Talk:Finnish volunteers in the Waffen-SS

"War crimes"

Dear Mr. Petri Krohn, please, can you show any sources which claim that the unit did commit war crimes. "Panttipataljoona : suomalaisen SS-pataljoonan historia" by Mauno Jokipii, a detailed book about the history of the unit did not say anything about war crimes, nor have I seen any other sources say anything about such. If the unit has never been accused of war crimes (and according to Panttipataljoona it has not been) I dare to say that this case is clear enough. --Kurt Leyman 17:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, but if you want to include that claim in the article, you have to provide a source. You not "seeing" this or that is original research. -- Petri Krohn 23:21, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

It is ridiculous to include claims about what this unit did not do, unless it is within the context of claims that it did do such things. In this case no evidence is lead that anyone is making such claims about this unit so there is no need to state that it did not perform war crimes. Neither did the unit invade South Africa, but obviously there is no need to put a claim in the article to that effect. The whole idea of stating that some thing or other is not true without the context of some claim, and in an encyclopedic artice some well known claim, that it is so is just stupid. Finally lack of evidence is not evidence of lack, it a very big claim to state that some unit did not commit war crimes when by the very nature of warefare records are incomplete and no one can really make such a statement with absolute certainty, better to not say anything about the subject otherwise it just looks like you are trying to cover something up. Nick Thorne ^talk 21:41, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I see you have re-instated the negative claim about war crimes. Again, you seem unable to grasp the simple point that unless there is some claim or context that this unit did commit war crines - and I have no opinion one way or the other - then it is stupid to include a statement that this unit did not commit them. Even if such a claim/context exists then you should include some reference to that claim/context within the body of your counter claim so that it makes sense to be stating the unit did not do what you say. Once again, I point out that this unit did not do many things. They did not fly to the moon, they did not assasinate Churchill, they did not turn into invisible pink unicorns either, yet you feel no compulsion to include a statement to the effect that the unit did not do these things. Further, please put your arguments onto the talk page, not the edit summary where it does not belong. Nick Thorne ^talk 11:36, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. There's the (usually, but not always, silent) implication that if the units belonged to Waffen-SS and thus, were under control of Schutzstaffel, they must have been partaken in the heinous Nazi crimes the SS is famous for, or at least they were likely to so partake. This position is not even particularly unreasonable to take, at least by somebody whose knowledge of the WWII history is superficial. Thus, even if there is nobody notable positively asserting, or even insinuating, about such war crimes or crimes against humanity, if their non-commiting by the units in question can be backed up with WP:RS, it merits a remark of a sentence of two. Digwuren 12:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you are not disagreeing with me at all, read my previous comment. If what you say is true then it would be appropriate to say something along the lines of unlike other Waffen-SS units under the control of Schutzstaffel, there have been no substantiated claimes of war crimes committed by this unit or some such wording. I do not know whether this is the case or not and I certainly do not have any references one way or the other for this issue, so I will not put such wording into the article. Note that such a statement is entirely consistent with what I stated would be required to make a negative proposition in the article. I note, however, that --Kurt Leyman does not get this important point and simply re-inserted the bald assertion that the unit was not involved in war crimes - he needs to back such a claim up and provide a context as to why it is necessary to deny that the unit committed war crimes. Nick Thorne ^talk 13:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh. Right. Sorry about the confusion, it's a question of accents ...

Still, "unlike" is not entirely correct. It's generally accepted that the main line goes between Waffen-SS and "regular" SS. I'd word it roughly "Contrary to what might be expected from the unit's SS-sounding name ...". Digwuren 14:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

"he needs to back such a claim up" It is not a claim, it is a fact unless someone brings forth sudden proves that oddly seem to have been missing for the last 67 years, and this goes to speculation. "provide a context as to why it is necessary to deny that the unit committed war crimes." Because many people seem to think (in many cases that I have seen) that all members of the Waffen-SS took part in the Nazi crimes. This information is useful (especially for people whose knowledge of the Second World War is not great), and there is nothing wrong with it. Regards, --Kurt Leyman 15:26, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Finnish SS Cuff title.png

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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Translation of "Panttipataljoona"

I believe the translation to "Hostage battalion" is basically incorrect and the proper term should be "Pawn battalion". The finnish word "pantti" means a pawn, whereas the word for hostage is "panttivanki", "vanki" meaning prisoner. In this case the battalion would act as a pawn for securing Germany's assistance, not as a hostage taken by Germany (which would imply Germany extorting Finland for action in the war).
Quick Google search seems to give more "pawn battalion" hits, and the incorrect "hostage battalion" translation seems to be foremostly based on a daily news article in Helsingin Sanomat, where the translation is informal (and connotationally wrong).
I did not see edit "19:50, 26 July 2010 Death Bredon (talk | contribs) (9,789 bytes) (Changed translation of "panttipataljoona" from "pawn battalion" to "hostage battalion" (nb. Finn. "panttivanki", literally "pawn prisoner", translates as "hostage").)" before, dear Death Bredon your linguistics and reasoning are simply wrong. The original word to be translated is "panttipataljoona", not "panttivankipataljoona".
--Rk1945 (talk)--Rk1945 (talk) 19:23, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

The term "Pawn battalion" is also used at [[1]] so same term should be used here for consistency. --Rk1945 (talk) 07:10, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Recent edit

@Wanderer602: the article has been uncited since 2009; what's the proposal to address this? K.e.coffman (talk) 08:58, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Adding new sources and fixing it by yourself would have been the preferred option - per WP:BLANK. - Wanderer602 (talk) 09:08, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Such references have been requested since 2009; please see:

K.e.coffman (talk) 09:10, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

It also gives you instructions on how to resolve the problem, yet you ignored those. Or did you miss the part which stated: Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.? - Wanderer602 (talk) 09:12, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

It gives another option: "Unsourced material may be challenged and removed" which I did. Please see WP:BURDEN (in bold): "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. K.e.coffman (talk) 09:21, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Yet as stated on the other talk page you didn't challenge it. You just deleted it. - Wanderer602 (talk) 09:25, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

It has already been challenged, 8 years ago. Nowhere in the tag does it state that the content may only be removed by the editor who originally placed the tag, unless I'm missing something -- ? K.e.coffman (talk) 09:29, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

The existing content is problematic and POV. For example, the article boldly states that "all Waffen-SS formations served under the Heer command" which is demonstrably false. K.e.coffman (talk) 09:31, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

No, neither does the existence of that tag show in article lists that the articles needs references. Common courtesy alone demands that you first ask for the sources or alternatively provide them by yourself instead of deleting the article. Also a such an error in the page is something you ought to have corrected by yourself with the references to the valid data instead of blanking the section. - Wanderer602 (talk) 09:33, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

WP:V "demands" that the content be verifiable. In addition, the content has not been "deleted"; it's still available in the article history. What's the rush to restore the dubious material? K.e.coffman (talk) 09:36, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Why the rush to remove it instead of adding the required references? - Wanderer602 (talk) 10:18, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

@Wanderer602: Eight years is plenty of chances. In addition, the content is POV and dubious and should be removed. Here's my proposal: I'll leave the Finnish reconquest of Ladoga Karelia (1941) & the other big article alone for two weeks, but we restore this article to this version. What do you think? K.e.coffman (talk) 19:51, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

If content is in your opinion POV (let alone dubious) then it really is on you to provide the opposing the view. And i do not think any sort of compromise of sort like you suggest would be wise regardless (it sounded like horse trading). Just leave the articles there for a while and if references haven't been added by the end of March go ahead and remove them. - Wanderer602 (talk) 23:12, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

It really is on you to provide the opposing view is not how WP:V works, when the material in question is uncited and has been challenged. Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability#Responsibility for providing citations: "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." Please consider self-reverting. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:05, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

You got it partially right. However it is not up to the editor to provide the opposing view if some one thinks it is lacking. It is the task for those who consider it lacking. Keep in mind that just because you think something would be POV doesn't mean it wouldn't verifiable and from a reliable source. - Wanderer602 (talk) 07:27, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I've requested a WP:3O. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

WP:3O

This article has a lot of uncited material, and this has been noted for eight years. Per Wikipedia:Verifiability#Responsibility for providing citations, and per K.e.coffman above: "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." This should be done promptly, though I'd suggest leaving it for a week or so because I guess that Wanderer602 or others can provide the necessary reliable sources. I look forward to seeing those sources produced. Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:38, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

You are not going to see anything from me on so short notice due to real life issues that some of the people editing wiki are saddled with. End of March is the earliest i might have time for. If some one else wants to edit the article i have no qualms about it. You should remember that while the notice has been on the page for eight years there hasn't been any sort of indication of section blanking prior to the recent edits. - Wanderer602 (talk) 12:05, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks in advance for anything you may be able to do for this page. I hope it's clear that nobody is blaming you for its problems, nor is any overdue removal of uncited material in any way directed at you. Richard Keatinge (talk) 13:57, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I have reverted the edit in violation of BURDEN and am preserving the material by giving this link. I'm a frequent volunteer in the discussions at the verifiability policy about this issue. It's been established many, many times on the V talk page that while there are better practices, it is acceptable to merely remove unsourced material merely because it is unsourced. There may — or may not, opinions diverge — be exceptions which make it unacceptable for an editor to do it as a regular practice, e.g. as a "hobby", in pursuit of a particular point of view, or — relevant in this case — to do it even a single time if a large amount of material is involved. However, one of those clearly-defined better practices is to tag it and wait awhile before deleting it. There's no defined time for "awhile" but eight years is clearly long enough. On the other hand, even a single replacement of unsourced material after it has been removed without adding sources is a clear violation of BURDEN. If Wanderer602 felt that K.e.coffman's removal was improper, the remedy was to make a complaint to an adminstrator or file a complaint at ANI, not to violate policy by reverting it back in. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:12, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't like the idea of deleting entire sections. This article is from an era when citations weren't widely used in Wikipedia except in features articles. I added a citation for the casualties to this article in October 2006! [2] You can go through half of Wikipedia's content from this period and remove everything. As I understand it, you should challenge the parts you think are controversial and remove them, not entire sections. Did you really think everything was biased? --Pudeo (talk) 00:15, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Your understanding is incorrect. First, this is about verifiability, which has nothing to do with bias or controversy (that's the neutral point of view policy, whose issues are only reached after verifiability has been established. Second, though there is no policy or guideline on section blanking it might, indeed, be improper in some circumstances but policy makes it very clear in BURDEN that once it has been removed that it cannot be restored without citations. Since we do not have a board of paid professional editors to make decisions about whether or not content is reliable enough to be included, the reliability of the encyclopedia turns on verifiability. I'm afraid that I did not notice that K.e.coffman's edit included some sourced material, including your edit, along with the sourced material. I'm restoring that material. If K.e. believes it to be inappropriate for some reason, he can make his case for its deletion here. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 12:34, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Sourced content

I do not see any cited material that has been removed, including the unit composition. Instead, short paras have been combined and moved up; this is easier to see via individual edits: diff.

@Pudeo: I reviewed the content again, and I don't see anything valuable here. Some of it is about SS Division Wiking, then trivial content about which camps the unit trained at, and some combat content that may or may not be true. The "Notable members" section consisted predominantly of red links. The articles appears to have been written from a particular POV: I already noted the false claim that 'all' Waffen-SS units were under army (Heer) command, plus there's a strange sentence about a unit "carrying on the legacy" of another Finnish unit that had been part of the Wehrmacht. My conclusion is that Wikipedia is better off without this material.

Here's a source that deals with the topic directly and in detail: "Finnish Waffen-SS Volunteers and Finland's Historical imagination", by Antero Holmila of the University of Jyväskylä. This could be a suitable source. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:03, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

That seems like a deconstructionist book (lately it's really popular that cosmopolitan academics are deconstructing what they see as "national myths"). Fair enough, it's one view point on the topic but it's hard to write a full article about a military unit based on such a limited critical view. The definitive books on the battalion have been written by professor Mauno Jokipii in 1996 and later in 2002 but those exist only in Finnish. Well, I'm not interested in spending that much time on the topic but let's see what Wanderer602 comes up with later if he's going to work on it. --Pudeo (talk) 03:38, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I reviewed what was deleted and I'll agree that most of it was garbage. However, the stuff that you dismiss like the unit's training in various camps is worth keeping, IMO, because detailed info on how long a unit takes to become combat ready is scarcer than you might think. You seem to have a very minimalist idea of what level of detail is best for Wiki, coffman. We're not constrained by the cost of paper, so we can provide more detail than the Britannica, and should, IMO. I believe that we need to ensure that Wiki articles appeal both to specialists and to those barely familiar with the topic.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 06:16, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Sure, if this content can be reliably sourced, then by all means. However, I often find that "intricate detail" (i.e. the precise locations of the training camps) actually obscures the significance of the subject. Yes, we can know where and how they trained, but what was the social and political significance of this unit? How did it fit into the overall war aims of Finland? How were its personnel perceived in Finland after the war? I believe that these questions should be answered first to make the content encyclopedically relevant. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:24, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

General discussion

Continued from above

Those are very good questions that the article should ideally cover, but we don't live in an ideal world where the most important questions get covered first. So I don't think that there's any merit to deleting stuff, just because they're unsourced and aren't the most important aspects of the article. For me personally, the most interesting things about this article relate to how the Germans created this combat unit from scratch (training, resources, time required), how well did they integrate it into their command system, how well did it fight and how did this unit do in comparison to the other volunteer units in relation to the resources invested. All stuff at what you could call the operational level, whereas as your issues mentioned above are what I could characterize as strategic. Both are valuable, IMO, but you tend, I think, to be dismissive of the operational-level stuff. Like in the Helbig article, I had to add back in a bunch of stuff about what his Gruppen were doing that you dismissed as not relevant or trivial. Now I doubt that either one of us will ever have all of the information that we want in the article (I seriously doubt that I'll ever find an unbiased assessment about the unit's fighting qualities by a reputable historian, but it's certainly not impossible), so let's not throw out the baby along with the bathwater.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:51, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Sure, if the operational information can be reliably sourced, I don't think anybody would object to having it in the article. My comment was in re: a certain phenomenon I've observed in many articles, whereas the content focuses on "military performance" (enemy ships sunk, aircraft shot down, tanks destroyed, etc), without any socio-political context. This is ahistorical, and, when combined with a hagiographic take on the subject or one-sided POV, becomes problematic. See for example, the collections of diffs on my user page:

• "His nose is long and straight"
• Selective empathy

K.e.coffman (talk) 07:32, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Bias and hyperbole are certainly problems and combat stats should be qualified as "claims" unless validated by post-war research using material from both sides, which, AFAIK, has only been done for aircraft losses (partially) and submarines. I have no issues with reducing or even eliminating that sort of stuff, but leave the simple factual stuff alone, even if it's not yet sourced. Somebody'll hopefully come along at some point and cite it, even if it's been 8 years. I know that I've still got start-level articles out there that I began without much, if any sourcing, that long ago, that I've yet to revisit and I'd be pretty irritated if somebody came along and started deleting everything that wasn't cited. I have no issues with tagging things as unsourced, but I've seen WP:Burden used as a hammer too many times by one clique or person against another to believe that it should be applied universally and uncritically. All they have to do is slap some text, or the whole article, with an unsourced tag, and then they're free to delete it, sometimes just hours later; all perfectly legal according WP:Burden. I don't think that you've been doing this per se, but I do think that you've been taking the easy route by deleting everything that wasn't sourced, like in the Finnish SS battalion article. Personally, I'd have left the training/assignment/strength stuff alone, as that's uncontroversial and probably fairly easy to find cites for, and deleted all the puffery and biased material, of which there was plenty in that article.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:31, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

August 2018 edit

Preserving here by providing this link; my rationale was: "rm primary source & unsourced; add citation; c/e; rearranging". The primary sourced material that I removed was Himmler's quote -- it's provided without context, and is not helpful here.

I also added a section on allegations of war crimes, which now presents a challenge, as the first sentence (unchanged) now states:

• Neither the unit nor any of its members were ever accused of any war crimes.

References

This is no longer valid and I'm thinking of removing it altogether, as out-of-date material contradicted by later research. Any thoughts? --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:23, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Well... The war crime claim is still just a claim - it has not been substantiated. Currently it is just essentially just an opinion of a person who read a letter. There is nothing concrete in it apart from the impression that the person was involved. The last i checked the research you referred to is still ongoing. Additionally there is somewhat of a discontinuity as from what i have read as the person in question was not part of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS as such but instead transferred to be part of the Waffen-SS Division Wiking's logistic staff. So even in the case that he (or them, as i understood 6 persons might have been involved) would have been involved in war crimes does that implicate the Finnish Volunteer Battalion from them if the crimes occurred while the persons involved were assigned in other units at the time? - Wanderer602 (talk) 07:55, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

The sentence in the article is pretty emphatic:

• Neither the unit nor any of its members were ever accused of any war crimes. (emphasis mine)

This no longer applies as the historian has "accused" the members of the unit of war crimes. The accusations were deemed serious enough to launch a commission of inquiry. Or are you suggesting that they do not apply because the person in question was not part of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS as such but instead transferred to be part of the Waffen-SS Division Wiking's logistic staff? K.e.coffman (talk) 22:46, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Both really. So far the 'accusation' is based on what a person believes that he understood from some letter. Which really means that until it is substantiated in some manner (which is what the inquiry is about) it is basically just an opinion without any supporting facts. Also since the men claimed to be involved were not (according to the available information) part of the actual unit the article discusses about it would seem a tad odd to blame the unit for the actions those men might have been involved in. After all the Finnish volunteers in Waffen-SS is a broader concept than just the Finnish Volunteer Battalion. Instead of jumping the gun it would be better to wait until the inquiry into this issue has been completed. - Wanderer602 (talk) 03:15, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

The article already discusses such personnel here:

This delayed their arrival until May and the roughly 400 men who had military experience in the Winter War were sent to the SS Division Wiking in mid-June where they were dispersed throughout the formation.

So it seems appropriate to cover the allegations against those assigned to Wiking in same article; note that the heading calls out the "Allegations". In any case, fi.wiki article discusses same here: Suomalainen Waffen-SS-vapaaehtoispataljoona#Sodan jälkeen. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:57, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Kind of - however even the excerpt you provided shows that they were dispersed outside of the volunteer unit. In a sense they were relevant to the formation of the unit but not to its service. If those serving in Wiking outside of the battalion in question ought to be included to the article is another story - at very least it seems a clear separation would be in order. Regardless of that there is very little point in this discussion until the inquiry has been completed - after all wikipedia is not meant to be sensational and trending but fact based. - Wanderer602 (talk) 08:26, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

This is not how WP:NPOV & WP:DUE work. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:59, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

But it is how WP:VALID works (which explicitly discusses "plausible but currently unaccepted theories"). The point i am trying to get across is that we should wait until the inquiry comes up with a verdict - in other words not jump the gun. - Wanderer602 (talk) 05:00, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

WP:VALID offers this discussion:

While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity. There are many such beliefs in the world (...): claims that the Earth is flat, that the Knights Templar possessed the Holy Grail, that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax, and similar ones.

The research by the historian is not "Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, or speculative history". Or are you implying that suggestions of the Finnish Waffen-SS personnel participating in the Holocaust is akin to the Flat Earth theory? Please help me understand. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:23, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

The selective quoting and use of false equivalency like you did doesn't exactly improve your case. The part which you quite clearly and deliberately omitted was "...or plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship." I really can't explain it any better than how it is done in that part of the wikipedia's policy. The inquiry is still ongoing. It should not be that difficult to wait until there is actual research (i.e. the inquiry) done on the matter. - Wanderer602 (talk) 07:30, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

October 2018 edit

Preserving here by providing this link; my rationale was: "remove as dated / no longer valid". --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:57, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Does anyone have a cite for Swanström's allegations?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:00, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

They are in the article. --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:02, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't read the cites thoroughly enough.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:03, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

• I reverted edits by Special:Contributions/82.181.143.171. They did not conform to NPOV and also re-introduced the claim that "Neither the unit nor any of its members were ever accused of any war crimes". This is not true since Swanström did "accuse" them; along with apparent prior accusations, necessitating a police investigation that was mentioned in the new source (which I kept): [3].

The rationale offered by the IP was: "restored the long standing fact of the unit never having been accused of war crimes by judicial body" which is different from "were [n]ever accused". In any case, historical and police investigations are different things and have different goals and methods. --K.e.coffman (talk) 07:14, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

I'll actually suggest that you should revert back to at least some of the information posted by the IP editor since it is far more accurate description than what currently is on the page. For example: Research by a Finnish historian Andre Swanström claims to have identified at least six members of the unit whom he alleges to have committed crimes vs Research by Finnish historian Andre Swanström identified at least six members of the unit who admitted to committing crimes. If we go to the actual facts (i.e. sources) you will notice that Swanström only alleges (there is no proof or evidence apart from his opinion - and the investigation is still ongoing) something to which the text refers to as a fact after your revert. Until the claim is verified it is nothing but a claim and should never be presented as anything beyond that. Or do you disagree?

Accusing outside of a court or without actual concrete evidence (also known as proof) is rather irrelevant. It may give grounds to further investigations as it has in this case but that is about it. Say hypothetically that a person would accuse some other person of committing a war crime - then per the same logic you just used it could be stated that the 'other person' had been accused of committing war crimes. Because it apparently doesn't matter if the claim is true or not, if it is investigated or not. - Wanderer602 (talk) 08:04, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

From IP's version:

"claims to have identified" -- see WP:CLAIM

"whom he alleges to have committed crimes" -- this is not proper English (I changed to "implicate": "who admitted to" --> "who had implicated themselves...": [4])

From the above comment:

"there is no proof or evidence apart from his opinion" -- Swanström cites a letter from an SS private about being assigned to shooting duty ("for the execution of Jews, less skilled personnel would have sufficed"); this is not opinion.

--K.e.coffman (talk) 17:27, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

You are right about the potential loaded term - problem is that some people insisted on including material to the article before it has been investigated. Because of that rush to conclusions without supporting facts we now need to deal with resulting ambiguity. Fact remains that until it has been investigated it remains nothing but a claim. Same goes with the second part you mentioned - until verified it remains an allegation. That the letter 'proves' anything is Swanström's own opinion. The letter itself is not stating that the persons writing it would have committed the act. It may imply so - however it doesn't prove it. Which is why there is the investigation. Concluding that on your own would be WP:OR. I said it before and I'm saying it again that i can not understand why there is for some a need to rush with this while the investigation is still ongoing. - Wanderer602 (talk) 19:09, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

"along with apparent prior accusations, necessitating a police investigation that was mentioned in the new source (which I kept)" What "apparent prior accusations"?: just because someone's past is looked into in case of possible wrongdoings that does not equal an accusation. Even my actions have been looked into by police in the past without actually having been accused of anything as part of a job interview that required such a check. Furthermore, yes - there absolutely is a big difference between some random historian's claims of these people having committed war crimes and being accused by judicial body. There have never been accusations by judicial body. --82.181.143.171 (talk) 17:48, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

"not accused of war crimes"

"Never accused by judicial body" I believe means that none were charged with war crimes. However, stating "never accused" could also be understood in the colloquial sense, i.e. nobody, ever, said that they committed war crimes. Which seems to be the implication here. Compare:

Some years ago in the regional newspaper Turun Sanomat, a former Waffen-SS volunteer reflected on the experiences of the Finnish contingent, the Finnisches Freiwilligen Bataillon der Waffen-SS, on the Eastern Front: "Nobody talked about politics to us. We were Germany’s elite soldiers. . . . Waffen-SS had nothing to do with Allgemeine-SS, which was political. Not a single man from the SS Viking division [in which a number of Finnish volunteers had served for a time] was sentenced for war crimes in the postwar trials. It’s wrong that we are mixed up with the brutality of Algemeine-SS [sic]. We were soldiers under the Wehrmacht command and fought against the same enemy as Finland."

Emphasis mine; Source. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:12, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

I further looked into this source:

Neither the unit nor any of its members were ever accused of any war crimes..

References

Finnish wikipedia has an article on this book (Panttipataljoona: suomalaisen SS-pataljoonan historia, which states (via Google translate, so apologies if I'm getting something wrong):

The work was released in 1968; this was the first time that the Finnish volunteer SS battalion was covered by a third party. The work was influenced by the organization of the former Finnish SS men Veljesapu; in 2000, the copyright for the book was transferred to the organisation.

Among others, historian Oula Silvennoinen and Marko TikkaHowever showed that, in the light of the archival material that emerged in the 2010s, Jokipi's estimates of nationalist radicals, fascists and National Socialists among its ranks was an underestimation. According to Silvennoinen and Tika, about 46 per cent of volunteers, or more than double the number compared to Jokip's calculations, would have shown themselves to be adherents of fascist ideology.

According to Jokip, the Finnish SS men also did not participate in the brutal executions of Jews by the Germans, but some of them testified as eyewitnesses to murders. However, the archival documentation from the 2010s shows some of the Finns to be guilty of shooting Jews alongside the Germans.

References

To sum up, this "longstanding fact" [5] is sourced to a questionable and dated source, as far as potential crimes by the battalion are concerned. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:13, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

@Wanderer602: Regarding this revert [6], I indicated why IP's edits were problematic earlier on. I will reiterate. From IP's version:

• "claims to have identified" -- see WP:CLAIM
• "whom he alleges to have committed crimes" -- this is not proper English (I changed to "implicate": "who admitted to" --> "who had implicated themselves...": [7])
• "In one letter he [Swanström] claims, that an SS private wrote to an officer..." -- see CLAIM again. This also makes it sound like Swanström has fabricated this letter.

From the most recent edit summary [8]:

• "Swamström is still only giving his opinion - either it needs to be reflected as such throughout that section or it should indicate that his claims are not verified" -- Swanström cites a letter from an SS private about being assigned to shooting duty which five other Finns also signed; this is how historical scholarship works. In any case, the article being cited does not contain the language of "claims". The article says (emphasis mine):

President Sauli Niinisto announced the first committee of inquiry of its kind in January following the recent discovery of written testimony by a Finnish Waffen SS officer who said he actively participated in the mass murder of Jews in Ukraine.

(...) Andre Swanström, the chairman of the Finnish Society of Church History, last year flagged to the Simon Wiesenthal Center the incriminating letters of Finnish volunteers serving in the Nazi SS unit. (...) In one letter, Finnish SS soldier Olavi Kustaa Aadolf Karpo complains to officer and military chaplain Ensio Pihkala about having to shoot Jews — but not for any moral qualms. (...) At least five other Finns participated in war crimes against Jews, Swanström wrote.

Unless you are suggesting that Swanström has made up this written testimony, the language of "claims" is POV and non-neutral. If you believe that the testimony itself if questionable, please provide a citation. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:28, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that the 'written testimony' you refer to does not explicitly state that they would have been among the shooters. It can certainly be seen as implying it and suggesting active complicity but it does not explicitly state so. That is pretty much the crux of the issue. For example were i to use such a reference in wikipedia i could not state that they would have been among the shooters because that would be WP:OR. There is no intent to indicate that Swanström would have fabricated the letter it just doesn't say what had been previously written to the article - Haaretz for example does not explicitly state that they would have done the act but that there is a testimony suggesting active complicity which is very, very different from the explicit statements written to the article previously. Which means that what was previously written in the article were also POV and non-neutral. Now especially since there is an actual investigation ongoing it seems better to indicate which were Swanström's opinions and which were not. - Wanderer602 (talk) 06:27, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

@Wanderer602: I'm not sure I understand the objection; the section is called Allegations of war crimes, not "Proven war crimes" or "Crimes committed by Finnish SS personnel". Separately, do you know when the police investigation being referenced took place? K.e.coffman (talk) 04:06, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

I do not see there being a meaningful difference if the claims are still written as if they were widely accepted and proven facts regardless of the section they are written to. I do appreciate separating the text but i still think it needs to be clearly marked even in the text itself.

As to investigations into the Finnish SS volunteers. They started in 1945 when the then newly communist lead (Red) ValPo (State Police) saw the SS volunteers as their ideological enemies and tried to assign blame on them from anything and everything. Especially (but not limited to) for the their actions while serving in the Waffen-SS - and it did include attempts to pin down war crimes on them. And given how Finland was at the time under the supervision by the Soviet run Allied Control Commission they had full freedom and power even beyond that reserved to the State Police in the Finnish law to do what they wanted. Nothing concrete has been reported to have been found.

The investigation i referred in the previous posting was not a police investigation but instead the one being done by the Finnish National Archives which has Swanström included as one of the members. It should be completed by the end of the 2018 - the reported deadline of 15 November 2018 seems somewhat optimistic though so at least i wouldn't be surprised if it took longer than that. While it is not a criminal investigation by itself it might actually lead to one if a case for one can be found though i think most potential defendants have already passed away. - Wanderer602 (talk) 05:28, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Since you are not disputing that this letter exists, I reverted the recent edit. WP:CLAIM is really not appropriate in this case as it makes Swanström sounds like a fraud and a liar. Thank you for the additional informtion; then this is the same investigation that I read about, in late 1940s. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:42, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

I never disputed the existence of the aforementioned letter. There however is no clear certainty what it means since the writer does not explicitly admit committing war crimes - that part is still just Swanströms allegations. They may be true or they may not be. Regardless of that they can not be presented as rock solid facts in the article. Therefore the part which have not been proven - like Swanström's claims - have to be presented as what they are. So I'll change what you edited again. You were again trying to pass unproven allegations as facts. - Wanderer602 (talk) 21:11, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Archive study has finally been published

The 220-page archival survey has been published in English (with a Creative commons 4.0 license by the way). It was commissioned by the Finnish Government after Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center had contacted President Sauli Niinistö. The main author was Lars Westerlund (adjunct professor of the Åbo Akademi) and the institutions behind it were the National Archives of Finland and the Finnish Literature Society. Certainly the article can be improved with this source.

• The study: The Finnish SS Volunteers and Atrocities 1941-1943
• Official government press release in English: [9]
• News articles in Finnish: Helsingin Sanomat: [10], Yle: [11]. --Pudeo (talk) 12:29, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but it doesn't really reach any new conclusions. After all it was well known before the survey that Finnish volunteers might have taken part to the atrocities. The survey does state - or so was explained in the release - that it is likely (or was it highly likely) that the Finns serving in Wiking division would have carried out atrocities (against Jews, civilians, and POWs in general) but that it is impossible to determine if they did so or not, and if so then who took part to which actions and under whose orders.

It does verify that the Finnish volunteers were well aware of the atrocities when they were serving in the Wiking division and they mostly tried to ignore it if they could (to quote: "For us, only the Finnish cause was important". And the survey concludes on that: "In this respect, the volunteers did not all act in a uniform manner, as some condemned the atrocities, others were personally involved or sided with them, and the majority simply closed their eyes."

That being said the survey also notes that it is likely that the number of the civilians killed by the Finns is around few dozen. This includes cases like the one involving a Finn who was ordered to be in a firing squad. The survey also notes that while the documentation is poor it is likely that Finnish volunteers may have killed several hundred of Soviet POWs. But all of that is with the qualifier 'likely'. - Wanderer602 (talk) 14:07, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Most importantly, most of the killings were not done by members of the battalion, but rather by Finnish volunteers in Wiking and may require their own page. Only the atrocities committed by members of the battalion need to be covered here.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:18, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

WP:CFORK

Should Oy Insinööritoimisto Ratas be merged with this article? —Brigade Piron (talk) 10:40, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 12:23, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Scope of the article

I wonder if the scope is really the Finnish SS volunteers (as a whole), vs the battalion. In most historiography, much is devoted to the service of these volunteers in various subordinate units of the SS Division Wiking in 1941, prior to the volunteers being combined into a stand-alone battalion. Same applies to the discussions of historical memory. Thoughts? --K.e.coffman (talk) 17:54, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to renaming this along the lines of "Finnish Volunteers of the Waffen-SS" and making the current title a redirect to the renamed article. Perhaps we should also turn Oy Insinööritoimisto Ratas into a redirect to the relevant section of this article. -Ljleppan (talk) 13:34, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

This article needs to be refocused solely on the battalion and a new article needs to be created covering all of the Finnish volunteers. The new article would absorb Oy Insinööritoimisto Ratas and cover the Finns serving with Wiking as well as the recruitment, etc. of the volunteers.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:32, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there really isn't any practical difference between "the battalion" and "the Finnish SS-volunteers". There's a common pool of recruits that is divided into two groups for a few months, with one undergoing further training and the other serving in various regiments of Wiking, both groups merging together into the Finnish battalion within Wiking once the training of the first ends. Along what lines would you propose we split the article? –Ljleppan (talk) 16:20, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I was unaware that the men originally assigned to Wiking had been transferred to the battalion. Since that's the case, I'd support your proposal.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:33, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I have to admit I'm not too broadly read on this, but I'm going by Pajunen & Karjalainen who write "The Finnish volunteers who were previously part of the SS Division Wiking – the remaining division men – were slowly assigned to the Finnish SS battalion starting from January 1942" on page 20. -Ljleppan (talk) 18:23, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm in favor of the proposed rename. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 11:34, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm in the favor of renaming as well, as after renaming the article could cover those who joined the SS in 1944-1945, like Mikko Laaksonen.RKT7789 (talk) 08:55, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Just to clarify -- the suggested name being discussed is "Finnish SS volunteers"? -- K.e.coffman (talk) 06:25, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I was thinking "Finnish volunteers in the Waffen-SS". –♠Vami_IV†♠ 21:22, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 23 December 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Andrewa (talk) 08:48, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

---

Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS → Finnish volunteers in the Waffen-SS – Looking at the previous discussion "Scope of the article" it looks like there is consensus to move the page to a title including all SS volunteers. I was considering a bold move but decided to open this RM in order to confirm the exact title to move to. Ping all participants in the earlier discussion: User:Vami_IV, K.e.coffman, User:Ljleppan, User:Sturmvogel 66. (t · c) buidhe 02:51, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes please. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 04:16, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support as per discussions above. -Ljleppan (talk) 09:52, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Orphaned references in Finnish volunteers in the Waffen-SS

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Finnish volunteers in the Waffen-SS's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "holappa":

• From Nordic Resistance Movement: "Näin toimii Suomen Vastarintaliike". Yle. Retrieved 26 September 2020.
• From Far-right politics: "Näin toimii Suomen Vastarintaliike". Yle. Archived from the original on 23 September 2020. Retrieved 26 September 2020.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. Feel free to remove this comment after fixing the refs. AnomieBOT⚡ 06:47, 20 April 2023 (UTC)