''Überfremdung'' (pronounced ), literally 'over-foreignization', is a German-language term used in politics to suggest an excess of

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, ...

. The word is a

nominalization In linguistics, nominalization or nominalisation is the use of a word that is not a noun (e.g., a verb, an adjective or an adverb) as a noun, or as the head of a noun phrase. This change in functional category can occur through morphological t ...

compounded from '' über'' meaning "over" or "overly" and ''fremd'' meaning "foreign".

Political uses

The German term has had several meanings over the years, all of which have reflected the sense of "too foreign" and "threatening", and are generally negative. Successive editions of the

Duden The Duden () is a dictionary of the Standard High German language, first published by Konrad Duden in 1880, and later by Bibliographisches Institut GmbH. The Duden is updated regularly with new editions appearing every four or five years. , ...

dictionary illustrate how the meaning has changed since the term was first used in 1929, then meaning "taking on too much foreign money" (especially loans made from 1924-1929 to rebuild Germany, following the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

). In 1934 (one year after the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

came to power in Germany), the meaning changed to "immigration/imposition of foreign races", and in 1941 it became "immigration/imposition of foreign peoples". Following the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the 1951/1952 version of the Duden returned to the strictly economic definition. In 1961, the term "foreigner" came to replace "foreign races" or "foreign peoples". In 1986, the term was no longer used in economics. Since 1991, primarily the verb "überfremden" has been in use, and one could speak of a country being ''überfremdet'' (). In 1993, the

Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache The ' (, ''Association for the German Language''), or , is Germany's most important government-sponsored language society. Its headquarters are in Wiesbaden. Re-founded shortly after the Second World War in 1947, the is politically independent ...

() declared "Überfremdung" to be the Unwort des Jahres (), as it makes "undifferentiated xenophobia" sound more argumentative and clinical.
Ein Jahr, ein (Un-)Wort!
' on

Spiegel Online ''Der Spiegel (online)'' is a German news website. Before the renaming in January 2020, the website's name was ''Spiegel Online'' (short ''SPON''). It was founded in 1994 as the online offshoot of the German news magazine, '' Der Spiegel'', w ...

(in German). Linguists, philologists, political scientists and social scientists criticise the concept for its vagueness, its use under national socialism, and its continuing negative connotation. The word is related to terms in various languages: " foreign infiltration", " foreign penetration", French "", "", "", Spanish "", Italian "", and "" (), which have all been used at various times to rally xenophobic sentiment.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Uberfremdung German words and phrases Immigration to Switzerland Anti-immigration politics in Europe

Political uses

See also

References