Talk:Germany

Grammar mistake

"Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, with the rising of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states" I'd suggest changing it to: "Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states"

President

The german President (Bundespräsident) is not allowed to be in a political party. The statement (CDU) after the name of Christian Wulff is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.233.123.228 (talk) 11 January 2012

I believe this is a convention, rather than a strict rule, but his party membership is dormant. See

• http://www.bundespraesident.de/DE/Amt-und-Aufgaben/Verfassungsrechtliche-Grundlagen/verfassungsrechtliche-grundlagen.html
• http://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Reden/DE/Christian-Wulff/Interviews/2011/110630-Die-Zeit.html

--Boson (talk) 19:02, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

The Federal President is elected by the Federal Diet and the Federal Council. These consist of people who belong to some parties and they would only vote for a person of their own party. The reason why Wulff became Federal President was that he was a CDU member and that the coalition of CDU/CSU and FDP has a majority so they could elect him. I believe that the rule that the Federal President must not be member of a party is somewhere in our legislation (it's not in the constitution, I just checked that). However, the Federal President ususally doesn't quit their party entirely, he just lets his membership be dormant. Whatever his official membership status is, he still feels part of CDU/CSU and people still associate him with this party. When he leaves office, he will become a regular CDU member again, so we can't really consider him non-CDU. -- 79.238.168.220 (talk) 22:22, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

But if everybody voted strictly along party/coalition lines, it presumably wouldn't have taken three attempts.--Boson (talk) 00:17, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Boson: Germany has more than two parties, so if everyone votes for a candidate of their own party, you wouldn't get a majority. The only way to get a majority for a particular Federal President is by making several parties vote for the same candidate. These "several parties" are usually the government coalition parties. The party that leads the coalition would be allowed to decide who is going to be Federal President while their coalition partner will mostly want some Federal Ministers in return. -- 62.156.56.92 (talk) 05:30, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

The point is that Wulff was the (only) candidate put forward by the governing coalition (CDU/CSU + FDP). By your logic, they should have controlled 644 votes, where 623 would have been sufficient for an absolute majority; so Wulff should have got an absolute majority on the first vote. Since he was only elected on the third vote (where an absolute majority is not even required – but was politically desirable), it was obviously not that simple. The rather unusual make-up of the Bundesversammlung may be one factor that makes "party discipline" more difficult. Don't forget: half the electors are not from the Bundestag at all, and – though elected by the parliaments of the Länder- need not even be politicians. It's quite possible that experienced politicians have to take some of the VIP electors aside and explain how the sausage-making process really works. I don't see the direct relevance of horse trading for ministeral posts in the presidential election.--Boson (talk) 19:57, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't see a relevance either. It's rather pretty unconvincing, since Federal Ministers are regularly assigned only after an election of the Bundestag, which takes place independently from and quite often in another year than the election of the Bundespräsident. Anyway, this discussion is quite off-topic. Or is any of this going to improve the article? --Zahnradzacken (talk) 20:31, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Anthem

Is it possible to find another recording of the national anthem? The one currently in place has an awful clarinet player that is unable to stay in tune and whose technique is severely lacking. It tends to sour the entire performance and is noticeable from the very beginning. ++Arx Fortis (talk) 04:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

German brands

Especially if we list brands not included in the cited source (in which case we need more sources), we need to avoid original research, including synthesis, and we need to specify criteria. For instance, one of the "global" German brands recently added was Wella. It is true that Wella is - amongst other things - a German brand, but it is , I presume, ultimately owned by Procter & Gamble. So it's not really the best one to choose as an example of a global German brand. I presume we do not wish to mention all of the 1,000 brands mentioned. This is one reason to stick to a small list selected as being particulary relevant by a single source. --Boson (talk) 19:55, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
The sentence starts with "Well-known global brands are . . ." yet none of the cited sources seems to claim that Wella (for instance) is a global German brand. I haven't checked, but I assume that the Wella mark, like the others, is also registered in other countries; so what makes it a global German brand? The same question needs to be asked for all the brands. We also need to consider which brands to mention: the top ten German brands, the German brands among the top 50 global brands, or what? --Boson (talk) 20:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The new sources don't cut it at all. There's no way to tell what they're sourcing, and some brands in the sources aren't in the list (which is two and a half lines long on my screen). We should stick to the one list, which showed which of the top 100 global brands were German. CMD (talk) 21:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

"A global brand is one which is perceived to reflect the same set of values around the world." Just because some brands are not in your list of 100, doesn't mean that they are not global brands. To claim that Deutsche Bank, Lufthansa, Continental, T-mobile, Bayer, BASF, etc. are not well known global brands is just nonsense. I think the following do qualify for this (globally present & revenue higher than 1 billion USD): Mercedes-Benz, BMW, SAP, Siemens, Volkswagen, ThyssenKrupp, BASF, PUMA, Deutsche Bank, Adidas, Bayer, Audi, Allianz, Infineon, Bosch, Continental, Porsche, Lufthansa, Henkel, MAN, Hochtief (Turner Construction), T-mobile, Haribo, Osram, Hugo Boss, DHL, Beiersdorf (Nivea).--IIIraute (talk) 22:38, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The wikipedia article states "Well-known global brands are..." so here are the Global 500 2011: http://brandirectory.com/league_tables/table/global_500_2011 - I guess, since they all belong to the world's top 500 brands in 2011, the are "Well-known global brands."--IIIraute (talk) 23:25, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Since this is a general encyclopaedia article, not a directory, I would suggest, provisionally, taking (at most) the first five 'German' brands listed here. That would be Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, and Volkswagen. I would be happier with a source that stated which are the five German brands that are most well known globally, rather than ranking brands by value (without stating how the brands are valued).

In the longer term, I don't think there is reason to mention as many as five brands. Do we have any other country articles that list more than 2 brands?

I also wonder about the rationale for listing brands rather than enterprises. I can understand why the United States article mentions McDonalds and Coca-Cola as brands, since they are claimed to be the two best-known brands (not just of US brands) but, as long as Germany doesn't have the most well-known brand, mentioning any German brands (in this high-level article) is a bit iffy from the notability point of view, anyway. Anything more than the first two (say, the first five) probably belongs somewhere like Economy of Germany. --Boson (talk) 00:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I support the status quo before IIIraute´s edits. As mentioned, this is not a directory nor is it the place for extended namedropping. We do have a list of leading companies AND global brands, that should be sufficient. All new source supported lists of brands should better go to the subarticle. Herr Kent (talk) 00:54, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Here is a source to the "best known" brands: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/most-famous-brands.html --IIIraute (talk) 01:20, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Status quo?? When deciding for the "best known" brands, it can only be: Mercedes, VW, Adidas, Puma (Maradona, Matthäus, Buffon, Bolt, Eto'o, etc.).... also Nivea, BMW, Porsche, Haribo, Audi, Lufthansa, Deutsche Post (DHL). I mean, ask some kids in Kinshasa if the know "SAP or Allianz"? ...they will know Mercedes, VW, Adidas, Puma, Nivea and Haribo.--IIIraute (talk) 02:27, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I just reverted my previous edit; I will take my edits to the "Economy of Germany" article.--IIIraute (talk) 03:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Haribo is the biggest manufacturer of gummi and jelly sweets in the world. Haribo produces 100 million gummi bears per day; they are produced in 14 European factories, then distributed to more than 100 countries from where they are sold to another (estimated) 100 countries (that's 6 gummi bears per annum for every single human on earth)--IIIraute (talk) 04:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Third Reich

Hello, i would like to propose to alter the end of the small Third Reich Text, it says

"war resulted in large territorial losses; the expulsion of about 15 million Germans from the eastern areas of Germany and other countries; mass rape of German women; and the destruction of multiple major cities."

Iam from Germany myself, when i read this i feel very unconfortable because the consequences of Germanys actions during the Third Reich, which led to millions of deaths, destroyed cities and mass rapes across europe are not mentioned inside the text. Only what Germany "suffered", this creates a wrong picture in which Germany is the victim or receives a victim like position.

Germany also suffered casualities and warcrimes but at a much less scale than Europe and Russia. It is our responisbility to reflect the history correctly. First we should mention what Germany, during the Third Reich, was responsible for in Europe, and then to mention that Germany also suffered loss of lifes and warcrimes, but on a much less scale than the suffering for what the Third Reich was responsible for.

I would propose to alter the text to :

"World War II, started by the Third Reich involving the Axis powers, led to more than 60 million dead in Europe, multiple destroyed and devastated cities and mass rapes. The Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals were held after World War II. The war casualties for Germany are estimated at 5.3 million German soldiers and 1 to 2.5 million German civilians. The end of the war resulted in territorial loss for Germany and the expulsion of about 10 million Germans from former German territory and East European countries; devastation of multiple cities and rape of women."

I already added sources, i would welcome further suggestions, additions and changes for the text. The article is restricted so i have to ask another author if he would be willing to do the change. Thank you.

The current text documents your proposal already: "In what later became known as The Holocaust, the Third Reich regime had enacted policies directly subjugating many dissidents and minorities. Millions of people were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, including a sizeable number of Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, Poles and other Slavs, including Soviet POWs, people with mental and/or physical disabilities, homosexuals, and members of the political opposition.[34] World War II was responsible for more than 40 million dead in Europe.[35] The Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals were held after World War II."--89.204.153.69 (talk) 00:30, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I will not start a discussion here, the correct moralic assignments of the reflection of history are at a disproportional level within the current text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.78.49.202 (talk) 00:30, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

...well, I guess that means that this discussion is finished.--89.204.139.170 (talk) 00:42, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Germany installs tax machines to make paying taxes easier for Prostitutes.

Prostitution is not illegal in Germany?? why? ```operation warlord — Preceding unsigned comment added by Project warlord (talk • contribs) 06:03, 10 March 2012 (UTC)