If I was certain every post on this thread was intended to bring historical teminology into focus and not at all to further a view of present day people, then I would feel fine about it. Unfortunately, I sense the odour of prejudice. The Rev was correct to caution against abandon in that direction because most nations have things in their past that do not induce pride. In the past the British committed atrocities at home and abroad (Scottish clearances, deportations to Australia as late as 50 years ago, butchery in Africa and Asia, etc.), all based on a notion of supremacy and superiority, which those who so enthusiastically harp on about "the Germans" do not mention anything as easily or as frequently. Modern day Germans are well aware of the atrocities their predecessors (some, not all) committed and find them appalling. True, there are those in Germany (and Austria) who voice approval of at least some of the authoritarian methods used, but they are a minority just like those are a minority in Britain who support the BNP and other movements that wish to prescribe limits to rights and freedoms based on who you are. The notion of preservation of a culture (in itself no bad thing) is paraded as the motive, just as the Nazis held up pride in an ethnically based nationality - they crossed the line and the rest need to be kept behind it lest something awful happens again. It is up to all of us (on all sides of the various borders) to put a stop to the cycle of suspicion, animosity and outright antagonism by denying support for those, in the media and elsewhere, who would manipulate us into bickering gangs - whatever the pretext or motive.