Talk:Fritz Amling

Thomas & Wegmann

I noticed that most of the article's claims are referenced with Thomas & Wegmann's Die Ritterkreuzträger. I assume it is widely known that both authors did not profess to write a historiographical study, but rather collected and reproduced documents, many of them official. In particular they more or less retold the proposals for the award. As historian Jens Westemeier has shown in his biography of Jochen Peiper, such proposals are by no means objective. They have to be taken with a grain of salt, to say the least. Moreover, other historians have pointed out that, in the heat of battle, it was difficult to figure out who was actually responsible for destroying a certain tank. The German high command routinely assumed that the claims made by combat troops as to how many tanks they had destroyed were inflated by 50 per cent. Thus it is basically according to primary sources that Amling knocked out 24 tanks, including 5 in one minute. During the battle he was wounded, but continued to fire. Norbert Számvéber does not add much to it, but rather quotes at length a report by Wehrmacht propaganda. So I would argue that the claims surrounding Amling's feat of courage should be worded more cautiously as suggested in WP:BIASED. And I don't think that it is of encyclopedic relevance to know when the telegramme arrived and that a "solemn presentation" was made on Christmas eve.--Assayer (talk) 02:09, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

These numbers were previously cited to Thomas & Wegmann as well as a known fabulist Franz Kurowski. Kurowski was removed (diff), but the numbers were kept. For all we know, this might have invented by Kurowski, or by the unreliable Nazi propaganda. In any case, these numbers are not cited to reliable sources, and I'll remove them. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:13, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

As an aside, one of the sources being used (Szamveber, Norbert. Illustrated History of the Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 202, Keszthely: PeKo, 2016) does not inspire confidence. It looks to be a picture book and / or "militaria literature". K.e.coffman (talk) 04:18, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

So let me try and understand this: are you saying that official accounts aren't acceptable as sources of historical information here and neither are secondary accounts that quote them? Are you also saying we should remove everything that is uncited or only cited by those sources? Which sources in your view, should we consider reliable? --Bermicourt (talk) 10:18, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

And K.e.coffman, I'm not sure if you're aware of WP:BRD; but it basically says that if your edit is reverted, the next step is to discuss it on the talk page and not just re-revert the edit back to your version. In that way we can avoid WP:EDITWARRING. So I'd be grateful if you'd restore your latest edits while we discuss the issues above. --Bermicourt (talk) 12:42, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

@Bermicourt: Roughly yes, "official accounts aren't acceptable as sources of historical information here and neither are secondary accounts that quote them". In the former case, official records are WP:Primary sources and are typically not suitable for inclusion of military statistics, especially when they come from unreliable wartime propaganda. In the latter cases, sources that uncritically quote from such official records are not RS for this info.

Specific to Thomas & Wegman, this was discussed at the recent AfDs, where this source was not deemed acceptable for establishing notability (also see WP:MILMOS which recommends using secondary sources authored by "reputable historians". Thomas & Wegmann are not historians nor "reputable" in the MILMOS sense. See for example discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heinrich Debus (SS officer).

I'm aware of BRD, but in this case it appears that the rough consensus is against using these sources uncritically; so I felt confident in removing this material. K.e.coffman (talk) 16:26, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm new to this subject area, so please help me out. In particular:

• If we don't accept official sources for e.g. who was awarded what medal, where do we get that information from?
• What are your reliable sources for saying that Thomas & Wegmann (and others) are not historians nor "reputable" in the MILMOS sense?
• Please point me to the "rough consensus" against these particular sources. I am not familiar with it. Thanks, Bermicourt (talk) 17:46, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

To answer your questions:

1. Thomas & Wegmann is fine for who was awarded what medal & when, but not for any associated statistics and battle details.
2. From the Debus AfD linked above: "I would question, however, that the MGFA "endorsed" these books. I found a single review of the second volume of this series by Florian Berberich in the MGFA's journal MGZ 40 (1986), pp. 276f. He considers it to be an important reference work for soldiers and for people interested in military history, and suggests that the work could be helpful even for military historians. What sounds convincing at first glance, needs to be put in perspective, though. In 1990, when reviewing another publication by Thomas (and Manfred Dörr) on the bearers of the Close Combat Clasp in Gold, Reinhard Stumpf of the MGFA made clear that for the time being the research on military symbols would remain to be the domain of enthusiasts outside of professional historiography. (MGZ 47/1990, p. 298) More recently, historians like Sönke Neitzel, Peter Lieb and Christian Hartmann have tried to utilize statistics of military awards as an indicator for combat value of individual units, but, as Roman Töppel has shown (Das Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes und der Kampfwert militärischer Verbände, Ztschr Heereskunde 446/2012), to receive a Knight's Cross a soldier needed more than to be "extremely brave on the battlefield". To be considered for the award he also needed a superior officer who would propose him. In his biography of Jochen Peiper, historian Jens Westemeier described Peiper's favoritism concerning these proposals and spoke of "Ordenskameraderie". For example, Westemeier calls the award for Georg Preuß "a bad joke". To cut a long story short, even though it might be possible to reconstruct the military careers of each and every Knight's Cross recipients, these biographies present a distorted picture of the actual events (i.e., if the provision "played an important role in a significant military event" in WP:Soldier, is to be based on historical fact instead of Nazi propaganda). Veteran's organizations, particularly of the Waffen-SS, have based their image as an elite on their Knight's Cross Recipients. Collectors of militaria have an interest in such biographies (which is the reason, why Thomas & Wegmann reproduce bestowals documents). But on the whole, individual Knight's Cross recipients like Debus did never reveive any WP:SIGCOV by historiography, let alone in the broader public."
3. Most of the recent AfDs on KC winners turned around whether sufficient reliable sources on the subjects were likely to exists (and whether Thomas & Wegmann would qualify as such as source), and the outcome was "no", hence these articles were either deleted or redirected; pls see: Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#KC recipients closed AfDs.

K.e.coffman (talk) 18:53, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

I might add the German originals. These were reviews of works of Thomas & Wegmann and of Angolia & Schlicht, Patzwall and Dörr & Thomas in the Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift, published by the German Militärgeschichtlichem Forschungsamt. As of 1990 Reinhard Stumpf observed that Angesichts der Forschungssituation wird die Beschäftigung mit militärischen Symbolen wohl noch lange fast ausschließlich eine Domäne des vorwissenschaftlichen Raumes bleiben. In 1986 reviewer Florian Berberich commended Thomas' & Wegmann's volume on the parachuters as: Er ist nicht nur ein wertvolles Nachschlagewerk für die heutigen Fallschirmjäger und für jeden an der Militärgeschichte Interessierten, sondern durch seine biographischen Angaben auch für Militärhistoriker eine Hilfe. He criticizes them for in dem gewiß anerkennenswerten Bestreben, ein Höchstmaß an authentischem Material zu publizieren, der Band mit 442 Seiten recht umfangreich und damit auch sehr teuer geworden. Es hätte für die Dokumentation sicherlich genügt, nur eine Verleihungsurkunde für jede Tapferkeitsauszeichnung abzudrucken, statt immer wieder die gleichen Dokumente mit wechselnden Namen aufzuführen. And Stumpf calls Dörr's & Thomas' piece on the Nahkampspange: Es handelt sich im Kern um eine gedruckte Kartei der bekannten Träger dieser höchsten infanteristischen Auszeichnung [...]. Ohne Zweifel ist hier die gültige Liste für diese Auszeichnung entstanden, wie sie für das Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes (Fellgiebel 1986) und das Deutsche Kreuz in Gold (Scheiben 1983/84) vorliegt. As of today these are the only two reviews that I could find in academic journals. Both reviewers clearly differentiate between military historiography and the, as Stumpf put it, Literatur über "Militaria". If Thomas & Wegmann were to be considered as "historians", then it should be possible to point out who says so. For now it seems to me as if they were not respected as such by academic historiography.

Westemeier and Töppel in particular deal with the question why and how someone received a KC and how (un)reliable proposals were. This is not about "who was awarded what medal". Rather the question is: Who claims that Amling destroyed 24 tanks and so forth? Since KC recipients were significant for German propaganda, these claims have to be taken with a grain of salt.--Assayer (talk) 19:30, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Notability

Does not meet WP:SOLDIER & pls see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fritz Amling. Hence the redirect. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:21, 23 November 2016 (UTC)