Talk:Dresden

A check though "What links here" will give many hints as to how this entry could be richer and deeper. Wetman 03:04, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Article needs a little bit of re-wording--Comrade Nick 02:23, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I wrote it in deep night within two minutes and I am not a native speaker. Sorry, I forgot that I wrote the text, I will do some re-wording, and others are welcome to join.

I'd be happy to. In fact, I intend to help with its editing, because I'm that in its present state it lacks the proper qualities of an encyclopædia.--Ingoolemo 01:34, 2004 Jun 9 (UTC)

Okay, my rewrite is done. I'm afraid I couldn't put anything in the edit summary, because I forgot to. But hopefully it's much improved.

---

Concerning this sentence (that also has some grammatical problems...)

The population is said to frequently discuss topics such as architecture and æsthetics regularly.

Is this true? Who says this? In fact, as a citizen of Dresden, I have not witnessed any unusual amount of discussion ;-) --Markus Krötzsch 03:36, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Overall, I think the article is a bit too dramatic in its wording. Dresden is certainly a beautiful city, but some of the statements of this article exaggerate quite a bit:

• The city has become a world leader in many sections of culture, ... -- World leader in culture? Come on! Okay, I come on. But there are rather many world records. Anyway, you could be right that my language is too much in favour. ;-)
• Houses ..., built by famous king and artists from all over the world... -- rather "all over Europe"; I agree again.
• many prestigious research centers in Dresden still have their primary headquarters in the west -- "still"? Would we expect them to move? (One could rather say: "Many research centers have already established facilities near Dresden") why not ? I wanted to point out that even despite Dresden is known as success story there is still a very long way to be competitive with Munich etc. And yes, in earlier times very many of the today´s western headquartes were in Dresden.
• East Germany had been the richest Communist country -- I do not know. Are you sure? (What means "rich": life standard, economy, state treasury?) yes, I am sure, it was the richest in all meanings, so that doesn´t matter.

Finally, the structure could include a section Economy, where the related information -- especially concerning the re-unification process -- is collected. Sorry for only giving these "hints" instead of doing it myself... maybe later. --Markus Krötzsch 04:06, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC) thanks, I like hints. Most of that was done meanwhile by native speakers, some of them living in Dresden.

I agree with all of what you wrote. Get-back-world-respect 14:33, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Devastators?

Dear authors you should use "devastated by US World War II bombing" instead of "devastated by World War II bombing"!!! --Gutsul

"... by Allied bombing during World War II" would perhaps be better still. Sharkford 18:25, 2004 Sep 16 (UTC)

It was bombed by the Bristish Royal Air force mainly, only slightly supported by US forces. NetguruDD

Article wording and language improved!

I just did about an hour of editing and tinkering on the main article page,mostly because of the poor language. I guees it was written to a large extent by a non-native speaker of English, not a problem but very obvious. Well it was my first major edit but as a native English speaker and someone born in Saxony (there are not many of us, I suppose) I used my knowledge of the city to clear up the wording of the article. I also edited a few details out and moved some things around. All in all I think it makes the article a lot easier to understand. Kris Sept. 26

Numbers regarding dead people and destroyed houses, flats.

25.000 dead people were found and burried. It is nearly absolutely sure that in fact it were many more, for example many burnt. The total nummber is estimated most often to be sommething around 35.000, other serious sources say 125.000 or even more, neonazi propaganda says 300.000-450.000 refering to the American Red Cross 1945. During the last weeks of the war the administration spoke about only 16.000. The truth is that everything between 25.000-140.000 can be true and official statistics after the 1950s used all numbers between 25.000-160.000, in both parts of Germany. I as Dresden maniac and citizen guess something around 45.000, but it is very hard to estimate and 140.000 sounds reasonable if you imagine all those comepletey destroyed living quarters with 6 floors in each big building. On the other hand many people survided even out of completely destroyed houses. The city was populated with 570.000 out of former 630.000 citizens and the same number of refugees from the east front. Somebody changed a picture description to: 75% of the -center- was destroyed, this is wrong because the center was destroyed complety. The city is rather big in area, much bigger than usually a city with that amount of population. So the damage was rather different in each quarter, but 79% of all flats, not necesarrily houses, had "some" damage (total and meaningless counted together). There were 222.000 flats in total. 75.000 of them totally destroyed, 11.000 strongly hit, 7.000 hit, 81.000 slightly damaged. The innercity in those times were closer built than today. The villa districts suffered much less destruction than other quarters. The militaric facilities in the north of the city were not hit, but they had not much meaning in the last weeks of the war anyway. Most material was on the east front, the city was not meaningful defended against air strikes and it also was not a militarically important center. It is not sure that the optical industry was used for militaric weapons, this is only pure guessing. Please don´t get me wrong. I don´t want blame anybody for anything, I like the US and Britain, just help to stick to the facts. Some recent changes went out of control. NetguruDD 07:00, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi Netguru, I changed "total and meaningless" to "total, meaningless" in the article picture caption, but I'm not sure what you meant by "meaningless", now I read your comment here. Do you mean "total and slight" damage? Meaningless means "sinnlos". Oh, and what are "marshalling yards" in German? Saintswithin 12:49, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hi Saintswithin, yes I mean total and slight, thanks a lot for your attention and helpful remarks, this is not the first time you helped. About marshalling yards, I also wondered. This expression was not edited by me, I thought it was done by a native English speaker because he was refering to a book written in English. I also had no idea what it could mean in this abstract. NetguruDD 04:12, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

News

This evening, the FIDE declared that Dresden will hold the "Olympic Games" of Chess in 2008. The "Olympic Games" in chess could not been established as part of the Olympic Summer games despite the FIDE tried so. Already 2004 the European women´s championship took place in Dresden. I don´t know if the first thing is worth to be published here on the Dresden wikipedia site. I only saw that CNN was reporting rather much about the European ladies´ championship. NetguruDD 18:01, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Poor Caption

This caption needs serious rewording:

79% of all flats suffered total, particularly those in bigger inner-city buildings, or negligible destruction; the center became a sea of ruins.

fixed: hopefully I have understood the meaning...? Saintswithin 19:24, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

yes, that´s right now. NetguruDD

Photos

Does anyone have any good photos of Dresden taken during the day? These are all night-time ones! Saintswithin 19:24, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC) The German version of the Dresden thread offers picures of the day. You can use them all, some are from me, others from guys which I know via wikipedia. They are glad if you use the picues. It´s the same with http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwinger_%28Dresden%29 It´s all GNU license.NetguruDD

Polish name

In accordance with Wikipedia:Cite sources and the Talk:Gdansk/Vote I hereby provide the rationale behind adding the Polish name to the header:

1. [1]
2. Dresden used to be the Polish capital, most notably during the reign of Augustus II of Poland, who financed much of the baroque reconstruction of the city with the Polis treasury. Also, the city was taken by Polish and Soviet troops in 1945. Halibutt 17:41, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. First of all, using the English-language Google only produces 3500 hits, many of which appear to be mirrors of a hotel service. Secondly, Augustus II was the Elector of Saxony who was then elected King of Poland–he's not Polish, and neither was Dresden. Mackensen (talk) 18:09, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

(added after edit conflict)

Regarding the second point: during the reign of Augustus II of Poland, there was a personal union between Saxony and Poland, as Augustus was also elector of Saxony. This perhaps meant that Poland was reigned from Dresden, but that does not make Dresden the capital of Poland, just as the capital of Canada is not London because the Queen of Canada lives there.

About the Polish troops in Dresden: do you really want every mention of Gdansk, Warsaw, or any other Polish city to be followed by the Russian name of the city as well? Eugene van der Pijll 18:11, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately for Poland, it was ruled directly from Dresden... Augustus first wanted to enhance his power by seizing the port of Riga. The Saxonian forces were repelled and the Swedish retaliation was against Poland. Then, after the War of Polish Succession, king Augustus III of Poland was ruling from Dresden exclusively. During roughly 30 years of his rule he came to Warsaw three times. His governor in Poland, Heinrich Bruechl, was mostly occupied with earning more money for the baroque palaces and paintings in Dresden, which resulted in a complete decline of the Polish capital. Even minting of the Polish coin was moved to Dresden, which proved to be vital in breaking the Polish economy. After the city was seized by Prussia during the Seven Years War, the Prussians started to produce huge ammounts of Polish currency, which led to hiperinflation in Poland, even if Poland was not directly a part of the conflict. Halibutt 18:30, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean by "his governor in Poland"? If Dresden was Polish, surely August wouldn't have needed a governor there?

But thanks for the history lesson; what you are saying is that the Swedish name should also be given at each reference to a Polish city? (And let's not forget Napoleon...) Eugene van der Pijll 18:37, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Dresden was never part of Poland, any more than London was part of Scotland from 1603 to 1707. Saxony was in personal union with Poland from 1697 to 1763, just as England was in personal union with Scotland. James VI after 1603, and Charles I and II, and James VII, and William and Mary, and Anne, all ruled Scotland from London. There were some governmental institutions in Edinburgh, including the Scottish parliament (the Sejm didn't meet in Dresden, did it?), but the most important business was conducted in London. I've never yet heard anybody say London was the capital of Scotland in this period. The same deal with Dresden, which was and is part of Saxony, which has never been considered to be part of Poland. john k 18:58, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Dresden was not part of Poland - and it doesn't have to be. The talk:Gdansk vote mentions a shared history, not shared borders.

Unfortunately for Poland, it was ruled directly from Dresden... Augustus first wanted to enhance his power by seizing the port of Riga. The Saxonian forces were repelled and the Swedish retaliation was against Poland. Then, after the War of Polish Succession, king Augustus III of Poland was ruling from Dresden exclusively. During roughly 30 years of his rule he came to Warsaw three times. His governor in Poland, Heinrich Bruechl, was mostly occupied with earning more money for the baroque palaces and paintings in Dresden, which resulted in a complete decline of the Polish capital. Even minting of the Polish coin was moved to Dresden, which proved to be vital in breaking the Polish economy. After the city was seized by Prussia during the Seven Years War, the Prussians started to produce huge ammounts of Polish currency, which led to hiperinflation in Poland, even if Poland was not directly a part of the conflict.

Which, hopefully, ends this dispute. Halibutt 07:36, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Halibutt, if you want to interpret "shared history" to mean that, I suppose we can't stop you, but considering that it is very clear to everybody else here that this is a tortured interpretation, perhaps you would stop it. The cities specifically mentioned as having a "shared history" are cities which were part of both Germany and Poland - Poznan, Szczecin, Gdansk, Wroclaw, and so forth. Not only were these cities very clearly at different times parts of both Germany and Poland, but they were parts of Germany as recently as 1918 or 1945. I don't think anybody (certainly I do not) particularly supports doing the same for cities which were part of Prussia from 1793 or 1795 to 1807, and never again. Dresden is clearly in a completely different class from these various cities. Poznan was always a Polish city, obviously, but it was actually part of the German Empire. Poznan sent representatives to the Reichstag between 1871 and 1918. It was an ethnically Polish city in Germany. Dresden, on the other hand was, as noted, never part of Poland, and it was never an ethnically-Polish city. The comparison is false, and you are simply continuing to make it to prove a point. Yeah, it's terribly unfair that Berlin and Hamburg were never part of Poland so that you can make reciprocity arguments. But the facts of Central European history mean that this is going to be an uneven exchange - many Polish cities are also known by German names, no German cities are known by Polish names. Again, I'm happy to work on changing the rules to make issues more clear, but what you are doing is still deeply silly. john k 16:05, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Let me add (perhaps repeating myself a bit), that your definition of a "shared history" is completely unworkable. Every city in the world can be found to have some "shared history" with a country of which it is not a part. Paris surely had a larger Polish expatriot population than any German city. Poland was ruled from Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg after 1795. There is a large Polish-American population in Chicago, Illinois and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and so forth. To interpret "shared history" in such a manner as to include all these is to make it absurd. Clearly, the intended meaning of shared history when we were doing the voting was not what you are making it out to be. It is fairly easy to figure out what places are effected by this ruling - just overlay the 1914 Germany map onto the modern Polish map, and include the places where they overlap. I don't think any other idea was envisioned, and I, for one, wouldn't support giving the German names for Galician cities, even, except in cases where the German names were once in common use in English, as with Lviv/Lemberg. But I certainly wouldn't support including "Lemberg" in parentheses next to every reference to Lviv, because these areas were never considered to be "German," even though they were ruled from Vienna, a "German" city (at least before 1866). Anyway, don't you think it suggests something that you are being repeatedly reverted by different people on this? john k 16:12, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As the example of Bialystok clearly shows, the prevalent interpretation is the same I am using. As I mentioned on your talk page, as a sign of good will I'm going to stop adding the Polish name to articles on German cities other than the ones mentioning Dresden and the cities in the Ruhr Valley.

However, the case of Dresden very clearly falls under the current cross-naming rule, which doesn't mention shared borders or same state but shared history. Both Saxony and Dresden in particular shared the Polish history for roughly a century, that is approximately as long as the majority of pages affected by the rules. If we add the German name to the Polish city of Poznan, which shared the German history for roughly 50 years, then why not add the Polish name here? Especially that it falls perfectly under the shared history criterion. Also, the rules do not mention the ethnicity of the inhabitants or actual ownership of the land. Germany never owned Bialystok or Lemberg (except for WWII period, but this occupation was similar to the Polish and Soviet WWII occupation of Dresden, at least as far as international law is concerned), yet the German name is added there in accordance with the Talk:Gdansk vote. I do not contest that, but I request equal treatment. Nothing more, nothing less.

Also, you're still assuming that I'm trying to prove some point or that the true reason behind my recent actions is my alleged nationalism, which is not the case. I don't have to prove any point since it has already been proven by the community consensus. We might like it or not, but the results of the voting are what they are. Also, it is notable that so many people engaged in a revert war, yet none of them posted any counter-arguments, neither here nor in the edit history. Don't you think it suggests something, John? Also, I don't give a darn whether Berlin was part of Poland or not and I do not think reciprocity is needed, especially that it would be both against common sense and the voting results. I know history is unfair, but this has nothing to do with this dispute. Also, as far as I'm concerned, I would not oppose to adding German names to cities in Galicia, as long as Polish and Latin names are added as well (these were the three official languages there).

Anyway, I tried to reach some other interpretation on the talk pages of both the voting and the template, but to no effect. As long as the current rule is in place, I will continue to use it. That's exactly what it was for, after all and that's exactly what the community wanted. If you have other interpretation of the voting results - you might want to use the respective talk page to convince all the others.

As long as the pages on Amber, Lacznosciowiec Szczecin, Bialystok, Law and Justice, Szczecin-osiedle Sloneczne or Lechia Gdansk need the German name, the articles on Phidias, Vladimir Putin or Friedrich Schiller require the Polish name of the city that used to be the Polish capital. As simple as that. Or perhaps you have some other, more constructive proposal both me and the other side (you, User:Chris 73, User:Boothy443, User:Juntung, User:Curps and others) could accept? Halibutt 17:15, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Have you looked at Bialystok? I'll give you a hint, it doesn't include the German name anymore. I removed it three weeks ago, and nobody has put it back. As to counter-arguments, there are already plenty on this page. Presumably, all these people agree with the arguments put forward by Mackensen, Eugene, and me, rather than those you have put forward. At any rate, as to "shared history" - as I said before, you are abusing the meaning of the phrase to make a point. "Dresden" is never known in English by its Polish name, and it was never part of Poland. Poznan clearly "shared German history" by your definition for more than a century - the Prussian-ruled Grand Duchy is very much more a German entity than Saxony ever was a Polish one. Furthermore, there's the basic fact of usage - one is likely to come across English references that call Poznan "Posen," one will never come across ones that call Dresden "Drezno." I notice that you always shy away completely and utterly from any arguments that have to do with actual English usage, rather than abstract principles. Let's enumerate, then, differences between Poznan/Posen and Dresden/Drezno:

1. Posen - used in English; Drezno - never used in English
2. Poznan - was part of Prussia/Germany from 1863 to 1918, and before that in personal union with the German state of Prussia, and ruled from Berlin; Dresden - was never part of Poland, was for a while in personal union with Poland in a state ruled from Dresden
3. Poznan - the province, at least, and possibly the city (I'm not too clear on this) had at least a decent-sized German minority during the nineteenth century; Dresden - neither Dresden nor Saxony has ever had any kind of substantial Polish population

The basic fact is that these two instances are only superficially comparable. And your idea for Dresden provides the example that we must provide the Spanish names for Brussels and Naples - and not only that, but the French, Flemish, and Italian names for Madrid. We would have to give the Greek name for Venice (after all, Venice ruled over many Greek lands for some time), and the Greek, Maltese, Spanish, Hindi, Chinese, and Swahili names for London (Cyprus, Malta, Gibraltar, India, Hong Kong, and Tanzania having been British colonies); we would have to provide the Arabic name for Paris (after all, Algeria was actually part of France); and so on and so forth. It is an absurd interpretation. BTW, I assume your argument would also suggest that we should give the German name for every city in the pre-1772 Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, since all those cities were ruled from the German city of Dresden? john k 17:50, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I second all that john has said. Why are you doing this Halibutt you have always seemed such a resonable person to me before this. Philip Baird Shearer 19:10, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Saintswithin 06:52, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC) As I understand it, Halibutt is enforcing this rule: For locations that share a history between Germany and Poland, the first reference of one name should also include a reference to other commonly used names, e.g. Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland) or Szczecin (Stettin). An English language reference that primarily uses this name should be provided on the talk page if a dispute arises. [2] Halibutt, you asked whether anyone had anything to prove that Dresden does not fall into the category mentioned in this rule. The comments above all make perfect sense to me, but clearly they don't address this rule directly. In fact, however, I believe that it is Halibutt who still has to provide proof that Dresden does fall into this category:

• To use the vague language of the rule, Dresden does "share a history" with Poland (in the same way that Londres shares a history with France for example), so according to the logic of the rule Halibutt is perfectly right there.
• Halibutt has provided a list of links on Google to English language sources using "Drezno". Here is a modified version. However, the links mostly appear to lead to this site, which does not primarily use "Drezno", but uses it only once in this list: "Dresden, Dresden, Dresden, Dresde, Dresda, Dresden, Drezno" (at the bottom of the page). Halibutt, please provide not a list of Google links, but an actual English-language source written by native speakers of English, using "Drezno" consistently. I did look but have not been able to find one: [3]. Saintswithin 06:52, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Polish stupidity

You all could see stupid nationalistic games of drunk pole Hello-but here. The same he and few his friends (an "administrator" Piotrus, Witkacy, Balcer and Wojsyl) do on Lithuanian articles.

We Lithuanians fully support our German friends. We have to stop drunk polish rampage together. Best wishes from Vilnius, Lithuania. 85.206.194.242 07:05, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)