Gleichschaltung

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English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from German Gleichschaltung (“synchronisation”).

Noun

Gleichschaltung (countable and uncountable, plural Gleichschaltungs)

  1. The forced standardization of political and social institutions under an authoritarian regime, originally with reference to Nazi Germany.
    • 1973, Dietrich Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party: 1933–1945, volume 2, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, →ISBN, page 181:
      Far less identified with the party than the old Freikorps (anticommunist vigilante groups active just after World War I) mercenaries, the new element saw in the SS the true elite organization of the Nazi regime, and did not hesitate to attempt Gleichschaltungs within the Gleichschaltung, that is, to have the SS take over already Nazified organizations.
    • 2000 April 15, John Laughland, “Full circle for communism: Under EU plan, Croatia is starting to resemble old communist Yugoslavia”, in The Gazette, Montreal, page B5:
      Consequently, Croatia’s new leaders have lost little time in purging these last outposts of the old regime. In the name of democracy and human rights, all the media will henceforth be sympathetic to the new government, a process of Gleichschaltung that is being cheered on by the West.
    • 2017 February 10, Rakesh Batabyal, “Casteism and communalism are delegitimising the institutions that have built JNU”, in Hindustan Times‎:
      So what we have today is a university whose uniqueness is to be attacked and destroyed so that it falls in line where a gleichschaltung is achieved, a non dissenting institution with dead pan faces, with caste identities or communal hatred pervasive, unquestioning students roaming around writing meaningless objective type exams for different testing services.
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Gleichschaltung.

German

Etymology

gleichschalten +‎ -ung.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈɡlaɪçˌʃaltʊŋ/
  • Audio:(file)
  • Audio:(file)

Noun

Gleichschaltung f (genitive Gleichschaltung, plural Gleichschaltungen)

  1. synchronisation, bringing into line
    • 2001, Winfried Georg Sebald, Austerlitz, Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, →ISBN, page 22:
      Von dem Zentralpunkt, den das Uhrwerk im Antwerpener Bahnhof einnehme, ließen sich die Bewegungen sämtlicher Reisender überwachen, und umgekehrt müßten die Reisenden alle zu der Uhr aufblicken und seien gezwungen, ihre Handlungsweise auszurichten nach ihr. Tatsächlich, sagte Austerlitz, gingen ja bis zur Synchronisierung der Eisenbahnfahrpläne die Uhren in Lille oder Lüttich anders als die in Gent oder Antwerpen, und erst seit der um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts erfolgten Gleichschaltung beherrsche die Zeit unbestrittenermaßen die Welt.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
  2. (Nazism) Gleichschaltung

Declension

Declension of Gleichschaltung
singular plural
indef. def. noun def. noun
nominative eine die Gleichschaltung die Gleichschaltungen
genitive einer der Gleichschaltung der Gleichschaltungen
dative einer der Gleichschaltung den Gleichschaltungen
accusative eine die Gleichschaltung die Gleichschaltungen

Further reading

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia