Talk:Ernst-Georg Drünkler

Notability

Does not meet WP:SOLDIER & sig RS coverage not found link.

No de.Wiki article.

Please also see a note at MilHist Talk Archives for background behind the redirect.

K.e.coffman (talk) 02:40, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes it is. Total higher than Allied aces bar M Pattle and one or two Soviet pilots. Dapi89 (talk) 12:54, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:SOLDIER does not make a provision for high totals. What makes a subject notable is RS coverage that discusses the subject directly and in detail so that an NPOV bio can be created. Is there such coverage for the subject? K.e.coffman (talk) 01:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes. Dapi89 (talk) 16:54, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:SOLDIER does not discuss totals, that doesn't mean Wikipedia considers them to be unimportant. This man is in the top 20 of the highest scoring night fighter pilots in history. That is more than enough. And he received the highest award for bravery (albeit not the highest grade of that award). Dapi89 (talk) 16:57, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Redirect

Restoring the redirect. The recent expansion has not been an improvement. The article copy mostly consists of WP:OR based on a collection of primary material:

Foreman, John; Parry, Simon; Matthews, Johannes (2004). Luftwaffe Night Fighter Claims 1939–1945. Walton on Thames: Red Kite. ISBN 978-0-9538061-4-0.

The other large component is WP:SYNTH based on materials not about the subject. Wikipedia is not a publishing platform for original thought.

As a follow-up to the discussion above, successful completion of missions (sorties flown, # of enemy aircraft shot down, etc) is not part of SOLDIER. A MilHist RfC on this topic has failed to gain consensus in May of 2017:

• MilHist:RfC on the notability of flying aces.

For a relevant AfD on a WW2 German flying ace, please see:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fritz Lüddecke, which closed as "Delete" in September 2017.

K.e.coffman (talk) 06:25, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• K.e.coffman, with all your notable contributions to Wikipedia, you cannot actually do things like this. It is against our policy guidelines. You have deleted an article without ever launching a deletion discussion which is required in order to form the WP:CONSENSUS. Your example of Fritz Lüddecke was ill-suited, because it was a one-paragraph article (basically a stub) with one keep and two delete !votes in a controversial closure. On the other hand, this article was (-22,942)‎ in size with 41 citations and 9 books in bibliography. Sure it was terribly WP:POVed, with statements like: "extreme battlefield bravery" and "successful military leadership", but that could have been fixed by you or someone else. Sorry, Poeticbent talk 16:07, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

@Poeticbent: Thank you for your note. My experience has been that non senior German commanders of WW2, even if highly decorated, usually lack sufficient coverage to meet GNG. The discussion at Notability:People arrived at the same conclusion. I disagree that a separate consensus is needed for this redirect. The two RFCs have been well attended, and in both cases, the answer was “no”: neither the Knight’s Cross nor an ace status creates a presumption of notability. See:

• Redirect proposal for KC winners and
• Flying ace RFC.

Notability needs to be demonstrated via SIGCOV in reliable, 3rd party sources. They are lacking in many cases of aces / KC recipients. The AfDs have confirmed this. In the past, some of the redirects have been challenged, but many end up deleted; please see the list here: Subsequent AfDs. There’s only one “no consensus” close (and that was prior to the ace RFC concluding), the rest are “delete” or “redirect”.

The types of sources used in the articles that have been redirected fall roughly in these categories:

1. Phaleristics-oriented catalogues of award winners and their respective decorations; these are collections of primary sources and not sufficient for establishing notability. This also includes collections of promotion reports, claims tables, etc.
2. Landser-pulp literature, also known as Landser Hefte, which aims to heroicise the military men and strays into historical fiction while doing so. Franz Kurowski is the prime example of such authors. I also created The Blond Knight of Germany, just for the heck of it. :-)
3. Deliberate historical distortions, published by authors such as the fringe Richard Landwehr and various authors affiliated with HIAG, the post-war Waffen-SS lobby group in West Germany. In the German language, these works are generally published by far-right and extremist publishers such as the Türmer Verlag, the Arndt Verlag, and the Pour le Mérite Verlag, among others.

In North America, Group 2 & 3 titles are being published by J.J. Fedorowicz and Schiffer Publishing. Some eventually find their way into more widely available publications by Osprey, for example. Schiffer Publishing, in particular, seems to have published a lot of Luftwaffe-related titles. Some of these titles have origins in war-time propaganda, see for example Talk:Helmut_Wick#Tags, where a Schiffer pub was initially defended, until I was able to show that this "work" could largely be traced to NS propaganda.

Specific to the sources listed in this article:

• Caldwell, Donald; Muller, Richard (2007). The Luftwaffe Over Germany: Defense of the Reich. MBI Publishing Company. ISBN 1-85367-712-4.

Content that this source is used for is not directly about the subject.

• Chorley, W. R (1998). Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War: Aircraft and crew losses: 1945. Midland Counties Publications. ISBN 978-0-90459-792-9.

Not directly about the subject; a collection of primary material.

• Chorley, W. R (2007). Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War: Volume 9 Roll of Honour 1939-1947. Midland Counties Publications. ISBN 978-1-85780-195-8.

Not directly about the subject; a collection of primary material.

• Everitt, Chris; Middlebrook, Martin. (2014) [1985]. The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book. Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-78346360-2.

Not directly about the subject; a collection of primary material.

• Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer (2000) [1986]. Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939–1945 — Die Inhaber der höchsten Auszeichnung des Zweiten Weltkrieges aller Wehrmachtteile [The Bearers of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939–1945 — The Owners of the Highest Award of the Second World War of all Wehrmacht Branches] (in German). Friedberg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas. ISBN 978-3-7909-0284-6.

A catalogue of Knight’s Cross winners; not suitable for establishing notability. Provides only names, date of decoration, and not much else.

• Foreman, John; Parry, Simon; Matthews, Johannes (2004). Luftwaffe Night Fighter Claims 1939–1945. Walton on Thames: Red Kite. ISBN 978-0-9538061-4-0.

A collection of primary material; not suitable for establishing notability.

• Obermaier, Ernst (1989). Die Ritterkreuzträger der Luftwaffe Jagdflieger 1939 – 1945 [The Knight's Cross Bearers of the Luftwaffe Fighter Force 1939 – 1945] (in German). Mainz, Germany: Verlag Dieter Hoffmann. ISBN 978-3-87341-065-7.

A POV-driven tribute to the Knight's Cross winners of the Luftwaffe, specifically its fighter force. Obermaier is best known for producing hagiographic accounts on the Luftwaffe fighter aces, and has no credibility.

• Patzwall, Klaus D.; Scherzer, Veit (2001). Das Deutsche Kreuz 1941–1945 Geschichte und Inhaber Band II [The German Cross 1941–1945 History and Recipients Volume 2] (in German). Norderstedt, Germany: Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall. ISBN 978-3-931533-45-8.

Another catalogue of awards recipients, this time those who had been awarded the German Cross.

• Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives [The Knight's Cross Bearers 1939–1945 The Holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 by Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and Allied Forces with Germany According to the Documents of the Federal Archives] (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Militaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2.

Yet another catalogue of Knight's Cross winners; here's a sample from Feldgrau.net forum. Not a suitable source for notability.

The article's content is not a suitable encyclopedia entry. Examples:

• Cited to Chortley (SYNTH): The victim may have been Lancaster III ND994, UL-F2, of No. 576 Squadron RAF. Flying Officer Raymond Linklater (service number J/25837) and his crew were killed.[20]
• Nothing here is about the subject:
  • Cited to Caltwell: In support of Bomber Command the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) Eighth Air Force also targeted Hamburg, bombing the shipyards. The USAAF referred to the attacks as Blitz Week. 300 B-17 Flying Fortress from the 1st Bombardment Wingwere to attack Hamburg, while a small force was to bomb the U-Boat years at Kiel. The 4th Bombardment Wing was to attack the Focke-Wulf plant at Warnemünde, near Rostock.[7]
  • The 1st Bomb Wing lost 15 B-17s in the operation and the 4th lost four. It is believed most fell after being damaged by anti-aircraft artillery. Jagdgeschwader 1 and Jagdgeschwader 26 intercepted but were not successful. JG 26 claimed three for the loss of two fighters and JG 1 claimed three for the loss of four pilots wounded in action. This mission highlighted the need to upgrade the armament of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190. A notable loss was Karl-Heinz Leesmann, who was killed in action and a night fighter crew that came down in the North Sea and were captured by a Royal Navy vessel.[7]
  • On the night of the 30/31 March 1944, Bomber Command suffered its heaviest loss of the war an operation to bomb Nürnberg. Bomber Command dispatched 795 aircraft, including 572 Lancasters, 214 Halifaxes and nine Mosquitos. A further 49 Halifax aircraft were sent on minelaying operations in the Heligoland area, 13 Mosquito night fighters were sent to German night-fighter airfields, 34 Mosquitos flew on diversions to Aachen, Cologne and Kassel. 95 bombers were lost: 64 Lancasters and 31 Halifaxes which amounted to 11.9 per cent of the force. It was the largest Bomber Command loss of the war.[10]

Etc. What pertains directly to the subject is cited to Foreman; this source can be viewed here link; the book consists almost entirely of photos and lists of claims. Not a secondary source.

None of the sources here are suitable for developing an NPOV biography of the subject. I do not find that the content of this article improves the encyclopedia. It’s POV driven OR/SYNTH on a non-notable subject matter, with the lack of notability confirmed by two RFCs. Once you have a chance to review the sources, I would love to hear your take on this. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:48, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

• User:K.e.coffman, I suggest, you remove from references what is not relevant to the subject. Such inappropriate references can be used to make the article stick, or to mislead editors into believing that the article subject is notable. You can also remove what can objectively be confirmed as WP:SYNTH. If you can cut the size of this entry simply by separating the wheat from the chaff, the discussion about the subject's wp:notability can be renewed. However, a number of German Luftwaffe aces do have their own articles – usually a lot shorter than this – see Kurt Dombacher. I'm afraid you might actually have to go through WP:AFD regardless. Poeticbent talk 21:41, 20 September 2017 (UTC)