Talk:Erika Steinbach/Archive 1

message: To clear up who lived in Rahmel see following legal records: Kirchenbuecher, Legal records of birth, marriage, death of inhabitants of Rahmel, Westprussia since c 1650
There is nothing to read in the link. Only info about 2 communities:Catholic and Protestant.Cautious 00:42, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links and records -Vital Statistics of People-Birth-Marriage-Death in Rahmel since 1650 

message: Erika Steinbach was born in occupied Poland. Poland didnt surrender in World War II and if you look at any english map of 1943 it will Say Nazi Occupied Poland. Her Father was a Nazi SS Officer that was transfered to Poland. This should return to my recent edit. 24.2.152.139 05:24, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Just go away someone who shows disturbing tendencies towards being a Nazi apologist. So, to those who claim Rumia was in West Prussia after 1918, look at these two maps Rumia's location and Borders of Weimar Germany. Rumia is clearly outside the territory of Germany after 1918. Therefore to call it part of West Prussia in 1943 is a lie. It was Nazi-occupied Poland. However, by the same token to refer to her father as a Nazi officer is going too far without evidence that he was active in the Nazi hierachy. To say he was a Luftwaffe officer is quite factually correct, and bad enough in many people's eyes considering what the Luftwaffe did to many of the cities of Europe. David Newton 19:08, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Erika Steinbach was born in occupied Poland 

message: The article contains factual error in following sentence:
One of her aims is to build a monumental center against force migration in Berlin, devoted to the ethnic cleansing of about 15 million Germans from Eastern Germany after the war as well as other victims of ethnic cleansing. She is a representive of the newly founded foundation Center against forced migrations (Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen).
There were never 15 milions of Germans in former Germany East of Oder-Neisse line. Rumia were not located at that moment in West Prussia. It was located on the area of Gau Danzig-West Prussia on occupied Poland.Cautious 00:39, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Center against force migration 

message: There are several issues to explain:
* The city of Rumia was and is situated in Poland, and this should be clearly stated
* In 1939-45 Rumia was occupied, annexed and renamed by the Nazi Germany - this occupation was not recognized by Poland or her allies 
* There was no West Prussia in 1943; the Nazi-German occupational administration district was called Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen
So the article should say something like this: Rumia, Poland, then ocupied by the Nazi Germany (see: Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen)
Mestwin of Gdansk 20:07, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Rumia]], [[Poland]] 

message: In my opinion Nico is doing very bad work for Erika Steinbach, who is a controvercial but serious German politician. Nico's edits are clearly in violation of Neutral point of View policies. Wikipedia defines Neo-Nazism as any social or political movement that revive Nazism and postdating the Second World War. More and more Nico's activies makes us believe that Nico thinks that NPOV stands for Nazi Point of View. In my opinion Nico is doing very bad work for Erika Steinbach. - Mestwin of Gdansk 20:13, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nazi Point of View - violation of Wikipedia policies 

message: Nico, would you participate if I requested for mediation? Since you're the only Rahmel hard-liner here your acceptance of mediation seems essential. Halibutt 22:56, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Nico refused the mediation.Halibutt 05:39, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: At least better than Yeti's version. How about "Rahmel (Rumia)" or "Rumia (then Rahmel) in West Prussia (now Poland)"? "West Prussia" is the correct English name, I think. According to the official Bundestag biography, she was born in West Prussia. Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreußen was an administrative region but not necessarily the appropriate English geographical name. Nico 07:40, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: I think it's silly to refer to all regions under German military control during WWII as 'Germany.' Those 'borders' were changing rather quickly. "Amelie lived in France most of her life, except for the brief period during WWII, when she lived in Germany (without moving.)" Don't you think that's a bit strange and potentially confusing? There is also no reason why some annexed parts of Europe should be reffered to as occupied-France etc., while others as 'Germany.' That would be even more confusing, and done without a good reason.
In short, all the changes are both unnecessary, less accurate, and potentially confusing. --Voodoo 01:52, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: I think Alsace-Lorraine/Elsaß-Lothringen should be considered a part of Germany during that time.
I did read the talk page Nico. Let's see, we have two possible ways of looking at this. Either look at the events and base a definition on that:
*There was a country called Germany before the war.
*There were various other countries in Europe.
*Germany starts a war, gains military control of surrounding countries.
That's pretty NPOV, no one can argue with the events (well...very few people anyway.)
The definition you are proposing seems to be:
*There was a country called Germany before the war.
*There were various other countries in Europe.
*Germany starts a war, gains military control of surrounding countries.
*Some of the territories are now considered occupied, while others are part of Germany because....what? Hitler says so? That's supposed to be your NPOV definition? --Voodoo 05:09, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Request for mediation

message: She was born in the Polish village of Rumia (then Rahmel in the province Danzig-West Prussia, recently annexed by the Third Reich), to a Luftwaffe officer from western Germany, stationed there during the war.  
For reference, this is the previous version: 
She was born in German-occupied Poland, in the village of Rumia (German: Rahmel), to a Luftwaffe officer from western Germany, stationed there during the war.  
Besides style issues which I'll leave up to the english-as-first-language wikipedians, you've made the following changes:
*replaced Germany with Third Reich - I have no problem with this other than that there is no need for this. Not much sense in changing this just to remove the association between Germany and WWII. Also, a small percentage of non-Europeans might not know what the Third Reich is (kids especially.)
*added Danzig-West Prussia - no major problems if you don't confuse the reader about what it was. Your version however says that this region was annexed. It wasn't annexed, it was created as one of the administrative regions created after Germany annexed close to half of Poland.
*replaced 'occupied' with 'annexed' - this I see no reason for, and I'm also not sure what you are trying to achieve here. In the context of WWII the word annexed is often used in the case of the western part of Czechoslovakia. The implication in the word 'occupied' is that military force was used, which is not clear with the use of 'annexed.' If you prefer the word because it has a more postive connotation, well it does, but exactly for that reason. You aren't just using more neutral words with the same definition, you're chosing words that are more neutral because they contain less information. The only other reason I can think of is that 'occupied' requires an object, in this case 'occupied Poland,' which means that you can't refer to it as 'Germany.' 
:I think it's silly to refer to all regions under German military control during WWII as 'Germany.' Those 'borders' were changing rather quickly. "Amelie lived in France most of her life, except for the brief period during WWII, when she lived in Germany (without moving.)" Don't you think that's a bit strange and potentially confusing? There is also no reason why some annexed parts of Europe should be reffered to as occupied-France etc., while others as 'Germany.' That would be even more confusing, and done without a good reason.
In short, all the changes are both unnecessary, less accurate, and potentially confusing. --Voodoo 01:52, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Alsace-Lorraine/Elsaß-Lothringen should be considered a part of Germany during that time.
I did read the talk page Nico. Let's see, we have two possible ways of looking at this. Either look at the events and base a definition on that:
*There was a country called Germany before the war.
*There were various other countries in Europe.
*Germany starts a war, gains military control of surrounding countries.
That's pretty NPOV, no one can argue with the events (well...very few people anyway.)
The definition you are proposing seems to be:
*There was a country called Germany before the war.
*There were various other countries in Europe.
*Germany starts a war, gains military control of surrounding countries.
*Some of the territories are now considered occupied, while others are part of Germany because....what? Hitler says so? That's supposed to be your NPOV definition? --Voodoo 05:09, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ruhrjung's version 

message: *short, factual, nonemotional - Wikimol
*agree Halibutt
*Looks good to me.  SWAdair | Talk 03:15, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: YES

message: *Please do not change my comments. I'm not going to participate in trolling votes with sock puppets and anonymous users. Nico 05:55, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: ABSTAIN

message: Erika Steinbach wurde 1943 in die Familie eines Luftwaffenoffiziers aus Hanau, der in Rahmel stationiert war, geboren. Ihre Mutter, Angestellte, stammt aus Bremen. Im Januar 1945 musste sie 1½ jährig mit ihrer Mutter und ihrer 3 Monate alten Schwester Rahmel verlassen. Sie wuchs in Hanau auf. Nach privatem Musikstudium (Geige) und Orchesterkonzerten war sie von 1970 bis 1977 als Diplomverwaltungswirtin und Informatikerin in Frankfurt am Main beschäftigt. Seit 1974 ist sie Mitglied der CDU. Von 1977 bis 1990 war sie Fraktionsassistentin der CDU-Stadtverordnetenfraktion in Frankfurt. 1990 wurde sie über die Landesliste Hessen in den Deutschen Bundestag gewählt und ist seit 2000 Mitglied des Bundesvorstands ihrer Partei. Sie ist auch Mitglied des Bundesvorstandes der Landsmannschaft Westpreußen, des Goethe-Instituts und des ZDF-Fernsehrates. 
Eines ihrer politischen Ziele ist die Errichtung eines Zentrums gegen Vertreibungen in Berlin, das (auch) dem Schicksal der deutschen Vertriebenen gewidmet sein soll; sie ist die Vorsitzende der zu diesem Zweck im September 2000 gegründeten Stiftung "Zentrum gegen Vertreibungen". </blockquote>
Nico 04:57, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Leben

message: #put here all versions someone support (cut&paste from history)
#let everybody express what he likes / has against noted verions
#proposals how to improve best of them
#when some compromie will lok like stable with wide support, put it on the article page
===Removed version of 25 May 2004, 23:10===
She was born in the present-day Polish city of Rumia (then village of Rahmel, West Prussia, on territory recently re-annexed by Germany following the German invasion of 1939), to a Luftwaffe officer from Hanau in western Germany, stationed there during the war. In 1945 Steinbach's mother escaped with her children to Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, and after five years in a refugee camp, in 1950 they managed to return to Hanau. In Hanau she studied music and was a member of concert orchestras. Steinbach's status as an expellee, and hence her suitability to head the Federation of Expellees, has been questioned and remains somewhat controversial. However, according to German law, she is legally an expellee.
====Pro====
====Against====
====Modifications, comments====
That version is not my favorit version, but the version is still okay to me, because it does not contain any false facts. It does not tell that she was born in Poland, which would be false, because she was not born in Poland. It does not tell anything about "Nazi-soldier", "Nazi-Germany", "Nazi-occupied" or things like this, because it would always be non-NPOV. It does not spread any crude rumor about the German Federal Law About Expellees (Bundesvertriebenengesetz), because I had read it myself (see above for more). It does not conceal that Rahmel was German before the 19 years between 1920 and 1939, although only two small letters ("re-") report about much more that a century of German history in Rahmel. But that is still better than geting the impression that Rahmel was always Polish since the begining of time, because that is not true: Rahmel was only 19 years long Polish.
I would discuss about history of West Prussia, about relation between the cities in Pommerellen and the Teutonic Order and about anything else. But this thing here is just about Erika Steinbach. If there were a version telling just "She was born in 1943.", that would also be okay to me, because it is true. The importance of Erika Steinbach as politican has nothing to do with her place-of-birth. If someone likes to criticize her in an encyclopedia by telling stories about her work and some connections to her place-of-birth ("her suitability ... remains somewhat controversial"), it at least has to be true. This reminds me of an other expellee, Herbert Hupka, who also was criticized again and again just because of his place-of-birth (but that is another story).  --212.114.238.209 20:37, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: New deal

message: She was born in the present-day Polish city of Rumia (then village of Rahmel, West Prussia, on territory recently re-annexed by Germany following the German invasion of 1939), to a Luftwaffe officer from Hanau in western Germany, stationed there during the war. In 1945 Steinbach's mother escaped with her children to Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, and after five years in a refugee camp, in 1950 they managed to return to Hanau. In Hanau she studied music and was a member of concert orchestras. Steinbach's status as an expellee, and hence her suitability to head the Federation of Expellees, has been questioned and remains somewhat controversial. However, according to German law, she is legally an expellee.
====Pro====
====Against====
====Modifications, comments====
That version is not my favorit version, but the version is still okay to me, because it does not contain any false facts. It does not tell that she was born in Poland, which would be false, because she was not born in Poland. It does not tell anything about "Nazi-soldier", "Nazi-Germany", "Nazi-occupied" or things like this, because it would always be non-NPOV. It does not spread any crude rumor about the German Federal Law About Expellees (Bundesvertriebenengesetz), because I had read it myself (see above for more). It does not conceal that Rahmel was German before the 19 years between 1920 and 1939, although only two small letters ("re-") report about much more that a century of German history in Rahmel. But that is still better than geting the impression that Rahmel was always Polish since the begining of time, because that is not true: Rahmel was only 19 years long Polish.
I would discuss about history of West Prussia, about relation between the cities in Pommerellen and the Teutonic Order and about anything else. But this thing here is just about Erika Steinbach. If there were a version telling just "She was born in 1943.", that would also be okay to me, because it is true. The importance of Erika Steinbach as politican has nothing to do with her place-of-birth. If someone likes to criticize her in an encyclopedia by telling stories about her work and some connections to her place-of-birth ("her suitability ... remains somewhat controversial"), it at least has to be true. This reminds me of an other expellee, Herbert Hupka, who also was criticized again and again just because of his place-of-birth (but that is another story).  --212.114.238.209 20:37, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed version of 25 May 2004, 23:10

message: That version is not my favorit version, but the version is still okay to me, because it does not contain any false facts. It does not tell that she was born in Poland, which would be false, because she was not born in Poland. It does not tell anything about "Nazi-soldier", "Nazi-Germany", "Nazi-occupied" or things like this, because it would always be non-NPOV. It does not spread any crude rumor about the German Federal Law About Expellees (Bundesvertriebenengesetz), because I had read it myself (see above for more). It does not conceal that Rahmel was German before the 19 years between 1920 and 1939, although only two small letters ("re-") report about much more that a century of German history in Rahmel. But that is still better than geting the impression that Rahmel was always Polish since the begining of time, because that is not true: Rahmel was only 19 years long Polish.
I would discuss about history of West Prussia, about relation between the cities in Pommerellen and the Teutonic Order and about anything else. But this thing here is just about Erika Steinbach. If there were a version telling just "She was born in 1943.", that would also be okay to me, because it is true. The importance of Erika Steinbach as politican has nothing to do with her place-of-birth. If someone likes to criticize her in an encyclopedia by telling stories about her work and some connections to her place-of-birth ("her suitability ... remains somewhat controversial"), it at least has to be true. This reminds me of an other expellee, Herbert Hupka, who also was criticized again and again just because of his place-of-birth (but that is another story).  --212.114.238.209 20:37, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Modifications, comments

message: The way how article is edited last days seems to lead nowhere. I even dont know who is now opposing what, where are the eyesores, leading to reverts. IMO, we should try systematically different aproach - put down all the concurent version in one place (this page), problems with them, etc.
Please note this is not in first place attemtp to solve the conflict. Its attempt to dispute more orderly.
And I'm aware the one-sentence version I put to article is controversial. Although I dont't know exactly who will hate what word (well, I have some tips :-). Wikimol 12:47, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: Again there is absurd claim about 19 years of Polish "occupation". 
Before 1309 Gdansk Pomerania, where Rumia is located, was part of polish kingdom. Around 1309 It was conquered by Teutonic knights. In 1466 it was annexed to Poland (Royal Prussia was not separate entity, it was part of kingdom of Poland - this are words of the treaty. Whoever was corwned king of Poland, automathically became duke of Masovia, Red Ruthenia, Prussia or whatever etc - it was just feudal titles. OTOH, there was separate ceremony to became grand duke of Lithuania (and then he automatically received more titles reserved to dukes of Lithuania). OK? Anyone who became king of Poland AUTOMATICALLY got title of Prussian duke since Royal Prussia was part of Polish kingdom. 
Until 1525 or so Royal PRussia had very substantial authonomy: separate treasury for example, also many times envoys from Royal Prussia were not sitting in Polish parliament, despite having right to it. But in 1525 the differences in law and administration of Royal Prussia was finally (and other polish separatism) was removed. So, for the best you could claim that it was Prussian 1309-1525 (Ignoring the fact, that legally Royal Prussia was part of Polish kingdom - with substantial authonomy - in 1466).
Take for example grand duchy of Poznan. IIRC Prussian kings had the title of grand duke of Poznan, right? But that does not mean that Poznan was not part of Prussia kingdom.
So, it was Polish for some time before 1309 (no time to count: it would be to tedious, since there are times when it was Polish, then indirectly Polish, independent, again Polish etc etc etc) so it was not 300 years but say half of that amount at least then Prussian for 1466-1309 = 157 years, then authonomy part of Polish kingdom 1466-1525 = 59 years, then Polish 1525 - 17.. umm 1700 something, say 225 years for equal count, then Prussian to 1919 - say 170 years, then again Polish 19 years. So we have circa ~327 years of Prussian + 59 of authonomy, and circa ~400 years of Polish rule + 59 years when Royal Prussia was authonomous part of Polish kingdom. No matter how you turn the cat around you can still see his tail.
Szopen 07:57, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Absurd claims about "19 years of Polish occupation"