I work on a project which has partners from all over EU. I used the abbreviation SS to shorten a deliverable we have in an internal email with some of the people involved. I got a response to please not use this abbreviation in any official correspondence given that partner is in Germany.
I did a quick Google search and understood the reference. It is a big project with partners from all over (and now that I think of it we do have ss mentioned somewhere for skillset in some documentation). Is it a big deal to have received an email with this abv which means something other than the infamous political party? Or is it a big deal specifically in Germany? Any other abv I should avoid?
PS: When I google why should ss not be used, I get a whole explanation on stainless steel.
29 comments
Did you receive that response from a German? If not, I would contact someone actually from Germany. If they a-ok this, you’re in the green
Well yes, we try to avoid the abbreviation. For example in academia, we often use WS for Winter Semester but SoSe for Sommer Semester. But given that you’re not from Germany and the project is not to create a third reich (I hope?), nobody would think that you’re trying to talk about nazi military
Disclaimer: I am not German, I work in Germany.
First year working in Germany, I was working with a coworker. We had to come up with a 2 letter code for the Spanish language, and it couldn’t be “ES” or “SP”. I suggested “SS”. My German coworker was nice enough to say “Haha, no. Let’s not use that.”
DAYS after that I realised my mistake.
So don’t use it. It’s not that bad, but don’t use it.
It’s not a big deal, academia uses SS for Sommersemester (summer semester). I’ve certainly seen SS used in other contexts.
As a german, in that context, especially if you’re not from germany yourself, I dont think someone really would mind that much. But also, a friend from south America used ss for Screenshot and the bad SS was the first thing that came to my mind.
German Here.
Let me ask you a question.
SS was the worst and most inhumane military group in the history of mankind. Why exactly would you want to use this abbreviation at all? Especially with the rise of the far right in many countries.
Most people would think you are a little bit ignorant but don’t assume a bad intention.
Sending nazi references to germans is the equivalent of sending slavery references to black americans…
Also, you’ve got your history wrong. The SS was an elite branch of the nazi german empire who commited many astrocities in occupied territories e.g. hanging all residents of a whole city to the lantern poles because they could not catch a few resistance members… My grand parents have stories of people taken away by the SS for questioning (i.e. torture). This was known to be a death sentence.
Source: my ex (and hence ex family) are germans. Also, I am working together with german engineers on a daily basis.
I’m German and if this came from a non-German colleague I wouldn’t mind. I’d still have the association but that’s about it – I’m in my 30s though, not sure about the older generations.
I try to raise awareness amongst my colleagues not to use certain abbreviations like “SS” and terms like “final solution”.
It’s not done in bad faith normally and most German customers wouldn’t say anything, but I did have some feedback, especially from older (GenX) clients about the use of these.
I actually work with german vendors for SS pipes, in that context no one would bat an eye, but if you use only SS without a word after , and in a less known area, I believe it would be better to amend your abbeviation
I have encountered this sensitivity. I wouldn’t call it a big gaffe, but it’s smart to acknowledge the issue and find ways to avoid it.
So I would not say “SS” or “the SS” on its own in your business. A phrase like “the/an SS [thing that is the deliverable]” would be better, diverting the audience’s attention away from the heinous memory of the Nazi *Schutzstaffel*.
I work within the German market and grew up there and we define seasons like this: SS25 (for spring summer) and FW25 (for fall winter), I try to use FS (Frühling Sommer) instead of SS when speaking to Germans to avoid confusion and also the negative connotations around SS
Fun fact: My dads initials are SS and he’s not allowed to have a number plate with his initials in Germany
“The SS database will now be overtaken by our NZI department, our offices in Austria will now handle the HH server also”
It’s a thing, and I actively avoid it when writing/speaking German. But if you communicate in English and it’s a common abbreviation I wouldn’t worry too much.
It is generally frowned upon, but overall not a big deal. SA (Sturmabteilung) would be the other big one. It is the reason why unlike the other states with long names such as ‘Nordrhein-Westfalen’ or ‘Baden-Württemberg’, that are usually abbreviated to NRW and BaWü, respectively, the state of ‘Sachsen-Anhalt’ generally is spelled out in full.
There’s also NS (Nationalsozialismus) and HH (Heil Hitler), although HH is also a very common abbreviation for Hamburg so that one is generally more acceptable, it’s mostly just in like usernames where it’s somewhat of a red flag. I still probably wouldn’t use it, but more because it is very engrained as meaning ‘Hamburg’.
As you got a response asking you not to use it, I’d consider it common courtesy to oblige and at least not use it in any further correspondence (if it’s already peppered throughout your documentation they might just need to live with it there), especially bc doubling down on that sort of thing is where you’d actually get into questionable territory.
Finally, it does, to my German ears, sound like an odd abbreviation for ‘skill set’, but then I’m not part of your workflow so idk, might make sense to use in your specific context. I think mostly I’ve just never been in a context where I’ve used the word skill set often enough to warrant an abbreviation. Like personally, maybe bc I’m younger, I just wouldn’t really use these abbreviations myself bc they are very engrained in my brain as nazi shit so that is the primary thing I think about when I read them, making them a bit useless as abbreviations for other things (you know, if I first have to think to remember what I actually meant by that)
Even in The Netherlands I would never use this abbreviation. In my workplace, we changed the name of a sector to avoid people calling it ss.
if you are a native German speaker, it’s a pretty bad gaffe – that abbreviation is associated with the Nazi party’s paramilitary goonsquad
but if you are a non-German working in an international context where the shared language is English, it is very unlikely that anyone will judge you for this – the most likely thing that will happen is exactly what happened to you, i.e. someone will kindly say “uh… maybe let’s not use that abbreviation” – so don’t worry about it, just learn from it (everyone who works in a multicultural context understands the kind of situation you are in, and most of us have committed linguistic or cultural faux pas at some point – so it is very very unlikely that anyone would think badly of you)
It’s called localisation. Perhaps having a proces in place to catch these mistakes might be a way before they potentially have negative consequences
It’s not illegal, just self-sabotage from your side.
Our company changed an entire rolled out project called SSS to a different name for similar reasons.
It’s a bit like playing with your pen during sales meetings. You’ll never know if you’re the person doing it, but you’re setting a lot of people in antagonistic mood. To a point that they’ll take a hit just to cut you out.
Except here you’re bringing up someone’s shameful past because you’d not drop an abbreviation. Or like doing a full-release loud fart during a meeting because it’s not a big deal and it doesn’t hurt people. Take the good advice, it’s free. It was more likely that nobody would’ve pointed out the faux pas but acted antagonistically instead.
Especially important with German companies. They’re already unhappy to be doing business with non-German and you’re showing that you either don’t know or don’t care about something specific to them.
You could ask for a training on business relations with various cultures – it’s fairly standardized set of do’s and don’ts. For example – in most cases if you manage to add casual physical contact, like clapping someone on the arm, you’ll set people from most of Europe at ease and increase your success. Touch a slav outside of a handshake and he’ll immediately dislike you.
Or meeting hours – set a meeting when you know a German has their lunch break, and if they didn’t set a date blocker they’ll accept, plan around it and give not much thought to it – only potentially adverse effect is they’ll be eager to end the meeting sooner, but this may play to your advantage. Set the meeting to after EOB and they’ll either ignore or reprimend you.
French coworker will politely tell you to take a hike if that’s when they planned their lunch… but they won’t think twice about setting the meeting for 5PM.
Americans think their outward eagerness is being open, but it creates immediate feeling of insincerity ie among Russians.
Or when German colleague writes that they want to please you – they’re not offering a jobby, but sternly asking to do the thing they’ve already asked you to do before. But this one is probably less cultural and more idiomatic. (seriously though – if some germano-phone has any idea… I’ve encountered this particular phrase so many times…).
Etc etc.
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354934994_An_Investigation_of_Cross-Cultural_Differences_as_They_Affect_Negotiations_in_the_United_States_Poland_and_Russia_A_Practical_Guide_for_Negotiators](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354934994_An_Investigation_of_Cross-Cultural_Differences_as_They_Affect_Negotiations_in_the_United_States_Poland_and_Russia_A_Practical_Guide_for_Negotiators)
[https://pressbooks.uiowa.edu/russiancareer/chapter/main-differences-in-social-norms-and-customs/](https://pressbooks.uiowa.edu/russiancareer/chapter/main-differences-in-social-norms-and-customs/)
Yeah, I worked in fashion and we would never use SS for the spring summer collection. There are a few abbreviations that you just can’t do in German, no matter the context, like KZ or HJ.
I wouldn’t use it, heck I am not even German but I’ve read my fair share of WW2 books and when I see SS I think automatically of Schutzstaffel. So avoid that.
Yes it is a big deal. I used to work with a not-well-known telecom protocol called SS7. (Signaling System 7).
The protocol is abbreviated C7 in some parts of Europe (“C” for common-channel) but Germany uses the SS7 abbreviation. Signalisierungssystem 7 is the German word.
On rare occasion I had issues where I would have some sort of communication blocked or rejected, and with help of my German colleagues, I learned that I was getting filtered because I used a word beginning with SS, which SS7 does.
This never happened when communicating with a telecom company. The times it happened was if I was communicating with someone outside the telecom sphere, but I had a reference to SS7 somewhere in the email thread or in my signature.
Moral of the story: even when German humans find such a use of SS to be acceptable, German computers may not and this may cause headaches.
Quite some abbrevations from the third reich are frowned upon.
You can choose up to two letters for your car’s license plate, but all counties ban choosing SS, SA, NS, KZ, HJ. HH is in the green (because Hamburg anyways has HH as abbrevation?) as is KL, which was the *official* abbrevation for “concentration camp”/”Konzentrationslager” – KZ was just an “affecionate” nickname used by the SS.
Also, we have three states where the straightforward abbrevation would be one of them, but something else is chosen:
* Niedersachsen: straightforward would be NS, but instead it’s NI
* Sachsen: SS -> SN
* Sachsen-Anhalt: SA -> ST
Bruh… using a well-known Nazi reference with a German client? You’re not sure if that’s a gaffe? I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine you spent even 5 seconds searching, because when I did I easily got this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel
There are some letter combinations that are banned for license plates in Austria, I am not sure if Germany does that too, but I wouldn’t be suprised. These are SS, SA, AH, HH, KZ, HJ, also 88 is banned. So yeah you better not use those if you can avoid it.
I’m not German (just next country over) and I’d still feel weird using this abbreviation. I definitely wouldn’t use it in communication with a German person. Where are you from that you had to use Google to know what’s the meaning of the abbreviation? I thought everyone around Europe knew about this and had reservations about using it in other meanings.
Most Germans won’t take offence but they will most definitely notice it & they would not use it themselves . . .
Yes, using SS (SchutzStaffel) should be avoided. Also other abbreviations are problematic, such as SA (SturmAbteilung), NS (NationalSozialismus). Other ones are being avoided as well, but the context might make it usable, like SH (Sieg Heil), HH (Heil Hitler) or AH (Adolf Hitler.
Examples, where some of them are actively avoided are the official federal state abbreviations:
ST for Sachsen-Anhalt and NI for Niedersachsen, where SA and NS would have been the obvious choice.
For other ones it is still used for historic reasons or the lack of better options:
HH for Hansestadt Hamburg (the Hansa plays a pretty important role in the city’s history and there are also other cities using the Hx abbreviation, like HB for Bremen or HL for Lübeck)
SH for Schleswig-Holstein (SA would have been a more obvious abv and SN is already taken for Sachsen, where SA could obviously not be used as well, SH is just more loosely associated with the nazis and not usually used as an abv.)
So yeah, if you want to be safe, don’t use any of these nazi abv’s, but SS, SA and NS (those, that are also commonly used as an abv) are definetly not tolerated.
Avoid SS, SA, HH, KZ, HJ. SS were not just “a party” but rather Hitlers small hands throughout the country. They were basically running the execution camps.