Talk:Karl Strecker

Third-party sources needed?

The article is largely cited to:

• Lieutenant General Karl Strecker: the life and thought of a German military man, Praeger, 1994. ISBN 9780275945824 (Collected diaries and notes, with Uli Haller)

The publisher’s page describes the book as “The memoirs of a German general captured by the Soviets at Stalingrad and imprisoned by them for 13 years” and the cover shows “edited by Uli Haller”.

This source does not meet the RS requirement for independent sources, making certain statements in the article potentially unverifiable and non-neutral. While uncontroversial material, such as education, military postings, etc. is fine, some content, such as the subject’s inner thoughts and self-assessments, are not suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia’s voice, without attribution to the source. These are claims by the article’s subject about his time during a tumultuous era, and could possibly be self-serving or selective.

I suggest that Template:Third-party be added to the article until these issues can be rectified. It should be made clear in the text in Wikipedia's voice that it was Strecker who is saying these things about himself. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:23, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Let me know which passages you find to be inaccurately or unsatisfactorily sourced in the reference. LargelyRecyclable (talk) 05:23, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

The concern is not about whether the book is quoted accurately, but whether it's suitable for statements rendered in Wikipedia's voice. As memoirs, this source does not meet the requirement for reliable, independent, third-party sources. Consider these statements: 

• He reacted with disgust at the Nazi's anti-Jewish pogroms and the purges of 1934 (…) 
• When the purges began Stercker considered resigning his commission (...)
• (...) Strecker was strongly opposed to the invasion of the Soviet Union, believing that it would cost Germany the war. Etc.

Given the extensive citing of the source, the issues of WP:Weight and WP:POV also come to mind. Take for example this statement:

• [Strecker] claimed he was, by this time [Operation Barbarossa], having to inspect all communications from above in order to make sure that oppressive or illegal orders, such as the Commissar Order, didn't reach his troops, and countermanding those that did.

Given what is now known about the extent of the implementation of the Commissar order, the statement, even when presented as a claim by the subject, strikes me as undue. 

In summary, I believe that the Strecker / Halle source should be used with care and with attribution. Does this help address your query? K.e.coffman (talk) 00:33, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

It helps me understand your confusion, yes. The book is a biography, written by Uli Haller. That's why it's listed as:

• Haller, Uli (1994). Lieutenant General Karl Strecker: the life and thought of a German military man. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger. ISBN 9780275945824. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

I can't be sure why you listed the "Published works" entry of the book instead of the reference entry, which unambiguously attributes authorship to Haller, not Strecker. The biography contains the collected letters and diaries of Strecker's that were published posthumously by Haller from archival sources in Poland and Germany. In addition to citing Haller as the author, the publisher's website you referenced above there's also gives a table of contents, which may help you. I'll just remove the "published works" entry if it's going to confuse people. LargelyRecyclable (talk) 12:45, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Uli Haller

Here's some additional information I was able to find, from a post at Axis History Forum:

• I have read this book. It was edited by Uli Haller, a grandson of Gen.Obst. Strecker who lives in Seattle. The book was published in 1994 by Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT (256 pages).

The book provides a very interesting biography of Strecker, his West Prussian youth, WWI experience, police career, WWII and Stalingrad, his years of captivity and final years of freedom. I appreciated the fact that the bio dwells on Strecker the man, and not the Stalingrad tragedy of which so much has been written about elsewhere.

The second part of the book relates Strecker's own experiences of the Stalingrad campaign and his impressions as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union. These experiences are provided by Strecker's own notes as compiled by the editor.

That's why I believe Praeger bills it correctly as ""The memoirs of a German general..." It's a biography cum memoirs, written by the relative of the subject, and does not meet the requirement for reliable, independent, third-party sources in my mind. Do you have a different interpretation? K.e.coffman (talk) 18:40, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your objection is. That Strecker was his grandfather? LargelyRecyclable (talk) 19:15, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

The concern is that this extensively-used source, written/edited by the article subject's relative, does not meet the requirement for reliable, independent, third-party sources. I've reached out to RSN for additional input: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Source_in_WW2_bio_article:_Karl_Strecker. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:23, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

RSN

Moving the discussion here from my Talk page. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:04, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Hey, sorry I've just run off the past week. Your posting on the noticeboard has fallen off for age but I haven't forgotten. I'll get around to working on the portions you identified and making some changes today or tomorrow. Or, if you'd like, you can start making changes that you have the ability to based on the sources you have and we can go from there. Either way, I'd like to get it to GA status and that's not going to happen if you have it right about the sources. LargelyRecyclable (talk) 22:39, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I would appreciate if you can send me the reviews that you mentioned in the RSN discussion:

• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_232#Question_about_a_source_in_WW2_bio_article.

I think the solution is to drastically reduce the interwar section that's almost exclusively based on Uller, Mitcham and Lucas and contains much editorialising / inner monologue; that's the section I look at in detail so far. BTW, it also seems that some of the material is incorrectly cited, i.e. the content referenced to Mitcham does not appear on the cited pages. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:04, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I haven't even had a chance to look for them to be honest. Did you pick up the book? LargelyRecyclable (talk) 23:06, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm following. The point of the RSN discussion was that Life and Thoughts is likely a WP:BIASED source, from a non-expert, and should be treated as such. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:10, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I've made it pretty clear that I disagree with your assessment of the source, and I've yet to see any actual evidence of bias, one way or another. I misunderstood your comment about refs, I read it too quickly and thought you were referring to Haller. Which refs are off? LargelyRecyclable (talk) 23:14, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

You haven't seen any evidence of bias, however, that's not how we determine whether the book is RS. I provided two reviews, which cast Uller's writing in a somewhat pejorative light ("larger than life"; "unnecessary", etc), and I consider the source to be WP:QS; i.e. suitable for basic facts and / or attributed opinions, taking WP:DUE into account. I don't consider it a sufficient source for evidence of Strecker's "outright defiance of the Nazi regime".

The feedback at RSN was that Uller is likely a biased source. Do you disagree with this feedback as well? K.e.coffman (talk) 23:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I thought you wren't a fan of the Royal We? And I do disagree with your interpretation. There was no clear consensus at the board and even the most negative comments were along the lines of "red flag", not a rejection. I didn't seen anyone claim that it was categorically biased, or that familial relation to the subject is any sort of automatic disqualifier. Others had no issue with the source at all. Unless you can point to actual instances of bias your objections on that basis are speculative. You've also, again, cherry picked wording from the reviews. I don't know if you're playing for an audience or you think I have severe memory loss but I don't see the point in beating this horse any longer. Why don't we just BRD this thing? Make whatever changes you feel would improve the article and we can go from there. It may be that your preferred version is entirely acceptable to me too. LargelyRecyclable (talk) 23:34, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:36, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Edits

I did the first pass at the interwar section: diff. I removed Lucas; he devotes 1/2 page to Strecker here, and does not provide the level of detail that's in the article.

The concern with Mitcham was the very last cite in the section; pages 78-80 do not provide the quote attributed to Strecker and other details: [1]. I reduced this section so it's less of a concern, but I will look again. The quote was not in Lucas either, so I added a cn tag. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:29, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Some further content edits in this diff. Additional edits are in the article history. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:59, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Further edits in this diff. Some are self-explanatory along the lines of prior edits, for neutrality and to provide attribution. I restored the prior awards section as it was excessive in the infobox (and uncited); list of battles was also excessive for a non sr commander. Some struck me as original research, such as about the signature to the final message from Stalingrad. Finally, I rewrote the lead to align it to the article body. Please let me know if there are any concerns. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:05, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Reasonable?

Like most senior officers of the Wehrmacht, he received reasonable treatment. He was put before a show trial and sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment. - Show trials are reasonable. 2A02:AA1:101B:5EF1:1498:288C:A1F8:6DF3 (talk) 16:15, 24 April 2021 (UTC)