Talk:German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war

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how did germans know who were jewish when they took Soviets prisoner?82.11.228.80 (talk) 01:34, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

During intake at POW camps, Germans checked for circumcision. However, they may have also separated Jews even earlies, as I've seen photographs of groups of Jewish POWs at POWs collection points. Germans may have selected those who 'appeared Jewish' or asked Jews to self-identify. The latter probably worked only at the early stages of the invasion, as the shootings of Jewish POWs and commissars became known to the Red Army soldiers. --K.e.coffman (talk) 22:14, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Soviet reprisals against former POWs

The statement that most liberated soviet POW's were sent to Gulag camps is false. Out of 1 836 562 Soviet POW's that returned from captivity, 233 400 were sent to NKVD administered camps. Source: Russia and USSR, Military losses, Statistical study, under general supervision of professor general-colonel G.F.Krivosheev (http://www.soldat.ru/doc/casualties/book/chapter5_13_08.html). 12.7% of something hardly constitute MOST of something. Thus, I am changing "most" back to "some" and removing the reference that contradicts this highly reliable study. With respect, Ko Soi IX (talk) 08:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

No, that's not good enough. The reference is itself reliable. What you should do is include both references and souces, not try to obliterrate one you don't like and leave the passage unreferenced. Paul B (talk) 11:05, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I will have to disagree. The reference does not show how they came to such a conclusion, nor even gives any numbers. If we had an article like that here, people would want a source for such a claim. Considering that it contradicts archival research done by Krivosheev's crew, I think that it should not be given undue weight. Personally, I would prefer it removed completely, because I smell cold war era BS. With respect, Ko Soi IX (talk) 14:11, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't speak Russian, so I had to read your source through translation software, but it seems like a tub-thumping patriotic site rather than an objective resource. Nevertheless I have included it along with the USHMM. Paul B (talk) 11:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Just because a text sounds tub-thumping patriotic, that doesn't necessarily make it incorrect. 2A0A:EF40:1242:3701:5174:A3ED:80AD:D2CC (talk) 08:55, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

It's written in Soviet-type language, even though it was published in first in 1993 (if not later). Also, what you wrote is not at all what I sited. There was nothing said or written about the majority of collaborators being unpunished. The point was, out of those that returned, most were NOT collaborators, and as such, they were not prosecuted. With respect, Ko Soi IX (talk) 14:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Well I could have phrased it better, that's for sure. I wrote "a minority of known collaborators". I meant 'a minority of prisoners; those who were known to be collaborators' not 'a minority of those who were collaborators'. Nevertheless the fact remains that you can't simply obliterate what a reliable source says and insist that your alternative source must be true. Paul B (talk) 17:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I now see that you didn't delete it but moved it. Paul B (talk) 17:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

So, what do you think, is it better now? Also, about Krivosheev. I probably misinformed you a bit with my first not so considerate changes; the research wasn't done by Krivosheev, it was carried out by a whole group of military historians, since the amount of work that had to be done was enormous. Krivosheev was the head of the research team, but referring to this work as done BY him is not correct. This is my mistake, yet I'm not too sure how to phrase it better. With respect, Ko Soi IX (talk) 18:14, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

From Rolf-Dieter Müller, Gerd R. Ueberschär, Hitler's War in the East, 1941-1945: A Critical Assessment, p.219: In the past, Soviet historians engaged for the most part in a disinformation campaign about the extent of the prisoner-of- war problem in order to squelch any discussion of the share of the guilt borne by Soviet leaders. In the official works published under the title of The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, prisoners of war were not discussed. The few studies that mentioned captured Soviet soldiers at all portrayed them only as putting up heroic resistance in the Nazi camps (Brodski, E. A. Vo imja pobedy nad fasizmom. Antifasistkaja bor'ba sovetskich ljudej v gitelrowskoj Germanii (1941-1945 gg.). Moscow, 1970) The first comprehensive study of Soviet prisoners of war, by EA Brodsky, was finally published in 1987, twenty-five years after it had been written (Oni ne propali bez ujesti. Ne slomlennije fasistkoj nevolej. Moscow, 1987). The memoirs of four Soviet prisoners of war, published under the patronage of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, were also prevented from reaching a larger audience (No 62). The memoirs of four Soviet prisoners of war, published under the patronage of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, were also prevented from reaching a larger audience (Ceron F. Ia. Nemeckij pleni-sovetskoe osvobozdene, Paris 1987). The first account of the repatriation problem available to Soviet readers was written by VN. Zemskov ("K voprosy repatriacii sovetskich grazdan 1944-1945 gody" Istorija SSR no4 (1990): pp 28 ff).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Right. If you want to correct something in this or "Soviet historiography" article, please do.Biophys (talk) 06:54, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I may; I have stumbled upon this topic thanks to a discussion at Talk:Siege of Brest (1941) and the stimulating as usual comments of certain editor there :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:56, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Piotrus, the entry above does not bode well with you habit of going around with the encouraging "civility talk". --Irpen 06:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The first paragraph tells about 19% exPOWs in penal batalions, 14.5% in reconstruction battalions and 8% convicted. 19+14.5+8=41.5%. I have a little bit other data, but even these number tell us that bigger part of exPOWs returned to civilian life. In addition to that, reconstruction battalions was not a penalty, but a kind of military service. Taking into account that, for instance, only 3 of every 100 men born in 1923 survived by the end of the war, there was simply a dramatic lack of labour force. Those POWs returned to completely destroyed country, and no one was able to give them a possibility to recover. Please, keep that in mind when you wright something.
I added a final paragraph that contains data from Zemskov's paper in the American Historical Review, 1993, and from another academic source, they show slightly different but generally consistent numbers. However, it seems to me that this section has became a completely self-contradictory. Probably, that is what people call NPOW, but maybe it makes sense to rewrite it?
--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:34, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

A source

Can anybody check what year is the linked research of G.F. Krivosheev from? If it is late 80s or more modern, it is much more reliable than if would be published earlier (per above).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:09, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I looked at this link, allegedly to work of G.F. Krivosheev. This site is not a reliable source. As very common for unreliable sources, it does not provide any publication date, and it is not quite clear who is the author. I went to the main page of this site and found at the very top the following: "Россия, слышишь страшный зуд? Жидомасоны в Президенты прут." So, this site promotes the worldwide Jewish conspiracy theory and describes (in obscene expressions) Russian presidential candidate Andrei Vladimirovich Bogdanov as such conspirator... I doubt that Grigoriy Krivosheev is notable enough for WP.Biophys (talk) 00:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Biophys, it is always best to check before casting doubt, especially on the living person. This Google books search takes 10 seconds and does not even require a subscription. --Irpen 06:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Biophys, would you doubt Kozma Prutkov if you had his work available on a some kind of supremacy site? With respect, Ko Soi IX (talk) 23:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The book originally was published in 1993, than it was expanded and corrected for the "second edition", which was published in Moskow by Olma-Press in 2001. The latter is quoted from the www.soldat.ru site. Personally, for whatever it's worth, I have checked some random numbers with both the paper and some other on-line versions and www.soldat.ru is, in my opinion, considerably apt in hosting the book. The book itself is not perfect of course. With respect, Ko Soi IX (talk) 23:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Splitting the section

I think this section should be split off, the subject is notable and it is confusing to have to look for it (and find it in) "Extermination of Soviet prisoners of war by Nazi Germany".--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree; this could be only briefly mentioned here.Biophys (talk) 00:33, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

"140,000 up to 500,000 were executed in the concentration camps"

Wrote USHMM website. But I listed the cases, and it seems more like "about 140,000 period" (including the SS camp Birkenau). Wht do you think about it? --HanzoHattori 12:20, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, I fixed it. --HanzoHattori (talk) 22:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Other site of massacres

Some Soviet POWs also died at the Ponary massacre place.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:22, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Large scale edits by User:84.234.60.154

I reverted all of User:84.234.60.154's recent edits, including some sections that appeared to have useful references. The reason is that User:84.234.60.154 was deleting previously referenced material without discussion. For instance, User:84.234.60.154 changed the referenced death toll estimate of 2.8-3.5 million to an unreferenced estimate of 3.3-3.5 million. I invite User:84.234.60.154 to return his or her edits to the article but each one should be accompanied by a suitable reference. Binksternet (talk) 05:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be referenced right now, and the estimates are similar. I think the article is visibly improved after his/her edits.Biophys (talk) 18:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC) Unfortunately, it was you who reverted work of another editor without any discussion: [1]. If you think that something is going wrong, please explain here what exactly you think is wrong and disccus this with others.Biophys (talk) 00:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Comparing Soviet POW deaths to German POW deaths

Why is this comparison being made? The Soviets didn't commit genocide and try to exterminate their prisoners like the Germans did. From what I've read, including notes of German survivors, the Soviets did their best with what they had. And so did the Germans, when the Soviets retreated they scorched the earth and left no food or crops, see recently published Eastern Inferno.

It looks like some sort of Nazi apologist POV push, trying to imply either that it wasn't "that bad", or the Soviets were "just as bad", neither of which is anything close to true. As it stands there's no rationale to keep this comparison. This article isn't about comparing numbers, it's about actions, the act of extermination and genocide. It's not right to compare unavoidable deaths to murders.LokiiT (talk) 05:55, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The Soviets also just were not taking prisoners in the first weeks of the war. At all. The medals were for the certain number of the KILLED Germans. This changed only when they needed them to march them through Moscow. Another example: After the Soviets took one city in Bagration, they killed 6,000 wounded the Germans left behind. And so on. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 19:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

It took until the Battle of Stalingrad for the Soviet government to issue a remarkably forward-thinking official stance on the treatment of POWs. Divisions at the front were told in no uncertain terms to treat German POWs carefully and properly, to feed them and not make them march too far. A number of aspects of POW care were covered in detail. The edict had a very limited positive effect; most Soviet soldiers just didn't give a shit about caring for Axis soldiers, and continued to starve them, deny them medical attention, expose them to the elements, force-march them too far and to shoot them when they felt like it. One group of 125,000 Italian POWs taken at Stalingrad was marched, frozen, shot and starved until only 12,000 were left. Binksternet (talk) 20:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I inserted two phrases for the sake of WP:NPOV and because that is an encyclopedic content. A reader probably would like to learn the other side of the story. Thus, a very brief info in this article is fine. If we had something like Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union about German POWs, that info could be placed there. But we do not have German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union.Biophys (talk) 21:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC) 1 million figure was given in "Black Book".Biophys (talk) 21:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not a neutral point of view issue because the number of German POWs who died has nothing to do with the extermination of Soviet POWs. The insertion of that figure falls under the category of original research, unless you can provide an article on this very topic that makes that specific comparison.

• "This includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position....you must cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article"LokiiT (talk) 23:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

What OR are you talking about? That is your diff. You have deleted a text supported by two academic books and other reliable sources.Biophys (talk) 01:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I just explained it to you. It's original research/synthesis, the source doesn't make any comparisons between German and Soviet deaths in POWs because the comparison is meaningless. It just looks like a Nazi apologist inserted it to say "hey, look how many Germans died in Soviet camps, they're just as bad!" but as I already explained, the comparison makes no sense. When you insert that figure and make the comparison, you're making an "unpublished analysis". Do you understand what I mean? If not, please read through WP:Original research more thoroughly. LokiiT (talk) 02:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

It was me who inserted this text for the sake of NPOV as explained above. Do you mean that I am "a Nazi apologist" as you said? Inserting a text about Gulag does not mean to be an apologist of anything. OR is something that is not in reliable sources. The inserted text is sourced. Anne Applebaum specifically compared Soviet and German extermination camps (the text about similar death rates), so this is not OR.Biophys (talk) 03:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I highly doubt the credibility of Anne Applebaum if that's the case, because there were no Soviet extermination camps. There were labor camps, and of course there were executions, food shortages and many tragic deaths, but there was no genocide taking place in Soviet camps like there was in German camps. Can you please cite the page that quote is on? But regardless, I have to stress my original point that the number of German POW deaths has nothing to do with the number of Soviets murdered in German camps, which is why it's original research.LokiiT (talk) 03:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

You just said: "there were no Soviet extermination camps" Did you ever read Alexander Solzhenitsyn? How did he called them? "Istrebitel'no-trudovye". Translation: "extermination by labor". Sure, I can provide exact citation with page for Applebaum.Biophys (talk) 03:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn doesn't make up definitions of words and his opinion isn't authoritative. I could find you people who claim the Iraq war is a genocide, but that doesn't mean it is and that doesn't mean we should put that in wikipedia. LokiiT (talk) 07:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Irrelevant. Word "extermination" was not included in text.Biophys (talk) 14:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

This is not original research. It's data documented by a known researcher. The only discussion taking place here is whether this information should be incorporated into the article, and, if "yes", how it should be incorporated. Binksternet (talk) 04:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

If you can incorporate this information better, please do. I though briefly mentioning this somewhere was appropriate.Biophys (talk) 04:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

" I could find you people who claim the Iraq war is a genocide, but that doesn't mean it is" It doesn't? http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4555000.stm --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 09:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not see how this is relevant, but your source (BBC article) tells: "A court in The Hague has ruled that the killing of thousands of Kurds in Iraq in the 1980s [by Saddam Hussein] was an act of genocide." . This is a sourced view.Biophys (talk) 14:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Which means there the war in Iraq was a genocide. No need to "find people", it's in court rulings. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 10:38, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I meant the current war in Iraq. But either way, my point remains that comparing genocide to non-genocide just shouldn't be done and I still hold that it was someones attempt to draw non-existent parallels between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, much like the black book of propaganda attempts to do. I'm satisfied with the current version though, the numbers can stay as long as they're in context with history and not just a blind comparison of a series of digits serving to imply falsities. LokiiT (talk) 16:17, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Only in Wikipedia can an article about Nazi cruelty devolve into an argument about whether the Soviets were worse or not... :/ Come on, guys! Forget about the Soviets for a minute. We are discussing NAZIS here! 190.18.161.171 (talk) 00:32, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the tactic of relativizing the crimes of one side by comparing them to alleged crimes of the other side and saying "look, they were just as bad!" is typical of: a- young kids complaining about their brothers, b- Nazi apologists and Holocaust deniers, c- the right-wing in Latin America and their "Theory of the Two Demons", i.e. the justification of murder and torture enforced by military dictatorships against the civilian population by saying "but the guerrillas also murdered people!" 190.194.223.134 (talk) 03:47, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Shortening title

How about "Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs"? --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 00:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I think this is shorter and better.Biophys (talk) 02:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

OK then. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 09:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

It is worse since it hides the word extermination which it was extermination it explains it all it was extermination to exterminate Aheadnovel55 (talk) 17:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

To the German-language editors

Do a German Wiki version. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 10:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Who was the author?

The following segment has been recently inserted: According to the study by the Russian Academy of Sciences, out of the 5,917,000 repatriated Soviet POWs and civilians, 3,246,000 returned to civilian life, 1,645,000 were conscripted and 338,000 were found guilty (most of them were released by 1953); about half a million remained in Western countries.[43].

This is actually a collection of articles by different people ("sbornik"). What article has been cited (with pages please), and who was author of the article? This is not "According to the study by the Russian Academy of Sciences" if I understand correctly.Biophys (talk) 20:40, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, this segment seems to be off topic. We are talking only about POWs here. Only ~1.5 millions of the repatriated people were POWs. So, the "total" statistics (POWs + civilians) is hardly relevant. The entire "Reprisals" sections could be a separate sub-article.Biophys (talk) 20:50, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

If you read Russian, try to look for Zemskov's works. He did several archive studies, some of them dealt with the POW's fate (see, for example http://scepsis.ru/library/id_1234.html). This author is quite tustworthy, because, for instance, he published some of his results in high reputable Western journals (see, for instance,Getty, Rittersporn, Zemskov. Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence. The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 1017-1049, ref No 42 in this article). According to Zemskov's data majority of ex-POW's were re-drafted and only 15% of them were detained in NKVD camps (226,127 out of 1,539,475 total). If you think those data to be more relevant, please, feel free to replace. By the way, this number is quite reasonable, because considerable part of those 226,127 could really collaborate with Nazis (so called vlasovtsy, for instance)) --Paul Siebert (talk) 05:58, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

But this does not answer my question. Can you please provide a proper reference for the currently cited segment? Also, we should probably place this material to Soviet POWs article that is now a disambig. page. Note that Getty is a "revisionist historian" who wrote ridiculous things about Stalin's purges. As about Zemskov, let me respectfully disagree. His studies are based on numbers that have been prepared by the KGB itself. These KGB data represent a deliberate falsification according to some researchers, while others still use these data, because they do not have anything better (Soviet military and secret services archives were never open, even with regard to old historical documents).Biophys (talk) 13:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Among the "conscripted" were also these in the penal and forced labour military units. It's also punishment. An American POW would usually get a hero's welcome. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 06:43, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Researched, scholarly books give an answer that doesn't appear to appease a political point of view and an historical article remains garbage - typical wiki result.159.105.80.220 (talk) 16:14, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

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The Black Book of Communism

I'm not one to sugarcoat atrocities committed by the Soviets or any of the allies, even for being biased in their favor, yet the reference to the Black Book of Communism in the last sentence of the summary, seems inappropriate. It is contextually relevant true. But it so deviates from given statistics, an order magnitude higher, that it doesn't seem likely that it's any more than a fabrication. 76.111.80.228 (talk) 04:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

There's a similar situation with the middle paragraph of Soviet reprisals against former POWs. 76.111.80.228 (talk) 05:01, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree on the summary. Overmans' data are definitely much more reliable. As regards to the the middle paragraph of Soviet reprisals against former POWs, it simply poorly worded. The major conclusion from these numbers should be that the majority of exPOWs were released. In other words, it just confirms the conclusions made in the preceding paragraph.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:59, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

This is according to sources cited in "Black book" (Maschke commission and others). You can not simply delete refs to a reliable secondary source.Biophys (talk) 20:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, I placed all those estimates about German prisoners to footnote. This belongs to another article.Biophys (talk) 21:16, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I made a separate article about German POWs. Please contribute there. The brief mention about German POWs in this article (as it is right now) should be fine.Biophys (talk) 21:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Support.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:00, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Copyedit

A lot of the quotes do not make sense. Many are contradiictory or just plain confusing. I had started to copyedit them before I realised that somebody with more expertise than I was needed.

In the "Prisoner-of War" section, the article states: 'Due to the rapid advance and expected quick victory, the Germans did not want to ship these prisoners back to Germany', but I do know that Stalag XI-C (mentioned in "The Camps" section), the camp that later became Bergen-Belsen was/is in, er, Germany - its just north of Hannover. RASAM (talk) 12:48, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Claim that USSR did sign Geneve convention in 1931

Page [2] (in Russian) on a website about the history of the Russian and Soviet military claims that USSR did sign 1929 Geneve Convention, in 1931. They point to an archived Soviet documents and say that the copy of the document is also present in the Library of Congress. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 22:35, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

• And it was discussed here on Wiki few years ago: [3]. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 22:44, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Commissar's Order - wiki article. It appears that few, if any, German officers allowed this plan to proceed - ie bad for morale and order in the German army. The Order was soon rescinded. Sounds bad but nothing came of it. 159.105.80.220 (talk) 16:08, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Thousands of Soviet commisars were summarily shot by the Wehrmacht under the Commissar Order. Look up the Wikipedia article on the topic. The claim that the order wasn't enforced was pushed by German generals after the war and, like many of their claims, was BS meant to save their own skins. 2A0A:EF40:1242:3701:5174:A3ED:80AD:D2CC (talk) 09:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 22 February 2014

The following discussion is an archived 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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Xoloz (talk) 02:02, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

---

Nazi crimes against Soviet prisoners of war → German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war – I am proposing this move because the current title is problematic, but I am open to other suggestions.
The problem with "Nazi" is that it describes a political party, while the Soviet victims were prisoners of Germany and not all of the "criminals" were Nazis. The problem with "crimes" is that it is a legal term (who's law? "war crimes" would be a better term), but this article is about something broader than crimes. I think the term "mistreatment" is broad enough. There is no stronger term that is broad enough: the article covers much more than what it was originally designed to cover. (I'm not sure why we can't just mirror the title German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, or split the article into one of Soviet POWs in Germany and another on German war crimes perpetrated against them.) Relisted Hot Stop 08:38, 1 March 2014 (UTC) Srnec (talk) 22:24, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support seems to be a more apt title Bandy boy (talk) 01:03, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The current title, Nazi crimes against Soviet prisoners of war, is a bit inaccurate for reasons the nominator points out. The proposed title, German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war, seems better but a possible issue is that mistreatment seems a little mild of a term to describe the German actions. (Another issue might be that the scope is not limited to the Nazi period but I don't imagine many would argue that Russian prisoners of the Germans after the October Revolution would be considered "Soviet".

Another issue is that not all of the content of the current article is about crimes/mistreatment. A good bit is simply about Soviet POWs of the Germans in general. I agree with the nominator that the title German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union might serve as a model, but it should result from a split the article into one on Soviet POWs in Germany and another on German crimes perpetrated against them. The current article should not simply be moved to a more general title. —  AjaxSmack  01:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support. I think "German" is more general and more neutral than "Nazi". ''Sitta kah'' (talk) 19:57, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Support as the original author of the article, closing it I guess. --Niemti (talk) 22:37, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

French prisoners of war in World War II GA-nominated

Please participate in the review here: Talk:French prisoners of war in World War II/GA1. Thank you! ^walk victor falk ^talk 05:40, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Problems with section "Contemporary Soviet mistreatment of German prisoners of war"

I see a few issues with the paragraph that's included in this section:

(1) The numbers quoted do not support 30% of German POW casualty rate in Soviet captivity. Even if we take the high number 557K attributed to Anne Applebaum, and the low number of POW 2.4M, then the mortality rate is 23% *

(2) The paragraph includes a quote from Anne Applebaum, but does not include the estimate from Richard Overy, provided in the linked article: "British historian Richard Overy estimated that 356,000 out of 2,880,000 million German prisoners of war died in Soviet labor camps." This is mortality rate of 12%. Why include the high estimate, but not others? *

(3) From Russian language sources, I also see 12%: http://militera.lib.ru/research/pyhalov_i/12.html# The numbers are listed as follows: out of 3.576M German POWs, 442K died in captivity (12,4%); 137.8K POW casualties out of 800K Hungarian, Italian, Rumanian, Slovakian and Finnish POWs (17%); 62K casualties out of 640K Japanese POWs (9%). *

(4) 30% is not listed or sourced in the linked article. *

(5) The quote "Similar death rates prevailed among Soviet soldiers in German captivity: the Nazi–Soviet war was truly a fight to the death" is Anne Applebaum's opinion and seem to equate behavior of Soviet and German military towards POWs. *

(6) This quote is factually incorrect "Out of the nearly 110,000 German prisoners taken at Stalingrad, only about 6,000 survived the captivity.[citation needed]" The Wikipedia quotes the number as 91K (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad#Soviet_victory) and that number included Axis forces as well. So there could not have been 110K "German prisoners" *

(7) The linked article on German POWs does not have a section on "Contemporary mistreatment of Soviet POWs" (which as it should be).

I recommend the same treatment as offered in the linked article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union

So the section would look like: See also[edit] * German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union * [link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union]

That would be neutral POV. --K.e.coffman (talk) 20:23, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

It's been a week with no comments or objections, so I removed the section and linked to German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union under "See also" --K.e.coffman (talk) 06:09, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

the title of this article

I propose that the title of this article be changed to "Soviet prisoners of war held by Germany". That would be more in line with Wikipedia neutrality rules and allow a more useful presentation of the context. Zero^talk 04:39, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Commissar order issued by OKW, not Hitler

See full text of the document: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English58.pdf

Current Wikipedia text: The Commissar Order (German: Kommissarbefehl) was an order issued by Adolf Hitler on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa.

I would like to make the change here and on the Commissar Order page, unless there are objections. --K.e.coffman (talk) 07:15, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I've made the change. --K.e.coffman (talk) 07:35, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

POV

Should not be the title be more impartial, such as Soviet prisoners of war during World War II? The article seems to be well sourced, though the title seems to attempt to a point of view. At least comparing with the other article, German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, whose title seems more impartial.João Pimentel Ferreira 21:53, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

I would leave it as is. There's a big discussion above when the article was renamed from "Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs" and "Mistreatment" was the consensus. I believe that this is indeed a special case (vs German POWs, for example), as, at more than 3,000,000 victims, this was the single worst crime against humanity/war crime of WWII after the Final Solution. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:36, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

It's widely accepted that Nazi Germany attempted an extermination campaign against Slavs, and that the number of deaths of Russian and Slav POWs was staggering. It's not controversial to link the two. It's as accepted as the fact the Nazis wanted to exterminate all Jewish people. So there is no need at all to adopt an "impartial" tone to the title, when it's stating what is widely acknowledged to be a fact. 190.194.223.134 (talk) 03:53, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Stalag IV-H

I don't understand why an editor reinstated a startling and astonishingly precise claim about Stalag IV-H: "Of the 510,677 inmates in the camp before the typhoid fever epidemic in December 1941, only 3,729 were still alive when it ended in April 1942". Only a dead link is offered as a source. The camp was designed to hold 30,000 inmates. I cannot find a reliable source suggesting anything like half a million Soviet soldiers were crammed in prior to the epidemic, though there are sources suggesting there were perhaps 7,000, or perhaps 11,000 prior to the epidemic. --Epipelagic (talk) 22:44, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Someone please fix the sources

Unarchived deadlinks and poor formatting. --94.246.144.29 (talk) 17:31, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Image

I wonder if there would be objections with replacing the image "A Soviet POW with a loaf of bread. June 1941". The image seems too closely aligned with Nazi propaganda of "bestial", "Asiatic hordes". I'd like to use a more neutral image. Please let me know if there are any concerns. K.e.coffman (talk) 07:13, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 5 April 2017

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) TonyBallioni (talk) 16:18, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

---

German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war → German persecution of Soviet prisoners of war – The current title appears rather mild; compare with: NAZI PERSECUTION OF SOVIET PRISONERS OF WAR from ushmm.org. The search for "nazi persecution of soviet prisoners of war" (w/o quotes) brings up a variety of sources, with rather strong language (link), such as:

• "...systematic destruction of Soviet prisoners of war was an integral component of German policy..." Peter Longerich
• "... Soviet prisoners of war see victims, Nazi Persecution Soviet..."
• "The Policies of Genocide: Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany" Gerhard Hirschfeld. Etc.

"Persecution" seems to fit better, given the magnitude of the crime. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:42, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

• I agree, make the change. The Russian Wikipedia has a lot of material that could improve the article.--Woogie10w (talk) 01:33, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
• Comment. It may be best to consult Wiktionary and other sources in order to flesh out the semantic differences between "mistreatment" and "persecution", most specifically as those terms apply to the circumstances of war captives and prisoners in general. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 15:09, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

• Wiktionary has the following: Persecution : a program or campaign to subjugate or eliminate a specific group of people, often based on race, religion, sexuality, or social beliefs.

Link to definition. I think this fits pretty well. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:30, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree--Woogie10w (talk) 22:11, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

• Additional comment. Prison inmates frequently complain of mistreatment — beatings, denial of visitation rights, solitary confinement, etc — without necessarily claiming persecution on the basis of race, gender or ethnic identity. Is there a specific claim that in addition to being mistreated, Russian POWs were subjected by Germans to ethnic or social persecution that was at a separate or higher level of mistreatment than that inflicted upon Polish, Greek or British POWs? —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 00:27, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

• Well, let's see. More than 4000 POWs were murdered outright by the frontline troops under the Commissar Order. Since the start of the invasion, Jewish and "Asiatic" POWs were segregated and handed over to the SD "for special treatment" (i.e. to be killed). Between the summer of 1941 and the early winter of 1942 the German authorities systematically starved the "Slavic Untermenschen" who survived the death marches to the rear, denied them shelter from the elements and medical care, so the vast majority of those captured during Barbarossa were dead by the spring of 1942. Etc. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:32, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. The proposed title definitely does not sound right to my ears. We are not talking about "persecution" as the word is normally used. That and our article on persecution defines it as a form of "mistreatment". That word is broad enough to include both mild and severe forms. I get lots of results for "mistreatment of prisoners" at Google Books, but few for "persecution of prisoners". To me, this is an issue of best English usage. If there is a better title than the current one, the proposed one is not it. Srnec (talk) 16:09, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
• Comment -- "Persecution of Soviet prisoners of war" (link) is good enough English usage for the USHMM, so I think this would be suitable for Wikipedia. The Wiki article on Persecution opens with: "Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group." Was the mistreatment not "systematic"? K.e.coffman (talk) 21:38, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Was it not mistreatment?
I get lots of hits for the exact phrases "maltreatment of Soviet prisoners" and "mistreatment of Soviet prisoners". All hits of the first two page are about World War II. I do not think "persecution" implies a greater magnitude than "mistreatment". I do not think Omer Bartov was being light on the Nazis when he used "maltreatment" in Hitler's Army. Srnec (talk) 23:51, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per User:Srnec. Although mistreatment can sound a little mild, persecution is not normally used in cases where the perpetrator already exercises near total control. —  AjaxSmack  17:02, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. There is nothing wrong with the current title, while the proposed title is a strange use of words to the point of having a strong smell of POV. Andrewa (talk) 17:14, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Dachau concentration camp; numbers murdered there

Not 500 - but 4.000, states article: Over 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war were murdered by the Dachau commandant's guard at the SS shooting range located at Hebertshausen two kilometers from the main camp in the years 1941/1943 --129.187.244.19 (talk) 10:53, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I updated it now it is correct.Driverofknowledge (talk) 18:17, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Change of name

The current name of the article is as follows: German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war. As I am not a native speaker of English, I looked up the word mistreatment: "the act of treating a person or animal badly, cruelly, or unfairly", from Cambridge dictionary. So it goes that mistreatment is not nice. But is mistreatment about killing half of the persons or animals? Seems very strange to me.

This is what the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has to say about how Wehrmacht treated soviet prisoners of war:

"In addition to its complicity in the Holocaust, the German army bears the major responsibility for the mass death of captured Soviet prisoners of war (POWs). Due to its initial military success, the German army captured millions of Soviet soldiers. In only eight months, 2 million Soviet POWs had died in German custody; this is eight times the number of American combat casualties for the entire war. More Soviet POWs died each day in the summer and fall of 1941 than British and American POWs died during the entire war. These deaths were not the result of poor planning and insufficient resources. They resulted from intentional policy, decided upon before the invasion. These POWs were given no shelter from the heat or cold, insufficient food, and little medical care. In all, 3.3 million Soviet soldiers are estimated to have died."

, from "The Germany Military and the Holocaust"

Is this what we call mistreatment? Again, I am Norwegian, not fluent in English, but in Norwegian we would call this krigsforbrytelser (war crimes) as a minimum. In viewing the name of this article, one should also have in mind the article myth of the clean Wehrmacht. As we know, the Wehrmacht used to have a reputation as decent warriors. That was and is a lie. Many of them were war criminals, willing supporters and executioners for a genocidal regime. This name has to change, literally for the worse, as is the truth. After all we try to write an encyclopedia, we do not engage in glossing over intentional murder of millions of people, people that in any ordinary state would have been protected and cared for. Ulflarsen (talk) 22:19, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Ulflarsen, What alternate name do you propose? The problem with "murder" or "killing" is that all were mistreated, not all were murdered. (t · c) buidhe 22:36, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Either German war crimes against Soviet prisoners of war, or, if that is not possible, I guess the better solution is just to remove mistreatment and name the article as Soviet prisoners of war (World War II). As the Soviet Union mostly fought against Germany it seems to me that it is a more fitting description, although we would leave out some thousand soviet war prisoners in Finland and areas occupied by Imperial Japan. Ulflarsen (talk) 22:54, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

The issue with "war crimes" is that this term does not seem to be used frequently in sources[4] perhaps due to the legal vacuum that existed as Soviet Union did not ratify the Geneva Conventions. I agree that mistreatment isn't ideal either, since it comes off as euphemistic. (t · c) buidhe 23:26, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

That is a common misunderstanding. The Third Geneva convention makes no distinction between POWs, so all POWs must be treated equally, and it does not matter whether their country is a party of the Convention or not. The only reservation was made regarding the transfer of POWs (cannot be transferred to a country that is not a party).--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:45, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

In this video by the historian Waitman Beorn - "Killing the ‘Clean’ Wehrmacht: The Reality of the German Army and the Holocaust", he discuss what he calls the genocide of soviets POVs at 21:38. Again, war is war, resources are scare, so even when there is no battles, people suffer, and die. But over 50%? Maybe it also could be called Genocide against Soviet prisoners of war, but in no way mistreatment. Ulflarsen (talk) 23:56, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

It's true that some consider it a genocide, however, as far as I can tell, that is not the majority view (WP:POVTITLE comes into play), and it's used commonly in published sources even less than "war crimes". (If I'm wrong about the Geneva Convention, I withdraw any objection to that title). (t · c) buidhe 00:35, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree that "mistreatment" is too euphemistic. Is "persecution" better? Also, "war crime" is a technical term that I think we should avoid except in attributed opinion. How about "German crimes against Soviet prisoners of war"? Zero^talk 05:35, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

To Zero: Maybe Soviet prisoners of war (World War II) is the most fitting. For me "persecution" does not seem to cover it either, with a short and plain title, the content of the article says the rest. Ulflarsen (talk) 18:26, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't complain about that. Zero^talk 03:23, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Just came across this article and discussion. I think that it should be renamed German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war. "Mistreatment" sounds too... gentle for what happened. "War crimes" or "genocide", while not inaccurate IMO, run into POV issues. Blade Jogger 2049 ^Talk 00:37, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Agree with BladeJogger2049, German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war better describes the article.--Mhorg (talk) 06:51, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Agree with the above although "war crimes" would be ok. "Mistreatment" is WP:WEASEL on steroids. Volunteer Marek 18:38, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

I do agree as well, a change that better relates the horror of what happened. Ulflarsen (talk) 16:16, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Name and scope

Considering small participation at #Requested move 22 February 2014, no consensus at #Requested_move_5_April_2017 and the more frequented but "no vote", discussion above, I'll note the page was previous named (and moved without discussion) as follows:

Original title: Extermination of Soviet prisoners of war by Nazi Germany, moved to Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs . Moved to Nazi crimes against Soviet prisoners of war, moved to German mistreatment of Soviet prisoners of war, moved back and forth a bit, moved to the current title (German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war).

I am not sure if the current name is neutral (I've recently created an article on German atrocities committed against Polish prisoners of war, based on the naming of the article here, and I am having second thoughts on whether that name is neutral too). Perhaps the problem is the scope - maybe we need two articles, one about German attrocities, and one about the general treatment of Soviet prisoners by the German? Granted, in the case of the Soviet POWs, the line might be more blurried here than in case of many (particulary Western) POWs where the Germans were more likely to observe international conventions on humane treatment. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:05, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

The sources tend to cover the entire saga of POWs, including both illegal and non-illegal actions by their captors. I would prefer a rename that encompasses the entire saga. While "extermination" is perhaps not inaccurate for what happened to many of them, it doesn't really encompass the recruitment as Hiwis or the less deadly forms of forced labor which is covered by the same sources.

On the other hand it seems that the vast majority of Soviet POWs, although perhaps not all, did indeed survive or die from "atrocities" if by that you mean lack of sufficient food and shelter, violations of the Geneva Convention, and so forth and not just deliberate executions. (t · c) buidhe 14:18, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

• I wonder if we could take the lead from the USHMM with a title of German persecution of Soviet prisoners of war; see the entry "Nazi Persecution of Soviet Prisoners of War" on the museum's web site. "Persecution" seems apt as the POWs were a captive population in a system that ranged from malign neglect to state-sanctions murder. "Atrocities", on the other hand, suggests aberrations from a 'few bad apples', belying what actually occurred. Thoughts? --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:55, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

  Not opposed, but what about restoring the original title (extermination)? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:14, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

  "Extermination", to me, implies the intent to kill all POWs, which did not appear to have been the case. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:08, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

• Hi @Buidhe: I'm curious whether you have an opinion on my suggestion above - ? --K.e.coffman (talk) 07:29, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm neutral on it. (t · c) buidhe 17:35, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Issues with the lede

• "Prisoners of war from other countries faced considerably less severe treatment." This needs to be clarified and supported in the text -- it is not. If the clause is trying to say that Soviet POWs fared worse than American POWs held by Nazi Germany, for example, it doesn't read as such.

• "Soviet prisoners of war were subjected to forced labor under conditions worse than civilian forced laborers or prisoners of war from other countries." This is repetitive based on the sentence abov.?

• "More than 100,000 were transferred to Nazi concentration camps, where they were treated worse than other prisoners." Nothing in the article supports this, and I'm sure the Jewish prisoners in these concentration camps would be surprised to read they were treated better than Soviet POWs. Longhornsg (talk) 04:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

  • Yes, the treatment of Soviet POWs was worse, this is covered in the death toll section.
  • The repetition should be fixed but this is also summarizing the death toll section.
  • Yes, it's supported by the article which notes that at least the Soviet POWs sent in late 1941 faced worse conditions than those already imprisoned in the camps. It may be more varied for other groups of POWs sent at different times, but the sources don't cover this as far as I can tell.

  (t · c) buidhe 06:11, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

UNDUE additions

This article needs to be focused on sources actually about the topic, and furthermore, real breakthroughs of research have happened since 2010 meaning I would be cautious of citing anything prior to that date. If you looked at the sources cited in the article, you would find scholarly discussions of various estimates that have been made, and I don't think any of the sources you cited would be found there.

BTW the idea that Gerlach isn't an expert in this topic is not accurate, before he wrote The Extermination of the European Jews he was the author of another book (in German) that discusses the German occupation of Belarus, with a distinct focus on the fate of Soviet POWs. And his scholarship is mentioned in most every other book on the subject. (t · c) buidhe 23:56, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

For example, Moore 2022 relies largely on secondary sources for its discussion of Soviet POWs. He cites Kay, Edele, Gerlach, Pohl, Wachsmann, Overmans, and Hartmann but not Jones, Goldhagen, or Calvocoressi (whose book does not seem to be academic history either). (t · c) buidhe 00:01, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I believe more than two opinions of the conflicting sort might be needed. Further, the sources I gave are cited on other pages in relation to the fate of Soviet POWs, so other editors deemed them sufficient enough to cite as sources. Furthermore, the date of the source shouldn't necessarily take away the credibility of a source automatically, as Hilberg's number of 5.1 million dead Jews is still cited, yet came before the 21st century and isn't near the 6 million figure. Reaper1945 (talk) 00:29, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but what makes your sources authoritative? For example, Keine Kameraden is still cited today in the relevant literature—and therefore mentioned in the article—but none of the sources you brought up are. One of them is a non-academic book, the other one was panned by other historians (Goldhagen), and Jones' book is intended as an overview of all genocides in history. Such a wide ranging focus seems to come at the expense of accuracy regarding every individual event (for example, the conquest of Carthage as genocide is not accepted by historians of ancient Rome, the Armenian genocide did not start on April 24, etc.). (t · c) buidhe 00:46, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I understand that the validity of adding the sources could be questioned under the fact that some of the sources aren't cited, however, I do believe that present and future historians may not catch all past work and use it. I add the sources to maintain consistency across pages and to give information which may add more to the article as it was cited on others. Also, a couple of websites, such as the Imperial War Museums cited the figure of 2.8 million as well as gendercide.org cited Peter and Goldhagen, whether these are valid are up to the opinion of whoever may view them. However, for example Cannae, ancient historians say so much and so died, and those numbers are used, even if modern historians may disagree. Reaper1945 (talk) 01:08, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense violates NPOV to offer every figure you can find as if they are equally accepted in the scholarly literature. Many events might have dozens of different death tolls you could cherry pick out of tangentially related sources but it is more informative to the reader to provide estimates that are widely discussed and accepted. (t · c) buidhe 01:15, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

To give the pages that cite these sources are the "World War II casualties of the Soviet Union" as reference 50 by Goldhagen, and on the list of genocides page which gives the high estimate of 3.5 million and cites the Total War book by Peter Calvocoressi. Reaper1945 (talk) 01:16, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

If you mean the Wikipedia pages, that is not a reliable source or indication of scholarly acceptance. (t · c) buidhe 01:40, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

That was not my intention, but rather a point to be made about consistency. There does not seem to be anything invalid about the sources given beyond circumstantial arguments. Reaper1945 (talk) 02:16, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Otherwise other editors may be asked Reaper1945 (talk) 02:20, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Please see WP:ONUS and stop edit-warring to include content that lacks consensus for inclusion. This article will not satisfy the GA criteria if your edits go forward. (t · c) buidhe 21:26, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

You added the paper "Hitler's Rassenkampf in the East: The Forgotten Genocide of Soviet POWs". While this is at least on-topic, it is hardly cited in the literature (7 citations total, compared to >500 for Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg: Front und militärisches Hinterland 1941/42, published around the same time). I don't recall hearing of the author or this work before today, despite the extensive literature searches I undertook before writing this article. This action suggests that instead of finding reputable sources and reporting what they say, you are specifically looking for sources that substantiate your viewpoint. That is not how you get a neutral article.

I don't think the 2.8 million estimate is mathematically plausible. Hartmann and Moore (& other sources) cover the discrepancy between German sources (3,350,000 Soviet prisoners captured during the time period when 2 million died—through the beginning of 1942) versus Soviet estimates (1 million lower). Even assuming the higher estimate is correct (most authors including Hartmann, Pohl, and Moore argue it is inflated), it is not the case that there were only 300,000 surviving POWs or exPOWs in January or February 1942. (Edit: Pohl writes: "Im Februar 1942, als bereits über 3,5 Millionen Gefangene gemacht worden waren, blieb die Zahl derer, die zur Arbeit eingesetzt waren, immer noch auf dem Stand vom Oktober 1941, nämlich bei 1,1 Millione") (t · c) buidhe 21:52, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Added: I found a later article by Porter from 2013 in which he gives a figure of two million[5] We can't cite his earlier paper if he changed his mind. (t · c) buidhe 22:00, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Again, you base your argument off of the number of citations, as if that is the be all end all for any inclusion of source, yet that is simply not the case. Before you said that the authors were not experts in the Soviet POW situation, yet when an expert in that same situation actually supports the number given by Peter and Guy, now it is based on the number of citations received. Regardless, there is going to be an upper limit for the death toll, beyond just 3.3 million. Just because you have not seen a certain work before does not negate its credibility, unless you would like to assume Thomas Earl Porter is a sort of fraud merely because you have unable to find him before? It is called extensive searching, and surely would have found it if you did such a tremendous literature search beforehand. Unless the upper limit of 3.5 million is actually disproved, then there is no reason to discard it, with a basis of "it is not in the books I cited" not being a fair or legitimate argument. Going off of that logic that the number is too high, then the upper limit of 7 million for the Holocaust must surely be discarded as well, because the number is not as cited as others. Also, Porter cites the 3.5 million as being the upper limit, which it canonically is, as another source within his paper states it as the upper limit, by Michael Ellman and S. Maksudov. Again, how this is so contentious over a cited upper limit is incredible, stating the number and the other sources does not take away from its neutrality in any way, when they are clearly mentioned or cited by others. Reaper1945 (talk) 22:23, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not understanding your reasoning here. I would agree that citations aren't the only measure of a fact's widespread acceptance. What I'm not seeing is any evidence that Porter's work is a similar WP:DUE weight of acceptance as the sources already cited in the article. Additionally, it's not clear to me whether you still arguing for the inclusion of the 2.8 million figure.

Remember that the WP:ONUS for inclusion is on the editor seeking to include disputed content. (t · c) buidhe 22:37, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

As for the 3.5 million death toll, could you explain where this estimate comes from and what demographic/historical research supports it? (t · c) buidhe 22:46, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

It's quite literally in Peter Calvocoressi's book, for which Thomas Earl Porter himself says is accurate. Calvocoressi states that "The German attitude to Russian combatants was one of calculated callousness. Since they regarded Slavs and communists as hardly better than Jews, the Germans killed them or allowed them to die with similar cruelty and, likewise, in millions. The total number of prisoners taken by the German armies in the USSR was in the region of 5.5 million. Of these the astounding number of 3.5 million or more had been lost by the middle of 1944 and the assumption must be that they were either deliberately killed or done to death by criminal negligence. Nearly two million of them died in camps and close on another million disappeared while in military custody either in the USSR or in rear areas; a further quarter of a million disappeared or died in transit between the front and destinations in the rear; another 473,000 died or were killed in military custody in Germany or Poland." Calvocoressi quite literally breaks it down, do the other sources actually provide how they died or do they just stated 3.3 million without actually going into depth? Reaper1945 (talk) 23:03, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Furthermore, a few Russian sources found, including by respected Russian historian Boris Sokolov, who quite literally is known for delving into the losses of the USSR during the Second World War, give a number of over four million Soviet POWs killed in captivity, over half a million more than the apparently contentious 3.5 million upper limit being debated. Reaper1945 (talk) 23:06, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

A Russian source as provided here goes into depth about Soviet prisoners of war, and actually comes to the conclusion that 3.9 million died. Another Russian source about losses states that more than 4 million were killed in captivity. Reaper1945 (talk) 23:16, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

What makes these sources WP:RS? (t · c) buidhe 23:20, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

So now Russian sources are unreliable, despite them citing their information. Is Russian historian Viktor Nikolaevich Zemskov now an unreliable source? Reaper1945 (talk) 23:24, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The burden of proving these sources are reliable falls on the person who is citing them. No source is assumed to be reliable. (t · c) buidhe 23:25, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Could you link the Michael Ellman and S. Maksudov paper you're referring to? (t · c) buidhe 23:23, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

OK, I think I've found it, if you mean the one cited by Porter (doi 10.1080/09668139408412190) for the 3.5 million figure. Unfortunately, it fails verification. Ellman and Maksudov actually say that POW deaths are much lower: "Second, the number of war-related deaths in captivity is exaggerated. Also here it is necessary to deduct natural deaths (about 100 000), Soviet prisoners of war who stayed in the West after the war (about 200 000—in particular Baits and Ukrainians) and those released by the Germans or escaped and not reinstated in the Soviet armed forces (e.g. because of age, injury or hiding from mobilisation agencies) who may be estimated at about 300 000. These corrections have the effect of reducing the military dead caused by the war to about 7.8 million. Of these 7.8 million, it would seem that 5.5 million died at the front, 1.1 million died from injury in hospitals, and 1.2 million died in German captivity" This does not bode well for the credibility of either Ellman & Maksudov or Porter (who I now realize, overstates the generally accepted civilian forced laborer deaths by an order of magnitude). (t · c) buidhe 23:52, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

If Ellman & Maskudov's estimate is 1.2 million dead in German captivity, then that would set a lower bound, and 2.8 million would no longer be the minimum. Reaper1945 (talk) 00:03, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Not if it's WP:FRINGE—which it is. (t · c) buidhe 00:04, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I would not go so far as to label them as WP:FRINGE for merely departing from usual sources, their source is actually cited quite a number of times in debates over combatant casualties during wartime. However, 1.2 million is clearly a lowball based off of all other sources given. Reaper1945 (talk) 00:21, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Calvocoressi, I thought we established was not an academic source. He is certainly not cited by most of the recent academic work that examines this question, showing a lack of acceptance of his figures.

How do you know that Sokolov is "respected"? Again, I do not see his work being cited by the major works by historians writing on this subject. (t · c) buidhe 23:15, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Has it been proven that Peter Calvocoressi is incorrect beyond the faulty citation argument? Clearly he does have merit if an expert in Soviet POWs cited him. Reaper1945 (talk) 23:17, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

when writing articles about WWII history, editors prefer sources that are recent—meaning that they incorporate the latest research—and academically rigorous. There's no way I would cite a non academic source from several decades ago when much better sources are available. (t · c) buidhe 23:25, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Books before the 21st century about the Second World War are still widely cited, whether it be by Craig, Beevor or others, they're all seen as accurate and still reliable, recency does not always equate with accuracy. Furthermore, Russian historian Boris Sokolov states from his research of the demographics that "Thus, the number of those Soviet prisoners-of-war who died in prison can be estimated to be approximately four million, or 63.5 per cent of the overall number of prisoners." While Russian historian Viktor Zemskov states from his research that "the scale of the death of Soviet prisoners of war (3.9 million) is absolutely correct", which actual Soviet sources at the Nuremberg Trials gave the figure of 3.9 million. Without a doubt, the 3.3 million cap on Soviet POWs is inaccurate and biased towards using only English sources. Reaper1945 (talk) 23:40, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

What makes these sources WP:RS? (t · c) buidhe 23:47, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Boris Sokolov has his credentials and is cited quite frequently in Russian sources, not to mention his article is in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, which is peer-reviewed and respected. Furthermore, Viktor Zemskov has his credentials as well, and his article is sourced by the Samara Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences which is also peer reviewed. Reaper1945 (talk) 23:54, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

That hardly shows that these sources are generally accepted by other historians. Sokolov's paper, despite being written in English, has been cited only 20 times over 30 years. It is not cited by any of the recent works on Soviet POW deaths (compare Keine Kameraden which is older but still considered relevant). The other paper has a grand total of 4 citations. (t · c) buidhe 00:04, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Bottom line, I cannot support the inclusion of these estimates unless they are in the academic mainstream, which, as it is becoming increasingly clear, they are not. (t · c) buidhe 00:07, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Your notion of academic mainstream seems to be strictly within the realm of English sources only, excluding the vast amount of Russian sources covering the topic. Again, this is not up to one or two editors, this requires other input. Reaper1945 (talk) 00:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

The mainstream number for Soviet deaths is 27 million, yet other sources which peg it at 40 million are still mentioned. If the source is scholarly and well-sourced, then it does not have to be mainstream to be credible, that's faulty. Reaper1945 (talk) 00:25, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

If they are not mainstream, by definition they are FRINGE. (t · c) buidhe 00:40, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Despite them not being fringe and being cited widely as estimates for the war and Soviet POWs. Quite clear that the term "fringe" is being misused. Reaper1945 (talk) 00:52, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

As we established above, the sources in question are not "cited widely as estimates for the war and Soviet POWs". (t · c) buidhe 01:24, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

They are. Not to mention they're cited on the "World War II casualties of the Soviet Union" page, including the Ellman paper. So quite clearly the articles have been seen as reliable and cited not just by me but others. Western scholars are not the only scholars in the world. Reaper1945 (talk) 01:54, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

FYI: here Reaper means the Wikipedia article World War II casualties of the Soviet Union. This is not the first time that this editor has suggested that citations on Wikipedia should be considered to determine whether to cite a source. Actually, the fact that these papers are cited in that article is a good indication that the other article needs to be revised with better sources. (t · c) buidhe 02:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, well you have not disproved any of the source and just spout fringe to censor any source which you do not agree with, despite being well-sourced and peer-reviewed, sorry, but until you actually dismantle or get other editors to say they are fringe and unreliable, then the numbers are staying. Reaper1945 (talk) 02:44, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Other people can make contributions to the page if they have sources to back it up, which is the case, clear-cut example of WP:OWN at this point. Reaper1945 (talk) 02:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

K.e.coffman sorry to bother you but what do you think of the sources added by Reaper in this diff (and extensively discussed above)? Is it correct to say they are equally mainstream & reliable as those already cited in the article, and thus given equal weight? (t · c) buidhe 03:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I was asked to provide input in this discussion by Reaper1945 due to my editing activity across genocide articles. My initial points are just to add some context to some of the potential sources:

1. Thomas Earl Porter is brought up for his journal article Hitler’s Rassenkampf in the East (2009), while it has low citations to it, it is published by a historian who specialised in genocide and soviet history relating genocide. Other articles from Porter that may be of interest on this topic, particularly Hitler's Forgotten Genocides: The Fate of Soviet POWs (2013), which details the history of estimating Soviet deaths in WW2, including the development of estimates during Kruschev and then after the collapse, where he places the death toll of Soviet POWs at 3-3.3 million (though he cites this to Ellman & Maksudov).
2. Peter Calvocoressi, while a historian, and having a nationality and political persuasion which are not aligned with the Soviets prevents considerations of such national or political biases, but as Buidhe pointed out the work is a popular history book, so should be weighted less than the academic literature.
3. For both Sokolov and Zemskov, they look to be respected historians, the articles cited are from lower impact journals, the journals are not flagged for predatory or other such substandard behaviour as far as I can see. Beyond this I can provide no more commentary.
4. Berkhoff, a senior researcher in holocaust and genocide studies, articles The "Russian" prisoners of war in Nazi-ruled Ukraine as victims of genocidal massacre (2001) and The Mass Murder of Soviet Prisoners of War and the Holocaust: How Were They Related? (2005), may be of use for the article, though lacking for death estimates, as while he says that ~2 million Soviet POWs died, how he came to these numbers are not the point of his articles, but they align with what looks to be the mainstream range.

Next, we should address the referencing of other Wikipedia articles. Many articles on Wikipedia will pull sources used from related articles maintaining consistency in information through Wikipedia, but this does not say whether the sources are any good in the first place. This is the case for the entry for this article on the List of genocides.

Beyond these comments, all I can say is from the current discussion, I lean with Buidhe's assessment of the situation. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 18:14, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@Cdjp1 I appreciate the input put into the discussion and discussing the sources. I think the biggest debate, at least from my point of view, is the upper limit of 3.3 million Soviet POWs killed, only due to the numbers given by Peter Calvocoressi, Sokolov and Zemskov, who all give numbers above 3.3 million, though Sokolov may incorporate other countries which held Soviet POWs, but practically all deaths occurred during German captivity. Another point is that of the "2.8 million killed in eight months or less", which is stated by Daniel Goldhagen in his book "Hitler's Willing Executioners" and reiterated by Adam Jones in his book "Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction". Reaper1945 (talk) 18:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Another source I found notes that Roman Rudenko stated at the 1969 International Conference On Prosecution Of Nazi Criminals in Moscow that "On the territory of the USSR, which was subject to occupation, the fascist invaders exterminated and tortured 6,074,857 civilians - men, women, children - and 3,912,283 Soviet prisoners of war." In a book, which is based off reports of participants in the international scientific and practical conference “Soviet and German prisoners of war during the Second World War: main directions of research,” which was held in Minsk in 2003, a paper by M.E. Erin in the book notes two scholars who believe the death toll of Soviet POWs to be over 4 million, those being professor V.I. Kozlov and professor V.E. Korol, and states that "Several controversial issues immediately emerged in the publications of Russian historians. The main one is what is the total number of Soviet prisoners of war and what is the total number of dead. Various arguments are given in favor of one point of view or another, but no consensus has yet been found."

Reaper1945 (talk) 19:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

The Soviet delegation at the Nuremberg trials also claimed that the Germans did the Katyn massacre. Although most of their evidence was probably legit, I would not consider it to hold as much weight as you might think. Furthermore, whether there is consensus in 2004 does not necessarily say that there is not a consensus in 2024. (t · c) buidhe 19:58, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Is there an agreed concensus in the mainstream academia that the death toll of Soviet POWs did not exceed 3.3 million? Reaper1945 (talk) 20:35, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

References

Continuation

• To answer your question above, I would say there appears to be a rough academic consensus, given that all high-quality recent sources quote either that number or lower figures. Furthermore, we have finished the GAN nomination—you can see below or here. After almost a month, there is not any other editors supporting your changes, so I suggest either we move forward with the version of the article which has been approved at GAN or seek additional input at WT:FAC, since I hope to get the article to FA status eventually. (t · c) buidhe 04:48, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

  Gave two days to respond on here while a reply to my comment took over two weeks to say that there is a consensus? Reaper1945 (talk) 00:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, is the dispute about the upper limit of the number of victims?

• 2.8 to 3.3 million
• 2.8 to 3.5 million

--K.e.coffman (talk) 01:20, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

• Hi, thanks for weighing in. Reaper also wants to add the sentence Some scholars estimate that 2.8 million died in eight months or less from 1941 to 1942, which according to researcher Adam Jones, is a "rate of slaughter matched (to my knowledge) only by the 1994 Rwanda genocide", however this mortality rate has been contested. (t · c) buidhe 02:32, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@K.e.coffman The dispute is over whether 3.3 million is the absolute upper limit or not, as the Peter Calvocoressi source puts it at 3.5 million, and the numerous Russian sources above by multiple Russian scholars, including historians Boris Sokolov and Viktor Zemskov put it near or over 4 million. Also included is a convention of Russian scholars who stated that there is no academic consensus for the total number. Reaper1945 (talk) 02:35, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

References

Hmm... If I were faced with this dilemma, I would probably keep "2.8[1] to 3.3 million[2]" in the infobox as apparently the most accepted consensus at this point. I would not use Calvocoressi as too dated. The age is not the issue per se, but this work appears somewhat obscure. In contrast to, say, Keine Kameraden, which was also published in the 70s, but to this date is considered a groundbreaking contribution and is widely cited. Goldhagen does not seem particularly useful as he's not studied nor written on the Soviet POW topic that I'm aware of, so he must be sourcing his numbers from somewhere else.

Viktor Zemskov, on the other hand, seems quite credible and his 2013 article addresses the topic directly and in detail. He also earns my trust by having this in his wiki page: Zemskov revealed in detail the secret-police statistics about the Gulag, resolving many disputes among Western historians about the number of people affected by political repression in the Soviet Union. So he has the required mastery of stats and complex documentation. Upon cursory look, he seems to be making the argument that substantially more that 5.7 mln Soviet troops were taken prisoner and that the discrepancy is due to high mortality while in transit to prisoner camps, and so on. Perhaps include his conclusions as a minority opinion in the body of the article, rather than the infobox?

Hope this may be helpful. --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:53, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

PS -- what page(s) in Porter 2009 are being cited? --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:59, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@K.e.coffman Page 360 for Porter I believe. Would you also mind seeing if this source "" is credible? It's a book by Belarusian and Russian scholars at an international scientific and practical conference titled “Soviet and German prisoners of war during the Second World War: main directions of research,” which was held in Minsk on December 12, 2003. Some scholars in there claim over 4 million, and it states that no consensus has been found. Though there may have been a more recent conference. Reaper1945 (talk) 03:34, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

References

The page range for the Porter 2009 source is 839–859... there is no page 360. (t · c) buidhe 03:53, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the linked book looks like a credible sources. However, it does not seem to be entirely helpful in this dispute. The first page of the opening chapter, "Russian Historians on the Fate of the Soviet POWs in Nazi Germany", provides the numbers already used in the article: 5.7 mln POWs & 3.3 mln victims. None of the remaining chapters seem to have the detail and specificity of Zemkov's 2013 article "On the question of the total number of Soviet prisoners of war and the scale of their mortality (1941-1945)." --K.e.coffman (talk) 22:10, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, whatever is best works now. But a mention of Zemkov's article would work as you mentioned. Reaper1945 (talk) 15:57, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Must have looked at a different Porter source then. Reaper1945 (talk) 15:56, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Buidhe (talk · contribs)

Reviewer: Catlemur (talk · contribs) 01:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I will start the review shortly.--Catlemur (talk) 01:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi Catlemur, please be advised that there is an ongoing dispute on the talk page, which you are welcome to weigh in on. I really appreciate you snapping up the review so quickly, however, I agreed not to edit the article until the dispute is resolved. (t · c) buidhe 02:23, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

• Refs 20, 88 need to be pp. instead of p. since multiple pages are cited.
  • Done
• "experience during World War I]]" - Complete the wikilink and delink WWI in the following paragraph.
  • Done
• "These plans were mostly abandoned as they proved impossible to implement." - Why were they impossible to implement?
  • Reworded based on reread of the sources
• "which Kay cites as evidence" - Can you specify who Kay is?
  • Done
• In the Soviet prisoners of war by year of capture pie chart there is no description for the tiny orange part which I assume is 1945.
  • I could not make the label appear in Google Charts. I recreated the graph in Canva, but unfortunately I still can't figure out how to force the label for 0.6 percent of the total for 1945 to display. (t · c) buidhe 06:58, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
• Move the German language wikilink for collection point to first mention.
  • Done
• Before May 1942, when the order was rescinded → Before May 1942, when the Commissar Order was rescinded.
  • done
• "who defied German gender expectations and were supposed to be convinced communists" - What were the initial expectations? Women to be ardent communists? Maybe reword the sentence.
  • None of the sources go into detail about the Nazi/German gender roles, except Hartmann notes that female combatants were unheard of in the Wehrmacht. After checking the sources only Pohl mentions the stereotype of Red Army women being convinced communists, so I removed that part and linked Women in Nazi Germany so hopefully it reads clearer now. (t · c) buidhe 06:58, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
• "Many prisoners ran away because of the poor conditions in the camps," - Did they run away only because the conditions were poor or because they seized the opportunity to rejoin the Red Army or go back home for example?
  • This is the only reason given in the source. Escaping German occupied territory was not realistic because of the distance involved, and he is referring to a time before a large scale Soviet partisan movement formed
• "Particularly deadly assignments included road building projects, particularly in eastern Galicia" - Reword particularly to avoid repetition.--Catlemur (talk) 03:34, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Done

Sandboxing changes at User:Buidhe/Soviet POWs. (t · c) buidhe 06:58, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• "The overall policy and camps in areas under civilian administration, the responsibility for these camps fell to the prisoner of war department of the Allgemeines Wehrmachtsamt [de] under the OKW." - Reword.
  • Done
• "Soviet civilians who tried to provide food were often shot" and "Although Soviet civilians often attempted to provide food to starving prisoners of war, they were typically forbidden to do so because food supplies for the occupation forces were prioritized." - Those two sentences need to either be merged or follow one another.
  • done
• "Tatars, Turkic peoples, Cossacks, and Caucasus people were now eligible.[120]" - Turkic peoples links to the minor Turkish ethnic minority, did you mean Turkic peoples instead? Tatars are also Turkic by the way. Maybe change Caucasus people to Caucasians.
  • I ended up removing this clause because it is covered elsewhere in the military recruitment section
• Wikilink silencers.
  • Done
• Flossenbürg linked twice in the same section.
  • I always thought it was best to link both in the caption and running text, although MOS is ambiguous on this point.
• Both labor and labour are used in the article, this is inconsistent.--Catlemur (talk) 03:31, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Inconsistency is now eliminated except for quotes. Thanks for your review! (t · c) buidhe 05:58, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

• The works by Hartmann are not listed in alphabetic order like the rest.
  • Multiple works by the same author are in chronological order—that's how it's usually done, as far as I can tell.

What I meant was that Hartmann's works are listed below Kay's, so the alphabetic order is not followed.--Catlemur (talk) 18:02, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

• Provide translations of source titles which are written in languages other than English through |trans-title=
  • Done
• Provide publisher for Edele, Mark (2016).
  • I don't provide publishers for either of the journal articles
• Add access dates for online sources.
  • All of the sources were accessed via a permanent published version that is not subject to change.
• Add |authorlink= for Keller in Further reading.
  • Done
• If Calvocoressi, Porter, Goldhagen and Jones (refs 224, 225, 237 and 238) end up being used, they need to be incorporated into Works cited and have a similar footnote style with the rest of the article.--Catlemur (talk) 01:49, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
  • I realize this, but I am arguing for non-inclusion. (t · c) buidhe 06:01, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

• "Of nearly six million that were captured, around 3 million died during their imprisonment." - Either 6 million and 3 million, or six million and three million per MOS:NUMERAL.
  • Fixed
• I think the first paragraph should mention that it all happened during World War II.
  • Done
• Since Hartmann's claim that it was "one of the greatest crimes in military history" is referenced and mentioned in the main body of the article, I reckon the citation in the lede is not needed.
  • Per MOS:CITELEAD, quotations should have a source even if they are in the lead. Also, without this citation a reader must visit the body to find out who said it.
• Do we have any info on how the German navy and air force treated prisoners?--Catlemur (talk) 18:02, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  Most of the sources don't address this question at all. Overmans has quite some detail about how the organization/structure worked for each of the branches, but very little on how prisoners are treated. All he says on the latter is that Luftwaffe use of forced labor on the eastern front didn't lead to the establishment of formal POW camps subordinated to the Luftwaffe command structure, and "For dealing with these POWs, who were not airmen but rather “labor” prisoners, the Luftwaffe had no treatment guidelines of its own; therefore, the relevant orders of the Field Army were applied here." I'm not sure if that's worth a mention. (t · c) buidhe 21:27, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

• File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B21845, Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene im Lager (b).jpg should get proper attribution instead of "This is an enlarged and enhanced version of an existing Wikimedia photo". Maybe merge it with the original photo.--Catlemur (talk) 17:50, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

  Replaced, it looks like more pixels but not more information (t · c) buidhe 18:29, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• "was rejected by Hitler several weeks after the start of the war.[26] On 30 March 1941, German dictator Adolf Hitler stated privately" → "was rejected by German dictator Adolf Hitler several weeks after the start of the war.[26] On 30 March 1941, Hitler stated privately"
  • Done
• Why is citation 60 located after the word Additionally and not after the full stop?
  • Moore mentions non Red Army personnel being registered as a cause of the discrepancy, but is not as specific and therefore does not support most of the rest of the sentence.
• Wikilink calories. Move Caucasian, Sabotage and death march wikilinks to first mention.
  • Done
• The Balts wikilink in the racial hierarchy section only refers to Latvians and Lithuanians but as far as I understand Estonians also received the same treatment as the former.
  • I think you are right but the source just says balts. I will look for another source. Edit : looked and can't find anything, every source mentions the difference in treatment but not the details why.
• Why is the pay the prisoners received measured in cents? Didn't the Germans use marks and pfennig?
  • Moore says "cents" but I checked his sources and confirmed that he means Reichsmarks
• "killings of Jews during July to October 1942." → "killings of Jews between July and October 1942."-Catlemur (talk) 09:34, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
  • Done (t · c) buidhe 20:34, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@Buidhe: I think the article in the form it is currently found in draftspace is good to go for GA. Once it is moved to mainspace and it is stable, I will be happy to promote it.--Catlemur (talk) 03:02, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Catlemur I think we're stable now, so as long as you're ok with the source added we should be good. (t · c) buidhe 01:57, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail: --Catlemur (talk) 10:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Drive-by comment

Hello, I wonder if the article title might be considered as part of the review. In the current title, "committed", in my view, doesn't add anything to "German atrocities against Soviet prisoners of war". I think a change is worth considering per WP:CONCISE. —Brigade Piron (talk) 08:05, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not really happy with the article title. Among other things, it fails to capture the full scope of the article, which extends beyond "atrocities" to treatment of say captured Soviet Germans. However, article titles are not part of GA criteria to my understanding. (t · c) buidhe 08:09, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

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 Launchballer talk 22:21, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Overcrowded camp in Smolensk

• ... that Soviet prisoners of war were the second-largest group of victims of Nazi mass killing? Source: Kay 2021, p. 294.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/List of prime ministers of Pakistan ‎

Created by Buidhe (talk).

Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 244 past nominations.

Post-promotion hook changes will be logged on the talk page; consider watching the nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.

(t · c) buidhe 23:44, 24 April 2024 (UTC).

• Nominated soon enough after GA. Meets length and citation requirements. Hook is absolutely interesting and the right length. The content of the hook is referenced in the article and a citation is appended immediately after where it appears. The image appears to come from a Nazi German government source, which means it's almost certainly in the public domain. Only concern is with the image's visibility at a smaller scale; going to just leave that up to promoter discretion. QPQ done (a quick-fail of novice nomination). Overall great work! ~ Pbritti (talk) 21:47, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

@Buidhe and Pbritti: Where in the article is the hook?--Launchballer 21:48, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Launchballer : in the death toll section : "By this time, more Soviet prisoners of war had died than any other group targeted by the Nazis;[32][235][236] only the European Jews would surpass this figure." (t · c) buidhe 22:19, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

un-explained removal of sourced content

There is no valid reason to remove these contents at all like you did here and you know it very well. @Buidhe.

These are well-sourced contents which are central to the Nazi motivation behind the genocide of Russian prisoners and completely within the scope of the page. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 23:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

1. I will not agree to citing the speeches of Adolf Hitler as it is a primary source and does not show due weight.
2. The other content added—such as mentioning killing of Soviet prisoners near the front line—is already covered in the article.

(t · c) buidhe 23:22, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

1. If so, I will be forced to conduct an RfC

2.

"Nazis viewed German people as the "Kulturträger" (transl. "culture-bearers") of Europe and advocated the initiation of a racial war against Eastern European natives, whom they regarded as "Slavic subhumans". Obsessed with the creation of a Germanic land empire, Hitler believed that the ideology of National Socialism fully equipped German soldiers with the capability to successfully carry out his planned conquests. Hitler envisioned the war in Eastern Europe as a campaign of annihilation, intending to culminate it with the decimation of the Russian state, its cities, and symbols of Russian culture in the event of a Nazi victory. From the outset of Operation Barbarossa, German soldiers ruthlessly carried out genocidal massacres of Russian captives."

This passage is not talking about the slaughter of russian prisoners, but rather the ideological motivations behind it. Which is exactly what is needed in the Background sub-section. @Buidhe Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 23:31, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

You just cant attempt to censor contents regarding the anti-Slavic racism that motivated the campaign of Wehrmacht. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 23:33, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

References

• At most, you are privileging the opinion of a couple sources you like, over a larger number of sources that take a more nuanced perspective
• As well as duplicating parts of the article (for example, war of annihilation). Anti-Slavic racism is already mentioned as a factor, but I don't think it's accurate to suggest that it "motivated the campaign of the Wehrmacht". What is your source for this?
• Not to mention the failed verification issues with this text: the ushmm source doesn't mention "Russia", "Russian", "Kulturträger", etc. and it's the only potentially usable one here because we aren't allowed to do our own interpretation of Hitler speeches.

(t · c) buidhe 02:37, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: a block quote from Hitler is unnecessary, and the other concepts are already mentioned in the Background section. Side-note, anti-Slavic racism was deeply ingrained in the Wehrmacht; I believe it's covered in either The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality or The Myth of the Eastern Front, but I don't recall where specifically. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:43, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

This source -- Shepherd, Ben H. (2016). Hitler's Soldiers: The German Army in the Third Reich. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300179033. -- connects the fate of POWs during the winter of 1941/42 to anti-Slavism within the Wehrmacht:

The High Command's contempt for Slavic people, and its failure to plan adequately for the huger numbers of Soviet POWs taken by the Wehrmacht, had already stored up the ingredients for mass death in the prison camps. (p. 203)

Earlier in the book, on preparations for Barbarossa:

Anti-Slavism, and even more so, anti-Bolshevism remained pronounced within the senior officer corps. ... Further signifying how far they also subscribed to the invasion's ideological tenets, generals were issuing 'inspirational' orders for their own troops after they themselves had been informed of the invasion plan. For instance, Colonel General Erich Hoepner, commander of Army Group North's Panzer Group Four, declared on 2 May: "The war against Russia is an important chapter in the struggle for existence of the German nation. It is the old battle of Germanic against Slav peoples, of the defence of European culture against Muscovite-Asiatic inundation, and the repulse of Jewish-Bolshevism." (pp. 122-123)

Perhaps this could be used in the article. --K.e.coffman (talk) 03:13, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't dispute that the Wehrmacht held anti-slavic attitudes (although the latter source says anti-Bolshevism was more prominent) and that these were a major factor when it came to POWs. I think that's already covered in the article, but Shadowwarrior seems to be suggesting it was the main reason for invading the Soviet Union and I'm not so sure about that—I was under the impression that anti-communism and "lebensraum" were more important. There are definitely limits to racism as an explanatory factor—after all Hitler's slavic allies (Slovakia) were fighting alongside Germans against the Soviet Union. (t · c) buidhe 04:41, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

The passage's focus was not anti-slavism. That passage was a carefully written summary of the Nazi regime's ideological and geo-political motivations behind it's slaughter of Russian prisoners. (which ofcourse would contain information regarding Nazi racial prejudice against Slavs) Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 07:50, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Look Buidhe, I didnt insert content out of thin air. All of these contents are entirely sourced. It is you who are peddling Idontlikeit-style arguments.

Buidhe: "At most, you are privileging the opinion of a couple sources you like, over a larger number of sources that take a more nuanced perspective"

I often find you claiming yourself to be an authority on academic sources in the talk pages, particularly regarding various confirmed genocides by several Western European states, only to deny the genocide or downplay its severity in your comments. Why are you claiming that these sources do not have a "nuanced perspective"? Infact, academic and encyclopaedic sources basically consider the Nazi genocide of Russian prisoners as the worst crime of Nazis after the Holocaust. It's alarming how you demand a "nuanced perspective" on this. Maybe you should remember that wikipedia is not censored.

First line in that passage:

"Nazis viewed German people as the "Kulturträger" (transl. "culture-bearers") of Europe and advocated the initiation of a racial war against Eastern European natives, whom they regarded as "Slavic subhumans". Obsessed with the creation of a Germanic land empire, Hitler believed that the ideology of National Socialism fully equipped German soldiers with the capability to successfully carry out his planned conquests."

Quotations from the sources:

QUOTE

"On this topic also Hitler had brooded long, and, following "the iron law of historical development", thought that he had found the answer. First of all, it was clear that the new power, whatever it was, must be a land-power. ... Similarly, his mind often dwelt on great roads, "the beginnings of every civilisation", the nerves which must animate a land-empire. He would imagine the roads of the past—Roman roads in Europe, Inca roads in Peru, and the roads of the future—German Reichsautobahnen "from Klagenfürt to Trondhjem and from Hamburg to the Crimea" ; and when he recollected, as he so often did, the exhilarating days of the Kampfzeit... Hitler asked himself, was that really inevitable? Were not the Germans the real Kulturträger, the culture-bearers of Europe? Was it not the Germans who, when the Roman Empire had been rotted inwardly by Jewish Christianity and a declining population, had conquered and inherited it? ... It is true, Germany had already failed to conquer Russia in the past; but the Germany that had failed was the byzantine, cosmopolitan, traditionalist, Jewridden Hohenzollern monarchy, and while "monarchies are at best able to keep conquests, it is by revolutionary powers that World-Empires are created"; ... How is a social revolution carried out? he asked... All revolutions depend for their success on the capture of power by an elite, and the formation of such an élite was the function of National Socialism: the Germans were to be the élite of Europe and to be themselves governed by a German elite, the Party. A Germanic people, thus mobilised, could easily, given the will to power and dynamic leadership, conquer an Empire."

END QUOTE

QUOTE

"German authorities viewed Soviet POWs as a particular threat, regarding them not only as Slavic subhumans but as part of the "Bolshevik menace" linked in Nazi ideology to the concept of a “Jewish conspiracy.”"

END QUOTE

Second line:

"Hitler envisioned the war in Eastern Europe as a campaign of annihilation, intending to culminate it with the decimation of the Russian state, its cities, and symbols of Russian culture in the event of a Nazi victory."

Quotations from the sources:

QUOTE

"For this war, the war which Hitler was planning, the war between Germany and Russia, between Hitler and Stalin, between ideology and ideology, was to be no mere dynastic or economic war, it was to be a war of life and death, empire or annihilation, deciding the fate of centuries; a war not against the past—that was already dead—but between two Titans disputing its inheritance. ... In the battle for empire quarter would be neither sought nor given. In the hour of his imagined triumph Hitler declared that Russia was to be utterly destroyed, Moscow and Leningrad to be levelled with the ground, and their names and record to be for ever blotted out of geography and history alike. ... Such was the crucial struggle, a struggle for the history of centuries, in which Hitler saw himself as the incarnation of historical change. He had seen this problem—seen it at least since 1919; he had created the form in which it now faced the world, demanding solution; by his heroic efforts he had made a German solution of it possible; and he naturally believed that only he could carry through "that Cyclopean task which the building of an Empire means for a single man". That meant that it must be carried through quickly, while Germany had the advantage, before Russia was ready, and, above all, while he himself was alive. "No one knows how long I shall live. Therefore", he had said in 1937, "let us have war now." It was his "irrevocable decision", he declared, "to solve the problem of German living-space" before 1945 at the latest."

END QUOTE

QUOTE

"... for Nazi Germany this attack was not an "ordinary" military operation. The war against the Soviet Union was a war of annihilation between German fascism and Soviet communism; a racial war between German "Aryans" and subhuman Slavs and Jews."

END QUOTE

third line:

"From the outset of Operation Barbarossa, German soldiers ruthlessly carried out genocidal massacres of Russian captives."

END QUOTE

"From the very beginning this war of annihilation against the Soviet Union included the killing of prisoners of war (POWs) on a massive scale."

END QUOTE

Its clear that all these contents are backed up by reliable sources. You have no grounds to censor it. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 07:16, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Please strike your inaccurate comments suggesting that I'm downplaying Nazi crimes. In case you hadn't noticed, I was the one who added the article text about this event being the second highest death toll after the Holocaust. (t · c) buidhe 16:40, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Buidhe

Strawman assertions. You havent given a response that is focused on the content. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 17:49, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Definition of "targeted group"

Hello!,

After reading the DYK of today, linked to this article, a doubt came to my mind.

The sentence in the article referred to in the DYK is:

"By this time, more Soviet prisoners of war had died than any other group targeted by the Nazis; only the European Jews would surpass this figure."

However, the definition of "targeted group" is unclear. For example, one could say that the group of "Soviet POWs" was a targeted group, but also the group of "Soviet people". Even if civilian and military deaths are typically classified separately, the "targeted group" definition does not need to follow this distinction.

To see this more clear, imagine that a member of the targeted group of "European Jews" belonged to the military, became a POW and was executed because was recognised as "European Jew". Following the methodology of the article, he would be targeted as "European Jew POW", but not as "European Jew".

Best! 151.29.146.46 (talk) 11:24, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

In the sources cited, the targeted group isn't necessarily divided on national lines. For example, some Soviet civilians were killed via massacres related to anti-partisan warfare, others in deliberate starvation policies (i.e. siege of Leningrad), and more from euthanasia policies. Since these three groups were all killed for different reasons, they would be counted separately according to the methodology of the cited source. (t · c) buidhe 13:07, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

References

Article title, again

I'm considering proposing a move to Soviet prisoners of war as the primary topic, that better captures the article's scope than the current title. Any objection? (t · c) buidhe 05:40, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

The scope would seem overly broad with such a title. There were Soviet POWs in Finnish captivity during WWII, plus there were presumably POWs in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

My alternate proposal would be German crimes against Soviet prisoners of war, as that's what the literature primarily covers, and is less wordy vs the current title. Also, "atrocities" can come across as something done by low-level troops, vs the systematic abuse and persecution as directed and executed by the Wehrmacht high command and the SS, starting with the Criminal orders (Nazi Germany), for example. --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:56, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

That's true, but the article covers things that are neither atrocities nor crimes. (t · c) buidhe 23:27, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I looked at the current lead, and here's the word count: 25% of the lead are not about crimes/atrocities. That language is:

An estimated 1.4 million Soviet prisoners of war served as auxiliaries to the German military or SS. Collaborators were essential to the German war effort and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. Although the Soviet Union announced the death penalty for surrender early in the war, most former prisoners were reintegrated into Soviet society. The majority of defectors and collaborators escaped prosecution. Former prisoners of war were not recognized as veterans, and did not receive any reparations until 2015; they often faced discrimination due to the perception that they were traitors or deserters.

The rest, 75% of the lead, is about the crimes; the lead also contains this quote: Deaths among these Soviet prisoners of war have been called "one of the greatest crimes in military history". These suggests to me that the current, albeit wordy, thrust of the article subject is the more appropriate one. --K.e.coffman (talk) 18:08, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

While I don't disagree that the majority of the article deals with crimes, if we are defining the article scope in that way, significant parts of the body content will need to be excised: for example, surrendering, defection, release, military recruitment, agricultural labor, how the Soviet authorities treated returning prisoners etc. would not be in the article scope. Where would that content go?

If the goal is to disambiguate from the Finnish captivity, something equivalent to German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union—Soviet prisoners of war held by Nazi Germany, I guess, would suffice. (t · c) buidhe 05:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Soviet prisoners of war held by Nazi Germany is a good proposition Marcelus (talk) 18:37, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd support the shorter title as proposed by K.e.coffman or Soviet prisoners of war held by Nazi Germany, both would be fine. The broader topic of Soviet prisoners of war (now a disambig) might warrant a new article, but as the disambig indictes, the topic here (German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war, as the current title states) would be only a part of the broader topic. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:30, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Genocide studies

@Buidhe:, apologies on the death numbers, I had forgotten the sources had been assessed previously.

I do believe we should at least mention, but not really more than a sentence, that this has been considered in genocide studies and by genocide scholars, Porter's article, and it being included in works by respected genocide scholars such as Jones. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 14:19, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how this is relevant to include since one of these is poorly cited and non notable, while for the other, Jones' book also includes discussion as to whether Quebec language laws are genocide, so just because he mentions something doesn't make it DUE. (t · c) buidhe 15:22, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Relevance of the mention of German atrocities committed against Polish prisoners of war

Why is this being removed? In the past this was a see also for a while, but even this was removed, and until I restored this with some context, this article did not even link there. WP:DUE weight and completeness of this entry suggest that a sentence or two would be relevant. The article mentions the concept of prisoners of other nationalities, links to Italian prisoner article "Deaths of prisoners of war from the Soviet Union greatly exceeded deaths of prisoners from other nationalities; the second highest mortality rate was that of Italian military internees (six to seven percent)", and mentioned "Polish prisoners of war were considered racially similar to Soviet prisoners, but their conditions differed greatly and death rate was an order of magnitude lower" (without linking to a dedicated article for some reason). I've added a short information that makes the concept of "magnitude" lower (cites the number of Polish POWs deaths) and then mentions a relevant topic of Polish soldiers within Red Army being murdered by the Germans. IMHO this is all relevant, clarifying content already here, and due (short). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:29, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Buidhe that an extensive description of the treatment of Polish POWs is not relevant in this case. However, short 1-2 sentences, like for example: "Polish prisoners of war were considered racially similar to Soviet prisoners, but their conditions differed greatly and death rate was an order of magnitude lower. However, the Germans executed more than 3,000 Polish prisoners of war during the Invasion of Poland in 1939 and committed individual atrocities during the later stages of the war." should not be problematic?Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 07:07, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

@Dreamcatcher25 I also agree that extensive description would be UNDUE; but nobody suggested adding extensive description here. What I propose is indeed just a short "1-2 sentences", similar to your version. The only difference is that my version is also briefly naming and linking to one particular incident from the "later stages of the war", in which Polish soldiers fighting under Red Army banner were murdered, to give further context. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:26, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

It's still UNDUE. Your sources aren't about Soviet soldiers so it is hard to see the relevance. I don't know if the overall sources' statistics are including non Soviet soldiers who were fighting under the Red Army command—I suspect not as I believe it falls outside the scope of this article—but it doesn't seem right to dig up a source about Poland but not include Czechoslovakia or other nationalities. The comparison to other nationalities, insofar as it's relevant, is included because relevant sources (i.e. those specifically about the article topic) are directly comparing them to Soviet prisoners of war, without any extraneous sources needed. (t · c) buidhe 13:52, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Then by all means, mention other nationalities too. WP:NOTPAPER. Your version already mentioned Italians and Poles, I just added a sentence or two of context. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:12, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The solution to tangentially related UNDUE content being added isn't to add more UNDUE content, it's to remove the content that is not correctly sourced and directly relevant to the article topic. It just shows that your addition is unbalanced even if your assumptions about the article scope were correct. (t · c) buidhe 00:26, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Making article less comprehensive and removing DUE content is hardly a good idea. Well, we both expressed our views. Let's see what others say - and note we already had one person (@Dreamcatcher25) who said that this content is relevant (if I understood them correctly). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:18, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Piotrus here. Yes, we should avoid WP:SYNTH, but we don’t have to treat the phenomenon of Soviet victims in total isolation. Especially given that the murdered Polish soldiers were operating in the same theater of war, a brief mention, properly sourced and linked to the Soviet case, is a good idea. — Biruitorul ^Talk 10:00, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Providing information about German atrocities committed against prisoners of war from other combatant nations provides useful additional context to information about German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war.

If – for some reason – not in the main body of the article, such information could be given in notes.

Nihil novi (talk) 04:44, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Piotrus that mentioning Polish prisoners who were victims of the German military, in comparison to the fate of Soviet prisoners, is entirely appropriate, as it provides essential context. After all, we are talking about the same war and the same theater of operations.Marcelus (talk) 16:51, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, folks. I am seeing five people supporting inclusion of this (brief), and one opposing. I think the consensus is rather clear. I will restore a brief mention of this topic in the body. Feel free to shorten this if anyone thinks the ~2 sentences are undue - all we really need is just a blue link. Same with the new article on German atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war [6], which even Buidhe acknowledged (but did not link...). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:36, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Great job derailing a FAC by sticking in irrelevant material and non-high-quality-RS sources.... (t · c) buidhe 01:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Nobody is derailing the FAC, unless you are going to edit war against consensus? I'll be happy to support this, if the content is stable and comprehensive. Note I've shortened the relevant content by about a half. Also, you may want to remind yourself about WP:OWN. Thank you for working on this article, you have done a very good job - but please let others help to make it better. This is the spirit of Wikipedia. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:57, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@Biruitorul @Buidhe @Dreamcatcher25 @Dreamcatcher25 @Marcelus @Nihil novi I have rewritten the content per your comments, reducing the mention of Polish POWs by I think half to address concerns of neutrality and DUEness. I have also added context (mention of atrocities against other Allied POWs), and a red link to the needed parent article on German atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II (which I hope to write in the foreseeable future). Please let me know what you think; to save you click time, this is the section right now:

=== Comparison to other groups ===

See also: German prisoner-of-war camps in World War II

While Germans committed a number of atrocities against other Allied POWs, including executing or massacring several thousands of Polish prisoners of war , the deaths of prisoners of war from the Soviet Union greatly exceeded deaths of prisoners from other nationalities. The second highest mortality rate was that of Italian military internees (six to seven percent). Polish prisoners of war were considered racially similar to Soviet prisoners, but their conditions differed greatly and death rate was an order of magnitude lower (at two to three percent).

References

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:50, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks for writing this up, because it makes clear how UNDUE the coverage of Polish prisoners is in your version. The death rate for Polish prisoners was in the same range as Western Allied prisoners of war ("1–2.8% for French, about 1% for British and US prisoners, 2–2.5% for Belgians, 2–3% for Dutch" according to Gerlach) Prisoners of all nationalities faced occasional war crimes, but this was the exception not the rule. Furthermore, someone reading this text would be surprised to learn that the national group who faced the third worst conditions and death rate (after Soviet and Italian prisoners) was not the Poles, but Yugoslavs. (t · c) buidhe 04:06, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  Cambridge scholars publishing is also a glorified self-publishing outlet that I would not use for a FA... (t · c) buidhe 04:07, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  Very good, feel free to add those other estimates to the section, it will help balance stuff out. Do you have a more reliable source for the estimate of the death rate of Polish prisoners, to replace Nowak with? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:53, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  And need I remind you that most of the text covering Polish POWs that you claim UNDUE was written by you ("Polish prisoners of war were considered racially similar to Soviet prisoners, but their conditions differed greatly and death rate was an order of magnitude lower"). We can replace that sentence with something attributed to Gerlach, saying that "Conditions of other Allied POWs in German camps were much better and death rate was an order of magnitude lower (at two to three percent)" _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:56, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  PS. I've rewritten the sentence per above, and removed the CS ref, although the author is reliable and an expert on POWs ([7]). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:01, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  Per request on FAC, I've had a look at this discussion and the text of the article: sourcing concerns above aside, I'm persuaded by buidhe's argument that it is WP:UNDUE to name-check Polish prisoners without other nationalities. The only two solutions are to add more nationalities, which would be clearly irrelevant for this article, or to remove: and so removal seems to be the best option. The only argument against this would be if Poles were a clear outlier when compared against all groups except Soviets, but as buidhe makes clear above, this isn't the case. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:40, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  I also have to agree with buidhe here. Their last version already mentioned this sufficiently: Deaths of prisoners of war from the Soviet Union greatly exceeded deaths of prisoners from other nationalities;[250][65] the second highest mortality rate was that of Italian military internees (six to seven percent).[250] Polish prisoners of war were considered racially similar to Soviet prisoners, but their conditions differed greatly and death rate was an order of magnitude lower. But now, a whole section was added that does not really add to what was already in the article, and leads to other consistency issues as well [8]. This clearly degrades article quality in my opinion. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 11:32, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  I too agree with buidhe. The inclusion of "Comparison to other groups" as a section is not an improvement. It takes the reader off on a tangent to the subject of the article. It is indeed WP:UNDUE.Graham Beards (talk) 11:50, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  The comment at FAC brought me here. To be sure I'm looking at the right text, I think the disputed edit is this one, which adds this text "Overall, Germans executed several thousands of Polish prisoners of war during their Invasion of Poland in 1939; in the later phase of the war they also executed several hundred of Polish soldiers from the Polish People's Army which operated on the Eastern Front and was subordinate to the Soviet high command (for example in the Podgaje massacre of 2 February 1945)." This seems UNDUE to me; it has nothing to do with the topic of the article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:32, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Mike Christie May I suggest looking at the current version, which is quite different? And we can remove the subheading, I am hardly attached to it. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:36, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  @UndercoverClassicist The old version already named other nationalities. No new nationalities were added in my version. See Jens quote below yours (above). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:38, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, and as I explained, that isn't due or relevant either. Jens's quote would be fine as the only word on Polish prisoners, since it properly contextualises the mention of them. What we currently have is:

  While the Germans committed atrocities against other Allied POWs, including executions or massacres of several thousand Polish prisoners-of-war, the numbers of deaths of Soviet prisoners-of-war greatly exceeded the numbers of deaths of prisoners-of-war of other nationalities. The second-highest mortality rate was that of Italian military internees (six to seven percent). The conditions of western Allied POWs in German camps were much better, and their death rate was an order of magnitude lower (one to three percent) than that of Soviet POWs.

  The bolded part is, in my view, WP:UNDUE as currently framed. I would support deleting it and adding Polish PoWs were considered racially similar to Soviet prisoners, but their conditions differed greatly and death rate was similar to that of western Allied PoWs, with suitable referencing. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:48, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  I agree. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:54, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  @UndercoverClassicist Hmmm, I can see what you mean, but isn't that comment about "racial similarity" even less relevant here? I think the number of several thousand of Poles killed serves to reinforce the "magnitude lower" claim (when compared to the ~million of Soviets who died, some in massacres and such, not just in the camps), and that makes it somewhat relevant, but I can't say I see the point of discussing "racial similarity" here? Perhaps we should just remove all mentions of Polish POWs; I initially added a bit more info here because I saw this weird comment about "racial similarity", which I consider not relevant here, and instead I added information about the death rate and total number of victims among Polish POWs, for whom we have a dedicated article. But maybe we should just delete this from the body and have the link to the Polish POWs simply in the see also? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:56, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  The racial similarity line is useful, since it demonstrates that the brutal treatment of Soviet PoWs wasn't simply a consequence of their position in the Nazi racial hierarchy. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:17, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  Exactly (t · c) buidhe 22:59, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  If you feel like this, let's restore that sentence. It can link the the article about Polish POWs, perhaps in a more due way than what I proposed (with the estimate and total number of victims). I recommend leaving the reference to Allied POWs and the red link to the article about German treatment of them that I intend to create shortly, as I feel it is quite relevant (and see also section should not have any red links). In other words, how about something like this:

“ While the Germans committed atrocities against other Allied POWs, the numbers of deaths of Soviet prisoners-of-war greatly exceeded the numbers of deaths of prisoners-of-war of other nationalities. The second-highest mortality rate was that of Italian military internees (six to seven percent). The conditions of western Allied POWs in German camps were much better, and their death rate was an order of magnitude lower (one to three percent) than that of Soviet POWs. The atrocious treatment of Soviet POWs was not significantly motivated by Nazi racial views, as Polish POWs, seen by Nazis as racially similar to other the Soviets, had a survival rate comparable to Western Allies POWs. ”

• That fragment, however, really begs to include some more facts about Yugoslav (and Czech?) POWS, as well as Jews. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:10, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Buidhe According to my knowledge, the losses among Yugoslav prisoners of war were not higher than those among Polish prisoners. They did not exceed the average for prisoners from Western countries, while the losses among Poles were higher, at 2-4%. Marcelus (talk) 13:03, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  Piotrus gives a figure of 2-3 percent for Polish prisoners while Gerlach quotes 3-6 for Yugoslav nationals. (t · c) buidhe 22:59, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  Not Piotrus - I am not doing OR here :) The figure comes from Nowak, the source that was cited here but removed after your criticism (reliable scholar, but low quality book publisher). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:04, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

  I looked into volume IX/2 of the work 'Germany and the Second World War' (Oxford 2014). About Polish prisoners: If about 7,500 deaths are assumed for the winter of 1939/40 and about 2,500 for the remainder of the period, and these figures are related to an initial number of 400,000 Polish POWs and a final number of between 70,000 and 100,000, then the mortality rate is between 2 and 4 percent. (page 761)

  About Yugoslavs: Assuming that the pattern was similar to that of the other POW groups, the end result may have been a total number of deaths at the lower end of a scale between 5,000 and 10,000. If that is correct, the fate of Yugoslavs in Germany, from all of these very different groups, would not have been significantly different from that of western POWs. (page 790) I think this is quite clear. Marcelus (talk) 09:50, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

• “Polish prisoners of war were considered racially similar to Soviet prisoners, but their conditions differed greatly and death rate was an order of magnitude lower (at two to three percent).”—this is true, however, only when considering the treatment of Polish POWs in German oflags and stalags. It misses the context of the earlier mass murder of Polish POWs. As Jochen Böhler pointed out, "The mass murder of Polish prisoners of war and the deep-rooted anti-Semitism of many Wehrmacht soldiers, resulting in the mistreatment and murder of Jewish prisoners of war, make it clear that the events described went far beyond the scale of what could be expected during an armed confrontation on the scale of the war with Poland." In other place, referring to the German crimes against the Polish POWs, he noted that: "Witness testimonies gathered by the Chief Commission for Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland demonstrate that these were by no means sporadic excesses, but rather a mass phenomenon that occurred in all operational areas of the Wehrmacht in September 1939.". Therefore, I believe that the version of the text proposed by Piotrus (above) is the most valid. Another option is to delete all mentions of the Polish POWs. However, leaving only the quote from Gerlach would be misleading,Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 07:00, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Dreamcatcher25 Right, we should not confuse the treatment of Polish POWs in German camps, which was relatively decent (by WWII standards, and similar to that of non-Soviet POWs) and the German atrocities committed immediately after the battle. Granted, here it would be good to see a comparative study of rate of atrocities committed after the battle by Germans when they took POWs from Polish Army, Western soldiers and Soviet soldiers. There is a bit of comparing apples to oranges issue here. But a text that implies that German treated Polish soldiers exactly like they treated Western soldiers is not fully correct, particularly in the context of the events of the '39 campaign. We could clarify this, based on Bohler, that "their conditions differed greatly and death rate was an order of magnitude lower" once in the camps, but it was much higher immediately after the battle (but again, without comparative data for German treatment of POWs after battles with Western and Soviet armies, this may be missing context and be misleading). Hopefully we can figure that out once we get around to writing the parent overview at German atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:28, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Soviet repressions

It's just not true that "those who survived German captivity to 1945 were promptly sent to the Gulag", only a small minority were—see the figures in the "Aftermath" section. I would only support linking the repressions article if it had more comprehensive, and accurate information than this one does on the topic, which is not currently the case. (t · c) buidhe 04:42, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I am also not a fan of see also sections, especially on an article that is already considered comprehensive enough for FA status. If the link is relevant enough to include at all, there should be a place to link it in the text. (t · c) buidhe 04:46, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Then we can modify that by saying "some". Linking to that article (Soviet repressions against former prisoners of war) is certainly relevant, and the context of Soviet imprisonments of their own POWs that survived the attrocities discussed here is very relevant. PS. To be clear, I think it is needed for context of the sentence "During perestroika in 1987 and 1988, a debate erupted in the Soviet Union about whether the former prisoners of war had been traitors; those arguing in the negative prevailed after the breakup of the Soviet Union." to mention that some Soviet POWs were imprisoned in Gulags and seen as traitors as soon as they were "liberated". It does not make sense and is inaccurate to suggest this topic only appeared in the late 1980s. PPS. And to be clear, I am fine with the link being included in the relevant sentence rather than a see also section or template, sure. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:42, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Another see also: Soviet atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II

This is highly relevant and should be included as a link in text, with some discussion. At minimum, a link in See also is needed, but for FA, it would be better to have a link somewhere. Many works discuss the relation between Soviets and German POV treatment, including one already cited in this article (Edele, Mark (2016). "Take (No) Prisoners! The Red Army and German POWs, 1941–1943". The Journal of Modern History. 88 (2): 342–379.). For others, see for example discussion in [9] or [10]. As I wrote in the FAC: "[those work mention] a number of interesting facts that seem to be absent from our article, such as how Red Cross and other organizations were denied entry to German and Soviet camps for their respective prisoners, and how information about large numbers of prisoners in those countries were suppressed by those who feared that this may lead to more humane treatment due the fear of revenge. Another interesting fact mentioned by MacKenzie (but not in our article) is that Canaris argued for more humane treatment of Russian POWs (using the same logic), to no avail. IMHO the topic of how German treatment of Soviet POWs was on some level similar, and on others, different, to the Soviet treatment of German POWs should merit its own paragraph." _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:03, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with @Piotrus, I don't know why this is controversial, both topics are obviously related to eachother. Marcelus (talk) 09:02, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

@Marcelus Thanks. I'll note that Edele, cited above, even has an entire section on comparisons, where he writes "there are thus both similarities and differences between the way the Red Army and the Wehrmacht treated their POWs". Comparing those two topics is hardly whataboutism, this is done in the reliable sources. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:08, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Mortality rate claims

I am concerned about the following:

While the Germans committed atrocities against other Allied POWs, deaths of prisoners of war from the Soviet Union (estimated at forty three to as high as sixty three percent) greatly exceeded deaths of prisoners from other nationalities. The second highest mortality rate of prisoners in German captivity was that of Italian military internees (six to seven percent); while in the entire war, the second highest mortality rate was that of Allied POWs in Japanese camps (twenty seven percent).

References

Now, there is no denying that the Soviet POWs had the highest total death toll, by numbers, but as far as the mortality rate, this is more problematic. This is the text present right now in the Soviet atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II - I've verified the number by Edele, but not yet by Fergusson and Schlemmer (I copied them in AGF from other Wikipedia articles).

The death rate of German soldiers held by Soviet Union has been estimated at 15% by Mark Edele, and at 35.8% by Niall Ferguson. An even higher estimate of death rate has been suggested for the Italian soldiers held by the Soviet Union: 79% (estimate by Thomas Schlemmer).

References

As such, the high estimate by Fergusson seems to be a bit higher than close to the low estimate for Soviet mortality cited by Edele. And Schlemmer estimate for Italian deaths in Soviet captivity seems to right now take the number #1 spot for mortality rate. We should double check those numbers and claims (it is possible some estimate are for deaths in the camps, and other include deaths from executions before the transfer to the camps, for example). I'll ping User:Gitz6666 whom I asked about the Italian numbers a while ago (I don't know who else might be interested or knowledgeable about this). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:37, 7 November 2024 (UTC) _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:37, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how this is relevant. The sources cited are comparing Soviet mortality, with the mortality of other national groups of POWs held by Germany. the Other comparisons are not found in the sources (about Soviet POWs held by Germany) and therefore don't belong in this article. (t · c) buidhe 06:49, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Other comparisons are found in numerous sources which discuss the issue of Soviet POWs among others, just with a bit of a wider focus. Ex. Edele or Fergusson, and there are others. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:56, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

And this is relevant as your version is imprecise and arguably misleading; it said, before my edits: "Deaths of prisoners of war from the Soviet Union greatly exceeded deaths of prisoners from other nationalities; the second highest mortality rate was that of Italian military internees (six to seven percent)." That sentence obviously implied that we are discussing mortality rate (without even giving the figure). Then it implies that Italians in Germany had the second highest rate - but in WW2 higher rates were held by Allied soldiers in the Pacific theatre, Germans in the Soviet camps, or Italian in the same camps - for the latter, we have an estimate that is even higher than that for Soviet POWs (for mortality rate, the total number of deaths is of course much lower). We need to give context to this; the case of Soviet POWs was certainly exceptional for its total death tall, but mortality rate is also important, and here, it is less so. The reader needs this context, because numbers/figures are important, and people (our readers) like to compare stuff. Your version could misread the readers that the second highest mortality rate in WW2 was held by the Italians (and possibly, the first, by the Soviets - although the estimates for Italians in Soviet hands should be carefully checked). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:03, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Thomas Schlemmer says (here [11]) that

In the winter of 1942-43, the Red Army captured some 70,000 Italian soldiers, whose fate was terrible. About 22,000 did not even make it to the prison camps but were victims of fatigue, harsh weather conditions, hunger or violence by the guards. Of those who did make it to the camps, another 38,000 died; many of them were so debilitated that in the first months of 1943 they became easy prey to the infectious diseases prevalent in the prison camps. Eventually they would see Italy exactly 10,032 soldiers of the Armir

And quotes this source: Giusti, Prigionieri, pp. 90-98 e 225-228 [12], which I checked. Giusti also says that

According to Nkvd calculations, the percentage of Italians who died in captivity was 56.5 per cent, i.e. 27,683 out of 48,957 registered in the camps. The mortality rate among Italians was therefore higher than that of prisoners of other nationalities, even higher than that of Germans, which stood at 14.9%.

She also says that

The high mortality rate among all prisoners of war in the winter of 1942-43 is attributable to objective organisational difficulties on the part of the Soviet commands. It cannot therefore be said that there was a desire to get rid of the prisoners (...) nor that there was a desire to annihilate them by starvation or hardship.

As to the Soviet POWs, Schlemmer says

The terrible fate of Russian soldiers captured by the Germans is well known: of the 5.7 million soldiers who fell into the hands of the Wehrmacht from June of June 1941, about 3.3 million (almost 58 per cent) died, and 2 million of these did not survived the winter of 1941-42. This terrible toll was not exclusively due to to unpredictable natural events or difficulties in supplies, but also and above all to to the inhuman racist policy of the Third Reich

And quotes this source: Streit, Keine Kameraden, pp. 9-24.

So if by "mortality rate" we mean the morality rate of those who were POWs, irrespective of whether they managed to reach the camps, the mortality rate of the Italian POW was around 86%: 22,000 + 38,000)/70,000=.0,857 The article Italian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union reports 79% estimate of death rate, but I did not find the 79% figure in Schlemmer and I don't understand how it was calculated. If you could help me understand this, I will correct the article Italian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, if necessary. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:36, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Gitz6666 The estimate was added by @Arturolorioli here: [13]. It might be best to discuss that number at Talk:Italian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union - perhaps you could copy the relevant part of the discussion there. Here it might be prudent to focus on whether this estimate is due in the article here (which currently mentions instead the lower estimate for deaths of Italians POWs in German camps). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:42, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

No, that sentence is solely comparing other nationalities held by Germany. It obviously does not apply to all prisoners of war held by anyone, anywhere.

Just because you can find something in a source, does not make it WP:DUE for this article. If the source has a wider focus beyond the actual topic, it's more likely to include content that is not a good fit for this article. Comparing the treatment of Soviet to other prisoners of war is relevant because of the importance of German policy and debating the impact of Nazi racial theories, but it's not clear why the other examples you cite are relevant, or help the reader understand this topic better. (t · c) buidhe 13:44, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Either add qualifiers to sentences like "the total number of the deaths of prisoners of war from the Soviet Union greatly exceeded deaths of prisoners from other nationalities", or add data allowing comparisons. Otherwise the article is misleading. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:44, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Piotrus’ line of argument: as a general matter, comparison with other nationalities is a good idea, provided it’s done right, and I trust him to do it right. It’s absolutely relevant to the topic. — Biruitorul ^Talk 06:05, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

@Biruitorul Thanks. To do it right, we need German atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II... sigh. So much to do. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:19, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposed Draft Revision of Death Toll, paragraph 4

I'd like to see this get back to FAC, so while waiting for Buidhe to have time to get back to this, I figured I'd attempt to work out this paragraph to address the concerns of Piotrus. The rationale of the revision is below the example.

Current Paragraph

Draft Proposal

While the Germans committed atrocities against other Allied POWs, the total number of the deaths of prisoners of war from the Soviet Union greatly exceeded deaths of prisoners from other nationalities. With regards to the mortality rate, it is estimated at forty three to as high as sixty three percent. The second highest mortality rate of prisoners in German captivity was that of Italian military internees (six to seven percent); while in the entire war, another high mortality rate was that of Allied POWs in Japanese camps (twenty seven percent). The death rate of German soldiers held by Soviet Union has also been high; it has been estimated at 15% by Mark Edele, and at 35.8% by Niall Ferguson.

The total number of deaths for prisoners of war from the Soviet Union greatly exceeded those for prisoners from other nationalities. The estimated mortality rate for Soviet prisoners range from 43% to 63%. In contrast, estimates of the mortality rate for German prisoners captured by the Soviets range from 15% to 36% (though the rate for Italian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union is at least 58%), and the rate for Allied prisoners in Japanese camps is estimated at 27%. Though the Germans committed atrocities against other Allied prisoners of war, mortality rates for for Allied prisoners of war taken by the Germans were lower, varying from 1% for British and American prisoners to 7% for Italian military internees.{sfn|Edele|2016|p=375}}

References

• First sentence begins the main point of the paragraph that I got out of this when Buidhe put this in FAC. More Soviet prisoners died than any other nationality. (WWII is implied).
  • The problem with this, as Piotrus's point implies, is that this number is absolute and could be a function of the size of the Soviet Union's population.
• The second sentence shows that the losses are also proportional by citing mortality rate.
• Sentence three allows for a comparative contrast, allowing the reader to see that the rates of Soviet deaths were higher than German deaths in the same region of conflict.
  • The addition of the Italian POWs in the USSR- suggested by Piotrus- provides an implicit caveat that POWs captured by the Soviets were categorically lower, as Italian POW mortality rates are comparable to the Soviet rates.
  • The addition of Allied POWs in Japanese camps allows readers a further comparison, as that situation is infamous amongst non-specialists for the poor treatment of prisoners.
• Sentence four does two jobs: It shows that the treatment of Soviet prisoners by the Germans was not equivalent to other nationalities, and it provides additional mortality rates for further comparison.

I'm hoping then that the absolute statement in the lead sentence is now qualified by a sufficient context.

Here's a few additional points: I looked up most of the numbers, but I'd want to make sure Piotrus is good with them. Additionally, I used Giusti as a source but couldn't verify it myself.

Is this on the right track?

(Aside: This discussion is a bit Eurocentric. I'd be curious to now how many Chinese POWs died in Japanese captivity. It's not needed for this article, but the discussion led to me to ponder this.) Wtfiv (talk) 20:45, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

This proposed draft does not address any of my concerns: that the added content is 1) does not increase reader understanding of the actual article topic 2) undue and 3) cited (partially) to sources unrelated to the topic of the article. Although I would love to see this article become FA one day, I cannot re-nominate it if it does not meet the FA criteria in my opinion. The article is about Europe so it should not bring in unrelated information, such as treatment of POWs in Asia. This content would be more appropriate for an article about prisoners of war in general. (t · c) buidhe 21:12, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. (I wasn't suggesting adding anything about China, it just made me curious.) Just seeing if I could balance the concerns. Thanks! Wtfiv (talk) 22:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@Wtfiv I posted my reply to you in a section below. POWs in Asia presumably refers to Japanese atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II. I'll try to blue link this in the foreseeable future. This is relevant as their mortality ratio was very high; additionally, Gerlach notes that the number of Chinese POWs killed by Japanese is unknown (but presumably high). This strikes me as poor research (I expect there are estimates by Chinese scholars, but likely in Chinese...); additionally, the number is likely high enough to mentioned as a relevant comparison (possibly the number would be second highest, total-wise, after Soviets; or third, after Soviet and German - my cursory search suggests it would be around hundreds of thousands to possibly over a million, but I need to find better sources). PS. The arguments about semi-relevance are hardly, well, relevant, since for example this article is happy to cite Gerlach's monograph on "The Extermination of the European Jews" (which is, obviously, not primarily about Soviet POWs). And Gerlach has an entire chapter about "The treatment of other prisoners of war" (following his discussion of Soviet POWs). In which he explicitly mentions Chinese POWs. Anyway, if we make claims about "other nationalities" we need to provide comparative data or link to articles that do so (which I am now writing, but it will take time). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:23, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Recent Post-FAC revision

Hi Buidhe, You'll see that I implemented many of the suggestions I made at FAC. These include:

• The paragraph revisions on the FAC talk page that you said were okay.
• Other smaller comments on moving elements around where I didn't provide a suggested example.
• Removed duplicated links, except for one: Kept the duplicated link for "Asian" and "Asian-looking", as these are two different uses and may confuse readers. Also added link for first mention of SS.

For the most part, I tried to respect your wording, as much of this is structural copy editing. Here are a few more substantial changes I made that you may want to look at:

• Extended "SD" to "SS Security Service", as many readers may not know Nazi abbreviations. (Added link to first mention of SS.)
• Reworked the Aktion Kugel section. I read the links and got a sense of what was trying to be said. See if I got it right or if it needs further work.
• Reworked the Soviet women soldier section. I read the relevant Hartmann pages. One of his notable points is one you mention: the idea that German gender norms are violated. He seems to be saying that orders were first given to shoot the women, but these were recinded in July 1941. But he seemed to tend against it being a policy. I reworded to reflect what he was saying but with an emphasis that few women prisoners made it to the camp, though I didn't see the other two references.
• Reworked the section mentioning German acknowledgement of the holocaust in light of the knowledge about the death of Soviet soldiers. I read the relevant pages in Gerlach, and hoped to capture the sense.

Of course, please change anything that doesn't reflect your work on the article. If most of it doesn't work for you, I put them all in a single edit for easy full reversion.

Finally, I'm very sorry to see that you didn't go through with the FAC. You were so close to being done. This is a very good article on an important topic.

From my view, it looks like all that is left is working out one paragraph on comparative statistics to show the relative magnitude of what the Germans did as an atrocity and to reinforce it was an atrocity. From my perspective, it just remains to agree on what statistics can be meaningfully compared to make the point that what happened to Soviet prisoners was extraordinary. I'm not sure what your perspective is, but it looks to me like a consensus achievable.

If you are open to working that out, it'd be great see it back at FAC quickly. Since it was already close to finished, I think it would pass quickly, as most of the reviewers who put their time into supporting you would quickly give that support again. Wtfiv (talk) 03:42, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Wftiv I owe you an apology. I really meant to finish it, but I've been working a lot of hours and just didn't have the time or energy to dive into it. I really appreciate all of your suggestions and I'll try to look through it later today. (t · c) buidhe 03:48, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

My thoughts:

• Aktion Kugel article is abysmally bad (I added some refs to it yesterday). It would be good to improve it with content from here (particularly since Buidhe said a while ago they don't like linking to very bad articles...).
• The sentence "The total number of deaths for prisoners of war from the Soviet Union greatly exceeded those for prisoners from other nationalities" should be followed by some total numbers, not % of estimates. Is 43% "greatly exceeding" 36%? Or 58%? We need to stop mixing total numbers and percentages. "prisoners from other nationalities" should probably be linked to Prisoners of war in World War II that I finally started yesterday.

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:09, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Lead issues

“ Although Germany largely upheld its obligations under the Geneva Convention with prisoners of war of other nationalities, military planners decided to breach it with the Soviet prisoners. ”

1. 1. The former has two references (24, 25) - quotations would be welcome since this may be controversial (for example, Almost all of the German high commanders tried during that trial were found to be guilty of crimes against POWs - see https://books.google.co.kr/books?hl=en&lr=&id=O1mqEAAAQBAJ , p. 150-153)
   2. which sentence in the body supports the latter? The body states "The OKW said that the Geneva Convention did not apply to Soviet prisoners of war, but suggested that it be the basis of planning." which implies the opposite
2. "Soviet Jews, political commissars, and some officers, communists, intellectuals, Asians, and female combatants were systematically targeted for execution"
   1. Can we define "communists" in this context? Does it mean party members? The body states "sometimes communists, intellectuals" citing two references (124, 125).
   2. In the same part of the body, Turkic prisoners are mentioned - but they are not mentioned in the lead. Why isn't Turkic linked?
3. "Over a million were deported to Germany for forced labor, where many died in sight of the local population"
   1. Why isn't forced labor linked?
   2. Is the part about "in sight of the local population" really that relevant to the lead? And which part of the body supports this generic statement?
4. "More than 100,000 were transferred to Nazi concentration camps, where they were treated worse than other prisoners."
   1. Worse than the Jews?
5. "Although the Soviet Union announced the death penalty for surrender early in the war"
   1. Which part of the body supports this?
6. "Most defectors and collaborators escaped prosecution. Former prisoners of war were not recognized as veterans, and did not receive any reparations until 2015; they often faced discrimination due to the perception that they were traitors or deserters."
   1. How come Soviet repressions against former prisoners of war are not mentioned in the lead, while we discuss details like the ones mentioned above? That link should be in the lead.

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:42, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The lead covers the typical treatment of returning prisoners of war, rather than overemphasize the much smaller number who faced specific punitive treatment that you want to highlight. I believe most of these other points are wrong or misguided, but I really don't have time to address it right now because of my work schedule. If you want a response from me, please fix the numbering so I can reply to each point individually. (t · c) buidhe 21:16, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Numbering fixed. I am really not convinced the "Gulag" treatment is as undue as you are insisting (but I hope at least you now agree to not remove the mention of this topic and link to Soviet repressions against former prisoners of war from the body (discussion above at #Soviet repressions). It would be good to see what other editors knowledgeable about this would say, but I am not sure who would know more about this topic. Pinging User:Altenmann, User:My very best wishes for now (as editors I recall being somewhat knowledgeable about related topics). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:15, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that some parts of the lead are problematic. Speaking on #1,

Germany largely upheld its obligations under the Geneva Convention with prisoners of war of other nationalities. This is rather questionable at best. Actually, a lot of "prisoners of war of other nationalities" have died in German camps (one should look at proper statistical data).

[German] military planners decided to breach it with the Soviet prisoners. Yes, perhaps they breached it more that with other POWs, but not because they just "decided". There were various reasons, one of which was Soviet government refusing to recognize Soviet POWs and declaring all of them traitors.

Overall, everyone is welcome to fix the page. Please do. My very best wishes (talk) 01:32, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

All the information in the article is correctly cited. You are welcome to look up the information if you have questions. For example, deaths among pows does not directly correlate to violation of the Geneva Convention. There were various reasons, one of which was Soviet government refusing to recognize Soviet POWs and declaring all of them traitors. that's an eyebrow raising assertion, got any citations that claim this is a reason for the Germans treating prisoners badly? (t · c) buidhe 02:03, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, we all know that Nazi have committed a lot of atrocities against the POWs from many countries. Saying that Germany largely upheld its obligations under the Geneva Convention with prisoners of war of other nationalities is not true. My very best wishes (talk) 02:45, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding the statement. Violations did occur, but they were the exception, not the rule. The statement is supported by the cited sources and should not be modified just because you disagree. (t · c) buidhe 05:25, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

First, you still have to provide quotations for these I asked; second, this claim seems like a WP:REDFLAG, considering the extent of German crimes against POWs (not just the Soviets), and the mentioned fact that during High Command Trial nearly all generals and like were found guilty of facilitating crimes against the POWs. Anyway, here are some sources that state otherwise (text translated from Polish language):

• [14]: "The Germans manipulated the Geneva principles, often breaking them, especially during their military superiority. They claimed that they did not apply to "former soldiers of the former Polish state"... This violation of international law by the Germans towards prisoners of war from the Polish army was more frequent and more severe than towards Allied prisoners of war in their hands. ... Polish non-commissioned officers of Jewish origin were "released" from captivity in the spring of 1940, directly into the hands of the Gestapo police and transferred to ghettos in the General Government, from where almost all were later deported to extermination camps. This was a particularly significant violation of the Geneva Convention."
• [15]: quotes Polish POW general Juliusz Rómmel who said that ""The Geneva Convention was regularly and brutally violated by the [German — H. T.] camp authorities."
• [16]: "The starting point for the considerations were the provisions of the Hague Convention of 1907 and the Geneva Convention of 1929 on the possibility of using prisoner of war labour.. From the first days of World War II, Germany systematically failed to comply with the provisions of the above-mentioned conventions."
• [17]: "the way in which the Nazi state treated prisoners of war was inconsistent with the provisions of the Hague and Geneva Conventions" (this in the context of forced labor, again)
• [18] "Even though the authorities of the Third Reich officially recognized the Geneva Convention, they were not eager to respect it."
• [19] "Nazi Germany violated the binding law of nations — the Hague Convention of 1907 and the Geneva Convention of 1929 — by mass murdering civilians in extermination camps and prisoners of war."

I will ping @Dreamcatcher25 who may have some additional sources and comments here. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:12, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, of course. These sources are mostly related to Polish POWs, but neither Nazi Germany nor Stalinist USSR respected any international agreements, including these ones.My very best wishes (talk) 19:08, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

1) I click on the links, but am unable to access some of them and others (such as the papers from 1971, 1975, and 1985) are obviously unusable. 2) I'm not sure what the source refers to in terms of "mass murder" (if that's what the source is claiming), but per existing mortality figures the vast majority were not murdered. I'm not sure if any of these sources explicitly dispute the assertion that most non-Soviet POWs, including polish nationals, were largely treated according to the Geneva Convention.

It's interesting you bring up the High Command trial, as it was focused on the German-Soviet war: "The majority of the defendants, meanwhile, had held field commissions during the war, serving in various functions on several fronts but nearly all in the war against the Soviet Union. Insofar as war crimes and crimes against humanity were concerned, Case 12 would be very much an Operation Barbarossa trial" Priemel

In contrast, we have highly credible sources that support the statement in the article. Gerlach states, in World War II the German military again treated prisoners, except those from the USSR, largely according to the international laws of war. Quinkert et al write, In World War II the German Armed Forces adhere to [the 1929 Geneva Convention] for most enemy soldiers, with the exception of soviet pows. If your assertions about Polish Pows were widely accepted in the international scholarly community, I would expect to find it reflected in sources such as these. If the interpretation can only be found in obscure journals, perhaps it has not reached mainstream acceptance.

It seems from my research that Rüdiger Overmans, " Die Kriegsgefangenenpolitik des Deutschen Reiches 1939 bis 1945" (2005), another overview of all nationalities of pows held by Germany, also supports this claim, but I have not accessed this source to confirm. (t · c) buidhe 20:12, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I've cited Polish historiography on this, old and new. It is not "fringe". And we have obvious evidence that Germany violated Geneva Conventions, with tens of thousands of non-Soviet POWs, Polish, Western Allies, etc. murdered from 1939 to 1945: German atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II. You cannot deny the facts. This sentence could be rewritten to stay that Germany violated those conventions much more when it came to the Soviet POWs, but to say it did 'mostly good job' regarding others is plainly wrong. Here is an English review of an English language relevant work. Some quotes: "This methodology allows Vourkoutiotis to show, for example, that the OKW ordered the reduction of food rations to British and American POWs as early as December 1941, relying on Red Cross parcels to supplement the diet of POWs. Consequently, the High Command consciously decided not to abide by article 11 of the Geneva Convention which mandated that food rations be equivalent "to what the Detaining Power would provide for its own depot soldiers." or "...it OKW policy that facilitated "satisfactory" material conditions in most of the camps, and was it the very same policy that resulted in a number of flagrant violations of the Geneva Convention." _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:21, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Piotrus. I like your new page German atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II. Good work! Unfortunately, I can not be of much help here, being busy in real life. My very best wishes (talk) 03:26, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't know what facts I'm denying. I'm not convinced that the sources you've provided actually contradict the statement in multiple RS that the treatment of most non-Soviet POWs was largely adherent to the Geneva Convention, not that there were no violations (something I never argued). I don't agree that papers published decades ago in a country without free expression should be cited for politically controversial topics or are indicative of current, mainstream scholarly thinking. That said, I think that your versions overemphasize the comparison with other nationalities so perhaps there is no need to make that comparison in the article lead. (t · c) buidhe 21:18, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

The lead, in particular, should be free from controversial generalizations. And once again you seem to have skipped over other sources - some of those I presented have been published in Poland after 1989, and the last one I mentioned is an English language book published in a country that has no major issues with free expression (hint: Palgrave Macmillan is the publisher). It is obvious that there is disagreement among scholars on this topic. Their contradictory views could be presented in the body of a relevant article, with attributions; certainly a view of one of them, unattributed and not representing universal academic consensus, does not belong to the lead of this article. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:32, 26 November 2024 (UTC)