Talk:Heinz Wernicke/Archive 1

Archive 1

Notability

Does not meet WP:SOLDIER & sig RS coverage not found link, just passing mentions and / or non RS militaria literature.

No de.wiki article exists. Did not hold a significant command and topped out as Leutnant. Successful completion of missions (sorties flown, # of enemy aircraft shot down, etc) is not part of SOLDIER. A MilHist RfC on this topic has failed to gain consensus in May of 2017:

• MilHist:RfC on the notability of flying aces.

Please also see a note at MilHist Talk Archives for background behind the redirect. In summary, per the outcome of the discussion at Notability:People on notability of Knight's Cross recipients: permalink, certain recipients were deemed non notable and WP:SOLDIER has been modified accordingly: diff. The articles of these recipients are being redirected to alphabetical lists. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:36, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

• I'm restoring this pending a more thorough discussion of notability for this man. This is a well-documented article. topping out as a leutnant is not a refutation of notability. auntieruth (talk) 15:18, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

• Really the main issue here is that he was a Nazi. A 117 kill record is incredible for any WWII pilot, he got massive coverage at the time for his achievements, however for obvious reasons this has not survived, being german propaganda. If this was a British or American pilot there is no doubt we would have plenty of good sources to chose from for notability. Given that there are plenty of reliable sources documenting his achievements, it would seem rather counterproductive to not keep the article. Regarding the notability of aces in general, I not that they start redlinking at about 60 kills on List of World War II flying aces so I would say that is a pretty good indicator of who is relevant purely based on kill count. Having said all that, he is clearly a Nazi, should we really be hosting this kind of glorification of such people, keep them on the de-wiki? Dysklyver 19:17, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

  WP:NOTCENSORED - and yes, we should keep articles on notable WWII Germans (Nazis and non-Nazis) - you should prefer that a teenager looking for information on notable soldiers get his information on Wikipedia where it is relatively balanced - as opposed to some other sources which on the net include bona fide neo-Nazi fan sites.Icewhiz (talk) 19:25, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

  GNG and soldier are guidelines. WP:NOTBURO. 100 victories is notable. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:18, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

  He's an ace; ace's stay, thats what I've been told anyway (and no, I didn't mean for that to rhyme, it just happens like that from time to time). TomStar81 (Talk) 15:45, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

  If simply having an article on a Luftwaffe ace was Nazi glorification, the last place you would find such an article would be on the de wiki, where they are extremely vigilant about Nazism. Alcherin (talk) 15:59, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

  Given the number of WWII German aces and the high tallies of many of them, I can understand the notability argument for the ones who just made the cut, i.e. were credited with destroying five aircraft, and who lack significant coverage otherwise, but 117 kills is significant and should easily justify an article. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:43, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

  I can't help but think that a bold redirect of the biography of a pilot that apparently was credited with downing 117 aircraft is not really the best way to handle notability concerns. Sure in non-controversial cases that are unlikely to be challenged, but not in this one. This was always going to require discussion. If there are genuine notability concerns then this should be sent to AfD. Personally though I find it very difficult to believe that there would not be sufficient sources on such a topic to pass GNG in this instance, although I've been proven wrong before. Anotherclown (talk) 04:03, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

  I see several books mentioning him over on Google. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:13, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

• I've gone and searched through a number of academic databases I have access too (JSTOR, Project MUSE etc.) for sources relating to Wernicke, and not managed to find a single relevant source, but there might well be German-language sources available somewhere else. It should be remembered that WP:SOLDIER is a presumption of the existence of sources, and if sources (with sigcov, etc.) are shown not to exist then the topic cannot be argued to be notable. Alcherin (talk) 19:20, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Academic, by which I mean authors with academic appointments, coverage of most aces, of any nationality, is virtually non-existent, so I would argue that that's not really relevant to a topic that most people feel is notable. Most books covering aces are done by non-professional historians and I've seen a number of cases where editors have challenged the notability of sources because of that fact.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:44, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
    • I was just looking for primary sources more than anything but I see your point about academic coverage.
      'Feeling' that something is notable won't cut it if articles like these end up on AfD. Alcherin (talk) 13:30, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
    • FWIW I completely agree with Alcherin's statement about WP:SOLDIER. Despite being regularly misinterpreted it has never claimed that certain articles are notable, only that they are assumed to be. Of course like all assumptions it can be proven not to apply on a case-by-case basis per GNG and SIGCOV. Unsure if that is applicable here though but it is possible. Anotherclown (talk) 09:11, 2 November 2017 (UTC)