ADOLF Hitler did not like being called a Nazi.
Nazi was a derogatory term for a backwards peasant, being a shortened version of Ignatius, a common name in Bavaria, the area from which the Nazis emerged.
Opponents seized on this and shortened the party’s title to the dismissive Nazi.
The term Nazi derives from the first two syllables of the name given in German to a party member – Nationalsozialist - and was coined in response to the German term Sozi, an abbreviation of Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany).
Members of the party referred to themselves as Nationalsozialisten (National Socialists), rarely as Nazis.
The term was in use before the rise of the party as a colloquial and derogatory word for a backward peasant, characterising an awkward and clumsy person.
Read the article in the Sunshine Coast Daily.
[also refer to the article Neo-Nazi radicalisation camp held on Sunshine Coast]