ФРГ: Тарихы мен мағынасы (FRG: Tarihy men mag'ynasy)

Abbreviation for the Federal Republic of Germany
the Cold War era abbreviation for the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany)
BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland ; English: FRG/Federal Republic of Germany) is an unofficial abbreviation for the Federal Republic of Germany, informally known in English as West Germany until 1990, and just Germany since reunification. It was occasionally used in the Federal Republic itself during the early Cold War; it was commonly used between 1968 and 1990 by the ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), resulting in a strong deprecation of its use in West Germany. The East German regime had previously used the term "German Federal Republic" (Deutsche Bundesrepublik), which it abbreviated as "DBR", to refer to West Germany. The most widely used abbreviation for West Germany in the country itself was its ISO 3166 1 alpha 2 country code "DE", which has remained the country code of reunified Germany. While the English equivalent FRG was used as an IOC country code and a FIFA trigramme, the use of BRD was strongly discouraged by the authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany itself from the 1970s, because it was considered to be a derogatory communist term following its widespread use in East Germany since 1968; thus the term was regarded as a possible expression of an extremist, anti constitutional and anti democratic sentiment by West German authorities. The term was not banned by law, but its use was discouraged or forbidden in schools in West Germany from the 1970s, and treated as an error. As a result of its use by East Germany and the war on the abbreviation by the West German government, far left terrorists such as the Red Army Faction tended to use the term as a way to attack West Germany; additionally the term "BRD" has been used by some far right groups for the same purpose. After German reunification, the country is usually referred to simply as Germany (Deutschland), and hence the need for abbreviations is greatly diminished; if an abbreviation is used at all, the uncontroversial standard abbreviation "DE" for "Deutschland" is often used. However, since the end of the Cold War the term "BRD" has lost some of its potency as an insult intended to attack the Federal Republic of Germany, as it was used by East Germany and far left terrorists such as the Red Army Faction, and the term "BRD" has been listed in the German dictionary Duden as an "unofficial abbreviation" for the Federal Republic of Germany since the 1990s, and is occasionally used by national newspapers across the political spectrum.

The official name was and is Bundesrepublik Deutschland ("Federal Republic of Germany"). The name, even though in the beginning referring only to the republic established in the Trizone, was to reflect a name for all of Germany, therefore it was particularly to include the term Deutschland ("Germany"). This corresponded to the spirit of the then West German constitution, the Basic Law, allowing all states or Länder, then under Allied control, to join the new Federal Republic. In 1949 the original eleven states in the Trizone and West Berlin did so. However the latter was prevented by Allied objection on account of the city being a quadripartite allied occupation area. The Saarland joined with effect from 1 January 1957, while the "new states" of the East did so with effect from 3 October 1990, including reunited Berlin. Therefore, the term Germany had an importance as part of the official name, which is reflected in the naming conventions which developed in the Cold War. Starting in June 1949 the abbreviation was sometimes used in the Federal Republic of Germany without any special connotations. The initialism BRD began to enter into such regular usage in West German scientific and ministerial circles, that it was added to the western edition of the German language dictionary Duden in 1967. The German Democratic Republic at first used the name Westdeutschland or "West Germany" (abbreviated "WD") for the Federal Republic of Germany, but since the 1950s the East German government insisted on calling West Germany Deutsche Bundesrepublik or "German Federal Republic" (abbreviated "DBR"), because they also considered East Germany part of Germany, and thus would not permit the West German government to use the name "Germany".

In 1995, a disagreement arose between reunified Germany and newly independent Slovakia, as Germany objected to the use of the Slovak language name Nemecká spolková republika (literally "German Federal Republic") owing to its Cold War connotations, instead of Spolková republika Nemecko. This was almost identical to the equivalent Spolková republika Německo in Czech, a language closely related to Slovak, but the Slovak authorities claimed that "Federal Republic of Germany" could not be translated grammatically into Slovak. However, the Slovak government had used it until the previous year, leading to suggestions in the Bratislava newspaper Narodna Obroda that they were using "German Federal Republic" to show their displeasure with German attitudes to the country.