Jump to content

Template:Did you know nominations/Kurt Meyer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:54, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Kurt Meyer

Meyer in 1943
Meyer in 1943
  • ... that German SS commander Kurt Meyer (pictured), himself a convicted war criminal, claimed that "SS troops committed no crimes, except the massacre at Oradour, and that was the action of a single man"? Stein, George (1984) [1966]. The Waffen-SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War 1939–1945. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-9275-0., pp. 255–256

Improved to Good Article status by K.e.coffman (talk). Self-nominated at 02:35, 14 November 2019 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems

Hook eligibility:

  • Cited: Yes - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith
  • Interesting: No - Not sure how "hooky" the fact is that a Nazi lied about stuff Nazis did. That was what they did after the war. As for ALT1, how is it particularly surprising that prisoners were recorded? Maybe something more along the lines of how he was never tried for all the atrocities committed under his command in the East or that his death sentence was commuted and he was released to continue advocating his despicable beliefs after only nine years?

Image eligibility:

  • Freely licensed: Yes
  • Used in article: Yes
  • Clear at 100px: No - Picture is very small at 100px and the light flare does not help. Maybe it can be cropped a bit to show the subject? That is, if there is really any need for a picture at all.
QPQ: Done.

Overall: See above. Regards SoWhy 08:37, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Note: image has been replaced to one that appears clear at a small size. --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:16, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Thought I might pipe in as I have Stein, which is being AGF'd here. Other than the fact that Meyer was a Waffen-SS man, not an Allgemeine-SS man (perhaps a pedantic difference to the uninitiated), just a minor punctuation error really. Stein actually says " "SS troops" he claimed, "committed no crimes except the massacre at Oradour, and that was the action of a single man..." " there is a comma in the DYK blurb that is not there in the source, and the quotes are broken, implying that there were intervening words between ""SS troops" and "committed...". I have no information about what words Meyer said between "SS troops" and "committed...", but I suggest that the primary DYK blurb should read "that German Waffen-SS commander Kurt Meyer (pictured), himself a convicted war criminal, claimed that "SS troops..." "committed no crimes except the massacre at Oradour, and that was the action of a single man"? Thoughts? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:13, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Also, the image is frankly rubbish and barely even shows what the subject looked like, there is a free Bundesarchiv image of the perpetrator at File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Ludwig-006-19, Kurt Meyer.jpg which would be far better. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:35, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Not sure whether we really need a picture considering that only one DYK in each set can have one and the picture is only marginally important. As for other hooks, how about
  • @Peacemaker67: I'll be on vacation starting tomorrow, so if K.e.coffman does not reply until then, would you mind finishing this review? Regards SoWhy 14:51, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
ALT2 works for me. Short and to the point. I also swapped out the image to "File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Ludwig-006-19, Kurt Meyer.jpg". --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:13, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
  • ALT2a: ... that German SS commander and convicted war criminal Kurt Meyer (pictured) falsely claimed that the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre was the only war crime SS troops ever committed? --evrik (talk) 19:22, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Alt 2 approved. offering a tweaked version for the promoter to consider. --evrik (talk) 19:22, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
@Evrik: I'm good with ALT2a. Thank you for the tweak; "falsely" is a good addition. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:01, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi, I came to promote this, but is it clear (and cited) in the article that this claim was false? Yoninah (talk) 15:49, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
  • @Yoninah: Do we really need a citation that SS troops committed war crimes? The article says that he himself was convicted for war crimes committed by him as an SS officer and the article clearly states that "Meyer was found responsible for the deaths at the Abbaye Ardenne, but acquitted of directly ordering the killings" (killings carried out by SS troops under his command). If he was found guilty of war crimes, claiming that SS troops did not commit war crimes must be false. Regards SoWhy 20:02, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Yes, but them's the rules. I'm happy to promote ALT2. Yoninah (talk) 20:30, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
@Yoninah: It's clear from the rest of the section that these were lies and obfuscations. For example:
  • [Meyer] was a leading Waffen-SS apologist.[1]
  • The book, detailing Meyer's exploits at the front, was an element of Waffen-SS rehabilitation efforts. He condemned the "inhuman suffering" to which Waffen-SS personnel had been subjected "for crimes which they neither committed, nor were able to prevent".[2] Historian Charles W. Sydnor called Grenadiere "perhaps the boldest and most truculent of the apologist works".[3]
For those not familiar with the history of the Waffen-SS, the word "falsely" removes the ambiguity that may created by Meyer's quote. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:58, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
  • OK. Striking other hooks. Yoninah (talk) 19:14, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Stein 1984, p. 255.
  2. ^ Stein 1984, p. 256.
  3. ^ Sydnor 1973.