quote:
Originally posted by Houston Coates:
Interesting. Seems strange to me. How then can you explain Adolf Hitler " DER FUHRER " ?
Well, Houston Coates, German grammar is sometimes quite tricky ... even for us Germans.
I am not a teacher of German language, but I will try to explain:
The uncapitalized German words "der", "die" and "das" are pronouns and are followed by a noun (e.g. "der Führer" or "der Jagdschutzverein").
The pronoun "der" is usually used for words with masculine gender ("der Mann" = the man or "der Führer" = the leader). The pronoun "die" is usually used for feminine gender (die Frau = the woman) and "das" for neuter words ("das Buch = the book").
But the pronoun "die" can also be used for plural masculine words, e.g. "der Mann" (the man), but "die Männer" (the men). Another example: "der Führer" (one, single leader), but "die Führer" (two or more leaders).
Pronouns also change during declension of a noun (nominative, genitive, dative and accusative).
Example:
Nominative (singular): "der Führer", "der Jagdschutzverein"
Genitive (singular): "des Führers", "des Jagdschutzvereins"
Dativ (singular): "dem Führer", "dem Jagdschutzverein"
Accusative (singular): "den Führer", "den Jagdschutzverein"
If plural is used, the pronouns can be again different:
Nominative (plural): "die Führer", "die Jagdschutzvereine"
Genitive (plural): "der Führer", "der Jagdschutzvereine"
Dativ (plural): "den Führern", "den Jagdschutzvereinen"
Accusative (plural): "die Führer", "die Jagdschutzvereine"
Sometimes the ending of the noun also changes, meaning another letter is added to the ending of the noun.
As you can see, German language and grammer can be quite confusing sometimes.
But coming back now to the inscription in question, it is for 100% sure that it means a single club, as the writing "des Jagdschutzvereins" unambiguously indicates that this is in German grammer the singular Genitive.
I hope this little German grammar lesson was understandable