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"Better dead than red" was an anti-Communist phrase, possibly first used during World War II (in German as "Lieber tot als rot") and later during the Cold War by the United States. It was possibly coined by Nazi Germany's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, in the end phase of the Second World War to motivate the German military and population to fight the Russian Red Army to the end.[1] The English version may have come from the original German, but it could also be a re-invention. The slogan was used in the United States in the 1950s by anti-Communists to express their opposition of Communism and left-wing politics (see McCarthyism).
The slogan is also used by the members of the Minnesota Marching Band to indicate their repulsion to The University of Wisconsin, Minnesota's rival school.[citation needed]
The "red" in the slogan refers to the fact that a slang term for Communists was "red."
References
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