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RfC: Inclusion vs exclusion of the 1938 name change

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Before 1945, the village was part of Germany. Its name was Rummy until 1938, when the Nazis conducted a batch rename of those villages in East Prussia deemed by them to have an "un-German" sounding name - this affected Rumy and several other villages whose name had emerged from a medieval Baltic (Old Prussian/Lithuanian) or Masurian root. From a moral and historiographic/linguistic perspective, this was a bad thing to do and has to be condemned. On the other hand, this took place not in any occupied territory, but in pre-war Germany, and thus the names given in 1938, such as Rumnau for Rummy were the valid legal names until 1945, when East Prussia was severed from Germany and partitioned between Russia and Poland, whose authorities again changed the name(s) of the village(s) to Russian and Polish names, respectively, when the Germans were expelled and the area resettled (primarily) with Poles and Russians.

The locus of the dispute is the inclusion of the 1938-45 name [1] [2] [3]. Similar disputes arose with other former East Prussian villages, and the dispute had earlier been discussed at Talk:WPPoland - apparently without a result. I thus seek to work out a solution for Rummy/Rumnau/Rumy and similar cases via this RfC.

As I see it, arguments would be

  • pro inclusion of the 1938-45 name:
    • it was a legal name change
    • post-war Germany did not revoke the rename since she had lost authority over the area by the end of the war, thus the 1938 names are still valid (also, of course, the pre-1938 names)
    • archives and documents, including birth certificates, naturally use that name between 1938 and 1945
    • WWII literature and WWII sources may use either name
  • contra inclusion of the 1938-45 name:
    • it was designed by the Nazis with bad intentions as outlined above
    • it was in use only for a short (though important) period
    • in many cases, the local population informally continued to use the pre-1938 names

I'd appreciate some input to de-escalate the dispute. Skäpperöd (talk) 16:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • It should certainly be included - it's encyclopedic information. I'm still waiting for suggestions as to how it might be included with less emphasis being placed on it than when it appears in the first sentence. (But I don't personally have any particular problem with it being there.)--Kotniski (talk) 17:16, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify a thing, I only oppose having the Nazi 1938 name in the lead. The article can mention it elsewhere (and giving the proper context hopefully too). Also I have to comment on Skapperod's point above that since post-war Germany did not revoke the rename the name is still valid. Well I don't think it needs to be formally revoked, the Nazi names never really kicked in and even the Germans prefer to use the historic German names rather than the Nazi 1938 invented ones.  Dr. Loosmark  17:35, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you did not move the name, but removed it here and elsewhere [4] [5] [6] [7]. And most of the articles in question, including this one, are stubs, i.e. there is no other place than the lead. Also, if you move the post-1938 name away from the pre-1938 name it appears as if the place has only one German name, when in fact it has two - a reader that is looking for information on a (fictional) skirmish at Rumnau in 1944, or the 1940 birthplace of their grand-mother, might not realize that this is actually the article they are looking for if the first line suggests that this place was called Rummy then. Skäpperöd (talk) 18:55, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion

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I have stubbed 1938 rename of East Prussian placenames. Maybe we can use it for something along the suggestion below:

or

Skäpperöd (talk) 18:55, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That works fine for me; Loosmark also mentioned that he had produced a suggested format at Jeleniowo (which I've just copyedited to include the new link). Any preferences between the two suggestions?--Kotniski (talk) 19:05, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, in the Jeleniowo format, I would prefer to be more explicit (so the reader doesn't have to follow a concealed link to find out that this was part of a mass renaming); something like "In the Nazi place renaming programme of 1938, the name of the village was changed from X to Y."--Kotniski (talk) 19:09, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We should follow the WP guidelines as outlined at WP:PLACE (The lead: The title can be followed in the first line by a list of alternative names in parentheses: {name1, name2, name3)). Currently the only reason not to follow these principles is User:Loosmark's WP:IDONTLIKEIT.
We should also mention that the modern Polish name was detemined by the Commission for the Determination of Place Names after WWII, which is true for about 32,000 toponyms in Poland.
A minor problem concerning Rumy: the village seems to consist of 2 districts, which were independent villages before WWII. These villages were called Rummy A and Rummy B (East and West after 1938). Is it worth mentioning? HerkusMonte (talk) 07:16, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd have thought all such information is worth mentioning - we're an encyclopedia, and we don't suffer from a shortage of paper. But once we've got that kind of detail, it won't all fit in the first sentence. I'm still not sure whether I prefer the Nazi name in the first sentence or not; on one hand, we have the argument that someone reading simply "German: X" will be misled into thinking that that was the one and only German name (and if they're looking for a village that was called Y - the Nazi name - they might conclude that this isn't the one); on the other hand, by placing the information later in the article, we can give more explicit information about the circumstances of the name change (together with those of the later, Polish, name change). But is there any reason we can't have it in both places?--Kotniski (talk) 07:52, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
HerkusMonte, you keep trumpeting about WP:PLACE without explaining how do the Nazi names satisfy the requirements at WP:PLACE. Yesterday I asked you the same question and instead of answering you declared there is nothing to discuss which is very telling. It's thus quite comical that you accuse me of WP:IDONTLIKEIT.  Dr. Loosmark  11:27, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think Loosmark's Formula at Jeleniow, with the Kotniski Adjustment solves the problem neatly. That sentence can be followed by the Herkus Corollary about the Commission for the Determination of Place Names. Done here or do we need to make a big deal out of this?radek (talk) 15:33, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the Nazi names included names of Nazi leaders, eg. "Hitlersee". Do we accept Hitlersee in this Wikipedia ?
The Nazi names aren't legal in Poland. Nazi propaganda is illegal in Poland.Xx236 (talk) 07:45, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But discussing or reporting on Nazi propaganda is not.--Kotniski (talk) 14:04, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I saw this at the RfC. The actions of the Nazi government are recognized by the international community as illegitimate, and are to be given no validity. Figureofnine (talk) 19:19, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • (RFC contributor) However illegitimate the German actions were they did happen. One day some one will be using Geramn records and come across the Nazi placename and want to find where it was. This is a very good reason for including the 1939-45 version of the name, but I express no strong view on how it should be linked. I would suggest that the Nazi version should exist as a redirect, also the pre-1939 spelling. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:24, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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