this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
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That anecdote doesn't make any sense though. Like who are "the Russians" and why didn't they have prior knowledge of other ethnic groups before? And "the Germans" is a very recent group of people that isn't ethnic at all.
By "Germans" I mean "the early Germanic peoples who occupied the region that became Germany" and "Russians" I mean "the early Slavic peoples who occupied the region that became Russia". I kinda just assumed folks would understand the modern federal German state didn't exist when early Slavs first encountered other ethnic groups and could work backwards from there.
In times of authoritarian and fascist uprising, I think we should be careful what ideas we spread. The telling of a "German" or "Russian" people that are "natural" ethnicities is not far from right wing ideology. Why would you even use "Germans" and "Germanic people" synonymously? That's anachronistic and they don't really have anything to do with each other. Some Germanic people also lived where Ukraine is now btw.
It isn't even clear if "Germanic peoples" existed as a distinct group of people:
Oh, and the Nazis did synonymize both Germans and Germanic peoples as well:
To synonymize "Russians" with "Slavic people" is also wrong, as Slavic people where a diverse group of very different people living in a different regions of the world. We also don't know where the early Slavic people lived exactly.
Sure. What words am I allowed to use when relating this anecdote in the future without being called a nazi? A simple blocklist and allowlist is the easiest format for me.