Talk:Germany/Archive 7

message: We all know the meaning of the American flag and what the stars and bars represent.  But does Germanys flag have a meaning..... do the colors symbolize anything.  If anyone knows, please tell me.
:There are lots of different explanations, ranging from uniform colors (black with red revers and gold buttons) to coloring of documents (black with golden ornaments where red was used as carrying color for gold) to historical sources to the claim "from dark night through bloody battle to golden freedom". The German Wikipedia has an article about this de:Schwarz-Rot-Gold (automated translation to English: ) -- Chrysalis 03:02, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning of the German Colors? 

message: I've added Felix Klein to the list of mathematicians.
Stefan Udrea 11:32, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Felix Klein 

message: Currently it says the form of government is "Federal Republic", whereas the United States page says "Democratic Federal Republic". Germany is hardly any less of a democracy than the USA. Either the US page or this one should be changed.
: the form of government is a selfgiven by the respective governments and are not objective. Germany is a "Democratic-Parliamentary Federal And Constitutional State", USA is ostensible a "Praesidial Federal Republic". in a critical view the form in the USA is a plutocratic, Hegel-based Federal Republic represented by the president.
: Which is sort of funny, since many Americans insist that "the US is a Republic, not a Democracy". Lars T. 12:34, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Democracy? 

message: The expelled aren't counted only from those regions that belonged to German pre 1939, they are counted also from colonists settled in areas conqured after 1939 by Nazi regime.
The number of 2milion of dead isn't confirmed.It actually is the number of people who didn't register.Some German historians claim the number of dead is much lower (500.000).Similiar counts in other regions (Yugoslavia) after vertification have halfed the number.
Other regions-Poland and Chechoslovakia weren't the only places Germans were expelled from.
Saying that the people means killed people isn't right, since we don't know if they have been killed, some of them likely fell to disease and famine that plagued postwar Europe.--Molobo 22:50, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, by naming "killed" to "lose their life" (euphemism), you'll help to make the article more neutral. Funny it didn't work on Anti-Polonism or any other article you, your banned friend Witkacy, or Space Cadet (who called Chris a nazi) touched. There are really reasons why Shauri titled you anti-German ultranationalists.NightBeAsT 23:12, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

text: No, I called you that for posting false information on the subject. As if there wasn't enough true info on the many SS warcrimes... there is no need to make fantastic fabrications like your claim of blaming the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend of the Malmedy massacre, when in fact it was commited by members of the 1th SS Panzergrenadier Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler; or the completely false statement that Kurt Meyer's liberation "stirred enourmous outrage among the public" . But it looks like simply pointing out your mistakes is enough to be labelled a "right wing propagandist", like you did to a respected and serious editor like Ansbachdragoner. Do some reading before posting - it'll help your credibility. Shauri  13:10, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: True, we should use the same word which was used for killing Jews deliberately and illegally: to "systematically murder" and that also word also included Jews (because the nazis too had Jews die of not giving them food or water). Whatever you try to propagate and cover with euphemisms: before you cannot come up with totally reliable sources and manage to convince most people who care here, I'll oppose your edits because I know your edits.Night-night.NightBeAsT 23:41, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Post war population transfer

message: I really don´t want to get involved in all this childish bickering, but do you think that one sentence is really enough to cover the first world war?? IsarSteve 13:18, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: WTF does this have to do with post WW2 population transfers and territorial losses?  Feldmarschall 17:20, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Isar, the entire history section seems to me to have this problem. Before the 19th century, the section summarises decades and also some centuries with an extremely small number of words - for example the Thirty Years War, an extremely long war compared to WW1 or 2 and I think it was also the most devasting war for the German population (not in absolute but in relative numbers (deaths/total-number-of-people)).NightBeAsT 15:08, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

text: that´s a good point but I still think that WW2 then after that WW1 have more relevance to how and why Germany is what it is today than the thity years war does..IsarSteve 12:09, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what I was trying to discuss some paragraphs above. Yet I'm not fully convinced by that comment but it sounds very logical and summarises my point of view and would explain the summaries of the history of Germany by the Duden and some more unknown encyclopeadia of world history. I've always excelled in history but that certainly doesn't make me a historian. So, well, I don't know. Is there maybe a good site on Wikipedia explaining how history sections should be structured?NightBeAsT 18:51, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: More info on WW1?

message: Since the section is constantly reverted I added POV tag.Germans weren't transfered solely from "German Provinces".They were also transfered also from territories of Soviet Union, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Poland that weren't German provinces.Furthermore Germans who were part of settlement made by Nazi authorities or moved into occupied territories after 1939 are counted also as expelled.The current formulation "from German provinces" is misleading.I propose to use simple 
"The war resulted in the death of some seven million Germans, large territorial losses and the expulsion of Germans" with the link to the relevant article, where the process of population transfer is fully explained.The wording "German provinces" either implies that Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia were all German provinces(and that would be too absurd) or ignores Germans moved from other regions besides those belonging to Germany prior 1939.--Molobo 16:46, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agrreed and done. -83.129.6.207 02:09, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I also removed your POV-tag, which seems to have be added to the wrong section. I hope this was OK. -83.129.6.207 02:15, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you.--Molobo 17:05, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Personall attacks can be deleted at will NB.--Molobo 16:59, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Refactor what you consider to be personal attacks, Mo. And you should not delete comments of wikipaedians that you're engaged in a dispute over because it seems your definition of personal attacks is 'criticism leveled at you'. If you like, you can continue this discussion on my talk page or on yours if you stop deleting criticism too.NightBeAsT 17:57, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Dispute over German Provinces and number of Germans expelled

message: With Germany having elected a new Chancellor and with a new Grand Coalition being recently formed, I think it would be of great benefit for the politics section of this article to recieve a revise. I realise the election was recent but it makes no mention of who the Chancellor is or what they do despite being the head of government.
On that matter, little is mentioned about how the government operates at all. Although the different areas are summarised, virtually nothing is mentioned on how domestic policy is implemented, how parliment is elected, who does what and other important aspects of any political system. - Canderra
The section really does all it is supposed to do in summarising the key information. It does include  a link to the main article for interested readers. Many nations' pages don't mention the names of important figures (it would just be repeating information at the top of the page). As far as I'm aware, Merkel hasn't yet done anything that would warrant a revision of the section. Feldmarschall 10:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Germany has not yet elected a new chancelor. Germany has elected a new federal parliament, which, in turn, will (very likely) elect a new chancelor. I agree with many of your sentiments - it might be a good idea to rewrite it (with the best time probably being after Merkel is electet (if she is)). --Stephan Schulz 10:28, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Chancellor 

message: Please check this quote allegedly said by Churchill: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kaliningrad_Oblast&diff=26377985&oldid=26375207 , if it is real. One user, who does quite nationalist statements and reverts (and calling NPOV to be nationalism and russophobia), keeps adding it to Kaliningrad Oblast article. The only refferance I was able to found is in Russian and the one he gave; if it would be a real quote it would probably be available on more places online; as well, Churchill, unlike Roosevelt, seemed to be less supportive for partitioning of East Prussia... Furthermore, do we really need quotes in articles?.. Knyaz 09:58, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Please check this

message: "The most infamous atrocity that Nazi Germany had initiated was the persecution and genocide of Jews, Poles, minorities such as gypsies and homosexuals as well as political prisoners throughout occupied Europe."
Atrocity is pure POV,I am not saying it wasn't an atrocity, I'm just saying it isn't neutral.
Dudtz 11/6/05 4:48 PM EST
: Then simply come up with a better description. --84.245.183.98 10:26, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: Shouldn't Transportation be moved from "misselenous Topics" to the main content as its own section. Most web-site with infromation regarding countries list Transportation under their main content Gerdbrendel 22:40, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transportation 

message: The article is now the target of POV pushers which seems to have serious problems with Germany and extremely dubious motives for editing this article.
No other country article at Wikipedia has a section called "genocide". There is no such section in Russia, Poland, United States, United Kingdom or Israel. Why? How many people were murdered by the Russians, the Americans or the British? Why is the ethnic cleansing and murder of many Germans/Palestinians not described at length in the Poland and Israel articles? It it self-evident that the same standard must be used for all articles. The history section of this article is intended to outline the history of Germany as a state, not listing every imaginable alleged wrongdoings which has little with the purpose of the section to do. The section on national socialism is already far too long compared to other sections like the HRR section, the "Restoration and revolution" and the "German Empire". It needs to be focused on what is relevant for the history of Germany as a state, not to be further extended. Spending more place on this than the
entire HRR section (covering 1,000 years of history) is outrageous and completely out of proportion. Anti-German smear from dubious POV pushers will be removed. BoroughPeter 03:29, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: First, you have been reverted at least 8 times by at least four different editors, despite many warnings not to continue to act as a vandal, and you should be blocked for violating WP:3RR.  Secondly, the articles on Romania, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, France, and many others mention their role in the Holocaust, it seems strange and badly motivated to argue that there should be no mention of it in the Germany article given its acknowledged role in industrialized mass murder (or what you call an "alleged wrongdoing"), further, distasteful though your comparison is, there certainly are sections on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the article in Israel.  Your decision to repeatedly delete every mention of the Holocaust as POV pushing is not acceptable, and not in line with consensus. --Goodoldpolonius2 03:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

text: It is often claimed but untrue that the much shorter history section in the the US article does not include the distruction of the Indian Nations. We have gone through this many times before. People just make assumptions based on their own likes and dislikes and never bother to check. The holocaust also appears in the article on the Netherlands, which had just over 100.000 of its Jews murdered in Germany and Poland. All their names are available on the web. gidonb 19:04, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smear section 

message: This page has been vandalized by 24.235.144.129 (diff). Please could somebody check if his changes have survived in the current version and remove them. Cacycle 20:17, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This detailed info does not belong in the main article on Germany. Please insert it elsewhere where it is more on-topic. The "History" section is too long already. Your revert also reinserted linkspam. I have reverted back to Str1977.Kusma (talk) 01:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please check for vandalism 

message: "Racism in Germany is a very serious problem. According to a 2003 poll by Infratest, more than 59% of germans think there are "too many foreigners" living in Germany, and 23% agreed that "Jews have too much influence in Germany"."
First of all, racism is a problem everywhere in the world. The quotes come from two different polls, non done by Infratest. Last but not least, similar polls in other countries often show higher numbers. Lars T. 14:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted sentence about racism 

message: I refer editors if concerned at my recent changes to sourceing recently discussed on Holocaust, Reichstag Fire Decree, Enabling Act and in my history.
I source thses statements from  William L.Shirer, Edgar Ansel Mowrer,The Nuremberg Trials as at the above discussions, Arthur Rosenberg ,ditto . Thankyou.
EffK 12:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Weimar Republic EffK Edits

message: Jews believe 6 million people died during WWII but that figure is proved to be false. In 1995, Auschwitz changed it plaque at the museum to read "1 million" jews died there, replacing the previous plaque that stated 4 million jews died there. A difference of 3 million people. So jews typical 6 million figure is now only 3, yet they continue to use 6 million.
Im not a revisionist, I just want the truth. And Im embarrassed Jews keep trying to change history to suit their needs. America wouldnt be in this war with muslims if Jews didnt control everything.
:From the Auschwitz article:
::For many years, a memorial plaque placed at the camp by the Soviet authorities and the Polish communist government stated that 4 million people had been murdered at Auschwitz. This number was never taken seriously by Western historians, and was never used in any of the calculations of the death toll at Auschwitz (which have generally remained consistantly around 1-1.5 million for the last sixty years) or for the total deaths in the Holocaust as a whole. After the collapse of the Communist government, the plaque was removed and the official death toll given as 1.1 million. Holocaust deniers have attempted to use this change as propaganda, in the words of Nizkor: "Deniers often use the "Four Million Variant" as a stepping stone to leap from an apparent contradiction to the idea that the Holocaust was a hoax, again perpetrated by a conspiracy. They hope to discredit historians by making them seem inconsistent. If they can't keep their numbers straight, their reasoning goes, how can we say that their evidence for the Holocaust is credible? One must wonder which historians they speak of, as most have been remarkably consistent in their estimates of a million or so dead. In short, all of the denier's blustering about the "Four Million Variant" is a specious attempt to envelope the reader into their web of deceit, and it can be discarded after the most rudimentary examination of published histories.
:And I am blocking you for 24 hours, lay off the anti-Semitism when you come back. --Goodoldpolonius2 00:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jewish False Numbers 

message: Why is France (in his article) formed with the treaty of Verdun and Germany with the Franco-Prussian-War? Can you explain me the choise of the date, please? If I understand the thesis of German Historian Heinrich August Winkler well, todays Germany is formed in 1990 with the Reunification.
:France has a continous history of statehood since the middle ages. Central authority waxed and waned, but always remained reasonably strong. Germany has a continous ethnic identity for about the same period of time. But the eastern part of Charlemagne's realm disintegrated into independend cities and states fairly soon. Germany only reconsolidated into a single, coherent state in 1871 with the formation of the German Reich - previously it was a collection of states. There is no legal or organisatorial continuation from an older German state (there is some from Prussia, though). As for the thesis that Germany was only formed in 1990, that is one possible view, but not a very useful one. The GDR joined the FRG, governed by the FRG constitution. There is a clear continuation of FRG constitutional institutions. --Stephan Schulz 13:16, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Formation of Germany

message: I noticed the article places per capita GDP at 18th place, just ahead of the Uk, wheras the actual figures quoted place it just behind the UK. There is a discrepancy between the country articles and the article on list of countries by GDP,  where the rankings are listed. Sandpiper 12:20, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  GDP 

message: "The German school system consists of an elementary school (Grundschule) where pupils go for 4 years (1.-4. grade) after that, in some states, they go to a secondary school where they learn English, French or Latin as their first foreign language (erste Fremdsprache).(...)"
only very few states in germany have the system with secondary schools....
Yeus 12:14, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  school system 

message: Of countries located wholly within Europe, Germany borders the most countries:  Denmark, Netherlands, Beglium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, Czechia and Poland (that's 9).  In Europe, Russia borders the wholly European countries of Norway, Finland, Eesti, Lātvija, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine (that's 8).  However, Russia is only partially in Europe, one potential argument in favor of Germany.  That said, Russia also borders 3 countries whose territory is, like Russia's, partially in Europe:  Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan (that's a total of 11).  Other than that, Russia also has land borders with China, Mongolia and North Korea, for a total of 14 countries bordered by Russia.  To boot, Russia has not insignificant maritime boundaries with the U.S. and Japan.  China, uninterestingly enough, also has land borders with 14 countries.  Looks like nobody's gonna win that particular pissing match.  :-) Tomertalk 10:42, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I dealt with this incorrect statement in the past, but it re-emerged. Also I took out the alleged "fact" that Germany is on THE crossroads of Europe. This is totally POV, good for a PR bulletin when trying to attract business, but to the best of my knowledge there are MANY crossroads in Europe. gidonb 18:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed.  I count three.  At least. ;-) Tomertalk 23:30, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I asked this once at Talk:Russia, and now that the term has come up again, I'll ask it again here: What precisely is a "maritime boundary"? Is there some agreed-upon definition by which Russia has a maritime boundary with Japan and the U.S. but not with, say, Canada (over the Arctic Ocean) or Bulgaria (over the Black Sea)? --Angr (t·c) 17:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll take a stab at this... :-)  If you dig through the CIA World Factbook, looking at "Maritime claims" in each country's article, most countries' maritime claims hold "territorial waters" to be 12km or 12 mi offshore, some claim as much as 200 mi. "exclusive economic zones" as well, whatever that means, precisely.  This is the case with Russia.  Russia comes closest to Bulgaria about 500 mi. across the Black Sea, and about 250 mi., I think, from Turkey.  The closest Russia comes to Canada is about 1000 mi.  Hokkaido, on the other hand, is just 13 mi. from the southern Kurils, and while Russia's territorial seas are 12 km. out, Japan's are 12 nautical miles, which is 13.82 miles...meaning that parts of the southernmost of the Kurils would be within Japan's national waters, except that there is an agreement delineating just where the "maritime boundary" between Hokkaido and the Kurils lies.  The Diomede Islands, on the other hand, are 1.8 mi. apart.  Big Diomede is the easternmost point in Russia, and Little Diomede, 1.8 mi. to its east, is part of Alaska.  Since the territorial seas of the US and Russia are both significantly greater than 0.9 mi., an international border has to be drawn in the water. :-)  Any help?  Tomertalk 23:20, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, that's roughly what I said on Talk:Russia would be my definition if anyone asked me. What I don't know is whether there is an internationally agreed-upon definition of "maritime border", or if it's just an intuitive kinda thing. --Angr (t·c) 06:42, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claim to border the most countries and claim to be on THE crossroads of Europe

message: Is the genocide of the Herero people irrelevant to this article, just because an editor has hardly heard of it. I doubt whether this is a valid criterium. The following text was twice removed by the same editor and I believe it is relevant to a balanced reading of German history (some of my ancestors were Germans themselves). The very short text:
In the years 1904-1907 Germans killed most of the Herero population of German South-West Africa in the Herero Genocide. 
I believe there is lots of stuff in the article that is far less relevant and am willing to make some place if necessary. Is genocide irrelevant when Africans get murdered? I hope not. gidonb 16:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to me like a very sudden and specific piece of information in a paragraph that otherwise has no mention of Germany's overseas colonies at the time. It's not irrelevant, but it has no context. Also, it would be better to say who specifically was responsible for the massacre rather than saying simply "Germans". --Angr (t·c) 17:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: For a very general article like this one, it's probably better to give a rough sketch of the puzzle than a single piece of it. I do think a mention of German colonization of Africa, East Asia, and Oceania is worth mentioning in the section on the German Empire, and some more detail can be added at German Empire. There's more discussion of German colonialism at History of Germany#Wilhelminian Era too. Ideally there could even be an article on German colonization of Africa. --Angr (t·c) 18:01, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Angr, thank you for referring me to this article, from where this whole history seems to be omitted. I will put a longer version in the German Empire article and a short version in this article. If you have any suggestion for improvements in the wording of my very short line above, I will be much obliged. Regards, gidonb 18:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice try, esp the ridiculously sharp edit summary "why blown out of proportion. because they are "only" Africans?". No, I'm no racist. Should I turn the table now and ask whether your emphasis on what is "is considered one of the worst atrocities in German colonial history " in spite of little mention, if any, in history books on German history is not anti-German POV-pushing? Not to miss the topic, why is the herero genocide more noteworthy than the Emser Depeche, Kulturkampf, social law legislation and the fight against Socialists, fleet rivalry with England, Schlieffenplan, Burgfrieden, etc which are all excluded for reasons of lack of importance from the German History section? In fact the aforementioned events are pretty important to understanding the history of Germany, but is the genocide? And that German Empire section is large, given that the last paragraph of Restoration and Revolution actually belongs to it too. And even if you want to shift the focus from Germany to its former colonies, why is the genocide more important than the Berlin Conference, (in Europe, there's also the Congress of Berlin) or the first and Second Moroccan Crisis? Those events are in itself maybe less important but they're more important to the context of imperialistic rivalry and (self-)isolation of Germany. Uprisings and brutal beating downs in colonies are not unique, are they? How many sources on the German Empire include it and how large is the proportion? How many don't? To be a perfectly secondary source, the way I see it not only facts should conform to primary sources but also impressions and the proportion of facts should stick close to historical references. Sciurinæ 18:27, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  It may be helpfull to find comparable massacres commited by other colonial powers and see how it's handled in their articles. Also it would be good if we could put it into context, wether it was an unusual singular event like the holocaust or something that all colonial powers did / would have done (was it special German or colonial behaviour). If it was more colonial behaviour the place for it would certainly be an article dealing with the German colonies. That Germany was a colonial power is already mentioned here, further details should only be added if they are specificly German (e.g. was a relativly cruel colonial power) or have an impact on todays Germany. Nevfennas 19:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  United Kingdom says things like "The Act of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland" and "At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one quarter of the Earth's surface and encompassed a third of its population". No mention at all of anything that could make the UK look bad in any way. Similar France. United States is a little more open: "In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S., with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations had been reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force." Lars T. 21:50, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I will start with the inclusion in the article that Angr kindly suggested and will continue the discussion here about a short inclusion of some sort in this article. Here again Angr gave a first lead on the way. I am open to additional suggestions. gidonb 19:20, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I do not think that a cruel colonial policy is notable enough to be mentioned here. Most colonial powers were cruel and it seems that the main reason why the Herero died was because of the lack of resources of the land in which they lived. Andries 12:37, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The Genocide of the Hereros

message: The following was written under the heading "Definition":
:Officially the term "Deutschland" since 1945 does not describe the country (the FRG)any more but the landscape including the territories seceded to Poland and the Soviet Union. But, however, "Germany" is often used instead of "The Federal Republic of Germany".
This seems like a somewhat controversial statement, and certainly one that I wouldn't like to have in the article without ample verification, so I'm moving here in the meantime. --Angr (t·c) 14:10, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I took my Meyers Großes Handlexikon off the shelf, looked up "Deutschland", and sure enough, there was an article about the Bundesrepublik. No separate article on "Deutschland" as a "landscape" including pre-1937 territories now in Poland and Russia. :de:Deutschland is also about the Bundesrepublik. And your claim that "Deutschland" officially refers to the pre-1937 territories is still unsubstantiated. The fact that "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" is the official name does not mean that "Deutschland" officially refers to something else. --Angr (t·c) 20:55, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I seem to vaguely recall something about the BRD not officially recognizing the Oder-Neiße line as Germany's eastern border until more or less the time of reunification. Also, before reunification, there was no official name for the BRD and the DDR considered together as a unit, quite apart from the Silesia/Pomerania/East Prussia question. But now there is only one state using the name Deutschland, and it officially recognizes the Oder-Neiße line as its eastern border, so I think it's safe to say that since 1990, Deutschland and Bundesrepublik Deutschland have referred to the same entity, although this was previously not so. --Angr (t·c) 22:30, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I recall, the BRD didn't have normal relations with any Warsaw Pact countries prior to reunification, which mootifies any question about formal recognition by the BRD of the Oder-Niesse Line, not only because it was a boundary with Poland, a Warsaw Pact country, but also because the Oder and Niesse never even approach the former BRD, so such a boundary recognition would have been analogous to Canada recognizing the Rio Grande as the formal boundary between the US and Mexico.  That said, there was, afaik, a de facto acceptance oby the BRD that upon unification, the international boundaries of the DDR would not be altered, other than to incorporate its territory into the BRD.  I'm not exactly certain if there's a dispute here about this matter, but I think it should be a fairly easy matter to obtain documentation speaking to the issue...  Tomertalk 08:41, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

text: That said, according to the definition of the dtv-Lexikon, Elsaß-Lotringen, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, parts of Belgium and the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Hungary, as well as most of Austria and Switzerland are technically "Deutschland"...in fact, if you count descendants of German speakers and discount the "central europe" bit, most of the northern US, as well as large parts of Texas, are also "Deutschland".  I don't think anyone honestly believes this to be the case, except perhaps for a few people who wish history hadn't happened the way it has...and would move therefore to discount, at the very least, the dtv-Lexikon's definition of "Deutschland", if not the entire dtv-Lexikon as a whole, as a reliable source.  Tomertalk 08:51, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "so such a boundary recognition would have been analogous to Canada recognizing the Rio Grande as the formal boundary between the US and Mexico". Not quite; Canada regards the United States as an independent sovereign state. The BRD never regarded the DDR as one; it was considered a part of Germany occupied by the Soviets. I have German atlases from the 1970s where the 1937 borders are still shown as dotted lines inside Poland, and the pre-1937 territories are included on maps of things like climate and agriculture in Germany. This isn't the case in my atlases from the 1990s. West German newspapers usually called East Germany "die Sowjetzone" (or just "die Zone" for short) until the late sixties, when they started using "DDR" (usually with "scare quotes" or modified with "so-called", at least at first). Some also used "Westdeutschland" for the BRD, "Mitteldeutschland" for the DDR, and "Ostdeutschland" for Silesia/Pomerania/East Prussia. Even the abbreviation BRD was often avoided, because (in the words of the dtv-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache) "irgendwann einmal jemand darin ein Wort der DDR und die von der DDR verfolgten politischen Ziele gesehen hat." The significance of the BRD's recognition of the Oder-Neiße line is that now the door is closed on ever having those territories returned to Germany. Before that recognition, it was at least a theoretical possibility that a reunited Germany might seek to get Pomerania/Silesia/East Prussia back from Poland and the USSR. --Angr (t·c) 09:38, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah...I remember it was a big deal, back in '91, that BRD had signed a border agreement w/ Poland, even here in Podunk's local newspaper...As I said tho, I think it had more to do with the fact that the pre-reunification govt didn't have normal relations with any Warsaw Pact countries than with any hope of regaining territories in Ostpreußen, Pomern or Schlesien.  Wait a tic...what's the issue here?  :-p  Tomertalk 13:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved from page