Talk:Weimar Republic/Archive 4

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Archive 4

De jure versus de facto in lead; original research?

The lead makes a distinction between the creation of a de facto republic on 9 November 1918 and the creation of a de jure republic in February 1919 with the creation of the Presidency. There is no citation. The History section of the article does not discuss this de jure versus de facto distinction.

I have doubts that a reliable source could be found to show a general consensus among historians that this de facto versus de jure distinction is meaningful and generally used in published sources in the context of Germany in 1918. If this distinction is not in general use, would we not want to conclude that the unsourced discussion in the lead is then a form of original research?

My suggestion is to rewrite the leads opening to focus on the basic facts of November 1918 to August 1919, including the role of Prince Max. In the context of the collapse of a state and the end of the Great War, it seems unhelpful, if not pedantic, to discuss transitions of power in terms of constitutional forms and procedures.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Karl Bildungshunger1965 (talk) 01:23, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

These issues are sometimes uneasy, in the sway of the rapidly changing and proclaimed entities, as well their mutual (if changes affected by other claims by other entities, e.g.) or international recognition, to say nothing of in the area most have their own interpretation which has sometimes nothing to do with reality, just based on urban legends or misbeliefs. However, the two dates are clear of which events they, refer, the first the is proclamation of the republic, the second when the constitution was established. I made a quick look on foreign mirror articles, and did no see deterrence, however, as I see, this de jure/de facto interpretation seems and internal affair. Nevertheless the starting date is 1918 for sure, so I agree this de facto and de jure designation may be abandoned, until there is not such reinforcement.(KIENGIR (talk) 23:55, 25 December 2020 (UTC))

Definitely 9 November 1918 is the important date at the beginning, but I think the announcement of the new republic is even more important than the kaiser's flight. Karl Bildungshunger1965 (talk) 13:16, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, as I said, we should not mix importance with (internal) legal issues possibly. Btw. it may be easily charachterized whan a system/govenrment/monarchy/republic fell or was born.(KIENGIR (talk) 20:57, 26 December 2020 (UTC))

"A" versus "the" single-party state

I may be missing something, but it seems that in the lead "a single-party state" rather than "the single-party state" is substantively correct. Single-party states had already been established in Russia and Italy. So the Nazi state was at least the third. It was not the only one.

Can we get a consensus on this point? Karl Bildungshunger1965 (talk) 16:50, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, "a", not because there were others before it, but because looking back with the perspective of history, it is one of a class. "The new form of Athens government in 507 B.C. was a democracy;" (not the democracy, even though it was the only one at that time). "The October Revolution resulted in a Communist government being formed under Vladimir Lenin in 1917;" (very first, and only one at the time, but not the only one looking back from 2020). "The Council of Rome formalized the list of 27 books of the New Testament in 382;" (the first New Testament then, the only New Testament still; thus, the New Testament). Mathglot (talk) 21:05, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Flag and coat of arms

This section is vastly too long, and should either be dropped or cut way back. If we had a 1000-page book on the Weimar Republic, I'd be surprised if more than one page were about the flag and the coat of arms. There are already articles about each of these topics, linked from the {{Main}} link at the top of the section, and I don't see why we need this content duplicated here.

By way of comparison, other than in images and image captions, the Germany article (a featured article) has nothing about the flag or the coat of arms of Germany, and neither does the History of Germany article. The coverage of this subtopic in this article is highly disproportionate, imho. I'd like to remove this section, and perhaps include a sentence somewhere about the flag and coat of arms if appropriate, or just include the image and wikilink the caption to the articles about them, as is the case at Germany and History of Germany. Wanted to raise this section here first, to see if there would be any objection to this plan. If we decide to keep a section about them, it should be cut way back, and it should not be located above the #History section of the article, as it is now. Mathglot (talk) 19:37, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Nothing so far about this; I'll probably remove this section or reduce it to a sentence or two, if no response in the next few days. Mathglot (talk) 03:17, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Reduced section to a brief summary per WP:DUE WEIGHT, refactored as an H3 subsection of top section "#Name and national symbols" in Summary style, as parent to main sections in Flag of Germany#Weimar Republic (1918–1933) and Coat of arms of Germany#Weimar Republic. Mathglot (talk) 09:49, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Hairy Dude's Changes to opening -- better or worse?

On January 13, 2021, Hairy Dude changed the opening sentence. I take it from his description as "copy edit" that he did not intend to change the substance, but I think he did change the substance and in doing so made it less accurate.

The crux of the difference is in the understanding of the name "Weimar Republic." The opening now states that the Weimar Republic was a German federal state that existed from 1918 to 1933. Previously, the opening stated that "Weimar Republic" is an historical designation for the state that existed from 1918 to 1933.

The article makes clear that no one called the state "the Weimar Republic" until Hitler invented that as a term of abuse. That term was adopted generally after the state no longer existed.

I don't think Hairy Dude's change makes the opening particularly bad. But it does make it less accurate and less precise. I would suggest, then, that the change fails the principle that changes should only be made if they make the article better.

Does anyone have a view? Karl Bildungshunger1965 (talk) 21:28, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Deutschlandlied (first stanza).oga

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:11, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Netual policy violation – Reasons for failure

This section is largely uncited and uses weasel words like widely multiple times. Thoughts on being possibly unbalanced.DMT biscuit (talk) 14:19, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

War guilt question

I added a new section #War guilt question based on the article by that name, but it wasn't obvious where the new section should be placed. I ended up putting it for now, as § 3.3.1.5, so, #History > #Years of crisis (1919–1923) > #Burden from the First World War > #War guilt question, mostly because of its immediate parent, "#Burden from the First World War", of which the War guilt question can certainly be considered a part. However, the time frame doesn't fit, because the debate over the question went on throughout the life of the Weimar Republic, continued into the Nazi era, and to an extent is still going on. So in that sense, putting it in that section doesn't fit, and it should perhaps be placed at a higher level, perhaps in its own H2 section. Any ideas for the best place for this section would be appreciated. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:37, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Flag icons in Infobox

SuperSkaterDude45, can you please clarify this edit of yours restoring flag icons to the Infobox, after this edit by TompaDompa (talk · contribs) removed them? Their justification of MOS:INFOBOXFLAG appears to hold up at first glance. Do you see something I don't? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 05:59, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

@Mathglot: The issue is with this line in the MOS specifically: "Human geographic articles – for example settlements and administrative subdivisions – may have flags of the country and first-level administrative subdivision in infoboxes. However, physical geographic articles – for example, continents, islands, mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, swamps, etc. – should not. Where one article covers both human and physical geographic subjects (e.g., Manhattan, which covers both the borough of New York City and the island of the same name), or where the status of the territory is subject to a political dispute, the consensus of editors at that article will determine whether flag use in the infobox is preferred or not." This article qualifies for neither so the removal of flagicons here doesn't hold up too well when reviewing the MOS again. Hope you understand. — SuperSkaterDude45 (talk) 06:21, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

@SuperSkaterDude45:, thanks for your comment. I guess I don't read that as the salient feature of MOS:INFOBOXFLAG. That section starts out with:

Generally, flag icons should not be used in infoboxes, even when there is a "country", "nationality" or equivalent field: they could be unnecessarily distracting and might give undue prominence to one field among many.

And that's immediately followed by:

Flag icons should only be inserted in infoboxes in those cases where they convey information in addition to the text.

With respect to the part you quoted, the Weimar Republic is not about a settlement or administrative subdivision. But perhaps more to the point, is the distinction between the power of should in the part I quoted, versus the may in the part you did; it seems to me, that the former trumps the latter, and there shouldn't be flag icons. One could appeal directly to the question involved and ask the question whether "they convey information in addition to the text", and I don't see that they do, and the "Generally, flag icons should not be used in infoboxes, even when there is a 'country'..." seems to apply very directly to the type of Infobox present at Weimar Republic. Mathglot (talk) 06:32, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Mathglot has it right. I'll also note that Template:Infobox country/doc explicitly says Do NOT add flags, per MOS:INFOBOXFLAG about the |today= parameter and has done so for years. TompaDompa (talk) 11:37, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

German Empire as translation for "Deutsches Reich"

I would like to see the first sentence of the article changed to clarify the use of the English word "empire" as a translation for 'Reich'. It is quite misleading when speaking of the Weimar Republic. See for example the end of the first paragraph of the "German Reich" article: "Although commonly translated as "German Empire", the word Reich here better translates as "realm" or territorial "reach", in that the term does not in itself have monarchical connotations." When the name of the new republic was discussed at the Weimar Constitutional Assembly, Bruno Ablaß of the DDP justified keeping the word "Reich" with the fact that it no longer stood for a monarchy, and that the name 'France' [German: Frankreich] gave no one the idea that it was an empire since it was generally known to be a republic. [Translated from the German Wikipedia article on the Weimar Constitutional Assembly.] GHStPaulMN (talk) 20:05, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Clarification would be good. As described on the Reich page, the word Reich has a wide range of connotations in German that does not match one-to-one with a single word in English. That includes the loanword Reich, which has very strong and sinister connotations with Nazi Germany in post-war English. I suspect German Empire was a common name for Germany in the pre-Nazi period, just as German sources probably used Französisches Reich and Britisches Reich to refer to France and Britain and their colonial empires. The bulk of the explanation should be kept inside the Reich article IMO, with only a short explanation and a hyperlink on Weimar Republic. The Reich page does contain quite a bit of what looks like OR though. As an aside, while Reich and Be-reich sound similar in modern German and the meanings could plausibly be connected, they are in fact not closely related AFAIK. Reich is related to Latin rex and German reg-ieren, not English reach or German reich-en. If you do want to include a remark to this effect, please include a source. Martijn Meijering (talk) 16:15, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Summarized version visualization

I want the summarized version on this article (i.e. the one that pops up when you are reading another article that has a link to this one and you hover the pointer over it) to show the map of the state, instead of its flag. Does someone know how I could get to edit that? I think it'd be better. The "West Germany" wiki article also shows the current german flag when you hover over the summarized version, but the territory of these two states differ. Therefore it would be more useful to the reader to see a map than to look at a flag which is not even unique to one state but that has repeated itself over history and appears on many different articles. - Joaquin89uy (talk) 19:01, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

The official/english name should be fully Changed from German Reich to German Realm

As we know the official name was the Weimar Republic was the German Reich. The word Reich which should be translated into the word Realm. why should it be translated to Realm and not Empire? First because Germany is a republic and not an empire. The term Reich in the case of the Weimar Republic is not referring to the term empire, but the institutions of Germany. Examples of this are like the word states in The United States. Which is more comparable to the word realm than empire. Zyxrq (talk) 03:59, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I can agree with the argument that "Realm" is a better translation than "Empire", but in the absence of an official English name, why translate it at all? I think "German Reich" is fine. WPscatter ^t/_c 04:01, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Sources:

When the Reichstag burned, Adolf Hitler had been chancellor of the German Reich for precisely four weeks.

...the special conditions of the immediate post-war years in both Bavaria and the German Reich were also crucial...

In return, the bishops, on appointment, were obliged to swear a special oath of loyalty to the German Reich. On Sundays there were to be prayers for the 'welfare of the German Reich and people'. This book also consistently refers to the Weimar Republic as "the Reich".

It seems there is a clear precedent for translating the official name as "German Reich". I don't know why these authors chose to translate only half of the name "Deutsches Reich", but we as editors should not override them. If there are reliable sources referring to it by a different name then it can be discussed. WPscatter ^t/_c 21:47, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Wpscatter The reason we should change the name is because it helps the reader deinferate from the time periad of the German Empier and Nazi Germany. Also, in other articles they use the full English translation of the name. what im saying is that we should change it to maintain consistancy with other articles. We dont have the English name for the Kingdome of Bavaria as the Königreich of Bavaria in its artical. the same can be siad with other articles.Zyxrq (talk) 04:12, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Well it's kind of a strange situation. The policy for this kind of thing is at WP:PLACE, which clearly states when a widely-accepted English name exists, we should use it. We do in this case: Weimar Republic. The question of German Reich/Realm/Empire is only to say which was the official name of the nation, and as far as I can tell, an official English translation does not exist. To that end I would be okay with reverting it to Deutsches Reich, but given that German is a ubiquitous translation of Deutsch, German Reich is fine as well. There is no such ubiquitous translation of Reich, which is why I feel like translating it is not appropriate here. Consistency with other articles is less important than correctness within them - sometimes it's appropriate to treat similar things differently depending on circumstances, which seems to me to be the case here. WPscatter ^t/_c 04:21, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

"German Realm" isn't really a term that exists in English. It's only really known as either the German/Weimar Republic, and officialy as the German Reich. I'd say keep as is Bejakyo (talk) 12:38, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Wpscatter I think we should do the vote thing in my opinion. Its up to you if we should do this because it seems like you have more experience than me. 1. We don't change anything. 2. we can use both, German Empire and German Realm as the English names. 3. we can use, German Empire, German Reich, and German Realm as the English names. 4. Only use, German Empire as the English name. 5. only use, German Realm as an English name. Zyxrq (talk) 05:13, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think there's a standard "vote" process; we just discuss things and reach consensus. I certainly don't think using more than one name is the solution here. You and I disagree, so let's wait for someone else to give their opinion. If no one else chimes in, we can solicit a third opinion and go from there. WPscatter ^t/_c 05:17, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

References

Armed forces section rewrite

{{Translated|de| Weimarer Republik}} I redid the section on the Armed forces because, in addition to not citing any sources, some of the information (without a source to prove its validity) is rather questionable if not outright incorrect – e.g. "Germany's military forces consisted of irregular paramilitaries", the "SA was the Reichswehr's main opponent" [what about the KPD?] or that the Wehrmacht took a softer line to the Nazis after the SS's ascendence. Some of the rest a bit trivial (e.g. recruitment from the countryside), and the language at times has a problem with tone ("vulgar and turbulent SA").

The "Reichswehr" section from the German Wikipedia article on the Weimar Republic that I translated (here, paragraphs 2–4 of the section) gives, I think, a much better overview and cites reliable sources (I added two more).

If you disagree with the change, let me know what it is that you don’t like. GHStPaulMN (talk) 11:52, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Ongoing re-write

Any thoughts out there about my ongoing re-write of 5 sections now of this article? I started doing it because I think there's a lot of room for improvement, especially in the organization of ideas within and between sections and the relevance and even accuracy of some of the facts and examples. I expected that there might be a fair amount of feedback given the relative importance of the article, but so far I've had none. As in überhaupt keine. I've taken the silence as a sort of tacit approval, but since I plan to keep going I thought I'd put up this note to maybe rouse some comments either here or on my talk page. They'd be welcome. GHStPaulMN (talk) 11:17, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Successor Flag is Wrong

It said the Weimar Republic was succeeded by Nazi Germany but it has a picture of the German empires flag should I fix it PimmA08 (talk) 08:20, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

I noticed this as well, Iit

ouldcof been their flag for a very short period of time but I'm unsure personally.

f 2A02:C7E:4CF5:5300:8926:A81C:5B0F:79D1 (talk) 07:55, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Name

I think that from now on, the simple name of "Germany" or "German Reich" should be used when referring to the Weimar Republic, especially in infoboxes concerning treaties or battles or allegiance or government officials ect. I can see the case for using "Weimar Republic" in an instance where some guy served in the military of the empire, the republic and the nazi reich, and listing just "Germany" three times might be confusing to the average reader, but outside of that I think it should be avoided as much as possible.

My reasoning is that "Weimar Republic" is an informal historical term, no one then would have said something like "I live in the Weimar Republic" they would have just said Germany. I think this will improve articles and the average readers understanding of the name as otherwise they might get confused and think the countrys actual name was "The Weimar republic"∼∼∼∼ Friedbyrd (talk) 13:50, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

While I think that this is better, it's still not a correct translation of the official name as "Reich" translates into "Empire". The use of "Reich" is highly pop-culture oriented & there is historical baggage associated with it that introduces bias into the article. 2A02:1210:1CA7:D700:A446:CC61:D673:C97B (talk) 11:24, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Reich very often does not translate as "empire". See the article on Reich. Also, note that Weimar's founders deliberately chose to keep the name Deutsches Reich knowing the connotations of the word and that Germany was no longer an empire. GHStPaulMN (talk) 13:41, 5 June 2023 (UTC)