Talk:West Germany
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[edit] West Germany
I am uneasy that the title of this page is West Germany, when this was purely an Anglophonic euphamism. The proper name (before and after reunification) is Bundesrepublic Deutschland which translates to English as 'Federal Republic of Germany'.--Timdownie 18:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
- there is a corresponding article on the German wiki, which deals more with the various usages of the term. Agathoclea 07:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
- We already have an article Federal Republic of Germany which redirects to Germany. (It's pretty much standard that an article with the official name of a state redirects to the article with the "everyday" name of the state - compare United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which redirects to United Kingdom). The article Germany is about the modern state of Germany (and also its predecessor states) and carries lots of info re: the history of the FRG; this article is quite clearly about the term "West Germany" and its usage in English. Valiantis 21:45, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with the first poster (see below). Whilst this article does provide context about (the former) West Germany, it needs to be remembered that the West German state absorbed the East German state, whilst continuing to exist. It is thus the same country. (RM21 21:04, 25 June 2006 (UTC))
[edit] Merge to article 'Germany'
This article should merge with the current Germany article. This is because at one time, there were two articles: West Germany, and East Germany. Neither of these had the correct name of the country in the title, and the West Germany article was renamed, and expanded; later the East Germany article was also renamed.
It also needs to be remembered that the West German state (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) absorbed the East German state, under the relevant section of the Grundgesetz, so the German state continued in existence, right to the present day. (RM21 20:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC))
[edit] German reunification
... it is wrong that East Germany has become part of West Germany - at the 3rd of October 1990 East Germany as well as West Germany desisted from existing - the territory of East Germany acceded to the ambit of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany - the Basic Law was changed into the constitution of Germany.
Citius Altius Fortius 08:06, 1 July 2005 (CEST)
This information is wrong, the GDR joined the BRD under the article 23 of the Basic Law, therefore the GDR desisted from existing the BRD still exist see German Wiki and the preamble of the German Basic Law http://www.bpb.de/wissen/89EEKH,0,0,Pr%E4ambel.html. Therefore I will delete the last sentence. (sorry for my unregisteration)
[edit] Red Army / Soviet Army
Hello,
"Red Army" was officially renamed "Soviet Army" in 1946 !
WernerE, 28.2.2005
[edit] GDR
We don't use terms like "Middle Germany" and "German Democratic Republic" in English and this is the English Wikipedia. PMA 22:23, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
"Cassell's Dictionary of Modern German History" uses "German Democratic Republic" ("the formal name of the East German state of 1949-90") as does Mary Fulbrook's "20th Century Germany", and Langenscheidt Muret-Sanders Großwörterbuch Deutsch-English, 2004 gives the translation of "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" as "German Democratic Republic", with no mention of "East Germany". Saintswithin 09:10, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It is outrageous that PMA, a person with apparently no knowledge of Germany, is being allowed to vandalize this page and protect the vandalized version.
[edit] Haso, Germany in 1800s ???
I am doing research on my German ancestors. The surname is BUECHNER. I think they may have been from the Oldenburgh, area of Germany (Niedersachsen). When they emigrated to the USA in 1853, the ship list said that they were from "Haso" Germany/Prussia. Can anyone tell me where this little village is? Is it still a village today?
Hi Oldenburgh is likely to be Oldenburg a town near Bremen. It is next to the river Hunte. Look into wikipedia german version. Stone 09:27, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "BRD"
It is not correct that in West Germany the abbrevation "BRD" was used. "BRD" is GDR jargon. Therefore the use of this abbrevation was avoided in the West. (It was e.g. marked as error in school), see detailed explanation in German [[1]]. It can be seen that this is the only time when German officials interfered whith the common use of language. After unification the abbrevation is more common. If someone can formulate that in proper english that would be fine.
Being (native West) German myself, I must object to the above paragraph. The acronym "BRD" was used heavily in West Germany (much more than it is in use today, after reunification), sometimes in the pair of opposites (BRD v. DDR, as explained in the Wikipedia article), sometimes with a somewhat derogatory meaning from "leftwingers" in a broader sense (people critical of the political system at the time, which defined itself as "so very different from the DDR system" but then at times used similarly oppressive measures against "dissidents" - "Schweinestaat"). In my personal opinion, the latter use expressed an exaggeration: While West German politics did show signs of oppression, mostly to protect political and economical interests, it no means ever closely resembled the repressive DDR system and/or regime. Funnily enough, in "modern" neoliberal discussion [as of 2002 and following years] market-liberals liken the "old" BRD to the DDR for its alleged lack of "market freedom" and for offering "too much" governmental welfare. Well, what can I say - neoliberals are stoneage morons. --62.138.56.98 16:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
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- I have to agree with both - There was considerable use of BRD amongst the people of West-Germany, but the offical line was still not to use it as it would give official sanctioning of GDR as a seperate state. Agathoclea 12:37, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Maybe we should clarify for the English speakers that the discouragement of the term "BRD" is an example of political correctnes, in this case though not from the "left wing". Here's some history:
- All politics aside, "BRD" is the obvious way to abbreviate "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" in German. It has been used in West German media in the 1950s, even though it is admittedly not "official". At the same time, East German media avoided the official name of the Federal Republic altogether, instead they used the term "Westdeutschland".
- About in the mid-1960s the GDR changed their policy. They started to use the abbreviation "BRD" and dropped the previously used "Westdeutschland". This was probably motivated in order to suggest a symmetry between the two German states (BRD vs DDR).
- The West German media reacted to this by gradually dropping "BRD" and using the full name, or alternative ways of abbreviating ("Bundesrepublik", "BR Deutschland", "BR Dtl" or other). "Left leaning" people embraced "BRD" though.
- In the 1970s and 80s, West German schools discouraged the use of "BRD", sometimes the use of this abbreviation was counted as a mistake and resulted in bad marks. The reasons stated differed. Often it was argued that "BRD" is not an official name (true, but so what?). But often the reason stated was "BRD" was GDR usage (most probably the real motivation, but not entirely true, and even then so what ..).
- Since reunification, the avoidance of "BRD" has mostly become a thing of the past. You can now use the abbreviation "BRD" in public without being suspected of being a GDR sympathiser for the simple fact that there is no GDR any more. As the need for distinction between the two stated does not exist any more, "Deutschland" is now more common though. :)
Anorak2 01:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
- Nice summary, Anorak. I also remember the "Sponti" slogan, "Wer ARD sagt muss auch BRD sagen." ~ trialsanderrors 21:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
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- Nobody ever mentioned the "Bananenrepublik Deutschland" a term that got used in the 80s a lot. Agathoclea 04:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Berlin
I have removed the reference to Berlin as de-jure capital. Firstly is was not a factual sentence - The "Basic Law" (bad translation btw for Grundgesetz) did not mention the capital at all (I spend all morning reading the pre-unification version I had lying around) also the close votes for Bonn and later the move to Berlin in '91 would have never allowed a constitutional change (I believe 2/3 majority is needed for those). Also checking the publications I have available here made no reference to Berlin but only to the term "provisional capital" (vorläufige Bundeshauptstadt) see "Gründung des neuen Staates 1949" published by the Bavarian Goverment pages 104-110.
The details of that though are more for the history article and not here. Agathoclea 12:37, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
- scary that the statement that has been on here only since last September [2] has made it in all sorts of wiki-mirrors. See Bundeshauptstadt Bonn - Die Entscheidung für Bonn und die Folgen für den Föderalismus in Deutschland for reasons why Berlin could not be capital. Agathoclea 20:24, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] .de redirect - wrong
the de.wikipedia redirect goes to article about geographical area "western germany", not to the article about the old Federal Republic (as is the en.wikipedia article)... 199.64.72.252 13:49, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] map
Can we get the map to have it include West Berlin? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sgt Simpson (talk • contribs) 02:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC).
