What does deutschland-BRD mean?

Answer 1

BRD was an unofficial abbreviation of Bundesepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany) especially during the cold war period and during the period of the two German states. It was particularly used by East German agencies who referred to East Germany in official communiqués as DDR and West Germany as BRD. Official West German communiqués stopped using the abbreviation in 1970.

Although the abbreviation was initially used in West Germany neutrally and impartially, it began to develop a politicized dimension, especially through East German agitation and the West German government wanted to avoid using the same political langauge as the East German regime. Another reason for dropping the abbreviation was that West Germany considered itself to be the only legitimate German state according to international law. It claimed the use of the word Deutschland for the whole of Germany (both German states) and by proxy for itself. By deliberate use of the word Deutschland it attempted to keep the idea of a single German nation and reunification alive. East Germany on the other hand argued that there could be no reunification as the DDR and the BRDhad never been a single state. An argument, that was based purely on semantics.

Official West German agencies actively discouraged the use of the abbreviation and several West German states officially banned its use. Use of the abbreviation in school work would result in it being marked as a grammatical error.

In a move that might seem slightly schizophrenic given what has been stated above, West German authorities did abbreviate the state's name in forms such as: BR Deutschland, BR Dt., BR Dtl., BRDt., BRep.Dtschl., B'Rep. Dt., B.Rep. Dtld., BRep.D, BR Dtld. or simply Dtld.