[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Name Origin - Germany

[Günther Böhm]

gpvjem schrieb:

>        I received the following questions today along with SGGEE membership mail.  I am posting them to the Listserv verbatim.  The same person suggested that perhaps a future Journal article on the subject would be in order.
>    Here are the questions;
>
>        Where and when did the name "Germany" originate as the name of the country?
>
>        What happened to the term "Deutschland" and why did it not become the name of the United Kingdoms after 1871?
>

Hello John, hello nameless,
as far as we speak about an official term, it was of course the name of 
the German state, i.e. for approximately thousand years "Heiliges 
Roemisches Reich Deutscher Nation", from 1871 to 1938 "Deutsches Reich" 
and from 1938 (the annexion of Austria and the Bohemian Sudetenland) to 
1945 "Grossdeutsches Reich". The term "Deutschland" (i.e. German 
country) was traditionally used for the regions inhabited by a German 
majority (like England, Scotland, Ireland, Poland) and became a national 
slogan after the Napoleonic wars. It was the aim of the founders of the 
post-WWII German state to fulfill the legacy of the German revolution of 
1848 why they chose the popular term of "Germany" instead of any 
traditional administrative name. Note that the German black-red-gold 
flag descends from this revolution too and it is said that it means 
"from darkness through fire to light" - sounds good, doesn't it?

Guenther Boehm
of Hilden, Germany