Right-wing coded vocabulary

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A guide to terms you'll encounter in German far-right discourse: what they literally mean, and what they signal politically. Useful both for learners and for anyone trying to decode why a seemingly innocuous word is being flagged in the press.

Many of these words have neutral meanings too (Heimat, Volk, Eliten in isolation). What flags a usage is the framing and pairing: 'Volksgemeinschaft', 'Umvolkung gegen das Volk', 'globalistische Eliten gegen das deutsche Volk'. Civic-education guides from bpb and the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung publish ongoing glossaries; this list is a curated subset, not exhaustive.

NS revival

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Volksgemeinschaft	Literally 'people's community'.	Core Nazi-era propaganda term for an ethnically defined community excluding Jews and other minorities. Revival flags ethno-nationalist framing.
Volksverräter	'Traitor to the people'.	Nazi-era smear against political opponents; revived around 2015 in Pegida/AfD contexts to delegitimise elected politicians.
Lügenpresse	'Lying press' - mass-media as systematic liars.	Used heavily by NSDAP propaganda; revived by Pegida from 2014 to delegitimise mainstream journalism.
entartet	'Degenerate'.	Nazi vocabulary (entartete Kunst, entartete Musik). Any revival signals NS-era framing.

NS revival / conspiracy

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Umvolkung	'Ethnic replacement' through migration.	Originally Nazi-era term for forced Germanisation of occupied territories. Modern use claims a deliberate plot to replace ethnic Germans via migration. Core to Great-Replacement conspiracy.

NS revival / Holocaust denial-adjacent

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Schuldkult	'Guilt cult' - framing Holocaust remembrance as excessive penance.	Dismisses Erinnerungskultur as imposed shame. Common signal of relativising or denying Nazi crimes.

Migration conspiracy

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Großer Austausch	'Great Replacement' - alleged plan to replace native Europeans with migrants.	French-origin conspiracy (Renaud Camus); mainstreamed in Germany by Identitäre and parts of AfD. No factual basis.
Remigration	Euphemism for mass deportation of people with migration background, including German citizens.	Surfaced in the Potsdam meeting reported by Correctiv in January 2024. Triggered the largest anti-far-right demos since reunification.

Migration coded

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Asyltourismus	Frames asylum seekers as tourists choosing Germany for benefits.	Implies illegitimate motivation; bpb and major outlets flag it as a slur.
Asylindustrie	Frames migration support work as a self-interested industry.	Delegitimises NGOs, lawyers, integration workers; used by far-right and right-populist actors.
Messer-Migration	Reduces migration debate to knife violence by migrants.	Selectively weaponises individual crimes to imply migration = violence.

Migration coded / sarcastic

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Goldstücke	Sarcastic 'gold pieces' for migrants.	Derived from a misquoted 2015 statement; used mockingly in far-right meme culture.

System delegitimisation

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Altparteien	Dismissive label for all established parties (CDU, SPD, Grüne, FDP, Linke).	Bundles them as an undifferentiated establishment to be replaced. Standard AfD/far-right rhetoric.
Systempresse	'System press' - mainstream media as arm of the establishment.	Variant of Lügenpresse; same delegitimisation function.
Mainstream-Medien	'Mainstream media' as a pejorative cluster.	Borrowed from US conservative/conspiracy circles; signals that alternative sources are to be trusted instead.
Demokratiesimulation	Frames German democracy as a fake performance.	Reichsbürger-adjacent claim that the BRD isn't a sovereign state. Direct constitutional-order attack.

Conspiracy / antisemitic dog-whistle

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Globalisten	'Globalists' as a shadowy elite controlling events.	Often a thinly veiled antisemitic trope (Soros, Rothschild references usually adjacent). Bpb documents this as a recurring far-right code.
Kulturmarxismus	'Cultural Marxism' - alleged Marxist plot to undermine Western culture.	Originated in mid-20th-century antisemitic conspiracy theories about the Frankfurt School. Modern use is a far-right shibboleth.

Conspiracy

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Eliten	Generic 'elites' framed as illegitimate, anti-people.	Context-dependent. Combined with 'globalists/parasites/replacement' it becomes a far-right populist marker.

Sneering at humanitarian framing

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Gutmensch	'Do-gooder' - someone who is naively or hypocritically humanitarian.	Reframes pro-migration or pro-minority positions as foolish. Voted Unwort des Jahres 2015 by the German Language jury.

Sneering at progressive norms

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Tugendterror	'Virtue terror' - claiming progressive social norms are coercive.	Frames anti-discrimination/inclusion expectations as oppression.

Anti-progressive

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Genderwahn	'Gender madness' - any policy or research on gender identity.	Reframes legal recognition of trans/non-binary people as collective insanity. Common AfD framing.
Genderideologie	Frames gender studies and trans recognition as a single coercive ideology.	Imported from US/Polish right-wing discourse; positions LGBTQ+ rights as a conspiracy.
Frühsexualisierung	'Early sexualisation' through sex-ed curricula.	Standard moral-panic framing against age-appropriate sex education and LGBTQ+ inclusion.

Sneering at diversity

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Buntland	Sarcastic 'colourful country' mocking pro-diversity messaging.	Routinely paired with claims that diversity is being imposed.

Anti-EU framing

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Brüssel diktiert	'Brussels dictates' - the EU as foreign imposition.	Frames every EU norm as illegitimate external rule, regardless of how it was negotiated.

Insult

Term	Plain meaning	Why it's flagged
Wende(hals)demokraten	'Turncoat democrats' - politicians who allegedly abandoned principles.	Pejorative for anyone in the post-1989 democratic settlement; often signals broader system rejection.