Talk:Battle of Königsberg

An entry from Battle of Königsberg appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 22 April, 2006.

Wikipedia

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Okay, this page is finally created. To do:

• Aftermath (you can help)
• More details on the last day and negociations with von Lasch.
• Draw an attack map. If someone knows a good tool for it, say it please. --grafikm_fr 12:37, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

You may want to list your request on Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Requested and orphan maps. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:15, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm interested in a tool, not in a map, I'll draw it myself... ^_^ grafikm_fr 14:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay I finished the attack map, check it out... ^_^ Grafikm_fr 21:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Great map. The only thing missing is some indicator of scale. Balcer 21:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

That's the problem. The original map scan does not have it... I've put one of my own though. But please bear in mind that it is a schematic (the little island in the middle of Pregel is not represented for instance), not a map, so there might be some error rate... Gives an order though ^_^ Grafikm_fr 22:20, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Answer to user Ghirlandajo

"Lay" is the present tense of the word. If you think that Kaliningrad currently is laying in ruins, I kindly invite you to visit it. Kuban Kazak changed it to "laid", but you changed it back to "lay". I removed that sentence altogether as it is gramatically incorrect and POV as well (it says 80% was destroyed already, so it is already said that 80% laid in ruins, not the whole city). And, indeed, as is mentioned in this article before and elsewhere, the Soviet aviation bombed the city as well. It is currently impossible to tell who destroyed what, but, of course, denying Soviet influence in defeating the Nazi Germany and claiming that it was just "Anglo-American aviation" that destroyed the city's defenses is ridiculous, especially as the major British air raids happened quite much before the battle, in 1944, while it was in 1945 when the battle happened and the Soviet aviation supported the land troops. Burann 15:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Burann, I know you for a russophobic POV-pusher and find it quite useless to argue with you. Yet in this instance I would suggest you to check a) your English dictionary; b) basic historical literature; c) stop revert warring on subjects you don't understand. Cheers, Ghirla ^-трёп- 17:15, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Will you start accusing Jews of antisemitism as well? It's strange. Besides, I take the accusation of russophobia as an insult; no of my edits were unexplained with legitimate arguements and sources and if anybody will ask for better sources I will will provide them; I never write to Wikipedia anything what I have not double checked, my policy that I have mentioned in the past already. And I understand this particular subject well enough (as you can see, I edit mainly the articles about the western part of Russia and the Baltic States); as usual, I have checked several sources before doing my edits as well. You can find the same information too if you would search for it. Ask me any particular information in regards of my edits and I will provide it. Burann 17:25, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I will admit my mistake about the word "lay" by the way - I have searched more about the subject and indeed I am not sure anymore werether word "lie/lay/lain" or "lay/laid/laid" should be used here so I will leave that to people who knows the English language better than me. Still however, this is not related anyhow to my corrections of information about the historical events as (as I have said already) I double checked that information prior to editing. Burann 19:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Why "Königsberg, Nazi Germany"

A user I won't name has been trying to remove the mention of "Nazi Germany" from the infobox, replacing it with just "Germany". Well, "Nazi Germany" has its importance, because nowadays, Königsberg is not located in Germany (and is not even named Königsberg). For instance, if there was a "Battle of Danzig" in 1944 or 1945, the location would probably be listed as "Danzig, Nazi Germany", and not as "Gdansk, Poland", because there was no Poland and Gdansk was named Danzig. This is just my opinion of course, but if you decide to edit this mention, you're welcome to discuss it on the talk page first. Thanks for attention. Grafikm_fr 13:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Satellite photos

Google Maps has recently added high definition satellite photos of Kaliningrad to its collection. It would be nice to put a link to a satellite photo next to important locations described in the text, especially forts. Unfortunately I do not have a high quality map of the city handy so I cannot do it myself. Balcer 13:49, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. The trouble is, one would have to take a pic and draw on it, and because GMaps pics are copyrighted, I don't know if it can be considered fair use... Grafikm_fr 16:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

We definitely cannot put Google Map pictures in Wikipedia. But we can provide a link right next to the text. Balcer 16:22, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Germany

Königsberg was part of German East Prussia. The fact that Königsberg is no longer German or that its official name is no longer Königsberg is , IMO, irrelevant. Also, I see no reason for the word decisive that user Yev900 added.

Two things:

1) The word "Decisive Victory" was back in the V0 of the article. Capturing a strongly defended city in just four days and 60000 casualties is clearly an important victory (compare it to 100 days and 70,000-160,000 KIA in Budapest), and you'll see what I mean.

2) On the subject of "Nazi Germany", I think a battle must use contemporary denominations. For the battle of Danzig for instance, you will probably list it as "Danzig, Third Reich" but not as "Gdansk, Poland". This being said, if you want, it can be replaced with "Third Reich" or something equivalent if the word Nazi bothers you, but not just plain "Germany".

In any case, you're welcome to discuss all of this on this page, but please abstain from making controversial edits without discussing them in the future. Thanks. -- Grafikm_fr 19:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

You are wrong, the word nazi is not irrelevant and it was a decisive victory. Atleast 3 other people think so. Stop your vandalism with your constant removal of facts. And the only reason we do not see it in more battle boxes is because you have removed it. But in articles untocuhed by you the term is there. (Deng 19:32, 23 April 2006 (UTC))

GA review

This looks like a very fine article, but I have not added it to the GA list yet because a few minor things need to be corrected: the lead section is inadequate at the moment, as it does not even specify which war the battle was part of - it should summarise the article's content in two or three short paragraphs; and section headings do not follow the MoS - normal sentence capitalisation is used. Please add it back to the nominations list once these points have been addressed. Worldtraveller 15:18, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Casualties

Source of casualties? Vess

See the references and the footnotes at the end of the page (Deng 21:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC))

Third Panzer Army

By the beginning of April the Third Panzer Army was holding the line on the Oder so when did the Third Panzer Army leave the Königsberg area or was it just part of the Third (A corps?) in Königsberg that remained after the Third withdrew westwards? --Philip Baird Shearer 08:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC) _______________________________________________________________

The picture "german POW´s marching towards city center" was obviously not taken at Konigsberg, but at Torun. The city in the background is Torun with it´s significant St. Mary´s church. (83.176.135.60 (talk) 19:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC))