Talk:Hitler birthplace memorial stone

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Shouldn't this article talk about what a memorial stone is, instead of a particular memorial stone?

--Snowdog 20:36, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hitler's house memorial stone? --Snowdog 22:45, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, what about Hitler birthplace memorial stone? (He probably didn't own the house) Martg76 23:00, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What is meant by "the (totally unconnected) owner"? Unconnected to Hitler, to the community? -- Hestemand 11:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Unconnected to Hitler. The building was just an inn / lodging house when AH was born. The owners were nothing to do with the Hitlers. Although AH talks about his birth in Braunau in 'Mein Kampf', he doesn't mention the building at all, and never made any kind of sentimental 'pilgrimage' to it when he visited Austria after the Anschluss. Instead he laid a wreath on his parents grave, many miles away. ChrisRed 08:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The translation of "MILLIONEN TOTE MAHNEN" to "Remember (the) Dead Millions" is not correct, I think. It's more like "Dead Millions are reminding" (I don't know how to better express, but it's the _Millions_ who are in the active, _reminding_ the beholder of the stone). greetings from Germany.


Thank you very much. I speak some German (I am English, by the way), but I found this line very difficult to translate into English without writing a long, rambling sentence about the 'mood' that it is meant to convey. 'Millionen tote mahnen' translates simply as 'Millions dead (to) remind', but that just gives the literal meaning, not the emotional meaning. It would have been easier if it had said 'Mahnen sie die tote millionen', or 'Die millionen tote uns mahnen' or 'Vergessen Sie (uns) nie die tote millionen' (which is what I thought it meant). It definitely doesn't translate easily in a few words.
The line will just not translate directly. I think that it means something between:
Never again fascism - the millions of dead remind us why.
and Never again fascism - the millions of dead warn us against it.
Perhaps a native German-speaker could simply describe (in German if necessary) the 'mood' that he feels when he reads the German inscription, and we will try to agree on something in English that conveys the same mood. As a German, do you think that the article is fair and balanced, with neither offence or 'weasel words'?. ChrisRed 07:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
First of all, my correction was indeed a correction. The former translation "Remember the dead millions" ignored the grammatical structure of the original sentence by using the subject as the object. So much for that. Secondly, "remind" is a possible translation for "mahnen." But it just isn't appropriate here as it's too weak a verb. In the original sentence "mahnen" implies a strong warning. That's why I chose "admonish." Perhaps a good compromise simply would be "Millions of dead warn [us]" with the "[us]" added for clarification. (German is my native tongue, by the way.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.151.223.233 (talk) 09:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks. We have been waiting a long time for a native German-speaker to give a proper translation. 'Admonish' is a very obscure word in English, we rarely use it, and - as you say - 'remind' is too weak. I like 'Millions of dead warn us' very much...it sounds more ominous and threatening, which is what I think that the inscription is meant to convey. So let's settle on 'Millions of Dead Warn (Us)', and once again, many thanks. ChrisRed (talk) 10:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)