This is used in Norway as well (and I suspect many other places).<p>The term uses the same structure "sjokklufting", which like the German means shock ventilation.<p>A quick search in the Norwegian National Library dates the Norwegian use of this specific term pretty firmly to ~1974 or so.<p>Interestingly <i>all</i> the uses of the term in writing in Norwegian media in 1970's seem to either be or echo the text in an ad from Jøtul, one of the largest manufacturers of cast-iron fireplaces as a negative (making it too cold), while many later mentions are positive, though also with a tinge of "we're only doing this as a fallback because our ventilation isn't good enough" in quite a few articles.<p>A somewhat more common Norwegian variant describing much the same is utlufting ("out-ventilation") or storutlufting ("big out-ventilation"), which is found in print at least back to the 1850's, and which tends to imply much the same, though perhaps with a less negative slant.<p>At some point around the 1980's, the viewpoint seems to have changed from promoting this as a good thing to describing the need for it as evidence of poor ventilation systems.<p>My mum would often do this, and I do it myself too, - open several windows at least a couple of times a day during winter to rapidly clear out stale air. The benefit vs. less ventilation all the time being that while you're cooling the air, it's short enough that <i>you</i> don't lose much heat, and neither does the building mass. It's overall much more pleasant when it's really cold outside than having a window open a crack on an ongoing basis.