Talk:East Germany

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Former featured article candidateEast Germany is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 19, 2004Refreshing brilliant proseNot kept
On this day...Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on October 7, 2005, October 7, 2006, and October 7, 2008.


GDR or DDR?[edit]

The abbreviations used for East Germany in German were SBZ and DDR, and in English sometimes GDR and sometimes DDR - the main time I saw GDR used in English was on medals leagues for the Olympic Games.

The article clearly needs to mention both abbreviations in the lede, which it does. But elsewhere it would be best to use one or the other. Currently, there are 94 mentions of GDR and 31 mentions of DDR. I would prefer either using East German/East Germany or DDR.

A recent edit changed one instance of GDR to DDR.[1] @Sirlanz: if you are going to change from one to the other, please could you do it for the whole article so it is consistent.-- Toddy1 (talk) 07:34, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Copying something I previously posted from the archives (Archive 9, to be exact):
My memory seems to tell me that GDR was more commonly used in the '80s. Doing a google search, DDR comes up more often but there are some interesting anomalies on that search page. Several of the sites that come up when searching "DDR Germany" actually seem to be using GDR themselves.
From Der Spiegel's English site: Homesick for a Dictatorship: Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life ... www.spiegel.de › English Site › Germany › Eastern Germany Jul 3, 2009 - Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two ... In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR.
From the Guardian: Back in the GDR: Berlin's East Germany museum | Travel | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com › Travel › Berlin holidays Mar 13, 2013 - The Berlin museum is a fascinating, if slightly contradictory, look back at life in the German Democratic Republic, capturing the ambiguities of ...
Probably best to just leave it as is. --Khajidha (talk) 8:58 am, 9 May 2017, Tuesday (11 months, 28 days ago) (UTC−4)
--Khajidha (talk) 13:21, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
Perhaps I did not explain clearly. The current article uses both GDR and DDR. I would prefer that it used one or the other.-- Toddy1 (talk) 15:40, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
No, I simply forgot to state that I felt that the standardization should be to GDR. --Khajidha (talk) 15:50, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

The page itself should be called the German Democratic Republic (seeing as this is an English language Wikipedia). I don't understand why an educational website would choose to use titles like "South Korea" or "East Germany" and then state, 'officially'. Shouldn't it be the other way around generally speaking, when referring to nation-states? "The German Democratic Republic, colloquially East Germany." etc. Why isn't it? --Alaks Hovel 07:12, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree, but if you look at the talk page archives: many discussions. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:17, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
Why would we do that for this country, but not for the Hellenic Republic, the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, the French Republic, etc. It makes no sense to title articles about countries with something that is basically never used. --Khajidha (talk) 19:51, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
German Democratic Republic

The title should be changed to German Democratic Republic, with the colloquial name East Germany redirecting here. Same as with America and United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States— Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.125.226.42 (talk) 10:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I would favour the article title being Deutsche Demokratische Republik. But the Wikipedia Policy WP:Commonname says "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)". So we call the article East Germany. Toddy1 (talk) 10:48, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Like South Korean or North Korea, East Germany is the most commonly used name.--PRL Dreams (talk) 10:54, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

The problem with "officially the"[edit]

I find the current state of the introduction of this very unsatisfactory. It reads:

East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic ...

The wording is the same used for every country, including modern-day Germany, Mexico, and Russia. The issue with all these three examples (and the 190+ others not mentioned here) is that practically every country has a constitutional name ("French Republic") and an official short name ("France"), using which it is presented in less formal contexts, such as representation in the United Nations.

The above-mentioned lead format has been used for all country articles that have both a constitutional name and an official shortname for years. However, "officially" in this context is misleading as both names are official, while only one is constitutional. But alas, this is the established format and any attempt to change this would likely be unsuccessful.

That said, East Germany (other examples including North and South Korea) should not carry the same format, as its usage is misleading. In all cases, the designation is/was unofficial and rejected by the individual countries due to competing territorial claims.

Ideally, of course, there should be a project-wide solution that streamlines the name usage, differentiating official from otherwise common but unofficial names. However, as long as this is not the case, a localised solution should work. My minor edit proposed to following wording:

The German Democratic Republic, commonly known by the unofficial designation East Germany, ...

This makes clear the points I stated above and resolves any ambiguity. The article title (which, independently and outside the introductory sentence, is fine, per WP:COMMONNAME) does not need to be the first word inside the article. Despite this and the above, the proposed wording has been rejected, restoring ambiguity. Thus, I would like to know which alternative we could provide in order to fix this. Lordtobi (✉) 14:42, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

The ambiguity arises solely from within your own mind. You are interpreting the short name in those other articles as the official short name. It isn't. It is simply the commonly used name. We aren't using "Mexico" (for example) because it is the official short name, but because it is the commonly used name. Once you realize that, you will see that there is no problem to resolve. East Germany and Mexico use the same format because they are presenting the same information: the common name and the formal name. --Khajidha (talk) 13:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
That would suggest that information on countries' short names is universally missing, which I doubt is the intent. The United States article addresses this using the "commonly known as" format; yes, other stuff exists, but I feel like this makes the matter much clearer and should also be used here. If "Mexico, officially the United Mexican States ..." is supposed to suggest that "Mexico" is not official and just a common name, even though the name is indeed official, something is clearly wrong. Lordtobi (✉) 14:49, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
No. "Mexico, officially the United Mexican States..." says that 1) the country is COMMONLY called "Mexico" and 2) it is FORMALLY and OFFICIALLY called "United Mexican States". The "officialness" of the short form "Mexico" is neither affirmed nor denied, it is not considered at all. --Khajidha (talk) 15:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

"East Germany" was not official in GDR. OK. So? Official or not, "East Germany" referred or refers to the GDR without any ambiguity. Same for the Koreas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eulenbär (talk • contribs) 13:20, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Respected sources in the Western Europe and North American began calling the country the German Democratic Republic after it was recognized by the Federal Republic of Germany and admitted to the UN. The parallel with the Koreas is that the FRG renounced its claim of sovereignty over the GDR, while both North and South Korea claim sovereignty over the entire country. Similarly, we now refer to Southern Ireland by its official name of Ireland after the UK recognized its independence. The current name harks back to the height of Cold War before Ostpolitik. TFD (talk) 19:26, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Citation needed. Because every source I encountered at the time (newspapers, television, movies, maps, globes, school books, etc) used East and West Germany all the way until reunification. --Khajidha (talk) 19:21, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Era in the infobox[edit]

An editor keeps changing the era in the infobox from Cold War to 20th Century in this article and some others.[2][3][4] Whilst it is true that East Germany existed in the 20th Century, I think that Cold War is more useful because it is more specific and relevant to the topic of this communist state. Toddy1 (talk) 18:26, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree The Cold War is more defining.--PRL Dreams (talk) 11:42, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Partition[edit]

The partition part fails to mention the role of West Germany and America in the partition of Germany. The partition started with the American-supported currency reform in the western occupied zones. And was then completed by the formation of the Federal Republic in May 1949. A free election covering all occupied zones was rejected by Adenauer, because he feared to lose in the east. He'd rather "rule half of Germany completely than all of Germany half".— Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.125.226.42 (talk) 10:17, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Use of "Dr." in front of the initial mention of Höppner[edit]

Another editor has removed the "Dr." in front of Dr. Höppner's names in the Sport section. From Subsequent use: "After an initial mention, a person should generally be referred to by surname only... this includes academic or professional prefixes like "Dr."". In other words, the initial mention of a subject should include "Dr.", and then surname only. As my mention of Höppner in East_Germany#Sport was his initial mention, I now feel re-adding the "Dr." is solidly based in policy. I thank you. JimKaatFan (talk) 15:45, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

The mentioning or titles like "Dr." is in clear contradiction to MOS:DOC: "Academic and professional titles (such as "Dr." or "Professor"), including honorary ones, should be used in a Wikipedia article only when the subject is widely known by a pseudonym or stage name containing such a title". Hence, no title is needed, it is sufficient to have his PhD mentioned in the person's article. Nillurcheier (talk) 09:10, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
These are links to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography, but GDR is a country. I think Dr. Höppner informs the reader that Höppner as a medical professional.--PRL Dreams (talk) 13:13, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
It doesn't, he could be a doctor of anything. If you want to say he was a medical professional or sports doctor, just say so. TFD (talk) 14:30, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
Sports doctor is great.--PRL Dreams (talk) 13:21, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
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