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East Germany is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 19, 2004	Refreshing brilliant prose	Not kept

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.

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Is East Germany a country?

I thought it was a country, not just a state? Can you explain here? Thanks. Free Bloc (talk) 11:50, 23 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Answer: Yes, it is a former country, from 1949 until unification with West Germany in 1990. Since then it is just the in-official name for a region, similar to Southern Germany.

But you are probably asking about this revert of an edit of yours. To be honest, both the term "country" and "state" are in my opinion correct (and interchangeable) in this case. "State" can also be used in the sense of Sovereign state, instead of in the sense of Constituent state (like the 16 federal states that make up Germany, or the 50 states that make up the United States). The use of state = country corresponds to the German word "Staat", which also has several meanings depending on context.

So I would not have been so fast to revert you, and perhaps User:Bumbubookworm can enlighten us, why he felt it necessary. One argument for the revert could be, that West Germany never accepted East Germany as a sovereign state; instead considering it to be an illegally constituted puppet state controlled by the Soviet Union. The West German Grundgesetz always contained Reunification as a central aim, therefore West Germany insisted that neither itself, nor East Germany, were a separate country – just temporarily separated parts of one single country.

One snag with this argument though: It didn't reflect the actual realities on the ground. For several decades the two were for all practical purposes separate countries. It is a similar situation to South Korea and North Korea, or to mainland China and Taiwan. As much as the People's Republic of China insists that Taiwan is an inseparable part of China and can never be a sovereign state – for many decades now, that is pretty much what Taiwan has been. Seeing that all these four linked articles employ the word "country" in the introduction, I think a good case can be made for both "country" and "state" being fine in connection with East Germany too. All the best from --Sprachraum (talk) 14:20, 23 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The states of the U.S. are called states because they are sovereign states that united into a federation by delegating part of their sovereignty to a central government. Before that they were called provinces or colonies. In German, German states are refer to as Länder which means countries. The German word for state is Staat. Other countries have appeared to have copied the U.S. term for its constituent territories, even when they were never states in the historical sense.

I prefer referring to the DDR and BRD as states, because it could be seen as one country divided into two states. TFD (talk) 18:43, 23 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

yah it be a country back in the olden times with the whipper snapper gobble fobblers yk what im sayin Bc420bc (talk) 16:24, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Have another Labatt Blur, goof. 142.198.135.212 (talk) 12:24, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I see, thank both you very much, goodbye. Free Bloc (talk) 12:12, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

German Democratic Republic was indeed a country. 2402:800:9B0E:CDC4:DC63:C430:709B:A316 (talk) 08:15, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Per capital income and HDI looks bogus

Communist East Germany with a per capital income of 42,000$ by 1989 slightly smaller than it is today for all Germany???😂😂😂😂 Nlivataye (talk) 18:01, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is what I've been thinking. Absolutely no chance the GDP PC and especially HDI were even nearly that high. 0.953 would make it nearly the most developed country on Earth if it were today. The source it cites has loads of inflated HDI numbers... Oligarchs0 (talk) 00:30, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What's the de jure capital of East Germany?

Just wondering. Patriciogetsongettingridofhiswiki (talk) 21:15, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

it doesn't have one. It no longer exists as a separate state. See German reunification. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:45, 18 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I meant to say "What was East Germany's de jure capital when it existed" Patriciogetsongettingridofhiswiki (talk) 19:09, 19 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

East Berlin was the capital, period. The NATO trolls maintaining this article added that garbage footnote because Amerikkka and its two older brothers England and France (the original NATO trolls) all refused to recognize GDR's capital. Crybabies. 142.198.135.212 (talk) 12:29, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Was the Soviet Sector ever recognized as part of the GDR and its capital? Incidentally, the GDR referred to it as Berlin Haupstadt der DDR. TFD (talk) 15:29, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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:

Auferstanden aus Ruinen.wav

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:52, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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:

East Germany.ogg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:38, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

About Source 7

Jürgen Kocka went to school in West Germany in the Free University of Berlin which was heavily influenced by USA propaganda. I'm not sure it's appropriate here to list him as a source when claiming that the GDR was a totalitarian state. Idontknowanythingok (talk) 14:02, 8 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]