Jackboot

Jackboots have been associated popularly with totalitarianism, since they were worn by German military and paramilitary forces in the run-up to and during the Second World War.

[citation needed] The ‘wings’ (backward projections) on these high boots particularly protected a rider's knee-joint from a sword blow.

[9] An etymological source not derived from the cavalry jackboot has been suggested as from the word jack, jacket or jerkin, as a common garment worn by the peasantry.

[10] The boots are associated popularly with fascism, particularly Nazism, as they were worn by the Sturmabteilung and later the field forces of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS as part of the World War II German uniform before and even after Germany experienced leather shortages.

The word is used often in English as a metonym and a synecdoche for totalitarianism, particularly fascism, although jackboots and similar types of footwear have been worn by various British regiments since the 18th century (see Wellington boot, origins).

Jackboots of the Household Cavalry , British Army
German jackboots from 1914
German Bundeswehr soldiers wearing jackboots with an M47 tank in the background, 1960
" Stalin's Boots ", a monument in Hungary
Modern Russian army sapogi