Talk:Schießbefehl

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[edit] Clarification needed

I've done a bit to clean up the translation here. However, I've left intact one sentence precisely because it was so ambiguous I wasn't sure what to do with it (and looking at the original German didn't help me any). "Many soldiers helped themselves by 'shooting astray', causing a formal investigation by the military prosecution authority and the 'MfS' ('Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit', better known as Stasi)." Do I understand this to mean that instead of a "warning shot" and an "aimed shot" they shot to kill? Or does it mean the opposite, that they fired their guns completely wide of the mark so that they were seen to have shot, but didn't actually hurt anyone? -- Jmabel 23:04, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

The second half of the sentence belonged in a new paragraph, but the rest is now clear as day, I hope ...? Saintswithin 06:23, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Meaning the opposite - How about: "Many soldiers tried to avoid prosecution by 'shooting off-target', but often a formal investigation by the military prosecution authority and the 'MfS' ('Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit', better known as Stasi), would follow." Olaf Fritz 06:26, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Your version seems OK, Saintswithin. Does shooting astray sound better than off-target? - Olaf Fritz 06:31, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"intentionally missing" or "intentionally missing their target" would be more idiomatic than "shooting astray". - Nunh-huh 06:40, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't naturally say "shooting astray", but I looked it up on google to check it was idiomatic for other people and found a few examples of it being used that way. Personally I'd say "deliberately missing" or "shooting wide". I just thought it would be nitpicking to change Olaf's translation because of my personal preference! Saintswithin 06:47, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've gone with the "shooting off-target", which sounds the most colloquial to me, hope others agree. I guess I wasn't as restrained as Saintswithin, mainly because at Olaf's request I had done a general edit of this. -- Jmabel 06:55, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

What's wrong with "missing" or "deliberately missing"? ;-) Don't make it too hard for yourself by trying to translate as literally as possible. Cat 20:30, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

One more question: "...the cause of death stated in the death certificate would be obscured..." This is also ambiguous. Does it mean that a different cause would be listed it ("obscuring" the cause in a metaphorical sense of "obscuring") or that the cause would be physically crossed out on the death certificate (literally "obscuring" the text)? Either way, we should reword to make the meaning unambiguous. -- Jmabel 06:55, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

'verschleiern' means to obscure, to cloud up, conceal, mask, fake, shroud or disguise. Make an appropriate pick :-); your question also holds true for the german version. It is ambiguous, too. I initially understood the german term as 'fake' or 'disguise', I don't think it was simply crossed out, as it would give rise to more questions - Maybe simply rewrite it as 'the real cause of death stated in the death certificate would be disguised' Olaf Fritz 07:15, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. Since you are obviously more English-German bilingual than I, could you see if you can contact whomever wrote this in the German wiki & find out what he/she meant? Or research from another source?Meanwhile, I guess we might as well leave it ambiguous if our source is ambiguous. -- Jmabel 07:18, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

I left [Bettenlager] a note as he seems to be the editor. - Olaf Fritz 08:05, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have an example of what I think is meant: when Chris Gueffroy was shot through the heart escaping, the cause of death was listed as "heart injury".Saintswithin 11:51, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

By the way, I think I read somewhere that in Chris Gueffroy's case, an obituary was printed in a local paper, and that was the first time that this had happened. Can anyone confirm? ,,,Trainspotter,,, 12:35, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

http://www.igfm.de/pm/pm2001/pm0108/p010831mauer.htm has the actual words; the idea of it being the first time is mentioned at http://www.videofact.com/cold_war/berlin/gueffroy1_e.html but I couldn't find it mentioned on any German sites. Saintswithin 12:51, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

AFAIK the border-victims cause of death was mostly disguised by officials. A cause of death was mandatory item in each death certificate, german bureaucracy. --62.104.217.91 13:07, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

Moved from article.

Take care not to misspell the word as Scheissbefehl, as this means "shit order".

Jmabel | Talk 20:24, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Changes in German Article

The German original reference article has been changed considerably to take into account a more general meaning and does not refer specifically to the former inner German border conflicts anymore. I don't see a reason to now change this article also as I think this at least an important historical reference example. Some contents in the German wikipedia has been moved to articles about the Berlin wall, the iron curtain and history of the GDR. Olaf Fritz 12:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)