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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Halibutt (talk | contribs) at 07:36, 6 June 2005 (→Polish name). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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/Zwinger_%28Dresden%29 It´s all GNU license.NetguruDD

Polish name

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

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)