Talk:German Revolution

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WikiProject Echo has identified German Revolution as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the German language Wikipedia.

Just wrote first article for wikipedia about a German politician. Needed a link to the German Revolution of 1918 and found this article.

I feel it would be better titled "German Revolution of 1918" rather than "German Revolution", because there has been more than one revolution in the history of Germany, for example, the German Revolution of 1848. The only way to distinguish between these revolutions is to use their full names.

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who knows what would have happened if they, the sailors and marines, hadn't chickened out of their duty. it seems like this honorless act is being praised. yet in a diveous way

--Fibulator 11:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Dear Fibulator, firstly the outcome would not have been much different. From a marxist perspective this was a failed revolution anyway, and even if the revolutionary left would have succeeded it is highly unlikely that the West would have tolerated a potentially dangerous "dictatorship of the proletariate" in the heart of Europe. Moreover, as the war was irretrievably lost in Oct. 1918 (see OHL) we can certainly assume that the Entente would have taken Willie 2 out of business in either case and established a Western style democracy. Willie was lucky that he and his entourage weren't accused of war crimes. It was the Treaty of Versailles which made the Weimar Republic chronically unstable right from the start, not the failed revolution. Secondly the conscripted seamen were couragous enough to mutiny and ignore a highly irrational order which would have led to the certain death of countless young men. Today their families are probably quite happy that Grandpa "chickened out". As for the alleged "duty", the war log of the Naval Warfare Command is an informative source: Victory wasn't to be expected and the reasons to attack the British Grand Fleet were not strategic but rather "moral" ones like retrieving honour through the ultimate sacrifice bla bla. Needless to say that today's European soldiers would probably laugh at such muddle-headed babbling and I would expect every decent soldier to question silly oders instead of obeying blindly.Teodorico 11:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

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Contents 1 Expansion possibilities 2 I was thinking that. 3 translation from german wikipedia 4 pictures 5 Historical Classification 6 Sailors mutiny in Kiel 7 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk really worse than Treaty of Versailles? 8 Colloquialism?

[edit] Expansion possibilities

How about we translate the German wikipedia article which was a featured article and is very informative? -Chile 17:52, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

In the first section there is apparently a hacking attempt...the "word" ppeenniiss appears, which I suspect is not supposed to be there. I wasn't able to determine if a word was replaced or what word might be "missing." For the moment I didn't change it, but I will the next time through if no one else knows what it was supposed to say. There may be others too, but I haven't read the whole article yet. Wood Artist 18:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I was thinking that.

But it would be very time Consuming. And then again I mess up German to English sometimes. So bare with me. I will try and start doing that if it is not illegal. Please feel free to correct me in any places I make mistakes.--Ichpuchtli 09:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] translation from german wikipedia

i use both german and english wikipedia frequently, found the english version of this topic very poor and took the time to translate the german one into english. basically i stuck to the german version, only adding a few notes from other sources. as the german version is marked with a star for excellency it should be a welcome contribution to the english wikipedia. i'd welcome english speakers to iron out some bumps in the language. also i'm not familiar with the english way of references and just took over the german ones. somebody also might like to change them, although i do not find them too confusing. taking over the pictures did not work out and i will try again. (user added later: Sundar1 09:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC))

hanks for that - it's a great improvement and a good basis to work on, I suspect we'll need to iron out a few things, but shouldn't take too long...--Red Deathy 13:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pictures

i'm sorry i cannot figure out how to get the pictures from the german into the english version. would be nice if some other person could. only the "august bebel" picture i find unnecessary. (user added later: Sundar1 09:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Historical Classification

I have tagged the last section (historical classification) as POV since it calls alternate theories "lies" which are "unfortunately" very diffucult to root out of the popular understanding of the subject. Instead of staking out a position, the section should compare and contrast historical and modern scholarship on the subject and should say who has denouced/debunked a view rather than simply labeling it false. Eluchil404 11:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sailors mutiny in Kiel

Today I have corrected several errors, which appeared on the German wikipedia page and were translated to the English wikipedia. These were mainly:

• There were also disobediece cases in the Third Squadron (not only in the First)
• Those mutineers who have been led away in Wilhelmshaven were NOT brought to Kiel.
• Lothar Popp was not a sailor he was dismissed in 1917 or 1918 from military service and had to work at the ship yard in Kiel as a mobilised worker.
• Steinhäuser was only injured but not killed. According to records from the military hospital he was discharged as healed.(see Dähnhardt.

--91.6.168.229 21:55, 24 February 2007 (UTC); sorry, forgot to sign in: --Kuhl-k 21:55, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Treaty of Brest-Litovsk really worse than Treaty of Versailles?

The article states that the conditions imposed on the Russians by the Germans were *much* harsher than those by the Allies on Germany at the end of World War I...

I looked at the Wiki article for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, however, and while they did take much more land and transferred populations away from the Russians (both the land and people were generally non-Russian in any case however), as well as demand reparations payment(s), there was no mention of future (let alone decades-long) reparations payments, which, as I understand it, was the most severe hardship of the Treaty of Versailles (it crippled the postwar German economy and laid the groundwork for political radicalism). Also I did not see anything about a requirement for a drastically-reduced Russian military capability in the article on Brest-Litovsk, as there famously was at Versailles. Critic9328 00:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Colloquialism?

In one of the paragraphs related to the outbreak of the war, the article states "...thus following the late party leader August Bebel, who had declared in 1904 in the Reichstag, that he himself would shoulder the gun when going against Russia."

What exactly is meant by "shoulder the gun"? Is this a poorly translated colloquialism or a direct quote or what? I can guess what it means but it should be phrased better. Inoculatedcities 13:45, 31 March 2007 (UTC)