Talk:Checkpoint Charlie

Dates

Be careful about dates. I think the dates I've given are accurate, but different sources give all sorts of different answers about precise timings. So if you find a source which disagrees with the article, don't automatically "correct" the article; on the other hand, if you are sure of the facts, please do! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.67.43.240 (talk • contribs) 01:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Checkpoint Charlie Monument Destroyed?

It appears the monument has been dismantled very recently. If no one takes up the editing of the article, perhaps I will.

See the following link [1]

--Joanneva 8 July 2005 11:20 (UTC)

See also de:Freiheitsmahnmal—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.67.43.240 (talk • contribs) 21:15, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Checkpoint Charlie is not DESTROYED!!! It is STILL there.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.37.191.167 (talk • contribs) 07:54, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Joanneva is referring to the crosses incident, in which a memorial consisting of crosses for each person killed on the wall was removed by the city under dubious circumstances. I will add this later if no-one else does.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 11:10, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

I did some cleaning up the best I could, i mostly just reorganized and rewrote what was already there. I did not add any new information. Someone with knowledge of the subject needs to work on the 'Diplomatic Row' section (and probably reorganize it). I honestly did not understand the information as it was presented.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 161.253.39.188 (talk • contribs) 06:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

images

historical image would be good, not just recent tourist photos. thanks.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.229.160.150 (talk • contribs) 20:49, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Risk of Escalation

The statement in the Diplomatic Row section that "both superpowers' leaders understood that Berlin was not worth general war" is not supported and there is much evidence to the contrary. During this time, the Eastern Bloc was furious with the status quo arrangement concerning Berlin as they were losing hundreds or thousands of citizens daily between East and West Berlin. Khruschev had risked open war just three years prior to this event to try to swallow up West Berlin into the GDR by signing a treaty of formal recognition with the latter. The position of Ike and deGualle was to counter any use of force in Berlin (which would have been unavoidable in any attempt to absorb West Berlin given the sizable Nato presence there). Berlin was a showcase for both sides in the Cold War as to their respective superiority and it is possibly the only theatre in the entire world that both East and West were prepared to risk direct confrontation to defend. This statement should be modified or deleted in the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Degivct (talk • contribs) 19:38, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree but of course this is not NPOV so should not have been in the article. Thanks for removing it. (Mountain Goat (talk) 21:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC))

new at wikipedia. sorry. is that picture of that guy in the links section a verifiable fact? i was in berlin this past summer, and saw what the House on Checkpoint Charlie said was the ORIGINAL sign. This guy also claims to have the original sign? Explanation?

Newman Smith High School

Removed the comment

Today, Checkpoint Charlie can also be found guarding the entrance to Newman Smith High 
School in Carrollton, Texas. In order to receive the official "thumbs up" signal from 
him, you must present a green ID. Otherwise, you'll have better luck trying to jump the 
fence.

as the article on that school makes no reference to Checkpoint Charlie in any way.
Septegram 22:25, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Hahahaha. He's the school's parking lot security guard. It's just his nickname. You're right, though: no reason to keep it. Oscabat 07:41, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Death of 1,000 cuts

The article has just been progrssively diembowelled. I have put back the mosst recenttly deleted 'present day' section but wwould someone also replace the other parts? Thanks TobyJ (talk) 09:33, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I added back the other sections--Work permit (talk) 04:19, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant. TobyJ (talk) 10:27, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Emigration restrictions, the Inner German Border and Berlin loophole

Reverted. Very interesting sections, but not specific to checkpoint charile--Work permit (talk) 06:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

The one revert I noticed was huge -- changed nearly every section in the article to an old version, including this section. Re the background info on the Berlin Wall and Emigration restrictions, that was was very short summarized bit of information (with see tags) to provide some context for Checkpoint Charlie and its importance. Readers would otherwise not know even a basic few sentences about the Wall's erection and reasons therefore, and a few sentences on these items comprise rather standard background for an article regarding the most famous checkpoint in that wall.Mosedschurte (talk) 20:06, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I restructured the article, I think it flows better now--Work permit (talk) 02:38, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I changed it to "Background" -- the 1950s emigration restrictions weren't really Cold War, but an internal Eastern Bloc issue causing emigration -- and chron'd the initial Berlin Wall material. The incidents that happened later are in a "Related incidents" section.Mosedschurte (talk) 03:00, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Revert to very old article version

Noticed a few weeks ago that a full blanket revert to a very old article version was made that deleted numerous additions by several editors in most sections of the article, as well as format fixes etc., conforming Lede to WP:Lede summary (actually had individual street names in it), etc.Mosedschurte (talk) 19:55, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Fact check

Nice article - I was wondering about the stats here though "Emigration through Berlin began to swell, with 1,444,000 in 1949, 199,000 in 1960 and 207,000 in the first seven months of 1961 alone" Has someone added an extra 4 to the 1444000? Swelling down from 1 million to 200,000 is a bit odd isn't it? Surely it should read 144,000 - 199,000 - 207,000? Anyone got access to the source to check it? --Joopercoopers (talk) 09:50, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm - this is probably a fairly reliable source and suggests an entirely different bevvy of stats [2]......--Joopercoopers (talk) 09:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

That 144,000 figure in the last source was for 1959. However, a figure close to a million may be correct for the late 40s as several million Germans moved out of the eastern territories of the former German Reich, Poland, etc. Alandeus (talk) 11:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

The refugees from the eastern territories are a different subject than refugees from east germany into west germany. Mixing up those two statistics would be misleading, and even then the over 1 mio figure for one year is implausible.

Here and here are statistics for refugees from East to West Germany, they are mostly in agreement. Note that the first one lists refugees through West Berlin/other borders/overall in separate columns, the second one lists only the overall figure. So the current claim "Emigration through Berlin began to swell, with 1,444,000 in 1949, 199,000 in 1960 and 207,000 in the first seven months of 1961 alone" is wrong on two counts. First the 1.4 million figure is bullshit, and secoondly the other figures are overall refugees, not just through Berlin. Anorak2 (talk) 12:28, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

That first statistic is perfectly credible. Taking those figures, the statement should read "Emigration through Berlin began to swell, with 91,000 in 1959, 152,000 in 1960 and 125,000 until the Wall was erected." Shall we put the above statement in, preferably with a reference to its source? A 1949 figure is not particularly interesting here anyway. By '49 the bulk of the millions of refugees had already moved. Alandeus (talk) 14:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I think taking those few years in isolation is statistically dangerous because of the 'damn lies' of statistical analysis thing. We can't arbitrarily take a small sample size and infer a 'swell'. Looks more to me like a pretty steady stream with the odd blip. As suggested elsewhere, it looks rather more like the cumulative effect of high number of immigration, or possibly, the higher intellectual make up of those numbers that prompted the wall.......I think we need better sources with analysis rather than the bare stats - anyone near a library? --Joopercoopers (talk) 22:10, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I've fixed the numbers using the citations. I also cited the use of the word "swell". The specific quote from the referenced article is "Communist authorities tensely watched the numbers swell during the three years before construction of the Berlin wall". The numbers 144,000 in 1959, 199,000 in 1960, 207,000 in the first half of 1961 are cited in both references. I think it is important to quote wp:rs on emigration as it relates to construction of the Berlin wall. These sources quote total emigration as a factor in the walls construction. One can add the additional statistics as well.--Work permit (talk) 02:10, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

We need to reconcile the 2 1/2 million number (1949-1961) to the 3 1/2 million in the preceding paragraph. --Work permit (talk) 02:17, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary deletions

As one of the final 4 MPs in Charge of the Checkpoint, I find it interesting that my additions keep getting deleted. Calling us irrelevant trivia is wrong. Mikelsey5 (talk) 04:43, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

"spy movies and books"

The section Checkpoint is currently unsourced and asserts, "Checkpoint Charlie is frequently featured in spy movies and books." Searching for that sentence elsewhere on the Internet turned up a HuffPost Life article which word-for-word matches that paragraph. However, that paragraph in Wikipedia predates the article. The article bears a date in 2011; the sentence about "espionage movies and books" was introduced 22 Feb 2006 by 161.253.39.188, and amended to "'spy' movies and books" later that year.

A little more searching turns up various lists of movies (of dubious reliability) that feature Checkpoint Charlie. However, the "What Links Here" list for this page contains at least a few pages for movies and books... perhaps the assertion about movies and books is sufficiently obvious that it doesn't need a citation? DavidLeeLambert (talk) 13:23, 2 November 2018 (UTC)