Talk:Erich Hoepner/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Euryalus (talk · contribs) 02:23, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you. I'm looking forward to the review. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:35, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi, sorry for slight delay - having a busy day. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:44, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

I have some comments:

Text

• Suggest using his full name in the first sentence
• "the son of General Kurt Hoepner" He was the son of Generaloberst Dr Kurt Hoepner (1858-1925). His father was a physician.
• Why not mention his mother, Elisabeth Auguste née Kienast? Or his siblings?
• Should Rittmeister be italicised? And Totenkopf?
• Link Sudetenland Crisis
• "Upon his rival Heinz Guderian's assumption of command of the XIX Corps; Hoepner replaced him as the commander of the XVI Army Corps" Replace the semicolon with a comma. Are we going with "Corps" or "Army Corps"? Pick one. (The former is the usual form in English; Armee Korps is German)
• Why not link to the German version XIX Corps?
• Operation Barbarossa is linked twice.
• The navbox says he cassumed command of the 4th Panzer Group on 15 February 1941
• " Such "blinkered thinking" on Hoepner's part was common among the German commanders, which in Stahel's opinion "even before it began, made little practical sense"" Even before what began?
• "Panzer Group 3" and "Panzer Group 2" should be "3rd Panzer Group" and "2nd Panzer Group" for consistency.
• The last part is the first time you mention his wife Irma née Gebauer, daughter Ingrid and son Felbert, but do not name them
• He still has streets named after him

Typos

• "Hoepner's Panzer group" should be "Hoepner's panzer group"
• "promoted to the rank of Generalmajor" should be "generalmajor"
• "Panzer unit" should be "panzer unit"
• "the rank of Generaloberst" should be "generaloberst"
• "The 4th Panzer group headed" should be "The 4th Panzer Group headed"
• "the 4th Panzer Group group" should be "4th Panzer Group"
• "air corp" should be "air corps"
• "Hoepner pursued a policy of scorched earth, demanding "ruthless and complete destruction of the enemy."" It is in the source, but that's not what scorched earth means.
• " the south flank of the 4th army" should be " the south flank of the 4th Army"

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:42, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Some comments:

Text

1. Suggest using his full name... --> "Erich Hoepner" is the full name in the sources that I used; sample: [1]
2. "the son of General Kurt Hoepner" He was the son of Generaloberst Dr Kurt Hoepner (1858-1925). His father was a physician. --> don't have this detail in the source used; seems fine.
3. The last part is the first time you mention his wife Irma née Gebauer, daughter Ingrid and son Felbert, but do not name them --> Sources I used do no discuss his mother or siblings.
4. Should Rittmeister be italicised? And Totenkopf? --> It's a matter of style; I prefer to avoid italics. "Totenkopf" is a proper name in this context, not a foreign word, for example.
5. Link Sudetenland Crisis --> fixed
6. "Upon his rival Heinz Guderian's assumption of command of the XIX Corps; Hoepner replaced him as the commander of the XVI Army Corps" Replace the semicolon with a comma. Are we going with "Corps" or "Army Corps"? Pick one. (The former is the usual form in English; Armee Korps is German) --> "Army Corps" and "army corps" is common in English-language sources; sample.
7. Why not link to the German version XIX Corps? --> fixed
8. Operation Barbarossa is linked twice. --> fixed
9. The navbox says he cassumed command of the 4th Panzer Group on 15 February 1941 --> it appears that Hoepner was already commander of PG 4 on 15 Feb 1941, as per this source: [2]; it's possible that he "reported" to CinC on the same day as his appointment (?). Mitcham says "17 Feb": [3]. In any case, he was appointed at some point around February 1941; I don't think it's critical to note exactly when. I've changed the date in the command box to February 1941.
10. " Such "blinkered thinking" on Hoepner's part was common among the German commanders, which in Stahel's opinion "even before it began, made little practical sense"" Even before what began? --> fixed
11. "Panzer Group 3" and "Panzer Group 2" should be "3rd Panzer Group" and "2nd Panzer Group" for consistency. --> fixed, apart when appears in direct quotes
12. The last part is the first time you mention his wife Irma née Gebauer, daughter Ingrid and son Felbert, but do not name them --> The relatives are non-notable, so I don't feel that the article needs to name them.
13. He still has streets named after him --> I'm only seeing primary sources for "erich-hoepner-straße"; this does not appear to have been noted by secondary sources.

Typos

1. "Hoepner's Panzer group" should be "Hoepner's panzer group" --> fixed
2. "promoted to the rank of Generalmajor" should be "generalmajor" --> I prefer capitalisation, as in the sources I used; sample: [4]
3. "Panzer unit" should be "panzer unit" --> replaced with "armoured unit"
4. "the rank of Generaloberst" should be "generaloberst" --> prefer capitalisation; pls see #2 above
5. "The 4th Panzer group headed" should be "The 4th Panzer Group headed" --> fixed
6. "the 4th Panzer Group group" should be "4th Panzer Group" --> fixed
7. "air corp" should be "air corps" --> fixed
8. "Hoepner pursued a policy of scorched earth, demanding "ruthless and complete destruction of the enemy."" It is in the source, but that's not what scorched earth means. --> fixed
9. " the south flank of the 4th army" should be " the south flank of the 4th Army" --> fixed

I've implemented various changes as noted above. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:59, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Suggestions

A few more in addition to Hawkeye7's excellent response:

1. Should the lead include a clasue explaining the Commissar Order? Might be helpful to the casual reader to explain what it was.
2. “ending the war as a cavalry officer” – as opposed to a staff officer? On first reading I thought the emphasis here was on the word “officer” and was puzzled as to why we were saying this as he was a lieutenant as long ago as 1906. Not a critical issue, but worth considering if it's clearer to say something like “ending the war as a member of the cavalry” or "ending the war as part of a cavalry unit."
3. Interwar period: Is the link to “Generalmajor of the Wehrmacht” correct given this is a Weimar rank?
4. “an early Panzer unit that was…” – can we say “an early tank unit that was ..” to avoid using Panzer twice in the same sentence? Or is that too general?
5. As with "Commissar Order, is it possible to add a couple of words on the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair, as readers won't imemdiately know what this is

None of the above are critical issues (except maybe the generalmajor link, if its inaccurate), just suggestions to improve comprehension for non-expert readers like myself. Will have a few more a little later. -- Euryalus (talk) 08:03, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

1. Added.
2. Modified to just state that he ended in the cavalry. I believe the relevance here is that the early proponents of mechanised and armoured warfare were often officers from the cavalry.
3. Generalmajor: the same rank system (pretty much) was used in the Reichwehr and the Wehrmacht, so I don't think this needs to change.
4. Modified.
5. Added.

K.e.coffman (talk) 01:32, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Last comments:

1. Would remove “criminal” before Commissar order because it sounds as if that is Wikipedia’s voice, and also duplicates the end of that sentence re contravening laws of war. (btw would be good to clarify what we mean by “laws of war’ – ie what convention or international agreement set these laws in this instance). Alternatively, we would need a specific source for “criminal” as it has a particular meaning beyond violation of a convention – criminal under what national or international law?
2. Given the significance of the Commissar Order in this biography (mentioned in detail here and in the lead) it would be good if there was more on why Hoepner acted this way – did he feel it was justified? Was he “just following orders” (unusual for someone previously indicated to be opposed to SS-style butchery); was he a fervent anti-Communist? Not critical to include this, as its obviously limited by the sources and this is a GA review not an FA. Just flagging it as something that occurred to me a point of interest in reading the article.
3. Last sentence of paragraph two – should there be a “However” before “the army group defeated the defending …”? Otherwise we have the German advance halted at Luga and then suddenly the Germans winning the wider contest.
4. Do we know what happened to his family after the war?
5. Overall, this is a comprehensive summary of Hoepner’s military career, with some interesting additions and quotes on his views and interpretations of different stages of activity. It would have been good to have a bit more about the nam as an individual (ie not just a soldier), and some further background on his early life. But we’re obviously limited by the sources we have, which seem fairly comprehensively reviewed.

Views welcome on the largely trivial additions above. Also made some minor changes directly to the article, let me know if these seem unsuitable. -- Euryalus (talk) 06:49, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Comments:

• Commissar order: This and other pre-Barbarossa orders are described as "criminal orders" in literature: Criminal Orders, in Hitler's Wehrmacht, 1935-1945 by Rolf-Dieter Müller and same in From World War to Waldheim by Richard Mitten. Or same in Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization by Felix Römer. The killing of the Red Army political officers is described as "murder", i.e. Rutherford on Quinkert, 'Propaganda und Terror in Weißrußland 1941-1944'. A number of Wehrmacht generals were convicted for drafting, transmitting or approving the order, so "criminal" is a neutral descriptor in this case. However, it's indeed redundant, so I've moved it.
• Hoepner's stance: His thinking, i.e. "no adherents of the present Russian-Bolshevik system are to be spared", was closely aligned with that of Hitler in terms of the "war of extermination". Many authors have made this connection; see additional examples in: Talk:Erich_Hoepner#Recent_edit. I believe it's covered in the section Erich Hoepner#War against the Soviet Union:

[Hoepner's May 1941] order was transmitted to the troops on Hoepner's initiative, ahead of the official OKW (Wehrmacht High Command) directives that laid the groundwork for the war of extermination, such as the Barbarossa Decree of 13 May 1941. The order predates the first OKH (Army High Command) draft of the Commissar Order. Jürgen Förster wrote that Hoepner's directive represented an "independent transformation of Hitler's ideological intentions into an order" and illustrated a "degree of conformity or affinity" between Hitler and military leadership, which provided a sufficient basis for collaboration in the aims of conquest and annihilation against a perceived threat from the Soviet Union.

Did this not come across in the flow of the article? In any case, all corps-level units and ~90% of divisions implemented the order, so it was not extraordinary and was perhaps viewed as a "necessity". Although it's somewhat incongruent with Hoepner's behaviour on the Western Front, as you point out. Interesting observations here from the Rutherford review (abridged):

The commissars occupied a special place in this propaganda. One [Wehrmacht] position paper from 1935 suggested the use of the following slogans to be directed towards Soviet conscripts: "Turn your bayonets around and fight with us against the damned Jewish commissars" (p. 47). Already, six years before the Commissar Order was drafted and distributed to the Ostheer, commissars had been targeted for death by at least one section of the German army.

According to Quinkert, this line of thinking directly led to the formulation and implementation of the Commissar Order. The political and military leadership believed that murder of Soviet commissars would both destabilize the Red Army and ensure a far easier occupation of the eastern territories, as no one would lead civilian resistance in the rear areas. In other words, the murder of Soviet commissars was understood as what Quinkert describes as a "preventative defensive strategy against the guerrilla war [Kleinkrieg] in the rear area" (p. 59). While her claim that that the German military carried out this order not merely for ideological reasons, but also for "independent pragmatic motives" is not entirely novel, it is certainly convincing and it provides evidence of a German army prepared to contravene the established rules of war long before the opening of Operation Barbarossa.

• Fixed.
• Family: I don't know; sources do not mention that. I assume that they were released / liberated.

References

K.e.coffman (talk) 01:08, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Checklist

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):

   Not entirely convinced re the wikilink of Hopner's Weimar rank to a page for the equivalent Reich one; but not enough to hold up a GA review.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Fine for the purposes of GA, as a summary of Hoepner the soldier. Would need more on Hoepner the person to meet this equivalent criteria in A or FA review. COuld sometimes do with more context about why he adopted certain military strategies, though I note a) the reality that for controversial figures the need for scrupulous accuracy can sometimes lead to a less enlightening article; and b) some apparent limitations in the sources.

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:

   A detailed summary of the military figure, with some interesting background elements. Thanks to Hawkeye7 for the comments above.-- Euryalus (talk) 02:54, 21 April 2018 (UTC)