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From: breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.nlang
Subject: Re: One for our side
Message-ID: <717@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 16:45:41 EST
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.717
Posted: Tue Nov  5 16:45:41 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Nov-85 06:40:28 EST
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Xref: linus net.politics:11178 net.nlang:3388

> "Virginians" and residents of The Republic of West Germany (I think
> that's its full name, please don't flame at me if I am wrong) call
> themselves "West Germans", residents of "The US of America" can call

The name of the western part of Germany is 'Bundesrepublik Deutschland'
('Federal Republic of Germany'), the name of the eastern part is
'Deutsche Demokratische Republik' ('German Democratic Republic').  A
citizen of the FRG will refer to himself as 'German', without any
qualifiers.

The terms 'East Germany' and 'West Germany' are only used for postal
purposes. They are practically never used in normal (German)
conversation. Only if a German talks to an American, he may use them to
refer to the FRG or the GDR, mostly because many Americans are fairly
ignorant of the state of affairs and will get terribly confused
otherwise...

						Thomas.