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[[Image:User-Ich with Mohawk.jpg|right|thumb|[[User:Ich]] in high school.]]
'''Ich''' was born in the U.S. during the Reagan administration; after an accidental five-and-a-half-year layover in New York, he now finds himself in Berlin. He chose the username "Ich" because it was available.

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=="Third Reich" vs. "Nazi Germany"==
Whenever I find the term "Third Reich" in an article, I usually change it to "Nazi Germany" or "during Nazi rule", which has less ideological baggage and is clearer to the unfamiliar reader.

The term "''[[:de:Drittes Reich|Drittes Reich]]''" ("Third Empire") was coined in 1923 by German nationalist [[Arthur Moeller van den Bruck]] in a [[Das Dritte Reich|book of the same name]], echoing ideas and language from much older Christian [[Millennialism#Nazism|millennialism]], [[Messianism#Christianity|messianism]], and [[Christian eschatology|eschatology]].{{efn|Although it is large and [[Religious aspects of Nazism|complicated topic]], the Nazis often publicly appropriated religious imagery, particularly in the early years before their grasp on power was secure. The term {{lang|de|Tausendjähriges Reich}} ("Thousand-Year Empire") had previously been used to describe a future Second Coming of Jesus (cf. {{bibleverse|Revelation|20:4}} "They ... reigned with Christ a thousand years.") and the Nazis adopted the term.}} An admirer of Mussolini, he imagined a future "third" German empire with a strong leader, as a successor to Germany's "first" ([[Holy Roman Empire]], 800-1806) and "second" empires ([[German Empire]], 1871-1918). Moeller van den Bruck's writings were influential among conservatives, and the Nazis incorporated many of his themes into their ideology and propaganda, adopting the term "''Drittes Reich''" to cast their brutal dictatorship as a [[Palingenetic ultranationalism|rebirth and continuation of a perceived glorious national history]]. Using "Third Reich" implicitly accepts this tendentious, decontextualized narrative. In light of the term's origins, it should not be used uncritically.{{efn|"First Reich" and "Second Reich" are similarly ahistorical. These terms were not used contemporarily and are very rarely used in scholarship outside the narrow context of Nazi ideology and historiography.}}

Nonetheless, it wasn't long before opponents of Nazism were mockingly using the term "Fourth Reich" to imply the Nazi regime's days were numbered. After the Nazis had seized power, the term fell out of favor, due to its religious overtones and the associations with Moeller van den Bruck, who despite his ideological influence had been an opponent of Hitler. In July 1939, the [[Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda|Ministry of Propaganda]] ordered the press to stop using "''Drittes Reich''", suggesting instead "''nationalsozialistisches Deutschland''" or "''Deutsches Reich''". Under Nazi rule, Germany's official name was "{{lang|de|Deutsches Reich}}" from 1933{{ndash}}1943; from 1943{{ndash}}1945, it was "{{lang|de|Großdeutsches Reich}}".

After the war, former Nazis and ''[[Mitläufer]]'' generally preferred "''Drittes Reich''", as it came across as a neutral, anodyne-sounding name for the Nazis' murderous reign of terror. Beginning in the 1980s, the phrase "''Drittes Reich''" fell out of favor among German academics; by the 1990s, it had been supplanted in German newspapers and popular usage by "{{lang|de|NS/Nazi-Zeit}}" or "{{lang|de|NS-Diktatur}}" ("National Socialist/Nazi-Era" and "National Socialist Dictatorship" respectively). When the phrase is used in German today, it is often presented with a distancing "''sogenannte »Dritte Reich«''" ("so-called 'Third Reich{{'"}}), highlighting the need for a nuanced and critical awareness of the term's baggage.

I feel the reason many writers in English use "Third Reich" is because they are looking for more ornate language or want a (fancy) synonym to avoid constantly repeating the word "Nazi". I believe it is important to use language carefully, and while I can't change the way some books are named (like 1960's ''[[The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich]]'' or 1985's ''[[The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich]]''), I am doing what I can to reduce Wikipedia's (mis)use of the term.

Lastly, if you consider the terms "Third Reich" and "Nazi Germany" effectively interchangeable, then my changes are at worst a quixotic but wholly uncontroversial waste of my own time.

{{notelist}}

=="Died" vs. "was murdered" in the Holocaust==
[[File:Herz Josef.jpg|thumb|right|There are over 90,000 ''[[Stolperstein]]e'' in Germany alone, making it the world's largest decentralized memorial. A typical example:<br>{{sc1|Here Lived Josef Herz<br>Born 1894<br>Fled to Westerburg 1940<br>Deported to Majdanek 1942<br>Murdered 6 August 1942.}}]]
[[File:Memorial to the murdered Jews of Konstanz.jpg|thumb|right|The Holocaust memorial at the intersection of Bahnhofstraße and Sigismundstraße in [[Konstanz]], Germany.]]
In a similar vein, "died in the Holocaust" should be avoided in favor of "was murdered in the Holocaust". The verb "murder" is used preferentially by scholars and institutions such as [[Yad Vashem]], the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]], and the German government.

The Holocaust was systematic, premeditated, state-sponsored mass-murder, and its victims were not accidental deaths or casualties of war: they were murder victims. This encompasses not just fatal beatings, hangings, drownings, burnings, live burials, electric fences, shootings, firings squads, gas chambers, gas vans, poison injections, horrific medical experimentation, etc.: deaths in a ghetto, train car, or concentration camp from forced labor, deliberate squalid conditions, overcrowding, malnutrition, dehydration, cold, heat, exhaustion, suffocation, epidemic disease, or deprivation of medical care are still premeditated murders (i.e. foreseen and intentional). If someone deliberately locks a person in an unheated cellar without food or water for a week, the resulting death is not an accident: it is murder. In the Warsaw Ghetto, the official daily food ration was 180&nbsp;calories, far below the level needed to sustain human life. (Polish people outside the ghetto received about 700&nbsp;calories per day; Germans received 2,600.) Executions carried out by starvation are sometime referred to as "[[immurement]]"; the [[List of Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland|ghettos in German-occupied Poland]] have been described as instruments of "slow, passive murder". The [[Hunger Plan]] was the deliberate genocide of millions by starvation.

Furthermore, some Jews were driven to suicide to escape the torture, arrests, further persecution, or to end their needless, relentless suffering. A suicide committed by a person as a result of having been subjected to unspeakable psychological horrors is an indirect but still wholly deliberate murder.

The verb "die" is neutral and accurate for plenty of deaths, but when applied to the Holocaust, it obscures the Nazis' crimes. It is certainly appropriate to say "up to 12,000 people died during the [[1900 Galveston hurricane]]"; the sentence "up to 900,000 Jews were deported to [[Treblinka extermination camp]] where they died" awkwardly elides the fact that these were premeditated murders. Using verbs like "died" or "perished" avoids assigning any blame or responsibility to the perpetrators.

From a legal standpoint, the governments of Allied-occupied, East, West, and reunited Germany all prosecuted and convicted perpetrators for the murders that took place during the Holocaust. Arguments that "murder is a legal term and the killings were lawful at the time" ignore decades of post-war legal precedent: Germany's [[Federal Constitutional Court]] has ruled that the Nazis created an ''[[Unrechtsstaat]]'' or ''Verbrecherstaat'', a criminal state whose legal system was perverted to pursue criminal means. The actions taken to legalize these murders were illegitimate and void ''[[ab initio]]'', the same way that [[Superior orders|just following orders]] is not a defense for committing a war crime. When prosecuting perpetrators of Nazi crimes, post-war German courts have repeatedly applied the [[Radbruch formula]], ruling that laws that deliberately pursued injustice were fundamentally incompatible with the tenets of a legal system, and thus were never valid laws, i.e. "[[an unjust law is no law at all]]."

In Germany, the federal government has taken full responsibility for the Holocaust and frequently refers to the events that took place during the Holocaust as "murder", such as the [[Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe]]. State and local governments also commonly use the term "murder" without qualification or controversy, as well as newspapers, academics, memorials, foundations, and [[List of companies involved in the Holocaust|companies that were involved as perpetrators]]. Simply put: murder is [https://web.archive.org/web/20201030050814/https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/death-family/ "the verb of choice in Germany's culture of public remembrance"].

The Nazis' victims deserve better than to have [[WP:EUPHEMISM|words minced]] about their murders.

==Articles==
{{dyktalk|4 November|2013|entry= ... that the song "'''[[Ermutigung]]'''" by [[Wolf Biermann]], encouraging people not to become hardened in hard times, was written for [[Peter Huchel]], then under [[Stasi|house arrest]]?}}
[[Image:Barnstar_of_Humour3.png|right|111px|thumb|[[User:Gzuckier|Gzuckier]] saw fit to give me this for adding <nowiki>{{spoiler}}</nowiki> to [[Genesis (Hebrew_Bible)#Summary|Genesis]].]]
[[File:Original Barnstar.png|thumb|For having really sweet hair. [[User:Kane5187|Dylan]] 03:16, 1 January 2007 (UTC)]]
[[File:Original Barnstar.png|thumb|Thanks for your help! [[User:Sausa11|Sausa11]] 17:28, 20 May 2020 (UTC)]]
[[File:Working Man's Barnstar.png|thumb|Thank you for your tireless efforts across the project to bring needed clarity and accuracy to the ways we describe the murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. I can't get a real count on the number of edits, but it's definitely in excess of 1,500. I am deeply grateful. [[User talk:Firefangledfeathers|Firefangledfeathers]] 18:31, 1 December 2021 (UTC)]]
Some pages I created or substantially improved. Much of the work I've done has been translating pages from German, with a particular focus on German music and breweries.

===Beer and breweries===
*[[Altbier]] - I added an image
*[[Arcobräu]] - translated from .de
*[[Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan]] - translated from .de
*[[Beer boot]] - translated from .de
*[[Beer stein]] - I added an image
*[[Berliner-Kindl-Schultheiss-Brauerei]] - translated from .de
*[[Berliner Pilsner]] - translated from .de
*[[Brauerei Gebr. Maisel]] - translated from .de
*[[Brauerei Gold Ochsen]] - translated from .de
*[[Brauerei Kaiserdom]] - translated from .de
*[[Brauerei zur Malzmühle]] - Substantial cleanup work
*[[:Category:Breweries in Germany]] - I've worked on most of these articles, mostly adding logos, infoboxes, and citations
*[[Fill line]] - I created this article
*[[Fürstenberg Brewery]] - translated from .de
*[[Herzoglich Bayerisches Brauhaus Tegernsee]] - translated from .de
*[[Helles]] - translated from .de
*[[Klosterbrauerei Andechs]] - translated from .de
*[[Mecklenburgische Brauerei Lübz]] - translated from .de
*[[Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company]] - I did some cleanup work
*[[Paulaner]] - translated from .de
*[[Radeberger Group]] - translated from .de
*[[Rothaus]] - translated from .de
*[[Störtebeker Braumanufaktur]] - translated from .de
*[[Wheat beer]] - I added an image

===Other food and drink===
*''[[Bierbrand]]'' - translated from .de
*''[[Bierlikör]]'' - translated from .de
*[[Bottle opener]] - I added an image
*[[Butter mountain]] - translated from .de
*''[[Fischbrötchen]]'' - translated from .de
*[[Flip-top]] - translated from .de
*[[Gentian (spirit)]] - translated from .de
*[[Händlmaier]] - translated from .de
*''[[Mexikaner]]'' - translated from .de
*[[Port tongs]] - translated from .de
*[[Sawdust brandy]] - translated from .de
*[[Succade]] - added new picture
*[[Toast (honor)|Toast]] - I added a picture

===Berlin===
*''[[Afrikanisches Viertel]]'' - translated from .de
*[[Fritz Schloß Park]] - translated from .de
*[[Goethepark]] - translated from .de
*[[Jungfernheide]] - translated from .de
*[[Kleiner Tiergarten]] - translated from .de
*[[Mohrenstraße]] - translated from .de
*[[Reformation Church]] - translated from .de
*[[Volkspark Rehberge]] - translated from .de
*[[Wuhle]] - translated from .de

===Other German-ish stuff===
*[[Directorate General for Public Security]] - translated from .de
*[[East German coffee crisis]] - translated from .de
*[[Federal Central Tax Office]] - translated from .de
*[[Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism]] - translated from .de
*''[[Gedenkbuch]]'' - translated from .de and expanded
*[[Lobbying in Germany]] - translated from .de
*''[[Jodeldiplom]]'' - translated from .de
*[[Reich Flight Tax]] - translated from .de
*[[Schlüsselgerät 41|''Schlüsselgerät'' 41]] - translated from .de
*[[Sindelfingen]] - I started this article
*[[Standing Committee on Vaccination]] - translated from .de
*[[Stasi Records Agency]] - cleaned and moved
*[[Transparency in Wage Structures Act]] - translated from .de
*''[[Westpaket]]'' - translated from .de

===Music===
[[File:Dee Radke, Berlin 2019.jpg|thumb|right|I took this picture]]
*[[4630 Bochum]] - translated from .de
*''[[Badnerlied]]'' - translated from .de
*[[Chausseestraße 131]] - I created this article mostly from scratch
*''[[Computerliebe (Die Module spielen verrückt)]]'' - translated from .de
*[[E. Von Dahl Killed the Locals]] - I created this article from scratch
*''[[Ermutigung]]'' - translated from .de
*[[How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (musical)]] - I started this article
*[[IV (Ton Steine Scherben album)]] - translated from .de
*''[[Keine Macht für Niemand]]'' - translated from .de
*[[Radkey]] - I added some pictures
*''[[Solidaritätslied]]'' - translated from .de
*''[[Warum geht es mir so dreckig?]]'' - translated from .de
*''[[Wenn die Nacht am tiefsten...]]'' - translated from .de
*[[Wizo]] - I created this article and added some pictures on commons
*[[You have to win Zweikampf]] - I created this article from scratch

===Art, Culture, & Misc. ===
[[File:ACAB Montreal Police Car.jpg|thumb|right|Probably the coolest picture I've taken]]
*[[Captive audience meeting]] - I created this article
*''[[Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment]]'' - I created this article
*''[[Faserland]]'' - I created this article 
*[[First Look Media]] - I started this article
*[[GiveSendGo]] - I substantially expanded this article
*[[Green track]] - translated from .de
*[[Guy Montag]] - The first article I ever created
*[[Holographic will]] - I substantially expanded the international section
*''[[Mystic Pizza]]'' - I started this article
*[[Stranger, Bear Word to the Spartans We...]] - I created this article
*[[The Intercept]] - I contributed a fair amount to this article
*''[[The Rise of David Levinsky]]'' - I created this article but it's still not finished
*[[Women's Hospital Corps]] - translated from .de
*[[Women's International Zionist Organization]] - I started this article

===People===
*[[Steven G. Bradbury]] - I did a major revamp of this article
*[[Steven Engel]] - did some cleanup work
*[[Peter Frank (jurist)|Peter Frank]] - translated from .de
*[[Wolfgang Grams]] - translated from .de
*[[Gina Haspel]] - did some cleanup work
*[[Bruno Kahl]] - translated from .de
*[[Dionys Mascolo]] - translated from .de
*[[Harald Range]] - translated from .de
*[[Rita Jackson Samuels]] - made from scratch
*[[Gerhard Schindler]] - translated from .de
*[[Jagjit Singh (activist)]] - made from scratch
*[[Aminata Touré (German politician)]] - translated from .de

==&c.==
* https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/ 
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