Talk:States of Germany

message: Just a short notice: 203.166.57.12 was me. Regards -- Guido Bockamp 07:51, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  203.166.57.12 

message: I've recapitalised Länder, following the EU's use, Muret-Sanders 2004  Großwörterbuch and the German embassy and German govenment websites.Saintswithin 10:10, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalisation of Länder

message: The article states: 
The city-states of Berlin and Hamburg are not subdivided.
Out of curiosity, why aren't the boroughs (Bezirke) of Berlin considered subdivisions?  Perhaps they aren't precisely analogous to subdivisions in other states, but they do have elected governments and are well known facets of life in Berlin.
--Jfruh 18:05, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Because while they may have elected officials (by special proviso), they are formally, well, just that, boroughs - parts of a city, with a city being a special class of municipalty. Hence, the State of Berlin consists of only one municipalty, whatever the boroughs. Bremen, though, has two (Bremerhaven is the other).--2001:A61:260C:C01:D4C1:6B9B:FC44:E27F (talk) 01:36, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subdivisions of Berlin? 

message: Is there any real distinction between the Senates of the city-states and the cabinets of other states, other than the name?  Similarly, are the Mayors of Berlin and Hamburg and the Senate President of Bremen different from the Minister-Presidents of the other states in any way other than in name?  --Jfruh 22:35, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Senate vs. cabinet? 

message: Now that the European Union has evolved to its current status, what areas of importance does the Federal Government of the Federal Republic of Germany have?  I can see Military as being one area, but besides Military and Economics-related matters, what other areas are there?  The reason I ask this is to find reason besides nationalist sentiment which entice the bundesländer to maintain inclusion within the Federal Republic of Germany?  Is it possible that the European Union might one-day replace the existing institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany as a whole?  Please note: I understand that this is party a question of political opinion, so I am already expecting mixed response(s). mdjkarazim 2005-07-03 02:41:54 (UTC)
:There is a vast array of issues that the European Union does not address beyond military and "economics-related matters" (which begs the question: what action isn't economics-related?), not the least of which are things such as government-run insurance programs (e.g. health, retirement, unemployment, etc.), law enforcement, education, civil and criminal law, immigration, and much more. While the European Union may have taken on some responsibilities previously reserved to its member states, it doesn't make the member states obsolete for the same reason the federal government of the United States hasn't made state governments obsolete. :sebmol 4 July 2005 19:09 (UTC)
::I thought education was reserved as a power of the bundesländer? mdjkarazim 2005-07-07 18:11:17 (UTC)
:::To an extent it is. However, the federal government is heavily involved in it as well (e.g. pre-school programs). There is also a strong level of coordination on the federal level to avoid unnecessary complications for students moving between states. sebmol 8 July 2005 00:04 (UTC)
::In the following areas only the federation has the right to make laws according to article 73 of the Grundgesetz:
::*1.foreign affairs and defence, including the protection of the civil population;
::*2.the citizenship in the federation;
::*3.the freedom of moving, the passport system, the registration and identificastion,migration and delivery;
::*4.the system of currency, money and coins, measuresand weights and chronometry;
::*5.the unity of the customs and trading area, the trading and navy treaties, the freedom of goodsand the traffic of goods and money to foreign countries including the protection of customs and borders;
::*5a.the protection of German culture against exit into foreign countries;
::*6.air traffic;
::*6a.the traffic of rails of the federation, and the construction of buildings;
::*7.post and telecommunication;
::*8.the legal relationships of the persons working for the federation or corporations of public law directly subordinate to it;
::*9.the protection of commercial rights, the copyright and the publishing law;
::*10.the cooperation of the federation and the states 
::**a)in the criminal investigation,
::**b)for the protection of the basic order of liberty and democrazy, the existence and safety of the federation or a state and
::**c)for the protectiona against domestic ambitions to damage German external interest with violence,
::: and the foundation of a federal office for the criminal investigation and international fight against crimes;
::*11.statistics for the purposes of the federation;
::*12.the regulations for the possession of weapons and explosives;
::*13.the feed of invalides, orphans and widows of war and the care for former prisoners of war;
::*14.the production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and of installations used for, the protection against the dangers of the release nuclear energy and the elimination of nuclear materials.
::I hope I translated everything correctly.--Son sonson 14:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union 

message: Is Bundesländer used only for German states? What about Bundesstaate? -- 00:09, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. -- 20:29, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The word "Bundesstaat" means, as we learn in school, a federation - in contrast to "Staatenbund" confederation. However, the states of non-German speaking countries (USA, India) are called Bundesstaaten too, and - and here it becomes strange - the länder of the German Empire 1871-1918 are also called Bundesstaaten (not Reichsstaaten either), which can still be found in some legislative acts that have not been changed into nowadays' language. --84.154.80.173 (talk) 20:46, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bundesstaate 

message: The previous version of this section of the article contained a reference to Willy Brandt being forced out of office in 1974 owing to the opposition controlling the Bundesrat, thus blocking Brandt's ability to pass legislation.  I don't know whether the opposition controlled the Bundesrat in 1974, however, it is a generally acknowledged fact that the reason for Brandt's departure (and replacement by Helmut Schmidt) was the exposure of Günter Guillaume as an East German spy working as a close aide to Brandt and not whether the opposition could block Brandt's legislative proposals.Cvieg 15:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Politics 

message: I've tried opening the page on States of Germany on Firefox 2.0, Opera 9.01, and Konqueror 3.5.2 on Linux, and all display the links of the states on the German map with a significant offset towards the upper left. Is it just me who has this problem? 193.136.122.18 13:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  State Picture Links 

message: I have added a tag, because I do  not understand the sentence in the lead on the city states and I am not 100% confident I can state what the truth about it is.
:"The cities of Berlin and Hamburg are states in their own right, termed Stadtstaaten (city states), while Bremen consists of two urban districts."
Is Bremen not a city state? Now, it sounds exactly like this. However, it is left open what it is in stead. I guess it is also a city state. Then I wonder what message the last part tries to convey. Has Bremen two districts  in incontrast to the other two city states? Or, do they also have districts but unlike for the Bremen case their number is just omitted?
I hope some savvy user can clarify me. Tomeasy T C 17:20, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The situation with Bremen is somewhat confusing.  The state of Bremen actually consists of two noncontiguous pieces of territory: The city of Bremen and the city of Bremerhaven.  Most of the population in the state is in the City of Bremen.  The City of Bremen's legislature is made up of those members of the State of Bremen's legislature elected from the City; Bremerhaven has its own separately elected legislature.  Berlin is divided into boroughs, and I imagine Hamburg is similarly subdivided, but the subdivisions in those cities is not as important as the state of Bremen's subdivisions. --Jfruh (talk) 17:50, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Believe it or not, but all the things you've said about Bremen were known to me before. Unfortunately, this does not really answer the first question. I will give it a try. If you think I do something wrong just correct it.Tomeasy T C 18:32, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen are all city-states, just Bremen consists of two parts (Bremen and Bremerhaven) while Berlin and Hamburg are divided in to boroughs like Jfruh suggested above. —dima/talk/ 18:56, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Then I assume my edit here was correct. BTW dima, Bremen is also in boroughs, so while is not really correct in your statement. Tomeasy T C 19:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually it was not, because Bremen is not subdivided because of it's noncontiguity, it's just two cities. Caballito (talk) 23:30, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

text: To make this clear: The statement "The city of Bremen is a state in its own right" is simply wrong. The state of Bremen consists of two distinct cities, one of which is the city of Bremen, and the other is not the city of Bremen, nor part of it. That's why Bremen is sometimes called the "two cities state". The city of Bremen and the state of Bremen are two different entites, one being part of the other, but not identical. Caballito (talk) 22:39, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you. I do not know why I did not see it like this before, but I think it is just like you have explained it. Tomeasy T C 01:14, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarifyme: Bremen and city states 

message: Currently we have this statement:
"The description free state (Freistaat) is merely used for historical reasons, when free state was added to the titles of states that were not monarchies."
It does not make much sense in respect for what we are trying to explain. Bavaria and Saxony, two of the modern three Freistaaten (free state), were Monarchies! However, the statement above insinuates rather the opposite. Tomeasy T C 11:24, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Freistaat is a purist-German word for Republic (being "Republik" in Standard German). Most of the länder have called themselves this way after becoming republics. The länder that hold this title today also associate some more independent status, which has no basis in law (but does in feeling and tradition, at least in the case of Bavaria). --84.154.80.173 (talk) 20:52, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Try to solve the problem! Did you understand what the problem with the current wording is? Tomeasy T C 23:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

text: Ok, I gave it a try. Could some native speaker please look after it? I knew why I just restored an older wording last time ... --Caballito (talk) 11:46, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I think the logical trap that existed in the previous wording is now circumvented. Tomeasy T C 12:27, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Freistaat 

message: Mecklenburg isn't translated ADAIK but Vorpommern is either Western Pomerania, Hither Pomerania (?) or Pomerania minor.  We should put either (or an asterisk with a note) on the map.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.97.245.5 (talk) 06:32, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vorpommern 

message: Hi, haven't read the article in depth as the table held all the information I needed - but does anyone know what the background colours of the rows represent? It's certainly not clear, could this be made more obvious? curlybap 19:05, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Which table do you mean? Tomeasy T C 13:59, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  This one... but I just realised (when I looked at it without sorting it) that it's just alternate. So nevermind, I'm just being silly again. curlybap 23:56, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table colourings 

message: Has the German state of Bremen a capital? --88.77.252.147 (talk) 13:05, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no de jure capital, though the city of Bremen is often considered to be de facto capital. --Caballito (talk) 17:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capital of the state of Bremen 

message: The best and most accurate term is federal-states used both by the German Federal and Austrian Federal Govts. when dealing with the Laender in the English Language! Calling them states is okay but technically federal-states suits the bill better making them a uniquely German/Austrian not like the case in the USA or Australia.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.82.24.196 (talk) 00:15, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how you're defining "federal state", but if you mean constituent states of a federation, that is exactly what the states of the USA and Australia are. I fail to see any major differences between the two groups of states within their respective federations. In general English, a "federal state" is the federation itself, while a "federated state" is a constituent state of a federation. To my knowledge, the 16 Laender of Germany are not 16 separate federations under a larger federation in any real sense. - BilCat (talk) 05:42, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Correct. Wikipedia has: A federated state (often referred to simply as a state) is a territorial  and constitutional community forming part of a federal union.[1]  Such states differ from sovereign states, in that they have transferred a portion of their sovereign powers to a federal government.[2]  A federated state holds administrative jurisdiction over a defined geographic territory and is a form of regional government.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.221.239.211 (talk) 08:33, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

text: Uh, no. "Federal-state" is not "the best and most accurate political science term you are going to find" in English. No one calls a state of the US or Australia a "federal-state" - it's just "state", and it only seems to cause confusions with German speakers with a poor understanding of English, not fluent English speakers. - BilCat (talk) 14:58, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a clear recommendatiopn by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:  Do not translate "Land" / "Laender" into whatever language.  "State" is definitely inappropriate. Therefore, the correct term in English would be "the German Laender" etc.  Similarly to the French Departements (sic), that also remain untranslated. --195.200.70.39 (talk) 13:22, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  correct usage of the term 

message: IMHO the correct title of the article should be Länder of Germany. --194.95.119.139 (talk) 13:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Why? It's better not to mix languages in titles. - BilCat (talk) 14:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  correct title of the article: [[Länder of Germany]] 

message: I've removed the following text from this artile and the affected state articles, which was added by an IP: 
:Hesse, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia are the states whose most of their territories continually belonged to the different incarnations of the German state from the 18th to the 20th century: the Holy Roman Empire, the Rhine, German and North German confederations, the German Empire, and the Weimar, Nazi and West Germany. These states were also mostly part of the Zollverein between 1851 and 1919 and of the Kingdom and Free State of Prussia between 1866 and 1935.
I wonder what's that supposed to mean? And to make that clear: All of present day Germany, except the northern part of Schleswig-Holstein, has been part of any incarnation of "the" German state (Holy Roman Empire, German Confederation, German Empire (both 1849 amd 1871), Weimar, Nazi Germany, and Federal Republic since 1990), except when under French occzpation. Neither the North German Confederation nor the Federal Republic until 1990 was "the" German state, and both always considered all of present day Germany to also be "Germany". --Caballito (talk) 15:38, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: All those successions of territorial entities cannot be called state successions: the HRE was no sovereign state from 1648 till it's end in 1806. The member states ('territories' from a viewpoint of continuity from a time prior to 1648) were largely sovereign. This was even more so the case for the German Confederation, which was and had never been intended to be a state. The Imperial Diet (Reichstag) at Regensburg and the Federal Diet (Bundestag) at Frankfurt were mere "interstate" (not to say "international") organizations, like modern-day UN or EU. Vis-à-vis the GDR, the old FRG can be considered the only German state, as the GDR was an oppressive, un-free state: it did in no way represent the will of its people (see 1953 or 1955). --109.45.3.55 (talk) 15:40, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "different incarnations of the German state" 

message: Even after reading the article, either I'm just really dense or it really isn't explained very well... but which came first: the States or the German Federal gov't?
I mean, the bit about how all the different German Kingdoms, Duchies, etc, all united to pool their power into the German Empire is clear. And how each of those regions, after WW1 and the German Revolution, again pooled their power into their new Republic which then brought Hitler into power, who then absorbed the legal power that those smaller gov'ts gave him.
But what I don't seem to understand is... after WW2, the (Western) Allies decided to create the German States as listed in this article.  Does this mean that, technically, during Occupation and before the 1949 establishment of the FRG, there was a period when a "German nation" ceased to exist, and thus the only legal governments run by German people themselves were the State governments? And was it that those new States who then selected representatives to work on the Basic Law, or were the States empowered in the first place by the Basic Law and that the way the Allies designed each State was merely a "suggestion"?
Furthermore, what are the current politics of each State like? Is there a "State vs Feds" angle like in the US, or is the German Federal gov't far more centralized (relatively speaking) than the US Federal gov't (specifically, is there a "Tenth Amendment"-ish statement in the Basic Law)? Do States compete with one another and/or have a strong sense of independence separate from the Federal gov't, or are the states closer to simple administrative units versus "independent countries"? Do any States have a history of threatening to secede from Germany (even if it's commonly known to be from a fringe group bellyaching)?
The article does explain a lot about how each States general function, but—basically—I don't think it explains much about the relationship of each State with the German Federal gov't. Again, maybe I'm just not reading between the lines properly or so, but maybe these things could be added or clarified to the article? What do you think? -- 76.14.41.180 (talk) 19:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Chicken or the Egg"/"State or the Federal Gov't"; which came first? 

message: Why is the main map at the top of the article positioned on the left? It looks really crammed together with the table of contents and the article header. Usually, such a map would be on the top right of an article, like an infobox. -- Imladros (talk) 16:15, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map position 

message: This article doesn't really need an infobox, although I am not completely opposed to an addition. But the recently added infobox has several flaws, that should be discussed/fixed first:
*Most distracting, the map is not properly centered, but left-aligned. I am afraid that's a problem between the infobox design and the map template's design. One of those templates (or probably both) could use improving (from an HTML expert) to allow better positioning and alignment in articles.
*The population and size range parameter don't add value to the infobox (imo). They are purely statistical values, which are already covered and easily accessible in the states table.
*The used terminology for states in English and German should be clarified, and just listing all alternatives at the top without any context looks odd and is prone to confuse casual readers.
Point 2 and 3 could probably be solved with a better parameter usage, point 1 needs someone to look into the templates (alternatively the map alone could be added to the right to add a graphical lead component). I have removed the infobox for now pending further discussion and improvements. GermanJoe (talk) 18:33, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The map appears to be centered on my browser, so it's probably not a wide-spread issue, certainly not worth removing the infobox. The population ranges are used at the U.S. state article also, so that seems fine to me. I that the aalternatives is confusing, and that's easily removed. Therefore I'm restoring the infobox. - BilCat (talk) 21:41, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for fixing the alt names . Not a big fan of that range information, but let's wait for more opinions. If nobody else volunteers, I'll probably ask at WP:VPT, if someone more experienced can look into the template code about that last display problem. It could be either the infobox or the map or my settings - in any case it's too complex for me :). GermanJoe (talk) 21:57, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: If the map centering issue is widespread across a range of browsers, then I'd suggest moving the map out of the infobox. - BilCat (talk) 22:19, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox 

message: The sentence "Germany consists of 16 Länder" is wrong! It has to be: 16 German Länder are federated as Federal Republic of Germany. The wrong term means a top down view, the later a bottom up view. The lender are no provinces of the Federal Republic but consists it. The German federated states could exist without the federal republic, but the federation could not exist without the German states!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.37.104.194 (talk) 08:31, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: 91.37, this is a "chicken and egg" argument. In my opinion, the view you are putting forward takes, a priori, a view that the present länder preceded the federal constitution, which supposes the pre-existence of each länd as an independent/quasi-independent state, well before the BRD. While this is a normal implication of some, perhaps most, federal constitutions (i.e. where some, or even all, constituent states previously had independence), it is just as often a legal fiction that ignores the actual history. Put simply, the länder were  not previously independent, before the original BRD (a.k.a. West Germany), let alone the re-united Germany, post-1990 – for which new lander were created out of the old DDR (a.k.a. East Germany). If your argument is that the present länder are the continuations/heirs of centuries-old entities (such as kingdoms), that is an even more dubious assumption, in my opinion (given the geographical and political discontinuities between the various constituents of Weimar Germany in 1933 and the länder of the BRD). It is more accurate to say that the western länder were created simultaneously with the BRD.
Grant | Talk 03:07, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong term 

message: The sourcing problem is obvious for an article of this length. For example, the entire "history" section has only one inline citation. It's really well written and I'm sure all the reference to law and historical events had to come from somewhere. Just hope that it's not copy-pasted from an academic paper somewhere and we had to delete it...
Also, major reorganization needed! I tried to move paragraphs 3 and 4 to the relevant sections, but too much info overlaps so I couldn't fit it in the chronological order. I suggest moving all legal references out of "history" section and streamline it into subsections: pre-WWII, West Germany, post-reuni.
I can really use a subject-level expert editor here. Any thoughts? --Nemoschool (talk) 09:35, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I also think a lot of this prose should be deleted in favor of redirects to other articles - especially parts about the history of the states, the article seems to be redundant (says the same thing twice in different sections), and the extensive discussion of the history of states on this page makes the page hard to read. I think a lot of this information (especially pre-, say, 1945) could better be used deleted from here and instead put on a separate page (if it isnt already there). What do you think? QueensanditsCrazy (talk) 17:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need more citations and reorganization 

message: This talk page is getting long with old discussions - can we archive it somehow? QueensanditsCrazy (talk) 17:00, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive these discussions? 

message: "De facto" gets a lot of sloppy usage. Strictly speaking, it mean the opposite of "de jure" but people tend to use it more vaguely. I removed a bunch of these from States of Germany, but an anonymous editor put two of them back. These refer to the Nazi abolition of the lander and the Federal Republic's according West Berlin the status of a state. The editor insists that neither are dejure. That is incorrect.
The lander were abolished under the Act Establishing the Identity of the Länder with the Reich. This law was passed without being approved by the Reichstag, but it was still a valid law, enact using Hitler's emergency powers.
The status of West Berlin before reunification was more complicated. Source. The Federal Republic considered it their territory, something the Four Powers never recognized. The Soviets flatly denied the legality of this status, while the other 3 Powers sort of winked at it. West Berlin was a sort of quasi-state under Federal law, but "quasi" is not the same thing as "de facto". Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 21:57, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not "De Facto" 

message: Hello, in the first paragraph, I read: "Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen (with its seaport exclave, Bremerhaven) are called Stadtstaaten ("city-states"), while the other thirteen states are called Flächenländer ("area states") and include Bavaria, Saxony, and Thuringia which describe themselves as Freistaaten ("free states")." Isn't this a rather insignificant information so early in the lead? Ziko (talk) 10:35, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction