|
Re: Luftwaffe Officer Career database now available
And who, dear SES, is the supreme authority who has irrevocably given forth English language definitions for all German military abbreviations and set them in concrete for all time and ever after? There isn't a single one of the more than 20,000 translations that at least one person won't find something to argue over.
We used the Manual of German Air Force Terminology: German - English, prepared and publishd by the Air Intelligence Section 12 of the British Air Ministry in 1945-46 as a standardized reference for the use of all the Allied Powers as our source for translations. These are the ones we used.
The abbreviation "z.b.V." is given as "zur besonderen Verwendung" and translated into English as: "special duties (literally 'for special employment')" (see page 13 of the cited Manual).
Personally, you can call it anything you like. That would be fine with me. It may well be that you are right and the Air Ministry is wrong. But Doug and I had to use a generally accepted standardized source to prevent eternal squabbling and nitpicking over the translation of some word or other.
If I already addressed this complaint earlier, then I apologize for repeating myself.
Larry
|