Talk:Hitler's prophecy/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Ian Rose (talk · contribs) 00:54, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, this one caught my eye and I tweaked a few things before the GOCE pass, so I think I'd like to take on the review. I'll keep an eye on it of course but might be an idea to ping me when all the GOCE stuff is out of the way -- I'm in the middle of another longish GAN in any case. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:54, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ian Rose, Thanks so much for reviewing this article. The copyedit is now complete. b uidhe 07:32, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Review

Well written

Obviously I've copyedited so generally happy with the prose; a few points:

The article coincided with the third and fourth waves of deportations of German Jews -- I think if you're going to keep this you need to elaborate a bit; for instance, deportations from where to where?
- Elaborated
On 13 February, he reportedly said "I have fought openly against the Jews... -- why "reportedly", which sounds uncomfortably close to "allegedly"?
- Kershaw writes "Although his last recorded monologues from early 1945 survive only in dubious form, the comments about the Jews on February 13 certainly sound authentically Hitlerian, and are fully in line with the repetitions of his ‘‘prophecy’’ that we have noted." So I don't think I can report this as something that unequivoically was said.
The threat to annihilate the Jews is the best-known phrase from Hitler's speeches. -- pretty strong statement, does anyone other RS support it?
- I initially had it attributed, however, it occurred to me that Mommsen's statement is indirectly supported by other sources which frequently describe this statement as "famous", "well-known", etc. and the statement has not been challenged by any source that I could find, and also I think it unlikely that any other one-sentence statement by Hitler could generate an article this long (Hitler's Armenian quote is not even close).
Functionalist scholars tend to emphasize the tactical implications of the speech in holding the Jews in Germany hostage against American behavior -- not sure I understand exactly what's meant by "American behavior", do we mean pro-Jewish behaviour, or anti-German?
- The source states "Hitler sei es darum gegangen, für den Fall des drohenden europäischen Krieges das Wohlverhalten der USA zu erzwingen; die Juden des alten Kontinents sollten demnach als Geiseln genommen werden und damit die deutsche Position in Europa absichern." which roughly translates to: [in the functionalist view] "Hitler was concerned with controlling US behavior in the event of the impending European war; the Jews of the old continent should therefore be taken hostage and thus secure German position in Europe." I have edited for clarity.
Despite the flagrant "violation of the elementary logic of chronology and cause and effect" inherent in this conspiracy theory... -- particularly given you have two citations here, I would definitely state just who says "violation of the elementary logic of chronology and cause and effect", or else I'd try to paraphrase.
- There's only one citation, however I did paraphrase it and break up the sentence.
Allied military action, especially strategic bombing, was killing an increasing number of German soldiers and civilians. -- already tweaked phrasing but at the same time I think we need context/timeframe, e.g. "By 194–, Allied military action..."
- Done
Paul R. Bartrop compared the speech to the predictions by convicted génocidaire Théoneste Bagosora -- to clarify, does "the speech" mean Hitler's prophecy, given we've just mentioned an article by Streicher?
- Fixed
As a general statement, I think when you get to FAC you might find calls to reduce the quotes. For one thing it could cut down on the repetitive "argues", "contends", "writes", etc, even though I've tried to mix those up a bit and I know you have too! I don't find this a stopper for GAN, which is not after all meant to represent WP's very best work -- what I'd suggest is that before FAC you run the article through PR and see what others think of the reliance on quotes, I'm not suggesting you rewrite swaths of the article during this review.
- That's a good point. I've tried to enforce WP:DUE by excluding non-notable writers, but the article could certainly be streamlined by excluding, combining, or paraphrasing in some cases (exactly which, I am not sure). (t · c) buidhe 09:58, 29 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Verifiable with no original research

No red flags re. source reliability. Spotchecks:

FN5: Supports contention and effectively paraphrased.
FN17: Simultaneously the Nazis were "planning a world war in which they would annihilate the Jews" doesn't look right -- the author seems to be questioning whether Hitler and Goering were "planning a world war in which they would annihilate the Jews".
- I think this is supported, because in the previous paragraph Bauer cites a war as one way that Jews could be annihilated, and later in the paragraph he states that the Nazi leadership was planning a war (although it didn't go as they planned). However, it is probably better not to use the quote, so I've paraphrased.
FN108: The prophecy was originally a warning, but since the Jews had (according to Hitler) unleashed a world war, "[t]hey would now pay the price" -- supported by the source but I think too closely paraphrased ("original", "warning", "unleashed").
- Done
FN155: Supports contention and effectively paraphrased.
FN210: Supports contention and effectively paraphrased.
FN224: Quote reproduced faithfully but Historians have not accepted these claims might be drawing a long bow. "...such professions of ignorance have not withstood scrutiny" in the source goes some way I suppose but apart from that...? Koontz is one historian, can we say she's talking about the consensus of other historians? Admittedly I can't see the footnote for "not withstood scrutiny"...
- In the footnote, she cites two other historians who make that argument. I added another citation for Musolff who states: "After the war, many Germans claimed, disingenuously, “not to have known” about the Holocaust as the central genocidal project of the Nazi regime... this blanket claim of ignorance has been falsified (Kershaw 1983; Kulka and Rodrigue 1984; Hilberg 1992; Bankier 1992, 1996; Schoeps 1996; Gellately 2001; Longerich 2006)"
FN230: Can't see p. 285 in Google preview but p. 290 broadly supports.

Based on this, I think it'd be worth you doing another pass of the citations but let me know if you disagree with my interpretations above. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:42, 18 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Broad in its coverage

Seems broad and deep -- TBH when I saw the length of the article I was concerned you'd be 'reaching' to have included all this material but it seems focussed and appropriate.

Neutral/Stable

No concerns here.

Illustrated

Not spotting any special issues re. licensing, and all links to the sources appear to be working. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:44, 30 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:32, 28 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your patience, Buidhe, sorry it took so long to return to this -- happy to pass as GA, well done. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:36, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]