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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 01:46, 10 August 2008 [1].

Erich Hartmann

[edit]
Nominator(s): MisterBee1966 (talk)


I'm nominating this article for featured article because the article has been a considered well written during past reviews and has been considered FAC material. I therefore want to formally have this article reviewed to see what might need to be changed. MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from epicAdam: "I therefore want to formally have this article reviewed to see what might need to be changed." Typically, nominating an article for FA status indicates that it is ready to be featured, not to gain comments. A more extensive peer review than the one from April would definitely be in order before the article continues with FAC. Having said that, I did provide problems below that would definitely need to be corrected before the article can be promoted.

  • All web sources need to have at least a title, publisher, access date, and language (if not English).
  • What makes the following sources reliable?
  • The following facts may need citations
    • Since I don't have the book, I don't know if this information is from the sources cited at the end of the quotation: "On 31 March 1942, Erich was flying a Bf 109 during gunnery training. He took the opportunity to break the rules by doing Aerobatics over the Zerbst airfield. Hartmann was immediately confined to quarters and fined two-thirds of his pay, for a three month period."
    • "On 7 July 1943, he shot down seven enemy aircraft in a single day, during the massive dogfights that occurred during the Battle of Kursk. He had reached 50 victories by August 1943, and in that month claimed another 48 kills. He was then appointed Staffelkapitän of 9./JG 52 in September 1943."
Done MisterBee1966 (talk) 21:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Same issue as with the first: "Hartmann accorded the Russian pilots a distinct lack of respect in the first year of his service. Hartmann recalled that most Soviet fighters did not have proper gunsights, and that Soviet pilots resorted to drawing hand-painted sights on the windshield. Hartman said that while he considered the P-39 Airacobra, Curtiss P-40 and Hawker Hurricane inferior to the Fw 190 and Bf 109, they provided the Soviets with valuable gunsight technology:"
    • "Hartmann would find this useful. From then on, the fighter unit could take off in extreme temperatures during the harsh winter months."
    • "Erich Hartmann passed the 300 kill mark the on 24 August 1944, a day on which he shot down 11 aircraft in two combat missions bringing the number of aerial victories to an unprecedented 301 victories. He was immediately grounded by Luftwaffe chief of staff Hermann Göring, who was fearful of the effect on German morale should such a hero be lost. Hartmann, however, later successfully lobbied to be reinstated as a combat pilot."
    • "Hartmann once famously described dog-fighting as "a waste of time"."
    • "In 1955, Hartmann's mother wrote to the new West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer to secure his freedom. Hartmann's release, and that of another 16,000 German military personnel, was obtained as part of a trade agreement between the two countries. After spending ten and a half years in Soviet POW camps, he was among the last batch of prisoners to be released in 1955 and returned to West Germany, where he was reunited with his wife Ursula, to whom he had written every day of the war."
Done MisterBee1966 (talk) 21:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "losing 14 aircraft from combat damage and forced landings. He was never wounded and never bailed out due to damage inflicted by enemy pilots. His kill tally included some 200 various single-engined Soviet-built fighters, more than 80 US-built P-39s, 15 Il-2 ground attack aircraft, and 10 twin-engined medium bombers. He often said that he was more proud of the fact that he had never lost a wingman in combat than he was about his rate of kills. However it appears Hartmann did lose one wingman. Major Günther Capito had joined the unit in the spring of 1943. Capito was a former bomber pilot who had retrained on fighters. After scoring his fifth victory Capito asked to be Hartmann's wingman. Hartmann refused initially, believing Capito was insufficiently trained on Messerschmitts."
Done MisterBee1966 (talk) 21:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The whole "Decorations" section
Done MisterBee1966 (talk) 20:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would probably ask an image expert to take a look at the images obtain from http://www.Luftwaffe.de They should be okay, but I'm not sure the copyright licenses on them are appropriate for the images.
  • The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.
    • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 160 kilometres, use 160 kilometres, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 160 kilometres.[?]
Done MisterBee1966 (talk) 21:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done MisterBee1966 (talk) 21:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please make the spelling of English words consistent with either American or British spelling, depending upon the subject of the article. Examples include: honour (B) (American: honor), favourite (B) (American: favorite), metre (B) (American: meter), defence (B) (American: defense), realize (A) (British: realise), criticise (B) (American: criticize), ization (A) (British: isation), program (A) (British: programme).

The first points regarding citations: These have citations. One at the end of each paragraph as is usually required. Dapi89 (talk) 20:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • As above, the websites used as sources, what makes them reliable? Also, websites used as sources need at the very least a publisher and last accessdate.
  • See also sections usually go before the references.
Removed topics a linked elsewhere MisterBee1966 (talk) 21:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • format the external links all consistently, you have one with just a bald url. Also itd be nice if instead of "short biography" you gave an idea of where the site is located, who is publishing it, etc.
Book sources look okay, link checker tool is still timing out on me. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:13, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

comment none of the copyrighted images have fair use rationales Fasach Nua (talk) 07:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: I've removed two non-free images from the article. One that showed him in a private scene, which wasn't linked with the surrounding text and served just to show what he looked like – redundant with the portrait photo in the infobox, we can't use two images where one will suffice (NFCC#3); and another where he's getting decorated by some general later in life – replaceable with text alone, the fact of him being decorated can easily be described and understood without the image; nothing in the understanding of the article depends on any visual detail in this photograph. I think the portrait photo in the infobox is acceptable though. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:07, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Oppose: Just to give a flavour of the scale of copyediting that this article needs...

Lead

  • Erich Alfred "Bubi" Hartmann (19 April 1922 – 20 September 1993), also nicknamed "The Blond Knight of Germany" by friends and "The Black Devil" by his enemies, was a German fighter pilot and still is the highest scoring fighter ace in the history of aerial combat. He scored 352 aerial victories (of which 345 were won against the Soviet Air Force, and 260 of which were fighters) in 1,404 combat missions and engaging in aerial combat 825 times while serving with the Luftwaffe in World War II.
Awkward prose, unnecessary bolding, and no need for so much detail in the lead. It might read better as...

Early life

  • You don't give his date of birth, though this information is in the infobox.
  • "Most of the boys' childhood was spent in China...", yet by my calculations, only the first 6 years of Hartmann's life, at most, was spent in China, which doesn't qualify as "Most..."
  • That whole sentence and the one following seems clunky. Maybe "Their father, Dr. Alfred Erich Hartmann, moved the family to Changsa in China to escape the German economic depression that followed the First World War." would read better.

Military career

  • "Hartmann got his pilot's license in 1939 and started his military training on 1 October 1940 at the 10th Flying Regiment in Neukuhren and from 1 March 1941 at the Luftkriegsschule 2 in Berlin-Gatow." Long sentence packed with info but not with punctuation. Something like "Hartmann gained his pilot's license in 1939. He started military training on 1 October 1940, at the 10th Flying Regiment in Neukuhren, and progressed to the Luftkriegsschule 2 in Berlin-Gatow on 1 March 1941." might read better.

Into the Luftwaffe

  • "JG 52 was stationed...", and then the next sentence starts "JG 52 were based...". Is it plural or singular, and anyway, why not state the city alongside the theatre in one go? That whole para is a bit all over the place.

Behind enemy lines

  • "...ninety aerial victories..." yet elsewhere his tally is given in figures. You need to be consistent.
  • The basic outline of this first para is...
  • Hartmann forced to land behind German lines;
  • Hrabak (who is he? First and only mention of him here), gave orders (to whom?), to support Rudel (who's he?) and his Stukas;
  • The situation changed and the flight of fighters (what fighters?) engage "Russians Yaks...";
  • Hartmann is forced to make an emergency landing. Again?
  • See what I mean? It seems a little convoluted and leaves out bits of detail, resulting in a passage that does not flow well, making it difficult to read and comprehend.

I'm sorry, comments on prose that identify just a few points and leave you wondering what else is deficient are frustrating I know, but it's taken a good few hours just to identify and make the above comments. I've picked on one instance in each of the first 5 sections. You could fix these specific instances, but the article really does need a good copyedit throughout. I will happily lend a hand with this if you like, but I can only spare an hour or so each day, and previous attempts of mine to copyedit up to FAC standard have not always been successful. It might, however, help you along a little. Please stick with it, because in spite of this, it's a great article. --FactotEm (talk) 11:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Changed to oppose. Having started a copyedit, I tend to agree with the comments below about tone, and question the inclusion of certain content that tends to break up the flow of the article. As an example, the inclusion of the Krupinski quote to support the nickname in the (itself inappropriately titled) Into the Luftwaffe section seems unnecessary and awkward. There have been other instances in copyediting up to this point where I thought it better to remove small details for the sake of more concise prose. This goes beyond copyediting and into the realms of making decisions on content, which I am decidedly unqualified to do. I will continue the copyedit, and raise issues of content on the article talk page as I encounter them. The main editors can then decide on what they want to retain and what can be discarded for the sake of conciseness. I would also suggest that this article would profit from a MilHist A-Class review before being presented to FAC again. --FactotEm (talk) 11:28, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Despite its many qualities, the article simply isn't ready yet. As noted above, it needs a thorough round of copyediting before reaching FA standards (and I strongly recommend Tony1's fantastic guide). But there are also a few occurrences of deeper problems with the tone. Although Hartmann was undoubtedly an exceptional pilot, there is no need for the article to be so transparently glorifying: facts should speak for themselves. Here's a partial list of examples:
  • The lead says Hartmann was convicted of false "War Crimes". The phrasing is ambiguous and the scare quotes are definitely a bad idea. The fact is Hartmann was convicted of war crimes. For the lead, it's ok to simply say "wrongly convicted". But later on, (in the section with the dubious title False War Crimes Charges) the article reads "Hartmann had gone too far with his resistance. He was falsely charged with war crimes". The first sentence is speculative and the use of "falsely" in the second is only supported by the much later mention of the 1997 recognition of his innocence. Mention of his posthumous acquittal should be noted right after a neutral sentence such as "Hartmann was charged with war crimes".
  • "Afterwards Hartmann practiced hard, and his dedication soon brought rewards." This is unnecessary. It's clear from his achievements that he did practice hard.
  • In the paragraph on Soviet techniques to deal with extreme cold, the quotes surrounding "techniques" and "proudly" are inappropriate.
  • "After that, he decided to relax and enjoy life." Inappropriate tone and in any case unnecessary sentence. Also, I doubt that there's a solid source for this and problems of a similar nature occur elsewhere: even if one of Hartmann's biographers writes "Hartmann then decided to relax", the fact remains that this biographer is speculating on the issue.
  • I think the over-reliance on Toliver and Constable might be a source of problems in the article: while I don't dispute the reliability of their information, the fact is that a book titled "The Blond Knight of Germany" (the German title "Holt Hartmann vom Himmel! Die Geschichte des erfolgreichsten Jagdfliegers der Welt" is even more revealing) will occasionally put undue weight on good anecdotes that serve to create a romanticized image of Hartmann. For instance, I don't quite see the point of the incident with Hitler's hat and I doubt that it can be seriously documented.
  • Perhaps I'm not getting this right but the following paragraph seems completely implausible.
After being handed over to the Soviets, the German group was split up into groups according to gender. Hartmann witnessed widespread rape and murder of civilians. When the outnumbered Americans tried to intervene the Soviet soldiers charged towards them, firing into the air and threatening to kill them. Order was later restored, and some of the guilty soldiers were hanged "on the spot" by a Soviet commander.
This seems to suggest that, for one thing, civilians were handed over to Soviet forces by the US Army. This may be true but it certainly looks dubious since the transfers involved "soldiers fighting Soviet forces". Moreover, the split according to gender makes little sense for German soldiers who, even at the late stages of war were almost all male. Finally, consider the absurdity of the paragraph's suggested timeline. Germans are transfered, split into groups by Soviet forces. Suddenly, "widespread rape and murder of civilians" occurs. Americans try to intervene but Soviet soldiers charge towards them and threaten to kill them. This is nonsensical.
  • All sentences using "Erich" rather than "Hartmann" are problematic.
  • "More subtle efforts by the Soviet authorities to convert Hartmann to Communism also failed." What's a subtle effort to convince someone to convert to communism?

I don't think the problems described above can be fixed within the short time frame of the present nomination. Fixing the tone is a long process which requires careful re-evaluation of the choice in content and sources. Pascal.Tesson (talk) 04:53, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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