I just learned where the CIA got the term "enhanced interrogation."

[Igel]

5. Probably not.

Yeah, the German term was prior. In German.

What's missing is a link that has some semblance of causality.

Especially since a buzzword for the years ahead of it was "enhanced." We "enhanced" everything, from computers to corporate structure to the taste of chocolate and carbonation. "Enhanced meditation practices" wasn't a Gestapo term. Hell, they didn't really speak English that well anyway.

Simpler and probably more plausible to say that it was a neologism in English.

Note that the German term can be translated a few different ways and for decades "verschaerfte Vernehmungen" was translated as "sharpened interrogation." It's a lazy translation, more of a calque than a translation, but clear enough for government use. If we borrowed the term from German we'd say "verschaerft" and not "enhanced." If we relied on the translations of German materials then extent for our term we'd say "sharpened." Unless we really want to say that the Bushites all eschewed translations in favor of the original German. That's not at all klar.

The English "enhanced" translation--which was indeed an enhanced translation, since it sounds native and not foreignizing--came about later. Whatever the suggested source of the techniques themselves, the English "enhanced term" is almost certainly homegrown. It pays to distinguish between Wort and Sach, between word and thing, between signifier and signified. It's one of the first steps to abandoning magic.