Some editor want to move the article [[die tageszeitung]] to [[Die Tageszeitung]], because, in their opinion, the MoS demands that. I a going to elaborate on [[Talk:Die tageszeitung]]even further why, for someone who is a native German speaker, this sounds like a bad idea, and even if the MoS demands that it would be contrary to common sense - but I can't find the time a.t.m. I think it would be helpful if a few more German-speaking editors could take a look at the issue. [[User:Zara1709|Zara1709]] ([[User talk:Zara1709|talk]]) 12:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Some editor want to move the article [[die tageszeitung]] to [[Die Tageszeitung]], because, in their opinion, the MoS demands that. I a going to elaborate on [[Talk:Die tageszeitung]]even further why, for someone who is a native German speaker, this sounds like a bad idea, and even if the MoS demands that it would be contrary to common sense - but I can't find the time a.t.m. I think it would be helpful if a few more German-speaking editors could take a look at the issue. [[User:Zara1709|Zara1709]] ([[User talk:Zara1709|talk]]) 12:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
:It should be ''die tageszeitung'' since this spelling is part of their self-concept and based on left political ideas they promote. --[[User:Polarlys|Polarlys]] ([[User talk:Polarlys|talk]]) 20:38, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Welcome to the discussion board for German-speaking Wikipedians! Feel free to discuss topics and articles of interest in either English or German. As this is the English-speaking Wikipedia, discussion in German may be requested for translation for non-German speakers. Happy editing!
Willkommen zum Diskussionsforum der deutschsprachigen Wikipedianer! Hier kannst du auf Deutsch oder auf Englisch über relevante Themen und Artikel diskutieren. Da dies die englische Wikipedia ist, kann jederzeit eine Übersetzung der Diskussion ins Englische angefordert werden. Viel Spaß!
Which date format to use?
There is an ongoing debate at the talk page for WP:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) as to whether to use day-month-year or month-day-year date format in articles with a strong tie to a specific country. The debate has reached the point where the choice is between the format actually used in the country, or dependent on the variety of English used in articles about that country. This is straightforward for countries such as the U.S.A. or the U.K., but problematic when considering countries where English is not an official language. With the removal of date autoformatting, editors will increasingly see dates presented in "raw" form, rather than as set in user preferences. The current proposal is found here. --Pete (talk) 10:44, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of historical information gets repeatedly removed or the wrong country entered, samples from September 6, 2008. Could someone please keep an eye on following items:
Comment: Don't you get tired of doing the same useless edits over and over again and get reverted shortly thereafter? You should know by now that you are editing an article range where content and naming issues easily wage an edit/revert war. As long as you don't
get an account,
source your edits,
use neutral language,
your edits will not withstand. You are repeating to do from what you know does not turn out the way you want without regarding changes in your behavior, please do not think this board is the place to call to arms fellows assisting you in this contraproductive editing - <nichtverkneifenkönn> although I have heard of related boards with this being feature if not function... </nichtverkneifenkönn> Skäpperöd (talk) 07:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sound advice indeed. Unsourced material can be legitimately removed even it is "the truth" - the threshold for inclusion is verifiabilityinreliable sources, not "truth". Getting an account means you can discuss issues about content with us in one place which we can know everyone will see. Taking the advice above helps other editors to help you. Knepflerle (talk) 11:43, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you two honestly believe that not showing an IP would keep said person(s) from constantly reverting, you must be very naive. Said person(s) are the ones deliberately removing maps, books etc all the time along with the reverts. So verifiability, reliable sources are removed as well. You seem to agree to the Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, absurdity from 6 Sep, or is your agreement to that, just because you did not read it too closely? Same goes for Kulmerland, where the categories now state, that it existed from 1226 until 1466.
Anyway, thanks for your 'sound advice' but I would really like someone else, (you two ?), to take over the fact-checking on named article range for a while. It seems, that just about everyone, who has tried it so far, sooner or later has given up in disgust. An Observer 7 Sep 2008
"everyone, who has tried it so far, sooner or later has given up in disgust." - all the more reason for us to try and help you help yourself. You seem more than capable and interested in keeping an eye on these articles yourself; we're just trying to help you edit in a way in which you're much less likely to get continually reverted. Ignore the advice if you wish (and there was more advice there than just getting an account) but your editing life will be easier and the articles better if you heed it. Knepflerle (talk) 19:28, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As just done, I often clean up messy edits by IPs. Yet, there are also users with very old accounts who have messy habits. This diff, taken from above's list, re-introduces『Gdańsk (Danzig)』which is against policy, tries to source the additional "Kingdom of Poland" with a Merriam-Webster book that does not say so, and with an Image:Rzeczpospolita voivodships.png made and uploaded by a Polish user. Also, the absurd claim about his grandfather being born later than Fahrenheit himself is re-introduced for the second time even though it had been pointed out earlier. -- Matthead Discuß 17:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In other words the Prussian people at different times lived in different political entities, but the nationality is Prussian and not Ducal Prussian or Royal Prussian etc, just plain Prussian. An Observer 10 September 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.137.197.97 (talk) 16:00, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The nationality issue is one that I doubt will ever be settled sufficiently here, because editors have various opposing views of how to combine past respective ethnic and territorial "realities" with their today's perception of nationality and citizenship. Same goes for territories, once noble A paid a tribute to noble B, noble A's territory and the people therein are perceived by some as integral part of the supposed "state" of noble B and get assigned a respective nationality, citizenship or whatever. Even the spelling of his name or town. You highlighted some of the territories whose inhabitants posthum became subjects to wiki edit wars. If you have sources for what you mentioned above, go ahead and add referenced material to the respective articles for everyone's benefit. If you just "got a feeling", abstain or you will end up like the flamers of the "cabal that does not exist". Look, you wrote in your statement above, that people of Royal Prussia have a definite Prussian nationality. Noone however can use this information because it is not reliably sourced ("must be true because anon IP said so on another talk page" is not a good edit summary).
Some technical and personal remarks: You keep signing your posts (if at all) with "An Observer" and let the bot sign your comments with your IP, something I feel annoying. You are not an observer, you are an active editor preferring to edit as an anon IP rather then getting an account. With an account, you will not loose your anonymeous status, if it's that you are afraid of. But even without an account, could you be so kind and add the four tildes to your comment (~~~~). If you want to introduce a reference after adding on "controversial" issues, add <ref>Author, ''Title'', page, (year, ISBN)</ref> and your edits will unlikely be immediately reverted. If you edit controversial issues (that is, issues that are not necessarily controversial in real life, but in wikipedia are frequently edited to present a certain POV), use a neutral tone and do not add unnecessary information increasing the edit war potential (eg Magna Germania to WWII-related articles). Regards - Skäpperöd (talk) 16:19, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On Prussian Nationality Daniel Stone: A History of East Central Europe, 2001 write on page 65 Despite the different regimes in Royal Prussia and Ducal Prussia, common Prussian conciousness remained. Nobles and burghers who lived in one part were considered native of the other part as well.
Also see: Prussian Ius indigenatus, Prussian Native- Nationality
Referring to Magna Germania, that is clearly described since about two-thousand years ago as territory (Eastern Central Europe) from approximately east of the Rhine river (Lesser Germania to territory of the Vistula River and around the Baltic Sea, earlier Mare Suebicum or Mare Germanicum. There are plenty of maps showing this and descriptions , from PtolemytoTacitus, to Jordanes a first German map (?) by H. Schedel 1493 and many more.
I limit myself to corrections and add information only, when it is obvious, that a particular Wikipedia user does not know better or adds deliberately POV. Often it is general knowledge outside Wikipedia and should be known by wikipedia users as well. However many times I get surprised to read about the lack of basic knowledge by a number of wiki users or of the deliberate mis-representations.
There is ongoing discussion on the talk page for the Manual of Style (including a series of polls) aimed at achieving consensus on presenting dates in American (October 3, 1990) or International (3 October, 1990) format on an article by article basis. The poll gives full instructions, but briefly the choices are:
C = Option C, the winner of the initial poll and run-off. (US articles have US format dates, international format otherwise)
R = Retain existing wording. (National format for English-speaking countries, no guidance otherwise).
Why would we want to link to IMDb's German user interface? As far as I understand they have the same content, only provide German titles for movies. --AmaltheaTalk15:38, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thinking about it some more, if this is a useful feature then I'd extend the existing imdb templates by an alternative language parameter (de, it, fr) which generates the alternative language link at the end. --AmaltheaTalk15:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, there is a deletion request at Commons for this image which is used within this article on the ground of major factual inaccuracies. The inaccuracies are summarized at the image description, its talk page, and at the deletion request. It would be helpful to remove this image from that article or to substitute it or to express at the deletion request why this image should be kept. Thanks for your help. Cheers, AFBorchert (talk) 13:24, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ethnic conflicts in western Poland until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.
This article is written in a language other than English. If it is intended for readers from the community of that language, it should be contributed to the Wikipedia in that language. See list of Wikipedias.
The topic is relevant. Only few parts need tanslation, but copyediting is needed. Someone should check translation's quality. The Tok Pisin part was indeed incomplete, fragmentary and misleading in comparison with the German article. I have made some changes in few minutes to make it anyway readable. - Elysander (talk) 14:35, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To WerWil: Ah, I see, yes it's the wrong tag (I didn't find a better one, however, but did no extensive search). Nevertheless, in it's first version the article was a bad machine translation, wrong layout, and also the machine translation translated all German words which are the base of the foreingn loanwords into English – that has to be corrected. See also WP:Pages needing translation into English#Germanism (linguistics). A large part of the sections are already corrected by me and other wikipedians. --Cyfal (talk) 10:28, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed all references to Finnish from this article since all of the so-called Germanisms were actually loan words from Swedish. This article also suffers from a lack of distinction between words related between languages, loan words, etc., instead chalking each and every occurence up to the German language. Rather like saying that the English word water is a Germanism... -Yupik (talk) 11:31, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ernst von Pfuel
Ernst von Pfuel needs some updating, as the short English article is quite different from the German one. For example: Pfuel led the Prussian Army during the suppression of the Greater Poland Uprising (1848). That article, now nominated for deletion, claims this happened "after Polish victories in the battles of Miłosław and Sokołów". -- Matthead Discuß 02:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A ridiculous discussion without sense and sensiblity! A master example for today's en:wikipedia's Irrungen und Wirrungen. Obviously the aim justify all means. ;) German history is a complicated one but it shouldn't be handled on this silly and clueless way. Elysander (talk) 12:35, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Besides the highly doubtful naming of the article West Germany, many categories have been created claiming to describe something "West German", as an opposite to both "East German" and "German". For example, here are some (not all) of the categories applied to the football player Arno Steffenhagen:
What it "insinuates" is that the Federal Republic of Germany of 1949-1990 was and continues to be referred to as West Germany in the vast majority of English language sources. Yes it's idiosyncratic, yes it's inconsistent but it happened.
Look at this - even Helmut Schmidt writing in English for a special report for the Times referred to the then inhabitants of the FRG as West Germans. He obviously must share the same confusion on the issue that all English speakers do. Knepflerle (talk) 01:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We're still quite inconsistent -- List of German foreign ministers assumes that the FRG was "Germany" even before 1990, and the GDR some other country, while our sports coverage usually pretends that Germany, the FRG and the GDR are three separate countries. But as Knepflerle says, it is general English usage that is inconsistent. Partly to blame may be the word "reunification" for "the states of the GDR became states of the FRG". Kusma (talk) 11:03, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And the inconsistency has no easy solution, that I can see. When I studied the government of the FRG in the 1970s in the US, we were taught (incorrectly) that Article 146 would "kick in" in the event of reunification, and that a new state would thus be created. I was quite surprised when the FRG basically annexed the GDR, but as User:Kusma points out, this is the crux of the problem. In colloquial usage, nearly everyone sees this as a "two became one" event, which it was not, at all. Unschool05:41, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There's something else going on. Some users attack the concept "West Germany" on formal grounds (with a rather bizarre line of arguments), they would prefer to see the terms "German" and "Germany" used instead in all places. This is highly problematic as not only was "West Germany" used colloquially in English (and even "Westdeutschland" in German), but it also is highly confusing as there would be no distinction to united Germany, and ignores the fact that the then Federal Republic only covered part of the territory we know as Germany today. Anorak2 (talk) 13:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
False analogy. Germany was divided into two states, each of whom used the label "German" in its official name, each of whom had a German national identity and each of whom strived to incorporate the other state at one time. It is illogical to reserve the term "Germany" only two one of these two entities, even though they appeared and behaved rather symmetrically. Anorak2 (talk) 09:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia as an encyclopedia does reflect reality, not construct it. As there never was a country "West Germany" separate from "Germany", we can't invent it for what ever purpose. Of course, the part of Germany that was covered by the authority of the German government from 1949 through 1990 was called "West Germany" for various purposes, but it still was identical with "Germany". So we can't have a separate category-tree for it. --h-stt!?14:49, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, it wasn't identical with Germany. In this time Germany consists of the FRG, the GDR and West Berlin. Similar cases with Korea, Vietnam, Yemen. --Obersachse (talk) 22:42, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Are you familiar with constitutional and international law? I presented the universally accepted formal situation above. --h-stt!?12:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean there never was a country "West Germany" separate from "Germany". What the hell is that supposed to mean? West Germany was part of Germany, but not all of it. What is so difficult to understand? It is you who is trying to construct something. There were two German states during a period of time, both of whom explicitly claimed German national identity for themselves. How do you suggest to reflect this fact in their names? I suggest to call both of them "Germany" and to attach prefixes according to geographical directions for distinction. Other suggestions? Anorak2 (talk) 09:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia as an encyclopedia does reflect reality, not construct it.
Yes, this is true. But the reality that we reflect includes usage. It is clear that much of the English-speaking world (and at least some of the German-speaking world) refer to the FRG from 1949-1990 as "West Germany". To obliterate such references would constitute a backwards-form of original research. Unschool07:38, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"West Germany" was only a label for the state "Germany". Used for convenience, to distinguish it from "East Germany". But as there was and is an unbroken continuity of the German state from 1871 until today, it would be lunatic to create a separate category tree for this "West Germany". --h-stt!?12:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry. I am confused. Between 1949 and 1990 there were two German States. How could one of this be identical whith the whole? --WerWil (talk) 13:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Noboy would question the category People from Idaho, because we have the category People from the US, so the question why we have West Germany is in that case similar it is ther to improve geographical resolution. The second point is for most of the people the differnce in life between being member of the catgory People form BRD (which is identical to that of People from West Germany) and being member of the catgory People form GDR (which is identical to that of People from East Germany) is so huge that this categories group people with similar surrounding problems. --Stone (talk) 07:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We have general problems with categories that are intersections of "people from..." and "people by occupation" or similar categories. For "People from..." we usually use the political division they were born in (although inconsistently; some princes of Coburg who were born in Saxe-Coburg are classified as having been born in Bavaria). That works more or less for the birth categories, but gets pretty silly when we create categories for two things at once. In other words, having separate "German", "West German" and "East German" expatriate categories is probably not very useful. But then, our category system isn't very useful. Kusma (talk) 10:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly, this blatant arbitrariness makes me sick. Do you people really want to write an encyclopedia by echoing tabloid headlines and Scheisshausparolen? Do widespread misconceptions take precedence over facts, or to they become facts by frequent misuse? "The FRG basically annexed the GDR" - and the WTC towers basically annexed Boeings?! If there was a "West Germany" that did disappear in 1990, how come that there is no article on its contemporary, the "West NATO", which has also disappeared since? Same for the good ole West EU.
Germans may colloquially speak of England and Amerika, but in an encyclopedia, they at least try to use proper terms, even when these are hard to determine. Is the official name United States of America or only United States?Go figure, it's as clearly worded as the oath of Pres. Obama. No matter what name, that country has changed its borders and its flags many times. Since 1949, the German flag is in longer continuous use than the US flag, which in 1958 still had 48 stars. At that time even the GDR used the German tricolor without the socialist symbols. Borders, symbols and names are even more confusing when speaking about England, Britain, Great Britain, United Kingdom, British Empire, British Commonwealth etc. And I haven't mentioned neither of numerous Irelands and Irish yet. For example, there was a transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China in 1997, yet Wikipedia currently includes the UK in the category of "1801 establishments". If Germany was established only in 1990, then mark the UK with "1997 establishment" accordingly.
No matter what many may believe or insist on, West Germany needs to redirect to Federal Republic of Germany (1949-1990) or preferably to History of the Federal Republic of Germany (1949-1990), not vice versa. The invented categories have to vanish - or all countries and people need to get similar divisive categories, with all "Americans" getting categorized after the number of states the US comprised when they were born. That way, no Americans ever walked on the moon, as only "people born in the 48 United States" have been there, said 48 state country having vanished from Earth half a century ago, according to the Wiki logic applied to "West Germany". -- Matthead Discuß 16:25, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your first (and fundamental) misunderstanding is conflating changes in territory and government with changes in English-language nomenclature and assuming one must mirror the other exactly. The FRG has existed continuously since 1949, but its name given to it in English has changed. We had FRG and GDR until 1990, then FRG, but the corresponding English nomenclature is West Germany and East Germany, then Germany. Appeals to analogy with the US or the UK are utterly specious - languages aren't self-consistent. The common name for the USA remained constant, the common name for the FRG didn't. No fundamental law of linguistics was broken.
We are not going to deprive fluent English speakers of using the standard, accurate terminology that has served them perfectly well for decades because its "arbitrariness makes [you] sick". Knepflerle (talk) 21:51, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of course "West Germany" was used as name for the state in western Germany from 1949 to 1990. But please distinguish between a label and an entity. "West Germany" is a label, not an entity. There never was a state or nation "West Germany" that was different from "Germany", because the state "Germany" is in unbroken existence from 1871 until today. There is no "West Germany" nationality and never was one. German nationality law will tell you, that the same nationality law of Germany was valid from 1913 until 2000! Over all the changes in the name, the flag, the form of government, the territory, and the constitutions of the four epochs of German history over that time. My first children's passport Kinderausweis (als Passersatz) issued by the Federal Republic of Germany long before 1990 listed my nationality as "German", just as my first real passport (issued still well before 1990) and my current passport (well after 1990). And as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia must not categorize for mere labels, but needs to use connection to real entities to structure its content. --h-stt!?08:28, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
From 1949 till 1990 there were two Germanies, the FRG (West Germany) and the GDR (East Germany). That`s why you can`t say, that Germany is the same as West Germany. There was the same continuity in "East Germany". --Obersachse (talk) 08:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Again: Are you familiar with international and constitutional law? Or with history? The eastern GDR claimed in word and deed, that it was the "new Germany", the good ones, build by the victims of fascism and not connected in any way with the bad guys in the West. They explicitly rejected any continuity. The western FRG accepted the responsibility that came from the unbroken tradition with Nazi-Germany. --h-stt!?11:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Let's not talk about the continuity of self-perception. What matters here is more the question of continuity of exterior perception as reflected in reliable (ideally English-language) sources. Kusma (talk) 12:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
International law does not come into it. Not only because hairsplitting legal definitions are irrelevant to colloquial usages, but also because there is no single "international law". There was and is controversial among scholars what international law actually is, and the legal status of the different parts of Germany during the cold war is a prime example of such a controversy. Furthermore, you claim about East Germany They explicitly rejected any continuity. That is untrue. East Germany considered itself as an heir of the German nation, it claimed German national identity for itself and strived for reunification under a "socialist" regime for a considerable time of its existance. Even if that was not so, it was considered part of the German nation by outsiders, and named accordingly. Anorak2 (talk) 09:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Mere labels" matter - read WP:NAME, one of our core policies - we label our content with the name most familiar to our readers to make finding and linking to it second-nature. West German was the name given in English to the FRG nationality until 1990. And again, we do not need labelling that exactly mirrors constitutional change - the English-speaking world outside en.wp manages perfectly well without such labelling. Fluent English speakers read, write, say and use West Germany all the time as evidenced above, and cope with the fact that the labelling does not exactly mirror the constitutional changes - the FRG / GRD between 1949 and 1990 are never distinguished in English as Germany / East Germany respectively. You're trying to solve a problem English speakers don't have by imposing a labelling that English speakers don't use. Knepflerle (talk) 10:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that "we don't shape categories along mere labels" - you're still missing the point that this labelling is absolutely adequate, accurate and well-understood for all uses by fluent English-speakers. However, we could restructure our categories in accordance with the constitutional changes, with corresponding labels that are undoubtedly accurate over all of that period: e.g. "expatriates of the Federal Republic of Germany"; slightly longwinded, but this longer naming could be extended to other categories too. However, a complete whitewashing of the term "West Germany" from en.wp as unfit for purpose as proposed earlier is utterly laughable; it's served its purpose perfectly well for sixty years for half a billion English speakers in all registers of use. Knepflerle (talk) 15:49, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tatsächlich besteht in den Kategorien ein Inkonsitenz, wenn zum Teil Westdeutschland für Deutschland allgemein genommen wird, wie in dem oben verlinkten Fall einer Zusammenstellung der Außenminister Deutschlands, die dann nur die der BRD angibt. Daraus folgt aber für micht nicht, dass die Kategorien zu Westdeutschland aufzugeben sind, sondern dass diese durchgängig als Subkategorien Deutschlands neben z. B. Preußen, DDR, Königreich Bayern zu verwenden sind. Insofern müsste da einiges, was sich nämlich auf Deutschland insgesamt bezieht aus den West-Kategorien rausgeholt werden, und diese Kategorien konstquent zu Unterkategorien gemacht werden.--WerWil (talk) 19:39, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Citizenship- Staatsangehoerigkeit Deutsch- Only differnces Passes from DDR or BRD
West Germany was not formed, the Bundesrepublic Deutschland Federal Republic of Germany was formed (I changed that).
The citizens of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland were/are Deutsche Staatsbuerger German citizens with Passports issued by the Bundesrepublik BRD (English FRG). Inhabitants of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik DDR (English German Democratic Republic GDR) were German citizens with passports issued by the DDR GDR. In other words, in either part of Germany, western or eastern, the citizens were/are German citizens. Only in travel outside the borders were there different BDR or DDR issued passports, citizenship was Deutsche Staatsbuergerschaft -German- either way.
An East German citizenship never existed, a West German citizenship never existed, only German citizenship existed. (Until the Grundlagenvertrag neither the GDR nor the FRG could enter the United Nations because neither side accepted the other side to be a state and any move to get membership in the U.N. would be vetoed by the respective allied in the security council.) So all those categories claiming things like Category:West German expatriate footballers are nothing else than original research and should be removed. --Matthiasb (talk) 14:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your statement is incorrect. The GDR invented their own nationality in 1967: de:Staatsbürgerschaft der DDR, after abandoning the hope to dominate "Germany as a whole". The FRG kept the very same『Reichs- und Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz』in unbroken continuity from 1913 until 2000. --h-stt!?06:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Bitte vergessen Sie nicht, Sie fahren weiter durch Deutschland ("Please do not forget, you continue to drive through Germany"): Signs on all east/west german border crossings before 1990, on the west german side of course. Apparently someone in the West German authorities thought that West Germany was not identical with Germany. Anorak2 (talk) 03:06, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This reminds me a bit of the discussion regarding West Bank, although there we have a single term referring to more than one territory (that is, in terms of existing regional names). In both cases the argument is made that "West XYZ" is the most familiar term in English-language usage. I would tend to agree, especially as the main article regarding Germany is, simply, Germany, to which is redirected the formal title. It's not necessarily the solution I personally prefer, but there is a difference between editorial and personal opinion. PetersVTALK03:31, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A few sources refer to a German Nazi "Department of Racial Politics" of 1939, but I am rather sure this is a bad translation. I'd appreciate help figuring out the real German name of this department and the correct, accepted English translation. Thanks, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That was the『Amt für Rassenpolitik』which is usually translated to "Office of Racial Policy" - "Politik" in German can be politics as well as policy, here I prefer policy. --h-stt!?22:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
die tageszeitung
Some editor want to move the article die tageszeitungtoDie Tageszeitung, because, in their opinion, the MoS demands that. I a going to elaborate on Talk:Die tageszeitungeven further why, for someone who is a native German speaker, this sounds like a bad idea, and even if the MoS demands that it would be contrary to common sense - but I can't find the time a.t.m. I think it would be helpful if a few more German-speaking editors could take a look at the issue. Zara1709 (talk) 12:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It should be die tageszeitung since this spelling is part of their self-concept and based on left political ideas they promote. --Polarlys (talk) 20:38, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
