West Germany - Naming Conventions

Naming Conventions

The official name of West Germany, adopted in 1949 and unchanged since, is Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany). Its abbreviation "BRD" (German) or "FRG" (English) was sometimes also used.

In East Germany usage, the terms Westdeutschland (West Germany) or westdeutsche Bundesrepublik (West German Federal Republic) were preferred during the 1950s and 1960s. This changed especially once East Germany considered West Germans and West Berliners foreigners under its 1968 constitution, which abandoned the idea of a single German nation. In the early 1970s, starting in the East German Neues Deutschland, the initialism "BRD" (FRG) for the "Federal Republic of Germany" began to prevail. In 1973, official East German sources adopted it as a standard expression and other Eastern Bloc nations soon followed suit.

In reaction to this move, in 1965 the Federal Minister of All-German Affairs Erich Mende issued the Directives for the appellation of Germany recommending avoiding the initialism. On 31 May 1974 the heads of German federal and state governments recommended to always use the full name in official publications. From then on West German sources began to avoid the abbreviated form, except left-leaning sources who started to embrace it. In November 1979 the federal government informed the Bundestag that the West German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF had agreed to refuse to use the initialism.

The different usages were so ingrained that one could deduce a person's or source's political leaning from the name used for West Germany.

Meanwhile the colloquial term "West Germany" or its equivalents were used in many other languages. "Westdeutschland" was also a widespread colloquial form used in German-speaking countries, usually without political overtones.