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![]() In Nazi ideology, North Pole stands for the Aryan master race, while Ypres is the name of the Belgian city where German troops introduced lethal mustard gas during the First World War. Two new terms were introduced that were particularly cynical: the Nazis replaced Nathan with Nordpol (North Pole) and Ypsilon (the German word for the letter "y") with the word Ypres. Names were swapped out: Anton for Albert and Dora for David. Germans use 'Wilhelm' for the letter W that's 'Whiskey' is the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet Image: BilderBox ![]() Then the Nazis seized power, and they made radical changes, not to simplify the alphabet but to satisfy their anti-Semitic ideology: They abolished 14 terms, including popular German-Hebrew first names like David, Jacob, Nathan, Samuel and Zacharias. Only five changes were made in the years of the Weimar Republic: Paul became Paula in 1926, and Isidor became Ida. ![]() In 1905, the numbers were replaced by names. The first German version goes back to the 1890 Berlin telephone book - every letter was assigned a number. Every letter is assigned a name or term to clarify which letter is meant. The international version, in fact, is understood all over the world no matter the language spoken, and is known as the aviation or NATO alphabet. To clarify or prevent such misunderstandings, mankind invented the phonetic alphabet. It is a common situation during a phone call: the person on the other end misunderstands a word, or spelling out a name becomes necessary.
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