Talk:Inner German border/Archive 1

Merger discussion

Go here for the discussion: Talk:Berlin_Wall Vicarious 21:13, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I shortened and refined the lines: "East German residents wishing to leave the GDR, even merely for a vacation on socialist territory, often faced tough controls and long waits for exit visas. Meanwhile, residents of other East European Communist nations flocked to the GDR for trade and leisure when possible, as it was the most prosperous country of the Soviet bloc."

In this context the second part of the statement lacks meaningful information and suggest that other Eastern block residents had easier passage through the Polish-GDR, Czechoslovak-GDR borders. In fact the harsh contol was applied on all ordenary travellers regardless country origin.

The judment on GDR as being the most prosperious country of the Soviet block raises questions. It either needs some objective figures or it should be deleted. Generaly I beleive "prosperity" is not an appropriate term to use to describe any of the former Eastern block countries. Perhaps "relatively prosperious" would be more accurate, but this above mentioned context can live without it.--Kukorelli 10:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Death on the border syntax unclear

Apart from civilians fleeing the GDR, half of the remaining probable perpetrators were citizens of West Berlin and West Germans or US soldiers, and about half were deserting GDR border guards or Volkspolizei soldiers. One was a deserting Soviet soldier. In the GDR, some of these soldiers killed were venerated as heroes; streets, children's camps, soldiers' garrisons and schools were named after them.

This is really confusing, especially the "probable perpetrators." Perps usually are the killers, but it sometimes sounds like they're talking about emigrants, who usually were the ones killed.. Are they saying that most of the guards were killed by civilian would-be emigrants?

This whole part looks like attempt at whitewashing. Probably it could not be deleted by anti-Communist crowd, as deaths of GDR border guards are documented, but every effort is made to make the part as fuzzy as possible. Can somebody understand from the article as it is now what really killed guards? Act of G-d? These statistics have no fact to support them as being true about the east west movement of immigration in and out of the DDR.One good thing about both DDR and FRD they keep excellent records look it up in Germany . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.30.126.200 (talk) 19:00, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Crossing ambiguity

Between 1949 and 1961 approximately 2.5 million people crossed from the GDR to the FRG, most via the still open border with West Berlin.[2] with a further 5,000 crossing the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989 [3]. Approximately 200,000 people crossed in the other direction.

The last sentence is easily understood as meaning that ~200,000 people crossed from West Germany to East Germany ("the other way" being the opposite of East to West). But it can also be understood as ~200,000 East Germans crossed into Poland, etc. And to be honest, I can't figure out which is more improbable: all those people fleeing from West Germany, or all those people fleeing to Poland and so on actually getting somewhere outside the Eastern Bloc. Steve Fishboy 00:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

It's clearly west to east and not that unusual - see Angela Merkel's parents for example. Secretlondon 18:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Unique in history

The "unique in history" statement seems improbable. Doesn't the North Korean border keep people in too? Lots of borders do this I'm sure. Secretlondon 18:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. I've removed that rather odd statement (not one of mine!). -- ChrisO 19:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Solely German concern

It was run as a solely German concern, with the occupying powers (the Western Allies and the Soviet Union) maintaining military forces some way back from the line.

This seems misleading at best. While a majority of the allied forces were position significantly behind the boarder for tactical reasons. But there were a significant number of US forces that were resposible for helping secure the border and border observation. The US Army's 11 ACR and 2ACR were the primary larger US forces resposible for the boarder in the 80's when I was there. I belonged to a smaller cavalry unit from the 3 Infantry Divsion, which was the 3/7th Cav at the time (later it was renamed to 4/4 cav), which was responsible for the area between the two larger ACR units, while our unit was primarily responsible for this smaller area, we also had combat units from all over the 3ID that came in and filled in for us while we were off doing other things. The base we used for border patrol was acutally a Bundesgrenzschultz (BGS) base in Coburg. From there, we regularly sent troups into the 1km border zone to either do border traces (walk next to the actual border) or set up an obeservation or listening post. Sometimes we worked the border trace with BGS or Zoll, but not always. We also frequenty went on alert and rolled our bradley fighting vehicles to positions just outside the 1k zone (East german border positions usually withing range of either the guns or TOW missles). While the BGS and Zoll did alot of the day to day work, the US troops many times were right there as well providing heavier military support including helicopter gunships for BGS. There were alot of rules while operating at the border as a US Soldier, you couldn't enter the 1km zone without permission (we had permission for our border trace missions). You couldn't wear a helmet, and you couldn't carry a gas mask, and you weren't allowed to orient your weapon toward the boarder while inside the 1km zone. But we were certainly there. See Observation Point_alpha for references to BGS turning over control of certain areas to the US military in 1965. 146.18.173.73 (talk) 01:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I served in the 2/2 ACR in Bamburg, and we were frequently sent to Hof to perform border duty. here is an excerpt from the 2nd Cavalry page on the history of the 2nd ACR on the Border..

"During the Cold War era the 2d ACR was responsible for surveillance of 731 kilometers along the Iron Curtain. Its section included 375 kilometers of the border separating West and East Germany, as well as the entire 356 kilometers of the West German-Czechoslovakian border. From a distance the border area appeared deceptively peaceful and scenic. Closer inspection however revealed the Iron Curtain's massive and deadly barrier system. Its series of metal mesh fences topped with barbed wire and equipped with sensitive warning devices, guard towers with interlocking fields of observation, and concrete walls similar to those found in Berlin were an imposing deterrent to those on both sides. Only a few legal crossing points existed and these were heavily guarded and fortified.

The former East German and Czech border commands consisted of hand picked individuals who were considered politically reliable and were well-trained in marksmanship and surveillance skills. The low number of successful escapes from East Germany, normally about 25 a year in the 2d ACR sector, testified to the deadly efficiency of the barrier system. The Walt Disney feature film "Flight to Freedom" depicted a successful escape by a family from East Germany into the 2d ACR border region.

To conduct continuous border surveillance in sector, the Regiment operated six border camps in addition to the home garrisons of the squadrons. Camp Harris located in the town of Coberg, Kingsley Barracks in Hof, Camp Gates in Brand, Camp Pitman in Weiden, Camp Reed in Rosts, and Camp May in Regen. From the border camps, 2d ACR units patrolled their border sectors both by vehicle and on foot. Helicopters from the Fourth Squadron assisted from the air. At each border camp, a reaction force was kept on standby around the clock and could clear the camp within minutes of the alert horn sounding. Finally the Regiment worked closely with the German border agencies, the BGS (Bundesgrenzshutz) and BBP (Bavarian Border Patrol), and the ZOLL (customs) Police, sharing intelligence information and conducting joint patrols. The mission of the Regiment demanded the constant vigilance and dedication of all the soldiers stationed along the wall. " —Preceding unsigned comment added by -=DraGooN67=- (talk • contribs) 15:38, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Article rewritten and expanded

Over the last few months I've been carrying out a sort of one-man Wikiproject on the end of the Cold War - next month is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of the border between the two Germanies. As well as carrying out a great deal of research, I went to Germany and cycled nearly the full length of the former border, taking a large number of photographs and doing a lot of on-the-ground research over the course of several weeks. I've rewritten and greatly expanded this article and will be creating and expanding various other related articles in the coming weeks. I'm aiming to get the article up to Featured Article standard, but as a first step I'd appreciate it if it could be peer reviewed and reassessed. -- ChrisO (talk) 14:57, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

At first sight it looks absolutely outstanding. Well done. It would be great to get it to FA in time for next month. I am sure you know it will need alt texts; I can help with those if needed. I've placed non-breaking spaces after numbers in the body text (in dates like "1 May" etc.) and have fixed a few German spellings. Disambigs are also fixed. I am not sure which page you want the peer review to be a subpage of; perhaps you might like to create the page yourself, and link to it here. JN466 19:32, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all the work you've already done on it. If you could help with the alt tags, that would be great. Auntieruth55 has given some good advice on the WP Germany talk page, so I intend to pursue the suggested changes. I'm also not sure about where to place the peer review page; any suggestions? -- ChrisO (talk) 21:34, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

ChrisO has created the peer review page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Inner German border. --JN466 14:25, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Iron Curtain not quite accurate

The intro of this article calls the internal border a manifestation of Churchill's Iron Curtain. In actuality, Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech described the curtain as running "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic", and thus left all of what became East Germany to the west of that line: Stettin is by the current German-Polish border. Could this wording be improved?--Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 15:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Not really, there are many sources describing it as part of the Iron Curtain - don't forget that the border route is now part of a European Iron Curtain Trail. Churchill's "Iron Curtain" was only a metaphor - the Polish border was not fortified at any point, as far as I know - so it doesn't need to be taken too literally. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Besides, Churchill wasn't quite consistent in his speech. Two sentences further he listed Berlin (as well as Vienna) among the cities that found themselves in the Soviet sphere of influence. It's actually typical of politicians and journalists not to look at a map before saying or writing something. 194.39.218.10 (talk) 13:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Split

This article is over 191 kilobytes long. Any ideas on how to split it? Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:34, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps sections 4 through 8 (in the current revision) could be separated into another article about the fortifications, leaving the remainder of the article discussing mainly the border's history and significance. --Doradus (talk) 21:08, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Splitting the article is part of the longer-term plan. I envisage using the article as the springboard to a number of subsidiary articles of equal quality, covering topics raised in the main article in more detail. I don't intend to move section 4 in its entirety but would redo the initial overview (4.1) to act as a summary of an article - call it East German border fortifications - which would comprise what is presently 4.2 to 4.13. Some of the present section 6.1 could probably be merged into Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic. Sections 7 and 8 could, like 4, be summarised and split off into two or three subsidiary articles. The question is at what stage should all of this be done? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:21, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Wow, kudos for taking on this work. This is shaping up to be an excellent family of articles. --Doradus (talk) 01:27, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't mind the size of the article at present. It is engagingly written, well structured, and as a reader I can focus on whatever aspect interests me. It is also nice to have such comprehensive information on a single page.

As for the length per se, Encyclopedia Britannica has plenty of articles that are longer. JN466 15:39, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Origins of the border

Some slight nitpicking, but I think there are some nuances missing in the origins description, i.e. it lacks pointers to related topics.

• 1. Shouldn't we mention the wealth of German internal border alternatives that were proposed? In the Yalta Conference article a bit down you can see a number of maps of proposals for "interior" borders.

• 2. There were some other resulting interior borders, and we should at least point to them as related even though we do not discuss them. e.g. the Saarland border, and the very minor Belgian (and Dutch although the "Dutch area" did not receive special status) see Territorial_changes_of_germany#Territorial_changes_after_World_War_II.

• 3. We should mention that there was a Committee on Dismemberment of Germany which was set up by decision of the Yalta Conference (February 1945). Someone with the time and interest could perhaps eventually write the article on that?

To get a brief overview before looking for sources this could be a good start.

[1] Yet those ideas permeated much of American thinking, especially in the War Department, right up to the time of Secretary [James F.] Byrnes' important Stuttgart speech in 1946. They were reflected in the basic directive for the occupation of Germany, which was a kind of Bible for all that was done during the early days of the occupation, the paper known as JSC-1067. They also affected Roosevelt's thinking on the question of whether to split up Germany. On this issue he seems to have changed his mind several times. Apparently at Yalta there was Big Three agreement for partition. Yet that decision, if it was a decision, was never conveyed to the American delegation to the EAC, which proceeded blithely along on the assumption, which certainly had always been the State Department position, that Germany was to be left intact within its 1937 borders. Nor did we know at the time that the Big Three, having agreed to consider partition, asked Winant and Gusev and Sir Anthony Eden to act as a committee in London to study how this partition decision would affect what they were doing in the EAC.

[2] It remains a mystery how heads of governments, who had secretly agreed to dismember Germany, could have exhibited so little interest in the subject as time went on, It was true that the experts in each foreign office were generally opposed to partition, but it is nonetheless remarkable that in the end the experts' view prevailed. In any case, the special high level London committee that was supposed to follow through on the matter, found there no longer was any interest higher up and they let it die on the vine. It was not referred to the EAC and hence not inserted in the surrender instrument or any of the other basic documents. (In order to be prepared in case of a last minute decision at a very high level to include a provision for partition, a second set of surrender documents was prepared containing a dismemberment clause. However, it was not used because no last minute instructions were received.) There is a certain irony in the fact that the EAC surrender document was not used as the surrender instrument, although the original version was issued later as a directive. --Stor stark7 ^Speak 14:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Are we talking about the same thing here? The Yalta Conference page talks about the dismemberment of Germany and changes to its international borders (Oder-Neisse Line and all that). We're talking here about the internal borders between the occupation zones, a rather different issue surely? -- ChrisO (talk) 17:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Dismemberment meant chopping off pieces of Germany and giving them away to other countries, but also meant chopping Germany upp into smaller less powerful and fully independent states, as accidentally happened with BRD and DDR, and or turning some of the more industrial areas into international areas (see for example this[3]).

The discussions on which countries to chop Germany into and which borders they should have were taking place as late as February 1945 at Yalta, which is why I think it is slightly misleading to only mention the following in the lead:

"The inner German border owed its origins to the agreements reached at the Tehran Conference in November–December 1943. The conference established the European Advisory Commission (EAC) to outline proposals for the partition of a defeated Germany into British, American and Soviet occupation zones (a French occupation zone was established later)."

I.e. neglecting to mention that they were at the time also planning permanent borders, not only occupation zone borders.

One example of one such border that can be derived from these plans is the "internal border" with the Saar, see for example [4] and [5].

I'm not looking for a novella here, all I'm saying is that one sentence could be added e.g. The conference established the European Advisory Commission (EAC) to outline proposals for the partition of a defeated Germany into British, American and Soviet occupation zones (a French occupation zone was established later). At the same time proposals for borders for the possible purpose of permanently dividing Germany into 2 or more independent states were being discussed at higher levels. Other resulting internal borders included the border between West Germany and the Saar protectorate. Or something similar, don't have time to polish it right now and it's no big deal, just a beauty spot. --Stor stark7 ^Speak 18:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"There is only one German citizenship"

In the section "Origins_of_the_border", a major mistake is made: the words "Germany is an indivisible democratic republic, composed of German states ... There is only one German citizenship."[15] from the 1949 Constitution of East Germany are presented as from the West German Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the GDR and Stalin were still talking about an united Germany, hoping they could gain control over all of it, see Stalin Note. At the same time, the Western side, and mainly Adenauer, gave up on the idea of united neutral Germany in favor of a West Germany that is firmly integrated into the western world, which cemented the division, but allowed the West to develop into a more attractive society. The GDR soon fell behind; to defend themselves, it was now them who built a wall. They also introduced a separate GDR citizenship de:Staatsbürgerschaft der DDR in 1967, then altered their constitution in 1968. -- Matthead  Discuß   15:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"To defend themselves they built a wall"? I have to say that sounds a rather dubious proposition (defend themselves against what? The Wall's fortifications faced inwards, not outwards). You're right that the cited source references the East German constitution - my fault for not noticing that - but the general proposition that West Germany consistently recognised "only one German citizenship" is nonetheless correct. It was East Germany that gave up on reunification; the West pursued it for a while, then paid only lip service to it during the Ostpolitik era, but it never gave up the goal. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've replaced those erroneous lines. See what you think of it now. Thanks for pointing out the error. -- ChrisO (talk) 16:33, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistency

This article bounces back and forth between GDR and DDR. I'd personally like to see DDR used, but that's just me. 24.205.46.147 (talk) 00:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

"DDR" is only used when we're directly quoting German sources (e.g. the boundary stone with the letters "DDR" carved on it). Otherwise the article uses "GDR"- the standard English abbreviation for the country - faily consistently. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:45, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Use of {{main}} in subarticles

{{main}} is not meant to be used in subarticles, but atop the main article's summaries of them (if not using another one like {{details}}, like this article does). See Talk:Development of the inner German border. --an odd name 19:37, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

late queries

• "19th-century German states or provinces"—is that an equative "or"? "states (i.e., provinces)"?
• "The borders of the occupation zones were drawn along the lines of the territorial boundaries of"—three ofs. Can it be "The borders of the occupation zones were drawn along the territorial boundaries of"?
  • Good idea. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'll do some guesswork editing; please change if I'm wrong. Tony (talk) 10:19, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

This I didn't change: "These controls were gradually lifted in the Western zones, but were tightened between western and Soviet zones in 1946 to stem a flow of economic and political refugees from the Soviet zone." "but were tightened by the Soviets for traffic between ..."? Needs to be made clear that it wasn't at the partial behest of the Aliies ... doesn't it?

Actually it was at the partial behest of the Western Allies, in response to a Soviet request. The border controls were tightened on both sides. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Changing "or provinces" to "and provinces" is not to restore the original. Now the meaning is clear. Tony (talk) 12:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

It's to do with Germany's very complicated pre-1871 political geography (see File:Ac.prussiamap3.gif). Some of the inner German border ran along the border of pre-1871 states, elsewhere it ran along the border of provinces within those states (principally within Prussia). They were provinces of the states, not of Germany as a whole. -- ChrisO (talk) 12:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I have no problem now; "or" is a badly engineered word in English. The following queries could be fixed either before or after promotion; I do not intend that they be a barrier to promotion.

• "while international diplomacy paved the way abroad"—Thatcher apparently tried to stick the knife into German plans for reunification. Does the claim need to be softened? And whose diplomacy? "a move that largely enjoyed international support"?

• It's a reference to the Two Plus Four talks, which paved the way to the Two Plus Four Agreement which resulted in German reunification. Too much detail to go into in this article, I think... -- ChrisO (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

• What is NVA?

• Nationale Volksarmee, the East German army. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

• Why do we need German terms such as "a simultaneous process of Grenzöffnung (border opening) was taking place". "border breaches" (Grenzdurchbrüche) — Gums up the text?

• Where key German terms exist (such as "Mauerfall" and "Grenzöffnung", I've tried to use them, to relate the text to the German coverage. "Border breaches" (Grenzdurchbrüche) is there for, in effect, NPOV purposes - we constantly refer to "escape attempts" (the Western POV) so I've used this GDR term to illustrate their POV. One of the things I've aimed to do in this article is reflect both sides' POVs; the East German side is (not surprisingly) less well documented in the literature, particularly in pre-1989 sources. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

• I tweaked these, but the 40 versus 50 looks inconsistent: "separated for nearly 40 years" and "which had underpinned their society for nearly half a century".

• I'll see if I can reword this. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

• "The border was progressively run down"—meaning mowed down by ?bulldozers, or allowed to degenerate?

• Ambiguous, I agree. I'll revise it. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

• "West Germany had secretly offered a much-needed hard currency loan of DM 500 million ($250 million in return for allowing citizens of the GDR to freely emigrate)". So is the implication that $250 equals that DM 500, or that $250 was the portion allocated for that reason (in which case use the same currency)? I'm confused.

• The parentheses were in the wrong place. It should have read "DM 500 million ($250 million)..." -- ChrisO (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

• "though officially released figures give a lower count for the death toll before and after the Berlin Wall was built." Are you contrasting that these figures are from both before and after 1961, yet the unofficial figures referred to earlier are ... after only?

• No, the figures are for the periods before the Wall was built (1945-61) and after (1961-89). -- ChrisO (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

• Is it clarified now in the text? Maybe I'm being dense. On the German terms: why not use "border breaches", then, in English? Isn't that NPOV? I don't see why a German word needs to be used. I have no personal objection, but I think it's a slight turn-off to many English-speaking readers. Perhaps just a few? Tony (talk) 06:35, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Two new related articles

I've created the following articles to fix red links in this one:

• Böseckendorf‎ - village in E. Germany, scene of a famous mass escape and a recent German TV drama about the incident
• British Frontier Service - one of the Allied border monitoring organisations mentioned in the article

Still to do:

• Bundeszollverwaltung (cf. de:Bundeszollverwaltung)
• Heinz-Josef Große (draft nearly completed at User:ChrisO/Heinz-Josef Große)
• Kurt Lichtenstein (cf. de:Kurt Lichtenstein)
• Museums of the inner German border (self-explanatory, draft being written offline)

These should all be done by the weekend. Ideally the article won't have any red links by the time it gets onto the Main Page (hopefully on November 9th; the timing is currently under discussion at WP:TFAR#November 9). -- ChrisO (talk) 00:27, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Did Kurt. Doing Bundeszollverwaltung. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:06, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Bundeszollverwaltung is a pretty... poor... article in the German wikipedia, built out of a series of lists and recentism. Its not really capable of machine translation, it needs a rewrite with inspiration from the German article. So I stubbed and left translation requests. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:19, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your efforts - that's very helpful. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:19, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Have you made contact with User:Sir James at WP.de? He contacted me yesterday after I left a link to the Signpost article at the de Berlin Wall talk page. Tony (talk) 03:28, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

What did he say? I must have missed that. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:19, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

proposed blurb for TFA

I tweaked it, but I wonder whether it might be better with fewer numbers and a streamlined opening sentence (is it necessary to use four names for the two states when these terms are introduced in the article itself?) What do you think of this?

The inner German border was the frontier between East and West Germany from 1949 to 1990. The heavily fortified border was the front line of the Cold War, running for 1,381 kilometres (858 mi) through the heart of Germany. The fences and walls, barbed wire, alarms, trenches, watchtowers, automatic booby-traps, minefields, armed guards and natural hazards are thought to have claimed the lives of more than a thousand East Germans who attempted to cross the border to find a better life in the West. The fortifications were dismantled after East Germany opened its borders on 9 November 1989, the day the Berlin Wall fell; the rest was abandoned a few months before German reunification a year later.

The last clause: "the rest" = the rest of the fortifications, of the wall? Previously it has talked of opening, not abandoning. It looks like it was abandoned all at once, by decree; but maybe it was gradual? And what about "dismantling"? Tony (talk) 03:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the copyedits, they look mostly good. I'll tweak the wording a bit. The abandonment of the border was gradual; the guards stopped patrolling it by the start of 1990 and demolition began quite quickly in some places, but it wasn't entirely abandoned until 1 July 1990. The border crossings remained in operation (passport checks etc) until that date. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:16, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Reference list formating

I am checking with Ms2ger (talk · contribs) whether this edit was necessary. It changed the behaviour of the ref list; the refs jumped to are no longer highlighted in blue. The blue highlighting is useful really, since it gives the eye something to focus on. Unless anyone is aware of technical reasons why we shouldn't use <cite id=name>, I'd rather go back to that format. --JN466 20:57, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

It looks like someone on patrol found it, perhaps, and made the change? Perhaps this article needs some level of protection for the next few weeks? Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:34, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I checked Template talk:citation/core and could not find the discussion mentioned in the edit summary. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:29, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Me neither. I've reverted for now, pending further discussion. The alternative formatting jumped to the relevant reference line, which was then the top line in the window, without highlighting it. Given that the ref list displays as two columns on large screens, this was still ambiguous. It was even worse in the case of the news and museum sources, as the window could not scroll down far enough to have one of these references as the first line in the window. --JN466 10:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Images for the template box - feedback requested

I've been looking over possible choices of images for the template box at the top of the article and I've found one that I think may work better than what we have at the moment. It has the advantage of showing the border in its heyday (1979) and of depicting accurately the sheer scale and ugliness of the thing. I'd appreciate views on which image people think would work best. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:05, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• 
  1 - reconstructed border installations at Schlagsdorf
• 
  2 - BGS Puma helicopter at the inner German border, 1979

• I prefer the present picture, Chris. From the beginning I liked the symbolism of the open door, i.e. of a border no longer closed. It also has the advantage of all the details – the border marker, the fence, the sign, the lamppost, the tower in the background – being large enough to be clearly made out. The alternative picture is less easy to interpret; the light strip of soil could be a dirt track, the fence cannot be recognised as such at the resolution at which the viewer will see it in the article, and the main impression is of a helicopter flying over a green landscape. --JN466 10:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. I took the first photo with the specific intention of using it in the template box, in any case. -- ChrisO (talk) 17:23, 8 November 2009 (UTC)