Talk:Horst von der Goltz

A fact from Horst von der Goltz appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 May 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Horst von der Goltz, a German spy against the U.S. in World War I, played himself in the 1918 American anti-German propaganda film The Prussian Cur?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2012/May. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Horst von der Goltz.

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Military history: Biography / German / World War I

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Translation from German?

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The German Wiki page on the same person has a wealth of information. If anyone is up to or knows someone who'd be up to the translation to English, the article is here http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_von_der_Goltz User:Natty10000 ^{[Stop me before I edit again!]} 01:51, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I added the translate template to the article, which will flag the translation team. Best regards, Cindy(talk to me) 16:27, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As ever, yer that best....but then again, I'm sure you knew that already. :) Many thanks User:Natty10000 ^{[Stop me before I edit again!]} 16:53, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Working on it. PumpkinSky talk 00:28, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks, PumpkinSky. User:Natty10000 ^{[Stop me before I edit again!]} 01:25, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

PumpkinSky and Gerda Arendt, yeoman work on the translation making this article so much more useful. Many thanks to you two for your translation efforts User:Natty10000 ^{[Stop me before I edit again!]} 11:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alias name

I've seen this listed as Bridgman/Bridgeman A./W. Taylor. I'm not sure yet which is correct. Right now I think Bridgeman W. Taylor is correct. PumpkinSky talk 19:03, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

After WWI

I can find nothing in a reliable source, but from mostly genealogical blogs is appears he stayed in NYC most of the rest of his life and ran a pet store there, married a woman -- how it ended is not certain, then married her daughter from another man, was interred in WWII from 1942-1945 because the FBI wasn't sure what to make of him, and died in 1969. To reiterate, I wouldn't put this in the article til we find an RS but it's a start.PumpkinSky talk 20:26, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See [1], [2], [3] PumpkinSky talk 20:30, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Der Goltz is described in some detail in Barbara Tuchman's Zimmerman Telegram (which was my reason for creating this article in the first place). Off the top of my head, I believe she said of der Goltz's fate that he spent the rest of his life running a fish store. If memory serves, in a different passage she mentions that as of the time the book was written (1958, I think) all of the people involved in the Zimmerman Affair had died except for Franz von Papen. Raul654 (talk) 20:46, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of new material

I have removed some material added by User:Feilitzsch. I was unable to confirm that Henselstone Verlag LLC is a reputable publishing house; we do not have a Wikipedia article on this publisher and I was unable to confirm through a Google search that this is not a vanity press. The ISBN does not appear in WorldCat, which means that to date no libraries that subscribe to WorldCat have purchased the book for their collection. So I am not convinced that the book can be considered a reliable source, as Wikipedia defines it. Also, the user who added the material has the same name as the author of the book, so I suspect there may be a conflict of interest. -- Dianna (talk) 23:44, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have added new material because I have done a lot of research. As it stands this page is incomplete and full of mistakes. Goltz' book is full of unsubstantiated claims that have been repudiated by hosts of historians. Using his autobiography and Barbara Tuchman's largely unsubstantiated accounts is simply not good enough. Fine, you think I have a conflict of interest. I accept, although I added several original sources from my unpublished research. If you don't like my contribution, at least put up what you cut in the talk section and have someone else take the hints and edit the page. Otherwise I consider your action undemocratic and autocratic censorship. The rules as I understand are "Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant and conforms to the content policies, particularly WP:SELFPUB." By the way, the book is real, the publishing company is legal and real, open library, amazon, shelfari, library thing all have information about it. I wanted to contribute new research, not promote a book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Feilitzsch (talk • contribs) 05:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is much wrong here, I suspect

Does anyone know where Jefferson Adams in his "Historical Dictionary of German Intelligence" obtained the birth year 1884? His makes for a nice secondary source, but it leaves a bizarre gap between (I'm quoting from the current text, a translation from German, seemingly quoting Tuchman's 1958 account, which Von Feilitzsch above probably correctly stated to be unsubstantiated): "At the age of 16 [1900/1901], Wachendorf was deported from Brussels back to the German Empire." ...10-11 years gap... "In 1911, apparently under the direction of the German intelligence service, he stole a draft of a confidential agreement between Mexico and Japan." Is it a coincidence that on June 5, 1917, a Horst von der Goltz, born in Koblenz, Rhine Province, Germany, filled in a USA army draft registration card, answering to the question "what military serice have you had?" with "Major in the cavalry for 9 months in Mexico" and for profession "author"? Got to be the our guy, who published his My Adventures as a German Secret Agent in 1917. This Horst wrote as his birthday "August 6, 1893". Perhaps he was 33 and just looked 24 and made this date up (he also wrote this 1893 birthday in all subsequent US censuses/censi), but it fits much better with the first two sentences: he was 16 in 1909/1910 and already active in espionage and continued at age 17/18. Unfortunately, no secondary source yet. The bane of wikipedia.
I'm also pretty sure that Heribert von Feilitzsch's additions in 2012 were for the better. He wrote 4 books on espionage in Mexico and the US during the First World War. His In Plain Sight: Felix A. Sommerfeld, Spymaster in Mexico, 1908 to 1914 can be perused on google books, and can be obtained from Amazon in kindle and paperback. It's likely far more reliable than Tuchman's book or Adams' microscopic write up. Afasmit (talk) 06:56, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]