With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

How Nazi terminology is creeping back into politics

The re-emergence of formerly taboo words has prompted some historians to draw parallels with the rhetoric used in the final, turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, the fledgling democracy that gave way to Adolf Hitler's dictatorship.

For more than a year, the Islamophobic Pegida street movement has routinely insulted the media as "Lügenpresse" (lying press), a word used by Hitler in the 1920s to discredit the mainstream press.

Far-right demonstrators heckling Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ministers also labelled them "Volksverräter" (traitors) for allowing 890,000 asylum-seekers to come to the country last year.

Read entire article at The Local