K.e. - I know you have been working on Rommel; do any of your sources (books) that state anything about the time when Hanke served with him in France? It would be good to add some RS cites to that section.
Kierzek (
talk)
02:09, 3 March 2016 (UTC)reply
@
Kierzek: Hanke is mentioned in Rommel: The End of a Legend by Ralf Georg Reuth (2005), but not in great detail. Here's the passage that deals with him, p. 124:
Functionaries from the Berlin [Propaganda] Ministry, who had exchanged their brown Party uniforms for the field-grey of the Wehrmacht, managed the interface between the propaganda head office and the 'Panzer General'. Since they were aware of Rommel's good relationship with Hitler, they thought that it would be to their advantage to be present at battles under the command of Hitler's favourite. This was particularly true for two individuals during the Western campaign; Karl Hanke, the Undersecretary of State at the Propaganda Ministry, and Karl Holz, the editor of the Nazi hate rag Der Sturmer, both of whom were totally unsuited to military service. In Africa Rommel was fortunate to have as his aide-de-camp and later company commander Alfred Ingemar Berndt, whom the former Foreign Minister Constantin von Neurath described as a 'fanatical Nazi'. Berndt was not only a callous and cunning propaganda 'manager' but also an effective direct link to Goebbels. As Ministerialdirektor at the Propaganda Ministry, Berndt was responsible for censorship of the entire Reich press. He impressed Rommel with his personal courage and in time became [Rommel's] closest confidants. Rommel frequently used Berndt as a courier between North Africa and both the Propaganda Ministry and Fuehrer Headquarters.
Hope this is helpful. Never heard of
Alfred-Ingemar Berndt, but De.wiki describes him as the creator of the "Desert Fox" myth. Perhaps a worthwhile subject for your work on the Nazi apparatus?
Overall, Rommel: The End of a Legend is an excellent book -- if you are interested in the topic of propaganda, 20 July plot or Rommel, then I recommend it.
K.e.coffman (
talk)
05:58, 9 March 2016 (UTC)reply
Thanks, although in cross-checking with Mitcham (through Google books), i must say that Reuth is much more damning in his assessment of Hanke during his military service; although it is interesting that Mitcham points out that Hanke "got along" well with Rommel who appreciated good "public relations".
Kierzek (
talk)
03:39, 16 March 2016 (UTC)reply
@
Kierzek: I would say "appreciate good publicity" is rather mild :-). Reuth discusses how Rommel was trailed by Propaganda Company photographers, and often had scenes reshot if his pose was not heroic enough. I assume that's where "Rommel pushing a staff car" image comes from -- Rommel as a "soldier's general". Rommel also co-directed the film Victory in the West and was discussing a future film Victory in Africa (which was not to be). Goebbels found a willing partner in shaping the Rommel myth: Rommel was a publicity hound pretty much. It got to the point that the cameramen would pretend to film Rommel to keep him in good spirits. Here's another source that discusses same: Exit Rommel: The Tunisian Campaign, 1942-43; most of the relevant chapter is accessible online. Add: an interesting point that Watson's work originally appeared in
1999, five years ahead of Reuth's book.
K.e.coffman (
talk)
02:20, 2 April 2016 (UTC)reply
I've just revised the lead of this article, presented the Nazi's program of conquest and mass killings as being a theoretic plan only (the body of the article makes it very clear that wasn't the case).
[1]Nick-D (
talk)
08:25, 11 April 2016 (UTC)reply
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article
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MisterBee1966 (
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08:20, 12 April 2016 (UTC)reply
Aces
Thanks for your work on the Panzer aces article - and for thanking me for basically reverting your addition of the book cover! Have you seen similar material on German flying aces? As listed at
List of World War II aces from Germany, some of them racked up huge numbers of "kills". However, it's my understanding that this is because a) they were flying against the Soviet air force during its woeful period of 1941-42 b) they were night fighter pilots who always had something of an advantage against the British heavy bombers and/or c) they fought until the end of the war or until they became casualties as, unlike the western Allies, the German air force did not rotate pilots between front line and non-front line duties. The average German pilot served from 1943 onwards and had no-where near the training or the quality of the aircraft of the Allies.
Nick-D (
talk)
07:18, 13 March 2016 (UTC)reply
I've added a bit of stuff to that article. Do your sources discuss how the Nazis used fighter aces (especially the very high scoring ones) in propaganda as well?
Nick-D (
talk)
10:49, 13 March 2016 (UTC)reply
@
Nick-D: Some interesting tidbits from Jonathan House, co-author of When Titans Clashed (Q&A from a lecture on YouTube "How the Red Army Defeated Germany: The Three [Wehrmacht] Alibis"):
about Tigers & Panthers - aligns with what Zaloga says about its limited strategic impact, i.e. total production of Tigers for the entire war was 3 mo of Soviet production of T-34s, "and the war went on for almost years", at 48:56 mark
On propaganda, specific to panzer aces, some of it is covered in
Battle_of_Villers-Bocage#Propaganda, and the Wittman sub-section that follows. Also, a bit of the info I added to
Ernst Barkmann's article, covered in Zaloga 2015:
Barkmann is known for the "Barkmann legend": he claimed to have halted a major U.S. Army armoured advance in Normandy on 27 July 1944 (at so-called Barkmann's corner), for which action he received the
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The myth, "popularized by propaganda efforts of the Waffen-SS", was subsequently proven to be false.[1]
^Zaloga 2015, pp. 312–313. sfn error: no target: CITEREFZaloga2015 (
help)
I've not looked that much into the fighter pilots, but I suspect the "propaganda exaggerations" would be less vs the "panzer aces", as I believe Luftwaffe was stricter about kill claims, at least up until later in the war (1944/45). Some planes had cameras attached to verify the kills and targets hit (cited via Soldaten). Specific to military propaganda, here's the source I used for the
Wehrmachtbericht article:
The Propaganda Warriors -- there are 39 mentions for Luftwaffe. I could not see a specific reference to "Luftwaffe ace", but may be worth a look on the military propaganda in general.
On the "panzer aces", I was glad somebody was taking a look. That was another of the contentious articles (see the Talk page or the article history), similar to
Michael Wittmann. On the image revert, I thanked you to indicate that I agreed with your rationale about the non-free image and being somewhat out of context. I'm a non-combative editor (I hope :-) ), so if someone has a better suggestion or shows an interest in an article, I lean towards collaborative. In general, there's just too much wiki content that's sitting there, unsourced and/or with inaccurate/POV info, that gets somehow accepted as the status quo. Cleaning that up is quite a task. Back to panzer aces, I initially used the list as a starting point to look for such problematic content, and did I find it in spades. When someone pointed out Zaloga to me, I updated the article with the discussion on what "panzer ace" is and what it's not.
K.e.coffman (
talk)
20:04, 13 March 2016 (UTC)reply
Thanks for those references. If you're interested in armoured warfare of this period, Zaloga's book Panther vs Sherman : Battle of the Bulge, 1944 is, despite its rather unpromising title and underlying concept, excellent. He does a fine job of proving that US armoured units were superior to German units, due in large part to the much vaunted Panther being less mechanically reliable and adaptable than the Sherman and the German tank crews generally being poorly trained. Zaloga is generally very interesting, and an expert in the field.
Nick-D (
talk)
00:58, 14 March 2016 (UTC)reply
On the fighter aces, did it seem to you that two sections covering "Background" were contradictory? "Luftwaffe rules of confirmation" has "very stringent" and "German system was impartial, inflexible, and far less error-prone than either the British or American procedures". At the same time, the section "Over claiming" states that "In theory the Luftwaffe did not accept shared claims, but it happened" and "in 1943 the daily OKW communiques period overstated American bomber losses by a factor of two or more."
K.e.coffman (
talk)
05:44, 14 March 2016 (UTC)reply
Thanks for that. The source given for the material on German procedures for validating "kills" isn't suitable - it's a history of Australian fighter pilots in the Middle East published by a small press. Without having seen the book, I'd be guessing that it's a work by an amateur historian who took a "more is more" approach and included all kinds of stuff in their book with little quality control having occurred at any stage (a frequent menace with this type of Australian history).
Nick-D (
talk)
05:47, 14 March 2016 (UTC)reply
@
Nick-D: On yet another related note, the article
List of aces of aces is in a sorry state, as it consists of material on the underlying Lists of aces, including the dubious tank kills in the "Tank aces" section. I'm of half a mind to propose a deletion of this section as bogus, but I've already been labelled a "deletionist". :-)
K.e.coffman (
talk)
07:40, 22 March 2016 (UTC)reply
I agree it looks like total rubbish, and has been tagged as needing sources since 2009! On my previous theme of over-hyped German hardware, how about this:
[2] - the article says 865 were built between 1942 and 1945 and they performed badly in extensive combat (confirmed by various Google books sources), but the article claimed that the design "lacked a sufficient chance to prove itself" and was only built on small numbers, and then went on to highlight an "ace" who operated this type.
Nick-D (
talk)
09:54, 24 March 2016 (UTC)reply
@
Nick-D:: the hero worshiping of the fighter aces appears to have no bounds: for the participants of this "minor insurrection", the outcome was
"devastating", the article
Fighter Pilots' Revolt contends, while having been "threatened with court-martial and sent to Italy" or "the opportunity to form [an] elite unit" do not appear to be so. Also note the non-ironic use of "revolt". This has to be one of the funniest things I've seen so far.
K.e.coffman (
talk)
02:16, 12 April 2016 (UTC)reply
Facepalm Given that by this stage of the war Army-SS "flying drumhead court martials" were ordering the summary execution of military deserters and local civilian leaders who tried to surrender their town, that's hardly "devastating". The Australian fighter leaders who took part in the "
Morotai Mutiny" a few months later seem to have received harsher punishments.
Nick-D (
talk)
08:36, 12 April 2016 (UTC)reply
K. e.,
The Bunker (book) can give you some idea as to layout. I also believe for balance the review by professional historian Kelly McFall as noted on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history board
[3] should be included.
Kierzek (
talk)
16:33, 26 March 2016 (UTC)reply
This is really curious:
Richard Landwehr comments on The Myth... in his journal
Siegrunen: "... it was never my intention to romanticise anything; just to present the facts in a more positive and accurate manner. (...) I consider the soldiers and the non-German volunteers of the Waffen-SS the true heroes of the 20th Century (sic) for their deeds in the struggle against Communism..."
K.e.coffman (
talk)
00:10, 27 March 2016 (UTC)reply
Full quote "for their deeds in the struggle against Communism (the greatest evil of all time) and predatory capitalism.." The authentic world view of a Neo-Nazi. "Predatory capitalism" being of course amongst the variety of coded terms for the Jews used by this type.
Irondome (
talk)
00:35, 27 March 2016 (UTC)reply
A tiger (Landwehr) does not change its stripes. Ironically, Communist might use the same term as him as to capitalism back in Stalin's day.
Kierzek (
talk)
00:48, 27 March 2016 (UTC)reply
The whole section is an interesting insight. On speaking of a recently dead female collaborator.."Naturally, she was totally slandered in the media, and tragically by her offspring, who were taken from her in the post war era, during her own incarceration, to be "de-nazified" (i.e. brainwashed)..." Ho hum
Irondome (
talk)
01:00, 27 March 2016 (UTC)reply
Irondome, thank you for the clarification on the "predatory capitalism" -- I could not quite understand what it meant in Landwehr's worldview. Yes, it was an interesting read from the world of revisionists.
Separately, is it notable that The Myth of the Eastern Front is being cited or mentioned in other scholarly works? I.e. for inclusion in the article, and if yes, how can it be incorporated? I'm finding a lot of these via
Google Scholar, which Wikipedia helpfully includes in the draft article toolbar. I've not used GS in the past; may be an interesting additional tool.
K.e.coffman (
talk)
02:01, 27 March 2016 (UTC)reply
I would say, yes, as you want to show its notability. I also believe you should expand on the positive points of the earlier part of the book (and theory) a little more from McFall's review. BTW - here is another book article I found you may want to look at for layout:
JFK and the Unspeakable. Especially this section: "Critical and commercial reception".
Kierzek (
talk)
02:05, 27 March 2016 (UTC)reply
Agreed. It is obviously being increasingly cited by R/S. I suspect it's usage will grow further. The draft article has excellent potential. GS is an excellent resource by the way.
Irondome (
talk)
02:13, 27 March 2016 (UTC)reply
Contradictory to the opening intro, Rommel himself executed a POW in France. Units under his command also executed POWs in France. This can be sourced.--
MyMoloboaccount (
talk)
12:59, 17 April 2016 (UTC)reply
BTW - K.e., Rommel was also the original commander of the
Führer Begleitbattalion ("Führer Escort Battalion"; FBB). It was a military protection unit set up just before war began. It had the task of protecting Hitler's military headquarters and accompanying him when visiting battlefronts. This command also shows "favor", so to speak, with Hitler.
Kierzek (
talk)
14:19, 17 April 2016 (UTC)reply
I currently have Parker, but I believe the issue was that Agte was co-mingled with Westemeier. If I can sub with Parker, that would necessitate removing Westermeier, as I don't have access to this latter book. Would that be okay?
K.e.coffman (
talk)
22:02, 22 April 2016 (UTC)reply
I don't have any books by Agte and I don't have Westemeier, either. In looking, Agte is only used for a few things, such as: 1) when he was awarded Iron Cross and promoted to captain; 2) when he was awarded the Knight's Cross and 3) after the war when held at the "internment" camp at Dachau. I would think Parker would have at least information for numbers 2 & 3. And if he covers the points made, then Westemeier is not needed for them. BTW - see if you have anything to replace Ripley, as well. I will check later tonight when I get home, but it wont be until late.
Kierzek (
talk)
22:25, 22 April 2016 (UTC)reply
The article will be discussed at
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Waffen-SS in Action until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. KDS4444Talk06:06, 25 April 2016 (UTC)reply
The article
HIAG you nominated as a
good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the
good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail. See
Talk:HIAG for things which need to be addressed. Message delivered by
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MisterBee1966 --
MisterBee1966 (
talk)
07:20, 27 April 2016 (UTC)reply
Try this for a template style you can use for the organizations (click on edit above to see wiki layout):
List names of organizations
List names of organizations
List names of organizations
This template's initial visibility currently defaults to autocollapse, meaning that if there is another collapsible item on the page (a
navbox, sidebar, or
table with the collapsible attribute), it is hidden apart from its title bar; if not, it is fully visible.
To change this template's initial visibility, the |state=parameter may be used:
{{K.e.coffman/Archive/2016|state=collapsed}} will show the template collapsed, i.e. hidden apart from its title bar.
{{K.e.coffman/Archive/2016|state=expanded}} will show the template expanded, i.e. fully visible.
@
Kierzek: Not sure if I want to include ODESSA, as it may or may not have existed, and together with
Stille Hilfe, they were were organizations of former Nazis, not necessarily "veterans". Are you aware of any other veterans orgs that may be suitable?
All the organizations that came to mind are already in the template. As far as including ODESSA, I don't feel strongly about it; I can see both sides of the coin.
Kierzek (
talk)
13:17, 28 April 2016 (UTC)reply