Maybe a dumb question but why does my app say that “policeman” in German is “Polizist” when I know very well from the Soviet movies about Nazis that it’s “Polizei”?
German Question
Opinions, art, debate
Opinions, art, debate
Maybe a dumb question but why does my app say that “policeman” in German is “Polizist” when I know very well from the Soviet movies about Nazis that it’s “Polizei”?
Clarissa's Blog 
Polizei is actually “Police”, not “policeman”. Polizei as a collaborant policeman in Nazi-occupied territories is probably a slangy slur… Maybe based on them shouting “Polizei”, i.e. “Police” while doing their business.
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der Polizist – male police officer
die Polizistin – female police officer
die Polizei – the police, the institution
In the context of a movie, police officers knocking on your door would identify themselves by shouting Polizei.
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In all Soviet movies it was “Guten Tag, Herr Polizei.” Even in that the bastards lied to me.
Thank you, it’s great to have a resident German specialist around here.
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“Guten Tag, Herr Polizei” sounds very Google Translate, though I am sure they didn’t have that in the Soviet Union.
In older German movies you usually hear “Herr Wachtmeister” for ordinary police officers in uniform and “Herr Kommissar” for officers. A Wachtmeister was the type of police officer who patrolled city streets on foot. It feels like a slightly old-fashioned word, but I am not sure what they equivalent is now. “Herr Kommissar” is alive and well, it’s actually a bit of a common thing in crime shows that someone uses Kommissar and the police officer corrects them because they are a Hauptkommissar or some other title and should be addressed as such. It’s sometimes used to show the police officer is a bit of a jerk, asserting his authority and sometimes gets used for comedic purposes because the official title is absurd and long and no one else in the show can ever get it right.
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