Talk:Wire of Death

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Military history: European / German / World War I

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Explanation[edit]

"The Dutch-Belgian border is not an ethnic border and Dutch and Flemings (Dutch-speaking Belgians) often intermarry or otherwise socialize with each other"
My problems with this are:

No European border (arguably few borders anywhere) are "ethnic"
Intermarriage/close co-operation do not have to be exclusively among members of the same ethnic group
I'd question how much cross-border movement there was - customs controls, border guards etc. must have made crossing it quite time consuming, if not difficult. Likewise, there's the argument that Flemish are Catholic; Dutch are Protestant and both have different traditions/accents etc.

Even for points (1) and (2), I think it would be worth getting rid of the phrase. ---Brigade Piron (talk) 15:50, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On your 3rd remark: In the Netherlands, the area all the way up until the Rhine are all overwhelmingly catholic and there is abrupt change of accent anywhere. On your second and first remark; there are numerous areas which could be called ethnic borders or ethnic contact zones; intermarriage does not have to be limited to members of the same ethnic group, but generally does as people tend to like to understand each other. Apart from that, I don't see how this has to do with what is meant and said, namely that the wire effectively separated a people for the duration of nearly 4 years.Colleabois (talk) 17:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you are clearly trying to say that the wire separated what had been a border over which people had significant connections. That's fine - but making three major value judgments about it is unnecessary and does not help the article ---Brigade Piron (talk) 18:18, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But what major value judgments would those be? Colleabois (talk) 18:26, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The three points above! ---Brigade Piron (talk) 08:39, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes of course, but I don't see how I 'judged' anyone or anything. Colleabois (talk) 12:38, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The "judgments" are on the situation per my earlier points!!! Please rephrase it. ---Brigade Piron (talk) 16:13, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, what I mean is this. Your first two points aren't raised in the article, your 3rd point is incorrect in its premise. I simply claim that the border between Belgium and the Netherlands isn't an ethnic one. It doesn't claim to be 'an exception to the majority of other European states' nor does it claim that intermarriage is restricted within ethnic groups. So I don't know what you consider to be 'judging' about them.Colleabois (talk) 16:39, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, please do not take this the wrong way. In the simplest terms, my problem with the phrase is that the way it's phrased appears to make that judgment. Implicitly, it makes a much wider judgment than is helpful in an article about something so specific. The fact that it is "not an ethnic border" is irrelevant and not something that falls into the scope of this article anyway. I have removed this aspect, at least. ---Brigade Piron (talk) 10:46, 21 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Removed the citation needed tag in subsection "Construction"[edit]

The claim that people within a 100-500m wide 'neutral zone' of the wire were summarily executed is substantiated by this source, which is in Dutch. About halfway down the page, it reads "Aan overgangen van waterlopen en spoorwegen, waren permanente wachtposten. Fietsen waren in de grensstreek verboden. Aan Nederlandse kant was een neutrale zone van 500 meter. Aan Belgische kant was deze zone tussen de 100 en 500 meter breed. Personen die zich zonder geldige reden in deze zone bevonden werden zonder medelijden neergemaaid of beschoten. Wel hielden de Duitse bewakers er rekening mee niet te schieten in de richting van het neutrale Nederland waarmee het land dus niet in oorlog verkeerde." This reads (via google translate): "There were permanent sentries at the crossings of watercourses and railways. Bicycles were banned in the border region. On the Dutch side there was a neutral zone of 500 meters. On the Belgian side, this zone was between 100 and 500 meters wide. Persons who were in this zone without a valid reason were mowed down or shot at without mercy. However, the German guards took into account not to shoot in the direction of the neutral Netherlands, with which the country was not at war." As such, I have removed the tag, added a citation to that sentence, and added a few words about avoiding the Netherlands. Patr2016 (talk) 23:55, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]