial groups' really make sense?  Rather 'racist circles...' (my opinion).


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## berndf

bearded said:


> But would 'racial circles' or 'racial groups' really make sense?


Not in this context. It would mean _a group of people belonging to the same race._


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## Kajjo

bearded said:


> But would 'racial circles' or 'racial groups' really make sense?


_Völkisch _is very difficult to translate and almost in any case require some interpretation. Does it make sense? I believe, yes. Is _völkisch_ identical to _racist_? Nowadays we may perceive it this way, but was it meant so originally?

It is not even easy to define _völkisch _in German. It's supposed to mean "of one race", of course in the background of national-socialiastic ideology and perspective.


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## Frank78

Kajjo said:


> _Völkisch _is very difficult to translate and almost in any case require some interpretation. Does it make sense? I believe, yes. Is _völkisch_ identical to _racist_? Nowadays we may perceive it this way, but was it meant so originally?
> 
> It is not even easy to define _völkisch _in German. It's supposed to mean "of one race", of course in the background of national-socialiastic ideology and perspective.



Indeed it's easier to make a negative definition:

anti-semitic
anti-slavic
anti-clerical
anti-democratic
anti-socialist (with some reservation to the early NSDAP)

Pro:

- striving for a greater Germany which includes all German-speaking people
- believing in the superiority of northern Germanic people


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## berndf

Kajjo said:


> It is not even easy to define _völkisch _in German. It's supposed to mean "of one race", of course in the background of national-socialiastic ideology and perspective.


No, the original meaning was belonging to (one) "Volk" and "Volk" is an ethnic and not a racial concept. That got intermixed only in the lat 19th century. And since that time völkisch means something completely different. It is a label for an ideology and not a simple adjective any more. Going back to what it meant in the 17th and 18th century in a 20th or 21st century is a typical case of _etymological fallacy_.


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## Kajjo

Literally, _völkisch_ is close to _ethnic/ethnical_, but based on national-socialistic, rascist ideology, and as Frank78 pointed out including the aspect of superiority of the Germans.


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## Kajjo

berndf said:


> And since that time völkisch means something completely different.


Right, but that does not solve the issue of how to translate it properly.


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## Frank78

Here's a bit more on the history of the word, in German only.


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## berndf

Frank78 said:


> Pro:
> 
> - striving for a greater Germany which includes all German-speaking people
> - believing in the superiority of northern Germanic people


The core of the ideology is the belief in an homogeneous "Volkskörper" compared to which the individual loses its significance. It is at its core a totalitarian ideology.


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## berndf

Kajjo said:


> Right, but that does not solve the issue of how to translate it properly.


But it completely rules out translations like _racial_ and that was my point. I said in the beginning that I don't know any good solution. With all its shortcomings, sedmont's original suggestion still sounds best to me.

Since there is no appropriate translation, some authors have used the loan-translation _folkish_, or, in order to avoid confusion with the common word, they leave _völkisch _untranslated ("völkisch movement"). The more I think about it the more I favour the latter solution.


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## bearded

Kajjo said:


> Right, but that does not solve the issue of how to translate it properly.


Maybe we could render ''völkische Kreise'' with _ethnically oriented circles...?_


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## sedmont

I guess I'm glad to see I'm not alone in having difficulty translating "völkisch."

I don't much like using "racist" for "völkish" because "racist" is freighted with a huge load of connotations added only over the last fifty years. Because of that, using "racist" perhaps come close to the historians' sin of "presentism" -- importing current perceptions into the past.

I don't much like using "fascist" for the same reason that in other circumstances I am not in love with using the word "communist." The two words for many have become rather vague, all-purpose imprecations thrown by left or right partisans who for propaganda reasons exaggerate and hurl "fascist" or "communist" at all kinds of people who are not even close to being fascists or communists. The same is true of "racist."

I'm not in love with my original "ethno-racial nationalist" because it is bulky and seems a bit more neutral and somewhat less evil in meaning than "völkische".

I don't want to use "völkisch" without translation, because that will be opaque to too many, who won't bother to look it up.

I'm thinking I can reduce the bulkiness of "ethno-racial nationalist" by shortening to "racial-nationalist" -- though that might be less accurate, since "ethnic" is part of the meaning.


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## berndf

sedmont said:


> I don't want to use "völkisch" without translation, because that will be opaque to too many, who won't bother to look it up.


You could take the stance that those who don't bother to look it up will never understand what is meant anyway and the opacity is an advantage because it forces those who are seriously interested to make the effort.


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## sedmont

Yes, perhaps so.


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## Gernot Back

_Völkisch _was originally a very proud and positive self-designation, just like _La Raza_ is a self-designation of Hispanics and Latinos in the USA. I guess our German pride in this term was spoiled by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers.


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## elroy

Would "German supremacist" work?


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## Gernot Back

elroy said:


> Would "German supremacist" work?


No, I guess in 1922, the term _völkisch _would have to do more with Germans coping with their inferiority complex after they lost WWI.
Just like the term _La Raza_ has to do with Hispanic/Latino immigrants in the US, coping with with their inferiority complex.


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## berndf

Gernot Back said:


> _Völkisch _was originally a very proud and positive self-designation...


This is still so for modern adherents of that ideology. I can't see why and how this would change the way the ideology is to be described.


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## elroy

Gernot Back said:


> the term _völkisch _would have to do more with Germans coping with their inferiority complex after they lost WWI.


 That's not incompatible with German supremacism, which seems to be more or less what is described in #10.  An inferiority complex can be the reason for supremacism.  Might you be confusing supremacism with a superiority complex?


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## berndf

elroy said:


> Would "German supremacist" work?


Not really. Those people certainly also were German Supremacists but that is not what the label is about. It is in one sense going too far and in another sense not far enough. Transposing it into the modern time where the label has recently been rediscovered by Frauke Petri, the core ingredients of this ideological cocktail can equally be found with Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and Steve Bannon which, by the way, explains this for many people so puzzling phenomenon of a "nationalist international".


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## L'irlandais

Many of those you mention are populists.  Would _populist_ work?  for the translation of the modern term at least.
I must confess to being entirely ignorant of the pagan phenomenon called the völkisch movement.


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## Frank78

elroy said:


> That's not incompatible with German supremacism, which seems to be more or less what is described in #10.  An inferiority complex can be the reason for supremacism.  Might you be confusing supremacism with a superiority complex?



I don't agree with that.

In their view "völkisch" is approximately the same as nowadays catch-all parties (in fact the NSDAP became later the first party of that kind), i.e. a movement which wants wipe away all the social classes, religious divisions, etc. in a society while the people are seen as a kind of organic body, the whole thing gets spiced up with some romantic images from the past.

But, of course, only ethnic Germans could be part of that body.

It's at the same time inclusive and exclusive.


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## Frank78

L'irlandais said:


> Many of those you mention are populists.  Would _populist_ work?  for the translation of the modern term at least.



A clear yes and no. 

No, in the sense that they adjusted their views to get greater support from the people like modern populist partys want to gain votes by making unrealizable promises.

Yes, in the sense that they regarded the people as "one" (the weird organic body I spoke about).


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## Kajjo

sedmont said:


> The two words for many have become rather vague, all-purpose imprecations thrown by left or right partisans who for propaganda reasons exaggerate and hurl "fascist" or "communist" at all kinds of people who are not even close to being fascists or communists. The same is true of "racist."


I absolutely agree with you. Very nicely put.



sedmont said:


> I'm thinking I can reduce the bulkiness of "ethno-racial nationalist" by shortening to "racial-nationalist" -- though that might be less accurate, since "ethnic" is part of the meaning.


Or maybe "_ethno-nationalist_"?



elroy said:


> Would "German supremacist" work?


No, not at all. The supremacy notion surely fits the context, but it is a different term, a different property, not equal to _völkisch_.


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## sedmont

Kajjo said:


> Or maybe "_ethno-nationalist_"?


Maybe that's better. Then again, I'm not sure it fully suggests the proto-Nazi malignant aspect I guess is part of "völkisch" in the 1920s.

In the early 1920s, would "völkisch" rowdies who cause disturbances at lectures be basically Nazis and proto-Nazis, in other words violently anti-Semitic fascists -- or would such völkisch disorderly elements be a broader category of which less than half might be fascist-anti-Semitic? I wonder if there were some German "conservatives" of that time who were "völkisch" but not fascists or violent anti-Semites, and who just wanted to go back to the Kaiserreich -- which is not to say that the gap between the two categories would necessarily have been large.


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## elroy

Kajjo said:


> The supremacy notion surely fits the context, but it is a different term, a different property, not equal to _völkisch_.


 What is the crucial difference?  How would you say "supremacist" in German?


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## Kajjo

elroy said:


> How would you say "supremacist" in German?


Schwer zu übersetzen, ich würde umstellen:

_...glauben an die Überlegenheit des Deutschen Volkes...
...sehen die Deutschen als die Herrenrasse...

Völkisch _hebt darauf ab, das eigene Volk als ethnisch rein und homogen zu postulieren und zu idealisieren. Das Postulat der Überlegenheit ist eine von etlichen Eigenschaften, die dem eigenen Volk dann zugeschrieben werden, aber eben nicht identisch mit _völkisch_. Im Kontext von Ideen wie Herrenrasse kann ich aber schon verstehen, dass du bei den Begriffen große Überschneidungen siehst. Bedenke bitte, dass ich historisch nicht so bewandert bin wie Berndf, ich fokussiere mich mehr auf die sprachliche Bedeutung und da sehe ich eben, dass beide Begriffe verschieden sind und keinesfalls Synonyme voneinander.


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## berndf

elroy said:


> What is the crucial difference?


_German supremacist_ is about the supremacy of the German people above other peoples.

_Völkisch_ is about the supremacy of the people as a whole above the individual or any specific group within this whole or any other group identity.


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