David F Schmidt schrieb: [...]
Can someone explain to me what the big controversy is? It seems odd that we fans of German culture, traditions, language, history, etc. somehow are reluctant to post a legitimate symbol of Germany, such as the present German flag, imperial German flag or coat of arms (Adler), etc.
Kann jemand mir aufklaren, warum es ein so grosses Problem waere, die deutsche Fahne oder die deutschen Farben (schwarz-rot-gold) auf unserer Webseiten zu posten? Ich selbst verstehe ganz nicht die Gruenden dafuer. Wenn wir auf diese Symbole nicht stolz sind, warum bemuehen wir uns so um die DEUTSCHE Familienforschung?
I think with your capital letters DEUTSCHE you describe excellently why a lot of us have problems with it. Our pages do not cover GERMAN(Y) only. We mentioned them as the source for EVERYTHING around ALL countries where german is used as a LANGUAGE and where settlements are (with german origins). So if we concentrate only to the graphics symbol of today germany (as a nation) we do not show the correct contents of our pages. Others may interpret the usage of a german flag in the contents of our pages, where a lot of todays countries and regions are listed, incorrect from our intention. Please note that in Germany during the Nazi-times family research was done with a negative aim. A lot of germans still think about that when they here about genealogy. This is currently changing more and more, but please let us not make the fault to give peoples a chance to misinterpret our pages by using a german national symbol only. As Arthur and Rick wrote in other mails, the usage of a german flag beside the british (or US???) to indicate the language instead of the (D) and (E) would be a positive change.
David F. Schmidt Walnut Creek, CA, USA dfschmidt@earthlink.net
-- Mit freundlichem Gruss/ kind regards Klaus-Peter Wessel mailto:klaus-peter@wessel.com WWW: http://klaus-peter.wessel.com