In German, I think their full name is Laugenbrezel. The full name may not be much used[1] colloquially, because it's implied -- but bread rolls made the same way are definitely called Laugenbrötchen.

"Lauge" is German for "lye". They're called that because they're made with it.

[1]: Though when I switched my phone keyboard to German just now to test it out, the predictive spelling corrector suggested "Laugenbrezel", not "-brötchen", when I'd got as far as "Laugenb".

Nope, pretzels are made with lye (NaOH). That's how you get the tasty brown Maillard reaction coating - boil the dough in lye water, then bake, then salt it.

Though it doesn't have to be lye - you can use other less caustic bases, such as baking soda.

Some traditional pretzel/bagel recipes use lye: https://www.bakespace.com/recipes/detail/Soft-Pretzels-using...

Lye is used in the creation of pretzels and bagels.