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The German word (female: or , plural: ) means civil servant, and is pronounced , with a glottal stop between the "e" and the "a". This English translation is ambiguous, as German law draws a distinction between two classes of public servants, namely regular public employees (), who are generally subject to the same body of laws and regulations as employees in the private sector, and with their own, particular legal status. This distinction is not drawn in most other states.
The conceptual foundation of is to be found in the "enlightened rule" of monarchs practised in 18th-century Prussia and other German states. These states did not accept "radical" concepts such as democracy or popular sovereignty, but they did struggle to professionalise their public services and to reduce corruption and favouritism. The idea was that whoever represents the state by undertaking official duties which only the state may legally provide (), such as issuing official documents, teaching state-approved curricula to students, preaching in state-approved churches, or making any other kind of official decisions, should have a special legal status and relationship with the state characterised by a higher-than-normal degree of loyalty. At bottom, that loyalty is regarded as mutual, with having a special duty of service () going beyond the duties of salaried workers, with the state having a special duty of seeing to their welfare () that likewise goes beyond what would be expected of a commercial employer.
While soldiers and judges are not considered in Germany, many of the same rules apply to them. However, unlike , judges are not subject to the usual hierarchy and order of command of government, in order to preserve judicial independence. Similarly, unlike , soldiers cannot be ordered to act in any manner unrelated to the defence of the state (with the exception of providing peaceful aid in specific emergency situations laid down by law), so as to preserve the civilian nature of the German government.