This post is a copy (with minor editing) of an email I recieved from the Cyberlaw list it was posted by Robert Heverly at the University of East Anglia.
The main page of the German Wikipedia has a polite notice indicating it has essentially been shut down by court order. It turns out that the dispute is centered around a wikipedia entry about a hacker called “Tron.” The main page with the notice (in German) is here: http://www.wikipedia.de (google translation here).The German language version of the U.S. Wikipedia is still online with the same information here. The article in question can be read in German here and in English here. There are also two short news reports here & here.
I can’t seem to figure out what the actual cause of action was, or what the actual effect of the order was (which seems to be something about not redirecting people to the German wiki using www.wikipedia.de), but I’m still looking through newspapers about it; if anyone has any better insight, I’d be keen to hear it.