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::::::"''the former [[Korea under Japanese rule|Japanese-governed Korea]] was [[Division of Korea|divided and occupied between the US and the Soviet Union]], and the regimes were installed there <u>which shared their sponsors' ideologies</u>, thereby the prerequisites for the [[Korean War]] were created''". |
::::::"''the former [[Korea under Japanese rule|Japanese-governed Korea]] was [[Division of Korea|divided and occupied between the US and the Soviet Union]], and the regimes were installed there <u>which shared their sponsors' ideologies</u>, thereby the prerequisites for the [[Korean War]] were created''". |
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:::::With regard to Communicat's "'' It should read "Korea, formerly under Japanese occupation ..."''", it is simply incorrect. Korea was ''annexed'' by Japan in 1910; by doing that Japan terminated the state of occupation. Consequently, "Japanese-governed Korea" is correct.--[[User:Paul Siebert|Paul Siebert]] ([[User talk:Paul Siebert|talk]]) 15:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC) |
:::::With regard to Communicat's "'' It should read "Korea, formerly under Japanese occupation ..."''", it is simply incorrect. Korea was ''annexed'' by Japan in 1910; by doing that Japan terminated the state of occupation. Consequently, "Japanese-governed Korea" is correct.--[[User:Paul Siebert|Paul Siebert]] ([[User talk:Paul Siebert|talk]]) 15:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC) |
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:::::: Nick-D, I did not say "the war was caused by the US occupation of South Korea". Please don't misquote me, otherwise I might take it as personal harassment.. |
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:::::: The fact remains: "The United States began its involvement in Korea with a three-year occupation from 1945 to 1948, in which the Americans operated a full military government." REF Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, ''Korea: The unknown war'', London: Viking, 1988, p.16 [[ISBN 0670819034]] (A couple of other available and reliable sources say the same thing). Why are you people so averse to that fact? Hey? [[User:Communicat|Communicat]] ([[User talk:Communicat|talk]]) 19:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC) |
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==== Temporary references sub-section==== |
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aftermath
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I've made new 2nd para, no changes otherwise. RE clarification requested, will do when edit conflicts subside, and will also fix ISBNs if/when ref numbers revert to sequence, for some reason current sequence gone all over the place. Can anyone tell me consistent ISBN policy, i.e. 10-digit, 13-digit, spaces and/or dashes between numbers? Communicat (talk) 18:39, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- For complete coverage it would be interesting to add how the denazification / war crimes programs of the USSR developed after the war. Is there any source information about whether the USSR similarly used high end former nazis in relevant postings and thus diluted their denazification programs in the same way UK and US did? (I know they were interested in Werner von Braun, but the Americans got him) Arnoutf (talk) 19:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- No, I don't have sources for USSR. Why don't YOU look for them, seeing as its your idea? (You might want to add that USSR wanted British bombing of German civilians to be included in war crimes trials). Communicat (talk) 20:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- A minor clarification, and some page numbers are needed. I have fixed the ISBN syntax. 10 or 13 digit ISBN work, 13 is preferred, WP:ISBN is the relevant wiki page for ISBN presentation. (Hohum @) 20:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- I did have a look and found a few interesting publications. Russian denazification lasted from 1945-1948. Older sources accuse the Russians of political cleansing of anticommunist sentiments, but modern sources (Vogt) does not agree and sais that denazification was relatively fair albeit slow. March 1948 denazification was halted/ called complete. All 'remaining' nazis were no longer pursued. So apparently no conscious Soviet intention to employ high level nazis in the new governmental structures, but acceptance that the task to continue finding "small" nazis could take forever and would disrupt the new situation, hence a stop on active persecution. In other words, the Soviets applied a similar kind of realpolitik as the US/UK except for those few case where US/UK actively used former nazis for their goals. [www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/Vol4Denazification.doc] [1] [2] Arnoutf (talk) 20:24, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- A minor clarification, and some page numbers are needed. I have fixed the ISBN syntax. 10 or 13 digit ISBN work, 13 is preferred, WP:ISBN is the relevant wiki page for ISBN presentation. (Hohum @) 20:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- No, I don't have sources for USSR. Why don't YOU look for them, seeing as its your idea? (You might want to add that USSR wanted British bombing of German civilians to be included in war crimes trials). Communicat (talk) 20:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
- Interesting. So, why don't you work it into topic with ref?
- Re your "...few cases where US/UK actively used former nazis for their goals": No, there were not a few cases, especially in relation to US. Try reading the readily available works I've cited. Entire US-sponsored Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty network, operating from US, was run by numerous former Nazis including war crimes suspects. Plenty of sources, but the three sentences I've provided are sufficient to the task at hand, without needing to make a fullblown article out of it -- (but of course you're free to do so yourself if you're that way inclined). Communicat (talk) 21:55, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
I've just removed the para. The lack of page numbers is highly unsatisfactory, and I'm not convinced that it's either neutral (as other sources emphasise the harsh treatment of Germany in the post-war years and Germany's rehabilitation as a democracy) or about topics notable enough to be covered in this high-level article on the war (and not its aftermarth). As per the convention, it should also have been discussed here first. I've posted the para below to aid further disussions of it.
- When the divisions of postwar Europe began to emerge, the war crimes programmes and denazification policies of Britain and the United States were abandoned in favour of realpolitik. [1] Germans who were classified as ardent Nazis[clarification needed] were chosen by the American secret services to become "respectable" American citizens.[2][page needed] Secret arrangements were concluded between American military intelligence and former key figures in the anti-communist section of German military intelligence or Abwher, headed by General Reinhard Gehlen, to advise the Americans on how to go about establishing their own anti-Soviet networks in Europe.[3][4][5][page needed]
- ^ Tom Bower, Blind Eye to Murder: Britain, America and the purging of Nazi Germany, London: Andre Deutsch 1981 ISBN 0233972927
- ^ Tom Bower, The Paperclip Conspiracy: Battle for the spoils and secrets of Nazi Germany, London: Michael Joseph, 1987 ISBN 0718127447
- ^ Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988, pp.42, 44 ISBN 1555841066
- ^ Richard Harris Smith, OSS: Secret history of the CIA, Berkeley: University of California Press 1972, p.240 ISBN 0440567351
- ^ EH Cookridge, Gehlen, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971 ISBN 0340126418
- In addition to the clarification request, and page numbers. Links to Operation Paperclip and Operation Osoaviakhim would seem relevant.
Were Nazi Scientists gathered by the USSR too?- I believe Bower's The Paperclip Conspiracy covers this as well. The text starting "Secret arrangements were..." to the end of the paragraph goes into too much detail for an overview article IMO. (Hohum @) 23:34, 23 August 2010 (UTC)- Nick-D you could see that at the very time of your deleting my contribution, I was in the actual process of working on the paragraph you were busily deleting. If it wasn't for all the edit conflicts I was experiencing as a result of your interference, the required page number and "clarity" query would have been completed.
- I have read and understand the rules and therefore see no need to first discuss with you what I propose to edit, except in the case of significant changes. I have not performed any significan change to existing text. I have inserted three sentences of new content, which editors can examine at their leisure and respond accordingly, as Hohum and others were in the process of doing before you butted in and acted arbitrarily without discussion. You're being extrememly objectionable and obstructive, and this latest instance will also be brought to the attention of arbitrator, in addition to other matters already filed today, of which you are no doubt aware, and of which you will no doubt be hearing further. In the meantime, please stop being retaliatory; you're only damaging your own case. Communicat (talk) 00:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Nick-D has edited the article exactly twice in the last twelve hours. That is not a lot of edit conflicts. The WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is normal practice. Please stop making threats, knuckle down, and discuss edits constructively, like anyone else manages to do. (Hohum @) 00:16, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- re Nick-D has edited the article exactly twice in the last twelve hours. Exactly. Isn't it quite odd then that he should remove my edit just a few minutes after I'd filed items containing edit summaries that made it obvious I was in the very process of methodically fixing the section at issue (page numbers, clarity query)? Coincidence is all very well when it happens, but this, given the circumstances, was IMO no coincidence.
- Besides which, his remark about "aftermath" in relation to the article is quite incoherent. I've read it several times and still can't figure out what the blazes he's talking about. Perhaps he knows what he's talking about? Never mind.
- By the way, I'm not making threats. I'm making promises. Arbitration request has already been filed. In the meantime, the aftermath item is easily fixed on basis of your observations, and I was in fact doing so before disruption ocurred. Doesn't seem much point in proceeding further with that edit under present conditions. I'll just let arbitration run its course before attempting any more wasted effort here. You can do what you like with Tom Bower et al. If the boss lets you. Communicat (talk) 00:48, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Nick-D has edited the article exactly twice in the last twelve hours. That is not a lot of edit conflicts. The WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is normal practice. Please stop making threats, knuckle down, and discuss edits constructively, like anyone else manages to do. (Hohum @) 00:16, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- In addition to the clarification request, and page numbers. Links to Operation Paperclip and Operation Osoaviakhim would seem relevant.
If we want to go further with this para I would add a line immediately after the first: "Followed by an end to denazification by the Soviets in early 1948 [1]" In any case, if we discuss the denazification we should fairly discuss US, UK AND USSR efforts otherwise we give an incomplete image which necessarily leads to a POV by omission.
I would also be perfectly happy to drop it, as I think the aftermath section is already very long for a high level overview article like this. So my preference would be to shorten rather than expand it. Arnoutf (talk) 07:02, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Dropping it is my preference. If Germany is covered, all the other Axis countries need to be covered and this topic isn't particularly relevant to the subject of the article (the war). Nick-D (talk) 07:13, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Communicat, in case you didn't check that RfA, please read Wikipedia:TINC. I found it amusing and quite relevant. --Habap (talk) 12:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- Read WP:OWN. As for Rfa decision, read Response to assertion in statement by Nick-D regarding "... proposed changes to and complaints (by Communicat) about the World War II article ... are generally not supported by the balance of mainstream sources ..."
- Communicat, in case you didn't check that RfA, please read Wikipedia:TINC. I found it amusing and quite relevant. --Habap (talk) 12:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
- The article relies exclusively on mainstream sources, to the total exclusion of other available non-mainsteam sources / positions, and this is the specific reason why NPOV dispute arose in the first place. See Observation by mediator in this specific regard, which is as follows: "I would express my disappointment at what seems to be the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article ... it saddens me to know that there are articles with regular contributors who are either so devoid of a collegial outlook or who have not yet reported such a disruptive user for administrative attention." (AGK 20:10, 24 August 2010)
- As Moxy has recognised, there are some wide and advanced issues involved here, and I'm definitely not gonna let it go. Sorry to disappoint you all. Communicat (talk) 19:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
- Lame excuse. Tendentious reasoning. Read the rules that require alternative positions to be stated in interests of NPOV, which rules I've already cited several times. I'm not going to repeat them endlessly for the benefit of a few editors apparently exhibiting "I can't hear you". It's clear the issue cannot be resolved via discussion with editors of that ilk, otherwise it would have been resolved a long time ago. I see not point in trying to discuss it further, and will pursue my options, of which there are still one or two. Communicat (talk) 20:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
- You have evidently missed my posting, (two postings above), re Observation by mediator, now repeated again for your edification: "I would express my disappointment at what seems to be the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article ...." (AGK 20:10, 24 August 2010) In short, if as alleged no other editors agree with me, the quoted mediator for one does in fact agree with me. If you don't like it, take it up with the mediation committee.
- As for your tendentious "It's an overview article." Firstly, wherever did you people get the idea that it's an 'overview'? Nowhere is it said in the article itself that it's an "overview". The article is a main article, with various separate sub-articles. As a main article it should contain the main points about WW2, regardless of whether or not the sub-articles elabortate further, and if they don't, it's the sub-articles' problem, not the main article's problem. And a main point, among others, that should be mentioned in the main article, is that significant alternative positions exist as to the causes and courses of the war. The article itself need not go into a fullwinded saga about the alternative positions. That's a separate story. For the main article, just mention that fundamental difference exist between Western mainstream, Western revisionist, and non-Western i.e. Soviet positions. That's all that's needed. No more than two or three sentences with reliable sources, as I've already provided and which were rejected out of hand.
- Secondly: your "(the article) should rely on reliable mainstream sources." You're defeating your own argument. "Reliable mainstream sources" to the exclusion of reliable alternative and/or revisionist position sources is vcompletely out of line with NPOV, and even Habap has recognised this by now. And so has the mediator as quoted above.
- So how come you're still having so much difficulty in grasping this very basic historiographic concept? I would suggest it's because of ideological conservatism on your part and on the part of some other editors; conservatism by its very nature is highly resistant to change; and that includes editorial changes to the article by any editor with a fresh perspective, in this case me.
- You conservatives, having achieved "good article" status, now apparently want to rest on your laurels and protect "your" territory against perceived intruders like me, i.e. anyone who proposes any meaningful and progressive change to "your" article. Well, I'm not intimidated by your sort. Communicat (talk) 23:06, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
- This article covers the whole of WWII. WWII was an extremely complicated conflict. To cover all of it and keep it at a readable size each issue should be treated extremely briefly.
- If there are conflicting interpretations/theories, the most dominant should get more attention more or less in proportion to how dominant these are in todays literature. This is overall an encyclopedia where an overview of the body of current knowledge is presented and not a scientific journal where new opinions are advanced.
- Since the issues are treated extremely briefly (point 1) there is limited scope to present minority views unless these are very broadly supported. The more detailed articles can be used to present these theories in more detail.
Can you agree to these arguments? To be honest, if you cannot I do not see how we can cooperate. Arnoutf (talk) 17:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- All I wanted to know re my posting above, was whether or not it was appropriate for me to submit the page numbers earlier requested by Hohum as supported by Moxy.
- I don't agree with your interpretation of the mediator's observation re "the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article". Communicat (talk) 22:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- ATG clarified on his talk page that he was saying that the "approach to editing is partisan", and wasn't commenting on content. (Hohum @) 23:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
- @Communicat and others, with my 3 points above I am trying to come to agreements within which I think we should be able collaborate. Can you please respond whether you agree to these 3 points. (Looking back to the past and what AGK said (or intended) is not helpful to the future in any case so I would prefer to leave that be.) Arnoutf (talk) 07:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- Re Arnoutf's three points. I agree. To keep this already long article as brief and readable as possible, we can't go into much detail, this means leaving most alternative viewpoints to their main articles (and linking to them), yet keeping the wording open enough to encompass them here without being over specific, if possible.
- Re page numbers. Even if a whole book is about a point being made, there will doubtless be an identifiable reference on a particular page, or a few pages, which should be used as a reference. (Hohum @) 12:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- Do you, or do you not want the page numbers? That's all I want to know. At this stage I do not want to be further involved in the aftermath topic nor any other WW2 topic until such time, if any, that certain ongoing policy matters are finally resolved.
- As regards AGK clarification of "partisan editing", I have posted the following at AGKs talkpage:
- Thanks AGK for clarifying what you meant by "partisan editing". The primary matter at issue as stated in my mediation request concerned partisan editing, so I surmised on that basis your comment was in direct reference to the issue of partisan editing, and not the now clarified "approach to partisan editing".
- I agree with your disappointment that mediation was not allowed to take its natural course, viz., was blocked by those who did not want impartial mediation to occur. If mediation had indeed proceeded as intended by me, you would also have become better acquainted with the different points of view that exist on the article in question. You might further have understood how and why there is no discernable desire on the part of those who are opposed to mediation to consider alternatives or compromise, relative to partisan editing as complained of by me. Communicat (talk) 17:30, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- In answer to my direct question to you I interprrt this as that you do not explicitly agree with the 3 points above (and choose not to edit WWII anymore.) Arnoutf (talk) 18:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- Read my posting properly. Communicat (talk) 19:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well I asked a direct question, and in none of your posts do you explicitly respond. So clearly you do not explicitly agree. Your tendency to confuse your own posts by lengthy texts with little relevance to the issue does not hide that. But I can ask you again. Do you agree to the 3 points I raised above, a simple Yes or No will do. Arnoutf (talk) 15:29, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Read my posting properly. Communicat (talk) 19:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- In answer to my direct question to you I interprrt this as that you do not explicitly agree with the 3 points above (and choose not to edit WWII anymore.) Arnoutf (talk) 18:10, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree with your disappointment that mediation was not allowed to take its natural course, viz., was blocked by those who did not want impartial mediation to occur. If mediation had indeed proceeded as intended by me, you would also have become better acquainted with the different points of view that exist on the article in question. You might further have understood how and why there is no discernable desire on the part of those who are opposed to mediation to consider alternatives or compromise, relative to partisan editing as complained of by me. Communicat (talk) 17:30, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that it needs a fair bit of work. It is possible that the editor reintroducing it is having trouble finding the right thread on this cluttered and rambling talk page. (Hohum @) 03:11, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Just in case there's any confusion about the unnamed editor and/or further discrediting of myself: I was not the mysterious editor who reintroduced the evidently disputed material. The editor responsible, more than likely, was the esteemed Hohum, who rightly observes that the talk page has become practically unmanageable.
- As for Nick-d's observations: apart from selectively quoting out of context etc, his level of insight seems to be reflected by his own words: "The suprisingly rapid democratisation of post-war Germany ..." Post-war Germany consisted of Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and German Democratic Republic (East Germany), each of which disputed the legitimacy of "democracy" in the other. Neither of them turned out to be truly democratic. (Sources available) Nick-d himself does not source or define his own meaning of "democratisation".
- Semantics aside; regarding Nick-d's assertion The claim that "Britain and the United States soon abandoned their war crimes programmes" is plainly nonsense given that hundreds of key Nazis were successfully prosecuted ... Those prosecutions were essentially token prosecutions and they were conducted on a very selective basis. (Copious Sources available). Consider for instance the celebrated case of Kurt Waldheim, who went on to become secretary-general of the United Nations. Another celebrated case is that of the war criminal (can't remember his name right now) who went on to become head of Interpol, and other very well documented cases for which numerous sources are also available. And speaking of sources, I have repeatedly offered to submit reliable sources and clarifications as requested by Hohum before Nick-d objected to the topic and reverted my edits while I was in the process of providing clarification and page numbers. I then repeatedly asked whether or not it was worthwhile providing the said clarity and page numbers, to which no response was forthcoming.
- Re Arnoutf posting above: I seem to recall you're the same feller who earlier told me to "SHUT UP" (sic) and "find another forum". Now you are laying down itemised preconditions for my continued participation. I am unaware, (unless I've missed something), that you Arnoutf have any authority whatsoever to dictate to me or anyone else any conditions or preconditions for participation. I have already made it clear, and I repeat: I want nothing further to do with editing the aftermath or any other WW2 topic until such time as certain key policy issues are conclusively resolved. The rest of you, including especially you Arnoutf, are free to fight it out among yourselves. There is an unfortunate tendency, when descended upon by the equivalent of a pack of editorial wild dogs, to reduce oneself to the same level. You don't emerge intact from such attacks by being Mr Nice Guy; and I for one am thoroughly fed up with having to reduce myself to that level. It's all yours (for the time being, at any rate), and good luck to you. I trust I've made myself clear. Communicat (talk) 17:39, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- So, I have accepted the reprimand from the uninvolved admins and tried to involve you into a reasonable discussion by trying to suggest some boundaries within which I am confident we can collaborate. If you read back on this talk page and its archives you can easily find that it is indeed I who lowered myself to your level after a frenzy of unjustified personal attacks and extremely incivil comments on anyone daring to disagree with you (even if facts were presented). In spite of that I have made the effort to find common ground and being called a "wild dog" in response is utterly unwarranted and yet another example of the personal attacks that appear in a significant part of your comments. Arnoutf (talk) 17:59, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
Nazis in Western and Soviet service
I have archived the presiding discussion, as it has turned into personal matters and is no longer useful in improving the article.
In the article itself I have added a paragraph with links to the main articles Operation Paperclip, Operation Osoaviakhim, Reinhard Gehlen and Gehlen Organization. Feel free to improve the wording or provide better references.
On the question posed by Nick-D, it is generally agreed that the integration of former Nazis and collaborators into the Western Cold War organizations played a key role in the origins of the Cold War. A Soviet decision to stop prosecution of Nazis played no such role – on the contrary, Soviet prosecution of collaborators was a major irritant in the West. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 19:54, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Okay, so I've come out of hiding (for the moment). Only to point out that wiki rule doesn't allow use of links to other articles to serve as references. I note that Petri (nor anyone else for that matter), does not give any ref sources.
- However, If anyone does want to pursue some of the numerous documented sources available on this topic, I'd suggest Stan Winer's Between the Lies (2nd edn) London: 2007, which provides a detailed, very well researched and sourced chapter (re the Cold War recruitment of nazis) that is of direct relevance to this topic. Milhist censors have of course banned the book from use as a reference source on wiki. But, as Paul Siebert has pointed out in earlier discussion, (now archived): "... the facts and sources he (Winer) cites are correct and reliable." --Paul Siebert (talk) 18 Aug 2010. Since Paul states on his user page that he has a Phd in History, he probably knows what he's talking about.
- For my part, I'll not be engaging with any resultant talk arising from mention here of the book's disputed merits. It's a deadhorse for wiki discussion. The book is nonetheless out there for whoever wants to consult the correct and reliable references contained in it. I am not the author or the publisher of the book. Communicat (talk) 21:41, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
- Re: "...it is generally agreed that the integration of former Nazis and collaborators into the Western Cold War organizations played a key role in the origins of the Cold War". I would say, the casual linkage is inverted here. Western countries abandoned denazification because the Cold War started.
- "In the following pages denazification in the American zone of occupation only will be analyzed. As to the Soviet zone, it might be claimed that denazification has been a success, in the sense of the second group referred to above, since it was used to eliminate social groups like big land owners and industrialists, i.e., groups which to a large extent had been responsible for the access of Nazism to power, and whose continued power might conceivably facilitate seizure of power by a neo-Nazism in the future. However the wholesale political use to which denazification in that zone has been perverted precludes it from being considered genuine denazification in the sense originally understood by at least the Western partners of the anti-Hitler alliance."
- "It seems significant that not only in Germany but everywhere in Europe such policies as purges of fascists and prosecution of Axis collaborators have by now been "coordinated" under the impact of the bipolarization of power in the world. They have thus been perverted into tools of the power politics of the two major blocs.
- Thus, in the Soviet sphere, purge of Nazis and Fascists soon became the tool for indicting any opponent of Communist totalitarian rule and for eliminating him as a " fascist collaborator", whether or not he had been one under the Axis rule. Was it necessary, then, for the Western countries to welcome as " allies" in their anti-Communist stand not only those democratic non-Communists, on whom Communists undeservedly place the stigma of " collaborators" , but also the real former collaborators and Fascists? This may, indeed, have its advantages from the standpoint of power politics. As a German put it the other day: "After all, we are experienced Russenkampfer." If so, the moral superiority of the nontotalitarian West is " expendable ". Even from the standpoint of an apparently realistic power politics, however, this policy, in the specific instance of Germany, seems not to be without risk."(John H. Herz. The Fiasco of Denazification in Germany. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Dec., 1948), pp. 569-594)
- However, in any event, there was a deep linkage between CW and abandonment of the denazification policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:57, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Re: "...it is generally agreed that the integration of former Nazis and collaborators into the Western Cold War organizations played a key role in the origins of the Cold War". I would say, the casual linkage is inverted here. Western countries abandoned denazification because the Cold War started.
- By "the integration of former Nazis and collaborators into the Western Cold War organizations" I mean not the lack of "denazification", but the role collaborators like Ain-Ervin Mere played in operations like Operation Jungle. None of this was public knowledge in the West in 1948; the Soviets however knew all about it. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 04:12, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)If I understand correct, Operation Jungle and similar events were a part of already ongoing Cold War. They just further deteriorated Soviet-Western relations, that had already become bad. In other words, these events hardly triggered the Cold War, although they could significantly contribute into the growth of tensions between the USSR and the Western Allies.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- By "the integration of former Nazis and collaborators into the Western Cold War organizations" I mean not the lack of "denazification", but the role collaborators like Ain-Ervin Mere played in operations like Operation Jungle. None of this was public knowledge in the West in 1948; the Soviets however knew all about it. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 04:12, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- As it appears that there's no consensus to include the para, I've just re-removed it and posted it below to aid discussions/further work on it. I continue to regard it as being both unnecessary and inaccurate. Please do not re-add it to the article until there's a consensus to do so. Nick-D (talk) 04:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- German technology was transferred to the U.S. and Soviet Union in operations Paperclip,[2][page needed] and Osoaviakhim. Britain and the United States soon abandoned their war crimes programmes and policies of denazification in favour of realpolitik,[3][page needed] leading to large numbers of former Nazis being allowed to emigrate to these nations and their dependencies.[2] Secret arrangements were concluded between American military intelligence and former key figures in the anti-communist section of German military intelligence or Abwher, headed by General Reinhard Gehlen, to advise the Americans on how to go about establishing their own anti-Soviet networks in Europe.[4][5][6]
- Re " both unnecessary and inaccurate" Please, explain, what concretely is inaccurate here. With regard to "unnecessary", please, keep in mind that the whole American Moon program became possible due to Werner von Braun, so the mention of Paperclip is definitely needed (cannot tell anything about Osoaviakhim, because the contribution of German scientists into similar Soviet programs seems to be much more moderate). Abandonment of denazification is also important, as well as the mention of ex-Nazi collaboration with the West. The para is probably too wordy for such a summary style article, so let's think how to make it more laconic.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:07, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- I've done so above Paul (in this edit). Nick-D (talk) 05:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Protection of Nazi mass murderers and criminals by West Germany like Heinz Reinefarth definetely served as major source of animosity with Poland. Also see amnesty law issued by Adenauer:
- I've done so above Paul (in this edit). Nick-D (talk) 05:15, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
[3] "As of January 31, 1951, the amnesty legislation had benefited 792,176 people. They included people with six-month sentences, but also about 35,000 people with sentences of up to one year who were released on parole. Frei specifies that these figures include a bit more than 3,000 functionaries of the SA, the SS, and the Nazi Party who participated in dragging victims to jails and camps; 20,000 other Nazi perpetrators sentenced for "deeds against life" (presumably murder); 30,000 sentenced for causing bodily injury, and about 5,200 charged with "crimes and misdemeanors in office"". --MyMoloboaccount (talk) 12:25, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Re: "I still regard it as a POV mess - in essence it argues that the west quickly papered over its opposition to the Nazis in order to gain access to German technology and intelligence networks." Not completely correct. The para states:
- "German technology was transferred to the U.S. and Soviet Union in operations Paperclip,[2][page needed] and Osoaviakhim."
- which by no means implies that cessation of denazification was connected to transfer of technologies. According to the para, the technologies had just been transferred (btw, both to the West and East. I see no POV here.). With regard to realpolitik, this statement seems to be supported by reliable sources.
- Re: "The suprisingly rapid democratisation of post-war Germany is ignored, as is the continuing western military-led occupation of the country." The fact that something has been left beyond the scope is not an argument. The missing facts can be added; let's discuss that.
- Re: "Moreover, it leaves out the substantial transfers of technology to France and Britain." If you think it was important, let's discuss how should this material be presented in the article.
- Re: "The claim that "Britain and the United States soon abandoned their war crimes programmes" is plainly nonsense given that hundreds of key Nazis were successfully prosecuted and war crimes trials of individuals continue to this very day (including many conducted by Germany during the 1950s and 1960s)." I see no nonsense here. The fact that key Nazis were prosecuted after the war does not contradict to the fact that the denazification program had been partially abandoned later. This para's statement has been supported by the reliable source, I also presented the source confirming that, and I can present more. If you believe it is not a mainstream POV, please, provide a source confirming your point.
- Re: "The statement that "large numbers of former Nazis" moved to Britain and the US is also very dubious - what's a 'large number'?" This piece of the text seems to be too detailed for this article, and I agree it should be made shorter.
- Re: "All up, this para is attempting to push a fringe interpretation of post-war events and I still think it has no place in the article." I am still unable to understand what part of this para is fringe. The fact that German technologies were massively transferred to the West? Disagree. The fact that denazification was abandoned? Yes, it would be more correct to say that it was abandoned partially, so the para needs to be modified. The fact that ex-Nazi provided very significant help to into British and American intelligence during the Cold War? That fact is well known, although, maybe, we don't need to go into these details is this concrete article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:43, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Restructuring Aftermath section
- With 170Kb this is already a very long article. So let's be extremely careful not to add more detail than absolutely needed.
- If we consider the whole aftermath section if is built from the following paragraphs (extremely abbreviated)
- Foundation of UN
- Descent into Cold War
- Soviet power over Eastern and Central European countries
- Denazification / move of nazis to the west (the discussed para)
- US influence over Japan & foundation of NATO (the latter is a bit weird first better with cold war para I guess)
- Peoples republic of China founded (communist take over)
- Korea war (*)
- Decolonization
- Economic restoration programs
- Quick economic recovery in France, USSR and Japan (*)
- Lagging recovery in China, big leap forward (*)
- To be honest, reviewing all this I think there are several paragraphs that are in this section that are less imporant than a brief one about denazification. I doubt especially whether the Korean war requires much attention. Also, while the economic restoration programs are clearly relevant, the follow up in the two paras after that seem to hold too much detail. (I marked these para with a (*) above).
- Of course we need to decide what we want with this section. If we want the immediate aftermath we need to include something about denazification (e.g. including reference to Nuremberg trials), if we are more interested in the long term consequences we should say more about the other issues. My preference would be to keep it to immediate aftermatch rather than a broad series of consequences, as that could fill many articles in itself. Arnoutf (talk) 10:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree that the 'Aftermath' section is over-long (particularly as it's longer than any of the sections on the phases of the war, which is the actual topic of the article). The section is also European-centric, and devotes little space to events in Asia. I'd suggest that (at a high level) the coverage of Europe be trimmed as part of an effort to reduce this section to four or five paragraphs. As a start, the Korean War para could be either removed or reduced to a single sentence (the war started 5 years after the Japanese surrender) and the coverage of the on the post-war economic situation should be written at the global level and be reduced to a paragraph (rather than the current three or so paras covering events in different countries). Nick-D (talk) 22:58, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- How about building the aftermath in the following four paragraphs
- Global recovery of economy (Soviet Industry, Marshall Plan, Japan)
- New geopolitical organisation (foundation of UN, NATO, Warsaw pact and similar)
- Political changes in Europe (occupation and denazification of Germany (Nuremberg trial?), Soviet dominance over Central and Eastern Europe, decolonisation of European powers)
- Political change in Asia (American occupation of Japan (demotian of divinity of emperor), communist state of China emerges)
- I think that would put a more global view on it, with one paragraph for each of the main theatres (Europe and Asia) and the other 2 truly global. What do you think? Arnoutf (talk) 19:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Agreed. It would be good if you proposed your version of this section based on this plan.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:34, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- How about building the aftermath in the following four paragraphs
- I agree that the 'Aftermath' section is over-long (particularly as it's longer than any of the sections on the phases of the war, which is the actual topic of the article). The section is also European-centric, and devotes little space to events in Asia. I'd suggest that (at a high level) the coverage of Europe be trimmed as part of an effort to reduce this section to four or five paragraphs. As a start, the Korean War para could be either removed or reduced to a single sentence (the war started 5 years after the Japanese surrender) and the coverage of the on the post-war economic situation should be written at the global level and be reduced to a paragraph (rather than the current three or so paras covering events in different countries). Nick-D (talk) 22:58, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
New aftermath section
Below my suggestion for a first draft for a new, shorter, aftermath section
I have restructured and summarised the current content of the aftermath section into the suggested four paragraph structure. Can you comment whether I missed essential stuff, whether even more can be removed, the use of English and the general flow of it (i.e. everything). I may still have emphasised the European situation over Asia, that is because I am from Europe and much more familiar with the aftermath there, so if I missed something in Asia, feel free to add. Arnoutf (talk) 17:36, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
The global economy suffered heavily from the war. By the end of the war the largely undamaged US industry produced roughly half of the world's industrial output.[7]Economic recovery following the war was varied in differing parts of the world, though in general it was quite positive. In Europe, West Germany recovered quickly and doubled production from its pre-war levels by the 1950s.[8] In the 1950s, the Italian economy was rapidly growing[9][10] France rebounded quickly, and enjoyed rapid economic growth and modernisation.[11] The Soviet Union also experienced a rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era.[12] The United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin after the war,[13] and continued to experience relative economic decline for decades to follow.[14] Japan experienced incredibly rapid economic growth, becoming one of the most powerful economies in the world by the 1980s.[15] China had reached pre war production by 1953.[16]
In an effort to maintain international peace,[17] the Allies formed the United Nations, which officially came into existence on 24 October 1945,[18] and adopted The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, as a common standard of achievement for all member nations.[19] The alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate even before the war was over,[20] and the powers each quickly established their own spheres of influence.[21], leading to two international military pacts, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact military alliances and the start of the Cold War between them.[22]
In Europe, Germany and Austria were controlled by the allies; and a program of denazification was started. The Soviet Union, expanded its territory by directly annexing several countries it occupied as Soviet Socialist Republics such as Eastern Poland,[23] the three Baltic countries,[24][25] part of eastern Finland[26] and northeastern Romania.[27][28] The eastern and central European countries states that the Soviets occupied at the end of the war became Soviet Satellite states, such as the People's Republic of Poland, the People's Republic of Hungary,[29] the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic,[30] the People's Republic of Romania, the People's Republic of Albania,[31]. Later East Germany would be created from the Soviet zone of German occupation.[32] While the European colonial powers attempted to retain some or all of their colonial empires, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered this unsuccessful, leading to rapid decolonisation.[33][34]
In Asia, the United States occupied Japan and administrated Japan's former islands in the Western Pacific, while the Soviets annexed Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands; the former Japanese-governed Korea was divided and occupied between the US and the Soviet Union, which was the precursor of theKorean War[35]. In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war in June 1946. Communist forces were eventually victorious and established the People's Republic of China on the mainland, while nationalist forces ended up retreating to Taiwan in late 1949.[36]
- The new version is generally good. In my opinion, a greater emphasis on Europe/Atlantic is correct, because the WWII's focus was there. The first para draws somewhat idyllic picture. I think, it is needed to describe the situation in major European countries, including the degree of devastations, loss/gain of political influence, possibly border changes (others than expansion of the Soviet Union). The words: "The global economy suffered heavily from the war. By the end of the war the largely undamaged US industry produced roughly half of the world's industrial output." sound ambiguously, because the reader can interpret that as this "roughly half of the world's industrial output" was a result of WWII. However, off the top of my head, in 30s the USA produced even more than 50% of the world's industrial output.
- "...and a program of denazification was started." Not only it started, but had been stopped soon after CW started.
- " The European powers started a rapid decolonization after the war" I am not sure the initiative belonged to them. They were forced to start decolonisation because their influence and power were undermined by the war.
- --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Something went awry with edit conflict. Here it is again: Arnoutf You've got it wrong re sequence of events Korea: Here is what happened immediately after end of WW2: As World War II ended, the United States began its involvement in Korea with a three-year occupation from 1945 to 1948, in which the Americans operated a full military government. [37] Feel free to use verbatim. Communicat (talk) 18:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- That looks excellent to me Paul - I endorse using that text to replace the current aftermath section. Nick-D (talk) 23:34, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose until more sources are added to keep this article a GA. I see several unreferenced sentences.--White Shadows Your guess is as good as mine 23:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- That's a fair point. I've added a reference for the Chinese Civil War (along with some dates) but could you please mark the other text which needs to be cited with fact tags? Nick-D (talk) 23:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- General support "The global economy suffered heavily during the war", may help to reduce the ambiguity at the start. It may be worth lengthening the sentence to describe what it was about the war that damaged the global economy if it can be briefly summarized (presumably mostly the interruption in sea & other trade), with a reference. (Hohum @) 00:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)References and grammar are just a technical issues. The Arnoutf's text contains obvious and easily verifiable facts, so it is quite simple to find needed refs. Let's come to consensus about the text first.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:06, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- re: "The global economy suffered heavily during the war" is unneeded oversimplification, because it suffered very non-uniformly. American economy didn't suffer at all, French economy was destroyed only moderately, whereas German, Japanese, Chinese and Soviet economies were devastated. IMO, each major WWII participant deserves few words.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:10, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- That's a fair point. I've added a reference for the Chinese Civil War (along with some dates) but could you please mark the other text which needs to be cited with fact tags? Nick-D (talk) 23:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Oppose until more sources are added to keep this article a GA. I see several unreferenced sentences.--White Shadows Your guess is as good as mine 23:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- That looks excellent to me Paul - I endorse using that text to replace the current aftermath section. Nick-D (talk) 23:34, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- The economy section is given too much emphasis, move it from the beginning, or at least trim it down. It would be useful to link to the Marshall Plan as well as to the Morgenthau Plan and Industrial plans for Germany. The text still retains the "Soviets occupied" while "Americans liberated" territory POV. Also note that the Soviet "enlargement" happened before the Soviet Union joined the war in 1941. The same inaccuracy seems to be repeated here Marshall Plan#Creation of the Eastern Bloc (Ooops, it was there, but now it is gone!). -- Petri Krohn (talk) 01:54, 1 September 2010 (UTC), expanded 02:17, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Returning to the occupation issue: The text now says: The Soviet Union, expanded its territory by directly annexing several countries it occupied as Soviet Socialist Republics such as Eastern Poland,[23] the three Baltic countries,[24][25] part of eastern Finland[26] and northeastern Romania.[27][28]. This is totally untrue: In 1944 these territories were "liberated" by the Red Army. They were annexed in 1940. So even if the statements were factually correct, they have nothing to do with the aftermath of the war. What could be said however, is that "the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states became a contentious issue in Soviet–U.S. relations." As to the other "eastern and central European countries that the Soviets occupied at the end of the war" you could as well say "countries liberated by the Red Army" – that is unless you want to push a DIGWUREN pov of Soviet occupations everywhere. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 02:32, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Words nuclear arms race conspicuously absent from new (and old?) aftermath. Nuclear arms race is/was a central feature of WW2 aftermath. Communicat (talk) 16:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- So, would ending that paragraph and the start of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race between them make sense? --Habap (talk) 17:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not concerned as to where the words nuclear arms race should be placed, I only know they should appear at least somewhere in section.
- So, would ending that paragraph and the start of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race between them make sense? --Habap (talk) 17:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Words nuclear arms race conspicuously absent from new (and old?) aftermath. Nuclear arms race is/was a central feature of WW2 aftermath. Communicat (talk) 16:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- What conerns me more is this: "The European powers started a rapid decolonisation after the war". That particular issue was debated at great length in preceding rework of lead paragraph. Consensus then led to changes re decolonisation issue, and said consensus is not what is now again mis-stated, having gone full circle.
- Re Petri reference to Baltic states: I think the Poland issue overshadows the (mucho complex) Baltic question. As one writer, quoting declassified official documents, puts it: "(The Cold War) began with a heated exchange of correspondence in 1945 (between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill) over whether the Polish Government in Exile, backed by Roosevelt and Churchill, or the Provisional Government, backed by Stalin, should be recognised. Stalin won." Ref: Stewart Richardson, Secret History of World War II, New York: Richardson & Steirman, 1986, p.vi. ISBN 0931933056 .
- The main breakdown in East-West relations came shortly after, when Roosevelt died in 1945 and arch-Cold Warrior Harry Truman became US president. (The record shows a very cordial wartime relationship between Roosevelt and Stalin. But more of this later, at the appropriate time). Communicat (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:32, 1 September 2010 (UTC).
- @ Nick-D "leading to the end of British, French and Dutch colonial empires." needs a source. (I know it's a wate of time since it is true and all but you know how things work here!) Once that is fixed, I'll happily support :)--White Shadows Your guess is as good as mine 20:45, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- As earlier pointed out two postings above, the proposed wording of the new aftermath re "rapid decolonisation etc" is not consistent with the relevant wording in the lead. The appropriate wording in the lead was arrived at after much discussion as first initiated in now archived thread Lead: problemsand continued to consensus at now archived thread Flawed overview, among others. Why then, after all that discussion, has the "decolonisation" issue now resufaced in its originally contested wording and meaning? Is this a subtle form of subversive editing or edit warring? (Possibly not: just incipient paranoia, hey?).
- Separately and at the same time, I'd be much obliged if text and refs that are under discussion are not refactored by anybody (without edit summary or identification) while the discussion is still in progress, thus causing confusion between the discussants, (as happened recently re Brutal Korea). Communicat (talk) 22:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I think there is too much link piping (WP:EASTEREGG) in the draft, though that's a minor quibble. 67.122.209.135 (talk) 02:01, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- In my humble opinion this draft is a pathetically watered-down rendition of what's been discussed and usually agreed upon by everyone except you-know-who. Denazification reduced to half a sentence? Gimme a break. Communicat (talk) 03:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- This uncivil behaviour is getting out of hand Communicat....Stop insulting people Communicat-- Communicat --read Wikipedia:Civility...At this point i think its best Communicat that you simply leave this talk page altogether. Moxy (talk) 04:46, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- In my humble opinion this draft is a pathetically watered-down rendition of what's been discussed and usually agreed upon by everyone except you-know-who. Denazification reduced to half a sentence? Gimme a break. Communicat (talk) 03:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Should the Marshall plan be mentioned in the economy section? What about the Berlin blockade in the cold war part? I realize there's a lot of stuff to get through but there was quite a bit of tension around these things, at least in my limited understanding. Generally I prefer an approach of threading a narrative through some especially sharp events, rather than rattling off a bunch of stuff as a big blur. 67.122.209.135 (talk) 08:36, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I've provided refs for the sentence on decolonisation. I've also tweaked the sentence in these edits; all the sources I consulted stated that the European powers initially tried to restore/retain their empires, but gave up after being either unable to put down revolts (eg, the Dutch in Indonesia and French in Indochina and Algeria) or realised that they couldn't compete against popular nationalism (eg, the British and French in Africa). The reason consistently given for this was the impact the war had on the prestige of the colonial authorities and their resources. Nick-D (talk) 08:28, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, there are.
- Text: "The global economy suffered heavily from the war. By the end of the war the largely undamaged US industry produced roughly half of the world's industrial output.[38]Economic recovery following the war was varied in differing parts of the world, though in general it was quite positive."
- Comment: As I already wrote, this text implies that "US industry produced roughly half of the world's industrial output" as a result of WWII. In actuality, the USA produced even more than 50% of the world's industrial output before WWII.
- Proposal: "'The global economy suffered heavily from the war. By the end of the war the USA were the only major WWII participant whose economy had not been damaged as a result of the war. Economic recovery following the war was varied in differing parts of the world, though in general it was quite positive."
- Text: "In Europe, West Germany recovered quickly and doubled production from its pre-war levels by the 1950s.[39] In the 1950s, the Italian economy was rapidly growing[40][41] France rebounded quickly, and enjoyed rapid economic growth and modernisation.[42] The Soviet Union also experienced a rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era.[43] The United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin after the war,[44] and continued to experience relative economic decline for decades to follow.[45] Japan experienced incredibly rapid economic growth, becoming one of the most powerful economies in the world by the 1980s.[46] China had reached pre war production by 1953.[16]"
- Comment: I already proposed to mention the effect of the war on the economy of major WWII participants separately. It is simply incorrect to discuss economic revival of, e.g., France, which suffered quite moderate damage, with that of Germany or the USSR. In addition, it is necessary to add that not only British economy, but its political influence (not only in a context of decolonisation) started to decline after the war. The same was true for France. In addition, as soon as we write about West Germany, it is necessary to explain where it came from. The text seems to completely ignore splitting of Germany, change of its borders etc, whereas change of the borders of the USSR is discussed in details.
- Proposal: I propose to think about that again. Maybe the next para should be moved up and division of Germany should be added there in a context of spheres of influence. It is necessary to describe the fate of East Prussia, Silesia and other land Germany was forced to cede to Poland.
- Text: "In an effort to maintain international peace,[47] the Allies formed the United Nations, which officially came into existence on 24 October 1945,[48] and adopted The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, as a common standard of achievement for all member nations.[49] The alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate even before the war was over,[50] and the powers each quickly established their own spheres of influence.[51], leading to two international military pacts, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact military alliances and the start of the Cold War between them.[52]
- Comment: As I already proposed, it would be better to move this (and next) para up, before the economic sections, and to add the story about division of Germany and formation of two independent German states along with neutral Austria (which did not fall into any sphere of influence).
- "In Europe, Germany and Austria were controlled by the allies; and a program of denazification was started. "
- Comment: this para should go first because the sequence of the events was as follows: (i) occupation and establishment of Allied administration; (ii) border changes, deterioration of relations; (iii) formation of two independent German states, political blocs etc. With regard to this concrete sentence, it is not clear from it that massive denazification started immediatelly, but had been essentially halted in the West later.
- Proposed text: "In Europe, Germany and Austria were controlled by the allies, who implemented a large scale denazification program, which was suspended later."[53]
- Text: "The Soviet Union, expanded its territory by directly annexing several countries it occupied as Soviet Socialist Republics such as Eastern Poland,[23] the three Baltic countries,[24][25] part of eastern Finland[26] and northeastern Romania.[27][28] "
- Comment: Again, it is not clear for me why the changes of the Soviet borders are being discussed in details, whereas change of German, Polish etc borders remain ignored. In addition, the text is awkward and factually incorrect: no separate Soviet republic were created from the Polish territory east from the Kurzon line: it was annexed to Ukraine and Belorussia. Annexation of the northern part of Eastern Prussia is not mentioned. In addition, the list of border changes is exhaustive, so no "such as" are needed.
- Proposal: The Soviet Union expanded its territory west as a result of annexation of the northern part of Eastern Prussia, part of Polish territory east from the Kurzon line,[23] Eastern Romania,[27][28] part of eastern Finland[26] and three Baltic states[24],[25] " In addition, this text should be supplemented by a discussion of German and Polish border changes.
- Text:"The eastern and central European countries states that the Soviets occupied at the end of the war became Soviet Satellite states, such as the People's Republic of Poland, the People's Republic of Hungary,[29] the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic,[54] the People's Republic of Romania, the People's Republic of Albania,[31]. "
- Comment: Again, no "such as". The most essential is that Communist regimes were installed in there countries and they fell into the Soviet sphere of influence. Yugoslavia is not mentioned at all.
- Proposal: "Communist regimes came to power in the eastern and central European countries with full or partial assistance of the Soviet occupation authorities. As a result, Poland, Hungary,[29] Czechoslovakia,[55] Romania, Albania,[31] and East Germany[32] fell into Soviet sphere of influence and became Soviet Satellite states. By contrast, Communist Yugoslavia retained full political independence and never aligned to any political bloc."
- Text: "Later East Germany would be created from the Soviet zone of German occupation.[32]
- Comment: Should be discussed in the first para along with the West Germany
- Regarding the rest, I have no objections.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
Below is the revised draft of the Aftermath section.
The Allies established occupation administrations in Austria and Germany. The former would eventually become fully independent and neutral state, non-aligned with any political bloc. The latter was divided onto western and eastern occupation zones controlled by the Western Allies and the USSR, accordingly. A wholesale denazification program was started in Germany immediately after the war ended, leading to prosecution of major Nazi war criminals and removal of many ex-Nazi from power, however, generally this program was not successful in the west.[56] Germany lost part of its eastern territories: Silesia, Neumark and most of Pomerania were transferred to Poland, whereas East Prussia was divided between Poland and the USSR. The later also annexed part of Polish territory east from the Kurzon line,[23] Eastern Romania,[27][28] part of eastern Finland[26] and three Baltic states[24],[25]
In an effort to maintain international peace,[57] the Allies formed the United Nations, which officially came into existence on 24 October 1945,[58] and adopted The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, as a common standard of achievement for all member nations.[59] The alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate even before the war was over,[60] Germany had been de facto divided, and two independent states, Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic[32] were created within the borders of Allied and Soviet occupation zones, accordingly. Europe was divided onto Western and Soviet spheres of influence.[61] Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere of influence, which led to establishment of Communist led regimes there, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities. As a result, Poland, Hungary,[29] Czechoslovakia,[62] Romania, Albania,[31] and East Germany became Soviet Satellite states. By contrast, Communist Yugoslavia conducted fully independent policy which had eventually lead to significant tensions with the USSR.[63]
Post-war division of the world was formalised by two international military alliances, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact;[64] the long period of political tensions and military competition between them, the Cold War, would be accompanied by unprecedented arm race and proxy wars.
In Asia, the United States occupied Japan and administrated Japan's former islands in the Western Pacific, while the Soviets annexed Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands; the former Japanese-governed Korea was divided and occupied between the US and the Soviet Union, by which the prerequisites for the Korean War were created[35]. In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war in June 1946. Communist forces were eventually victorious and established the People's Republic of China on the mainland, while nationalist forces ended up retreating to Taiwan in late 1949.[65] While the European colonial powers attempted to retain some or all of their colonial empires, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered this unsuccessful, leading to rapid decolonisation.[66][67]
The global economy suffered heavily from the war. By the end of the war the USA were the only major WWII participant whose economy had not been damaged as a result of the war.[68] However, economic recovery following the war was varied in differing parts of the world, though in general it was quite positive. In Europe, heavily devastated West Germany recovered quickly, partially due to the massive American economic support, and doubled production from its pre-war levels by the 1950s.[69] In the 1950s, the Italian economy was also rapidly growing[70][71] France rebounded quickly, and enjoyed rapid economic growth and modernisation.[72] The Soviet Union, despite enormous human and material losses, also experienced a rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era.[73] Japan experienced incredibly rapid economic growth, becoming one of the most powerful economies in the world by the 1980s.[74] By contrast, the United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin after the war,[75] and continued to experience relative economic decline for decades to follow.[76] China had reached pre war production by 1953.[16]
Feel free to fix/change the proposed text directly. Just explain what have you changed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- The claim that denazification was generally "not successful in the west" needs a much better reference than a 1948 journal article - this is much too early to assess the performance of denazification and vast amounts have been written on this topic in the 62 years since then. The claim that "USA were the only major WWII participant whose economy had not been damaged as a result of the war" is also dubious in economic terms (the war forced a massive reallocation of resources away from more productive uses, even if it had overall positive results) and is also backed by a weak reference (a book focused on US-Japanese trade relations). In terms of the Marshall Plan, it's wrong to only associate it with West Germany, as aid was provided to virtually all western European nations and even offered to the Soviet satellite countries. Nick-D (talk) 11:10, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- The Korea part is misleading. It states "the former Japanese-governed Korea was divided and occupied between the US and the Soviet Union, which was the precursor of theKorean War" (ref James Stokesbury, Short History of the Korean War). Grammar and choice of words: It should read "Korea, formerly under Japanese occupation ..." Secondly, as Publishers Weekly noted in its review of the book quoted, "the author leaves nothing out but the details." One of those details, judging from the wording you've given, is the fact that an American military government ruled throughout Korea from 1945 to 1948. THAT was the precursor to the war. There was no division, as alleged, between the Americans and the Russians. The Russians were in Korea for only a comparatively short period of a month or so, during which they attacked and forced the Japanese to retreat down the Korean peninisula, immediately prior to Japan's surrender. That is not an "occupation" in the generally accepted meaning of the word; whereas America (which had seen no fighting in Korea) became the occupying force, after the Japanese surrender. The words as they currently stand in the "old" aftermath are therefore correct, and IMO should not be thrown out with the bathwater. The accurate and appropriate words as previously provided, are: "The United States began its involvement in Korea with a three-year occupation from 1945 to 1948, in which the Americans operated a full military government." REF Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, Korea: The unknown war, London: Viking, 1988, p.16 ISBN 0670819034 Space limitations don't encourage much more to be stated, unless you want to add, "which was a precursor to the Korean war." (There were other precursors as well). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Communicat (talk • contribs) 15:49, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
- Re political economy: America emerged much richer than any other nation involved in World War II. By the time the war ended, Washington controlled gold reserves of $20 billion, almost two-thirds the world's total of $33 billion. REF Gordon Wright, The Ordeal of Total War, New York: Harper and Row 1968, pp.264-5. Communicat (talk) 16:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
- Dear Nick-D and Communicat. Thank you for your comments. I mostly agree with that, I'll try to modify the draft and to add sources in close future. However, you are also welcome to do it by yourself.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:16, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
- Re political economy: America emerged much richer than any other nation involved in World War II. By the time the war ended, Washington controlled gold reserves of $20 billion, almost two-thirds the world's total of $33 billion. REF Gordon Wright, The Ordeal of Total War, New York: Harper and Row 1968, pp.264-5. Communicat (talk) 16:22, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
- Communicat's view on the Korean War, not surprisingly, appears to be rather odd. The claim that the war was caused by the US occupation of South Korea is nonsense and Soviet military forces were also based in North Korea until 1948 (during which time they installed the Communists in power as what they hoped would be a puppet government). Nick-D (talk) 08:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
- Korea was divided according to the decision of Potsdam conference, and it was agreed later that the regimes would be installed there which share their sponsor's ideology (which eventually occurred both in the north and the south). Regardless of Stalin's intentions, Korean regime was not his puppet (partially because of Stalin-Mao competition). Both North and South regimes planned to unify Korea, although their vision of Korean political future was opposite. That eventually lead to Korean war, although formally it was North Korea who started first. In any event, Korea was not under Soviet and American occupation by the moment the war started, although the US kept a military contingent there. In addition, the US were directly and significantly involved in the conflict, whereas the USSR was not (except limited air support of Northern troops). In connection to that, the words "the former Japanese-governed Korea was divided and occupied between the US and the Soviet Union, by which the prerequisites for the Korean War were created", although formally correct, are not accurate, because they imply that Soviet and American occupation forces were directly involved into the Korean war, which was not the case. I think the wording should be changed to the following:
- "the former Japanese-governed Korea was divided and occupied between the US and the Soviet Union, and the regimes were installed there which shared their sponsors' ideologies, thereby the prerequisites for the Korean War were created".
- With regard to Communicat's " It should read "Korea, formerly under Japanese occupation ..."", it is simply incorrect. Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910; by doing that Japan terminated the state of occupation. Consequently, "Japanese-governed Korea" is correct.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:14, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
- Nick-D, I did not say "the war was caused by the US occupation of South Korea". Please don't misquote me, otherwise I might take it as personal harassment..
- The fact remains: "The United States began its involvement in Korea with a three-year occupation from 1945 to 1948, in which the Americans operated a full military government." REF Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, Korea: The unknown war, London: Viking, 1988, p.16 ISBN 0670819034 (A couple of other available and reliable sources say the same thing). Why are you people so averse to that fact? Hey? Communicat (talk) 19:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
- Korea was divided according to the decision of Potsdam conference, and it was agreed later that the regimes would be installed there which share their sponsor's ideology (which eventually occurred both in the north and the south). Regardless of Stalin's intentions, Korean regime was not his puppet (partially because of Stalin-Mao competition). Both North and South regimes planned to unify Korea, although their vision of Korean political future was opposite. That eventually lead to Korean war, although formally it was North Korea who started first. In any event, Korea was not under Soviet and American occupation by the moment the war started, although the US kept a military contingent there. In addition, the US were directly and significantly involved in the conflict, whereas the USSR was not (except limited air support of Northern troops). In connection to that, the words "the former Japanese-governed Korea was divided and occupied between the US and the Soviet Union, by which the prerequisites for the Korean War were created", although formally correct, are not accurate, because they imply that Soviet and American occupation forces were directly involved into the Korean war, which was not the case. I think the wording should be changed to the following:
- Communicat's view on the Korean War, not surprisingly, appears to be rather odd. The claim that the war was caused by the US occupation of South Korea is nonsense and Soviet military forces were also based in North Korea until 1948 (during which time they installed the Communists in power as what they hoped would be a puppet government). Nick-D (talk) 08:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Temporary references sub-section
- ^ Timothy R. Vogt, Denazification in Soviet-Occupied Germany: Brandenburg 1945-1948. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000
- ^ a b c Tom Bower, The Paperclip Conspiracy: Battle for the spoils and secrets of Nazi Germany, London: Michael Joseph, 1987 ISBN 0718127447
- ^ Tom Bower, Blind Eye to Murder: Britain, America and the purging of Nazi Germany, London: Andre Deutsch 1981 ISBN 0233972927
- ^ Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988, pp.42, 44 ISBN 1555841066
- ^ Richard Harris Smith, OSS: Secret history of the CIA, Berkeley: University of California Press 1972, p.240 ISBN 0440567351
- ^ * Höhne, Heinz; Zolling, Hermann (1972). The General was a Spy, The Truth about General Gehlen-20th Century Superspy. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc.
- ^ Kunkel, John (2003). America's Trade Policy Towards Japan: Demanding Results. Routledge. p. 33. ISBN 0415298326.
- ^ Dornbusch, Rüdiger; Nölling, Wilhelm; Layard, P. Richard G (1993). Postwar Economic Reconstruction and Lessons for the East Today. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. p. 29. ISBN 0262041367.
- ^ Bull, Martin J.; Newell, James (2005). Italian Politics: Adjustment Under Duress. Polity. p. 20. ISBN 0745612997.
- ^ Bull, Martin J.; Newell, James (2005). Italian Politics: Adjustment Under Duress. Polity. p. 21. ISBN 0745612997.
- ^ Harrop, Martin (1992). Power and Policy in Liberal Democracies. Cambridge University Press. p. 23. ISBN 0521345790.
- ^ Smith, Alan (1993). Russia And the World Economy: Problems of Integration. Routledge. p. 32. ISBN 0415089247.
- ^ Dornbusch, Rüdiger; Nölling, Wilhelm; Layard, P. Richard G (1993). Postwar Economic Reconstruction and Lessons for the East Today. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. p. 117. ISBN 0262041367.
- ^ Emadi-Coffin, Barbara (2002). Rethinking International Organization: Deregulation and Global Governance. Routledge. p. 64. ISBN 0415195403.
- ^ Harrop, Martin (1992). Power and Policy in Liberal Democracies. Cambridge University Press. p. 49. ISBN 0521345790.
- ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
lonely planet
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Yoder, Amos (1997). The Evolution of the United Nations System. Taylor & Francis. p. 39. ISBN 1560325461.
- ^ "History of the UN". United Nations. Retrieved 2010-01-25.
- ^ "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights". United Nations. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
* Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty
{{cite web}}
: Invalid|nopp=Article 2
(help); Unknown parameter|nopp=
ignored (|no-pp=
suggested) (help) - ^ Kantowicz, Edward R (2000). Coming Apart, Coming Together. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 6. ISBN 0802844561.
- ^ Trachtenberg, Marc (1999). A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963. Princeton University Press. p. 33. ISBN 0691002738.
- ^ Leffler, Melvyn P.; Painter, David S (1994). Origins of the Cold War: An International History. Routledge. p. 318. ISBN 0415341094.
- ^ a b c d Roberts, Geoffrey (2006). Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953. Yale University Press. p. 43. ISBN 0300112041.
- ^ a b c d Wettig, Gerhard (2008). Stalin and the Cold War in Europe. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 20–21. ISBN 0742555429.
- ^ a b c d Senn, Alfred Erich (2007). Lithuania 1940: revolution from above. Rodopi. ISBN 9789042022256.
- ^ a b c d Kennedy-Pipe, Caroline (1995). Stalin's Cold War. Manchester University Press. ISBN 0719042011.
- ^ a b c d Roberts, Geoffrey (2006). Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953. Yale University Press. p. 55. ISBN 0300112041.
- ^ a b c d Shirer, William L. (1990). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Simon and Schuster. p. 794. ISBN 0671728687.
{{cite book}}
: Invalid|ref=harv
(help) - ^ a b c d Granville, Johanna (2004). The First Domino: International Decision Making during the Hungarian Crisis of 1956. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 1585442984.
- ^ Grenville, John Ashley Soames (2005). A History of the World from the 20th to the 21st Century. Routledge. pp. 370–71. ISBN 0415289548.
- ^ a b c d Cook, Bernard A (2001). Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p. 17. ISBN 0815340575.
- ^ a b c d Wettig, Gerhard (2008). Stalin and the Cold War in Europe. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 96–100. ISBN 0742555429.
- ^ Roberts, J.M. (1996). The Penguin History of Europe. London: Penguin Books. p. 589. ISBN 0140265619.
- ^ Darwin, John (2007). After Tamerlane: The Rise & Fall of Global Empires 1400–2000. London: Penguin Books. pp. 441–443, 464–468. ISBN 9780141010229.
- ^ a b Stokesbury, James L (1990). A Short History of the Korean War. New York: Harper Perennial. p. 14. ISBN 0688095135.
- ^ Lynch, Michael (2010). The Chinese Civil War 1945–49. Botley: Osprey Publishing. pp. 12–13. ISBN 9781841766713.
- ^ Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, Korea: The unknown war, London: Viking, 1988, p.16 ISBN 0670819034
- ^ Kunkel, John (2003). America's Trade Policy Towards Japan: Demanding Results. Routledge. p. 33. ISBN 0415298326.
- ^ Dornbusch, Rüdiger; Nölling, Wilhelm; Layard, P. Richard G (1993). Postwar Economic Reconstruction and Lessons for the East Today. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. p. 29. ISBN 0262041367.
- ^ Bull, Martin J.; Newell, James (2005). Italian Politics: Adjustment Under Duress. Polity. p. 20. ISBN 0745612997.
- ^ Bull, Martin J.; Newell, James (2005). Italian Politics: Adjustment Under Duress. Polity. p. 21. ISBN 0745612997.
- ^ Harrop, Martin (1992). Power and Policy in Liberal Democracies. Cambridge University Press. p. 23. ISBN 0521345790.
- ^ Smith, Alan (1993). Russia And the World Economy: Problems of Integration. Routledge. p. 32. ISBN 0415089247.
- ^ Dornbusch, Rüdiger; Nölling, Wilhelm; Layard, P. Richard G (1993). Postwar Economic Reconstruction and Lessons for the East Today. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. p. 117. ISBN 0262041367.
- ^ Emadi-Coffin, Barbara (2002). Rethinking International Organization: Deregulation and Global Governance. Routledge. p. 64. ISBN 0415195403.
- ^ Harrop, Martin (1992). Power and Policy in Liberal Democracies. Cambridge University Press. p. 49. ISBN 0521345790.
- ^ Yoder, Amos (1997). The Evolution of the United Nations System. Taylor & Francis. p. 39. ISBN 1560325461.
- ^ "History of the UN". United Nations. Retrieved 2010-01-25.
- ^ "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights". United Nations. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
* Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty
{{cite web}}
: Invalid|nopp=Article 2
(help); Unknown parameter|nopp=
ignored (|no-pp=
suggested) (help) - ^ Kantowicz, Edward R (2000). Coming Apart, Coming Together. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 6. ISBN 0802844561.
- ^ Trachtenberg, Marc (1999). A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963. Princeton University Press. p. 33. ISBN 0691002738.
- ^ Leffler, Melvyn P.; Painter, David S (1994). Origins of the Cold War: An International History. Routledge. p. 318. ISBN 0415341094.
- ^ John H. Herz. The Fiasco of Denazification in Germany. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Dec., 1948), pp. 569-594
- ^ Grenville, John Ashley Soames (2005). A History of the World from the 20th to the 21st Century. Routledge. pp. 370–71. ISBN 0415289548.
- ^ Grenville, John Ashley Soames (2005). A History of the World from the 20th to the 21st Century. Routledge. pp. 370–71. ISBN 0415289548.
- ^ John H. Herz. The Fiasco of Denazification in Germany. Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Dec., 1948), pp. 569-594
- ^ Yoder, Amos (1997). The Evolution of the United Nations System. Taylor & Francis. p. 39. ISBN 1560325461.
- ^ "History of the UN". United Nations. Retrieved 2010-01-25.
- ^ "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights". United Nations. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
* Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty
{{cite web}}
: Invalid|nopp=Article 2
(help); Unknown parameter|nopp=
ignored (|no-pp=
suggested) (help) - ^ Kantowicz, Edward R (2000). Coming Apart, Coming Together. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 6. ISBN 0802844561.
- ^ Trachtenberg, Marc (1999). A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963. Princeton University Press. p. 33. ISBN 0691002738.
- ^ Grenville, John Ashley Soames (2005). A History of the World from the 20th to the 21st Century. Routledge. pp. 370–71. ISBN 0415289548.
- ^ Geoffrey Swain. The Cominform: Tito's International? The Historical Journal, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Sep., 1992), pp. 641-663
- ^ Leffler, Melvyn P.; Painter, David S (1994). Origins of the Cold War: An International History. Routledge. p. 318. ISBN 0415341094.
- ^ Lynch, Michael (2010). The Chinese Civil War 1945–49. Botley: Osprey Publishing. pp. 12–13. ISBN 9781841766713.
- ^ Roberts, J.M. (1996). The Penguin History of Europe. London: Penguin Books. p. 589. ISBN 0140265619.
- ^ Darwin, John (2007). After Tamerlane: The Rise & Fall of Global Empires 1400–2000. London: Penguin Books. pp. 441–443, 464–468. ISBN 9780141010229.
- ^ Kunkel, John (2003). America's Trade Policy Towards Japan: Demanding Results. Routledge. p. 33. ISBN 0415298326.
- ^ Dornbusch, Rüdiger; Nölling, Wilhelm; Layard, P. Richard G (1993). Postwar Economic Reconstruction and Lessons for the East Today. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. p. 29. ISBN 0262041367.
- ^ Bull, Martin J.; Newell, James (2005). Italian Politics: Adjustment Under Duress. Polity. p. 20. ISBN 0745612997.
- ^ Bull, Martin J.; Newell, James (2005). Italian Politics: Adjustment Under Duress. Polity. p. 21. ISBN 0745612997.
- ^ Harrop, Martin (1992). Power and Policy in Liberal Democracies. Cambridge University Press. p. 23. ISBN 0521345790.
- ^ Smith, Alan (1993). Russia And the World Economy: Problems of Integration. Routledge. p. 32. ISBN 0415089247.
- ^ Harrop, Martin (1992). Power and Policy in Liberal Democracies. Cambridge University Press. p. 49. ISBN 0521345790.
- ^ Dornbusch, Rüdiger; Nölling, Wilhelm; Layard, P. Richard G (1993). Postwar Economic Reconstruction and Lessons for the East Today. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. p. 117. ISBN 0262041367.
- ^ Emadi-Coffin, Barbara (2002). Rethinking International Organization: Deregulation and Global Governance. Routledge. p. 64. ISBN 0415195403.
Reply to "uninvolved" intervening party
Georgewilliamherbert, in response to your postings above of 23:50, 25 August 2010 (UTC) & 00:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC), I am unable to accept your intervention is that of a neutral and impartial party.
Your stated intervention, at the very outset, alleges "fringe-POV pushing" by me, thus supporting unequivocally the claims of other involved parties, as though those claims are a settled and unquestioned premise, which they are not. In so doing, you have prejudged the issues at hand, and you obviously support the views of those opposed to me, which views I contest. Nor, before jumping to your own wrong conclusions, have you invited my point of view in relation to the partisan editing of the article as complained of by me.
Moreover, you have not familiarised yourself with the full recorded background to this dispute, which runs into many thousands of words. Nor have you exhibited any discernable desire to establish why the editors opposed to me are not prepared to compromise their unyielding positions or to consider alternative historiographic positions, which positions are at the heart of the dispute.
In addition to prejudging the matter and exhibiting bias and prejudice even before acqainting yourself with my side of the story, you have come into this dispute with all guns blazing, in an intimidating fashion and issuing loud threats to ban me. For these and other reasons, you have made it very difficult for me to assume good faith on your part, or to engage with you in reasoned discussion. Communicat (talk) 21:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- I spent about four hours reading and looking at diffs; I'm not sure how much more familiar you want or expect. Most admins would have waded in with far less due diligence.
- If this were purely about historical disputes and you had provided adequate high quality references and resources to the dispute we would not be here. I intervened due to behavioral issues, and in the process concluded that you're not providing adequate evidence to establish that you aren't working from a fringe viewpoint.
- You are welcome to ask additional uninvolved administrators to intervene here. However, I am what you have now. Administrators aren't disqualified by dint of having established an opinion on the incident or behavior they are responding to. They're only disqualified if they have been personally involved beforehand either with the articles or with the persons involved in a significant manner. In this case, I have not been previously involved in any significant way in either manner.
- Your statement that you find it difficult to engage in reasoned discussion is somewhat at odds to our perfectly reasonable exchange where you asked additional questions of me. You asked entirely appropriate context setting questions and I think I answered entirely reasonably. I am perfectly happy to keep discussing reasonably; your response above is somewhat discouraging but doesn't rule out ongoing constructive engagement.
- If you would like to continue arguing the underlying issue of whether you represent a reasonably mainstream or sufficiently well supported minority viewpoint on the underlying history issues, please feel free to do so. That discussion should ideally be on article talk and not article edits per se, until you are able to find some consensus on the points you are supporting. I would especially like to see more survey evidence and a widening of your presented references and resources, rather than continued arguing over single sources. Good information usually is multiply reliably referenced, with multiple reinforcing sources in areas of both factual data and critical commentary regarding the conclusions. There has been a lack of healthy breadth to the source discussions here so far. If you'd like to open it up that would be an entirely reasonable way to discuss things going forwards.
- Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:22, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
- I stand by my statement above. But I shall endeavour to try just one more time. If there's no constructive and conclusive outcome within 48 hours, I'll refer the matter to arbitration.
- Firstly, it would he helpful if you could acquaint yourself with the fundamental precepts of historiography. (There's a useful summary of the subject near bottom of Cold War page. This might obviate future allegations of "fringe POV-pushing" directed at me. But to save you the trouble in the meantime, suffice it to say that historiography basically concerns METHOD. The method of revisionism (or "fringe POV-pushing" as it is falsely described by some editors and by yourself) is basically the revision of pre-existing historical accounts. This method in military history relies frequently on declassified official documents that were previously classified secret and withheld from the public domain. Now, these are my main points:
- (1) WP:FRINGE, (and probably other wiki rules as well), states that: "In general, Wikipedia should always give prominence to established lines of research found in reliable sources and present neutral descriptions of other claims with respect to their historical prominence (and) ideas should not be excluded from the encyclopedia simply because they are widely held to be wrong." Please note that the rule does NOT state: Wikipedia should always give prominence to established WESTERN lines of research found in reliable WESTERN sources." Yet this is exactly what the existing WW2 article does do. Not even one non-Western source is cited among the 340 odd sources cited. This reflects clear POV bias through omission, which may or may not be due to personal political preferences, which have no room in accurate and objective editing.
- (2) Moreover, not even highly authoritative Western revisionist works such as Professor FH Hinsley's, British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its influence on Strategy and Operations, (4 Vols), London: HMSO, 1977-1988 are to be found in the article's source citations. Perhaps this is because Hinsley's work contains some uncomfortable truths, which ultra conservative individuals may find difficult to accept. The same applies to other reliable Western revisionist accounts, a number of which were submitted by me as sources, which were then summarily rejected as "commie propaganda", or "there's not enough space for them", or even more outrageously, the submission of the sources was simply subverted and/or reverted, as was the case recently by Nick-D (see Aftermath section above) while I was in the very process of uploading them.
- (3) Your assertion is false that I have not provided "adequate high quality references and resources" and/or that this is not "purely about historical disputes." The record shows exactly the opposite. Whatever the true reason or reasons for the rejection and/or subversion of the sources provided, and the deeply conservative and partisan nature of the editing of the article, it is clear to me that something needs to be done about this situation, which impacts negatively on the editorial quality of the article. That is why we are here. Communicat (talk) 02:59, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- You already referred this for arbitration - they said "no". My investigation and response to you were as the initial "no" answers were coming in, and was noted over there. They're aware of what's going on.
- Again:
- The problem here isn't (just) viewpoint, it's how you're trying to argue it. It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, nor the usual process for getting more reviewers involved.
- Note that the way you're trying to argue it would be problematic even if the viewpoint was unambiguously mainstream.
- Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Reply continued
(1) To return to your assertion: If this were purely about historical disputes and you had provided adequate high quality references and resources to the dispute we would not be here.
Below is list of NPOV and highly reliable reference sources from a wide spectrum, submitted either as supporting text references in various contexts and/or in support of various relevant discussion topics with a view to suggested textual changes, improvements etc. All of these below were rejected out of hand, and sometimes with insults. (To save time and possibly more wasted effort, alphabetical order, ISBNs, italics, page nrs etc are not shown here but are available if ever necessary at some stage):
- Stewart Richardson (ed.),The Secret History of World War II: Wartime Letters and Cables of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, New York: Richardson and Steirman, 1986,
- Tom Bower, Blind Eye to Murder: Britain, America and the puging of Nazi Germany, London: Andre Deutsch 1981
- Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988,
- Richard Harris Smith, OSS: Secret history of the CIA, Berkeley: University of California Press 1972,
- EH Cookridge, Gehlen, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971
- Philip Snow, The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China, and the Japanese Occupation, Yale University Press: 2003.
- Ian Trenowden, Operations Most Secret: SOE, the Malayan Theatre, London: Wm Kimber, 1978
- Association of Asian Studies, "Anti-Japanese Movements in Southeast Asia during World War II". Abstract (1996) http://www.aasianst.org;
- Yoji Akashi, "MPAJA/Force 136 Resistance Against the Japanese in Malaya, 1941-1945".
- Association of Asian Studies. Abstract (1996) http://www.aasianst.org.
- Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping, London: Faber, 1971.
- Spenser Chapman, The Jungle is Neutral, London: Chatto and Windus, 1948;
- Ian Trenowden, Operations Most Secret: SOE, the Malayan Theatre, London: Wm Kimber, 1978
- Bradley F Smith and Elena Agarossi, Operation Sunrise: The Secret Surrender. New York, 1979.
- R Harris Smith, OSS, Berkely: University of California Press, 1972, pp.114-121
- Vladimir Petrov (ed.), Soviet Historians and the German Invasion, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 1968
- Y Larionov, N Yeronin, B Solovyov, V. Timokhovich, World War II Decisive Battles of the Soviet Army, Moscow: Progress 1984,
- Gar Alperovitz, "How Did the Cold War Begin?" in Walter LaFeber (ed.) The Origins of the Cold War 1941-1947, New York: John Wiley 1971;
- Alexander Werth, Russia at War 1941-1945, New York: Avon 1965:
- Norman Davies, Europe at War 1939-1945, London: Macmillan 2005;
- DF Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins: 1917-1960, New York: Random 1961
- Mao Zedong, Guerrilla Warfare (online link to US Military Corps archive of previously banned books).
- Bruce R Kuniholm, Origins of the Cold War in the Near East, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980
- LS Stavrianos, "The Greek National Liberation Front (EAM): A Study in Resistance, Organisation and Administration", Journal of Modern History, March 1952.
(2) Regarding your latest posting above: You already referred this for arbitration - they said "no". The arbitration request you refer to was in fact exclusively in relation to a matter of process viz., procedural infringement by one Nick-D, which is a completely separate and different matter to this current matter that we are attempting to discuss. I am free to lodge a new request in relation this separate and different matter, should it become necessary. I repeat, if a constructive and conclusive outcome is not forthcoming within 48 hours (of this posting), the matter will be referred to arbitration, since mediation and subsequent attempts at discussion will by then have visibly failed and/or become unmanageable.
(2) Your The problem here isn't (just) viewpoint: Agreed. It's a problem of content and what I suspect is politically biased resistance to certain content and to the free flow of information, viz., it is also a matter of discipline, integrity and ethics.
(3) Your It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, I understand them perfectly, and also the manner in which they are sometimes arbitrarily conducted in violation of wiki standards. In particular I understand that consensus may not involve just the editors concerned, but includes also the wider wiki community, such as arbitrators if necessary as a last resort. And beyond the wiki community there is a wide international community of professional historians, researchers, writers and history institutions, such as George Mason University which recently published the widely quoted article by historian Edwin Black titled Wikipedia: The Dumbing Down of Knowledge.
(4) It is noted that you have not yet addressed the key issues raised in my long, earlier reply above, in particular the absence of parity in reference notation list. It is not necessary for me to repeat them here again. On the face of it thus far, however, it seems you are unable to come up with any convincing response to that specific and central issue.
(5) There is also the small matter of numerous questionable and/or disallowed sources that exist in the present reference list, which one disagreeing party to my mediation request cited as a subject that I'd failed to discuss properly with other editors before going to mediation request. I have since attempted to discuss the duious nature of those sources by providing a number of specific examples. The record shows that my attempt at discussion on that particular issue has so far been met with editorial silence, which I interpret as concurrence. Communicat (talk) 11:49, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Communicat, I guarantee you that arbcom will reject a new filing from you (with the present set of facts) just like they rejected the last one. I've been around a lot of arb cases and I know what it takes to get one started, and you're not even 10% of the way there. The next step if things don't work out here is wp:Requests for comment (RFC). You can start one of those, but I don't think it would go in your favor. You're just completely wrong when you say you understand Wikipedia standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus "perfectly". You've read a bunch of policy documents as if they were statutes, a common newbie error. They're more like grammar manuals, descriptive rather than prescriptive, often in conflict with each other, and not always accurate. Learning Wikipedia practices is like learning to speak a language. You can't do it by reading grammar manuals. You instead have to open your mind and spend a lot of time actually speaking the language and participating in the surrounding culture. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 01:31, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Refactored addition: Behaviour / Collegiality
(1) Re intervening party's claim: "It's evident that you don't currently understand Wikipedia community standards for evidence, discussion, and consensus, nor the usual process for getting more reviewers involved."
The editing rules I've followed are contained in WP:CONS which I quote verbatim: "Someone makes a change to a page (any page other than a talk page), then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to leave it as it is, or change it. When two or more editors cannot reach an agreement by editing, consensus is sought on talk pages ... (the editing process) begins with an editor boldly changing an article ..."
That is precisely the understood procedure, which I have followed and obeyed in spirit and to the very letter. A certain milhist editor / administrator, after I made brief changes (to lead, and to aftermath sections), immediately undid and reverted the changes before allowing other editors to agree or disagree to the change, or to voice any opinion whatever. This is a clear violation of the consensus building process as clearly stated and understood. The editor / administrator then obstructed and disrupted my further attempt to clarify and improve the changes submitted. The content and meaning of the changes originally made by me were only revived after I was compelled to complain loudly and repeatedly.
Whether or not there exists a formal milhist cabal led by one administrator is open to conjecture. However, there certainly exists a small and apparently influential clique of reactionary milhist individuals whose editorial actions and omissions reveal a consistent pattern of blockage and disruption. There is also evidence in the archives of apprehension by other individual editors who fear they will be blocked or intimidated if they contradict or cross swords with the alleged clique. And there is further evidence in the archives of at least one other (non-Western) newcomer whose contributions based on (non-Western) reliable sources were dismissed out of hand as "communist propaganda".
I have been rebuked and threatened for metaphorically describing my own experiences with the milhist clique as comparable editorially to being set upon by a pack of wild dogs. If anyone can come up with a suitably polite alternative metaphor for describing the phenomenon of being singled out as a newcomer, and then being attacked from every angle by people intent on tearing him apart, then I'd like to hear that polite metaphor.
I am not intimated by the repeated threats of banning, blocking or whatever that I've received. Banned editors can still have recourse to the arbitration committee, and of course there's always the open line to Jimbo Wales.
This refactored addition to the discourse between myself and intervening party does not in any way alter the spirit or the meaning of the preceding exchanges between that party and myself. And in any event the intervening party has not yet responded in full and on a point-by-point basis to my preceding submissions. So refactoring should be permissable. If not, I'm posting a duplicate of this addition under a separate section head. Hohum (or whoever) is free to delete only one of whichever posting is deemed inappropriate or unnecessary. Communicat (talk) 19:44, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Dear Communicat, in my opinion, it would be better if you, instead of blaming other persons in various sins, simply presented your version of the text here on the talk page. Try to do the following:
- Explain what concrete article's paragraphs need modification;
- Propose your versions of these para.
- Although you probably have done that somewhere on this talk page, your posts are too wordy, so it is somewhat problematic for me to follow your main idea. Please, for the beginning try to choose a single piece of text which does not satisfy you, propose your own version (with full references and, if necessary, with quotes, just to demonstrate that you transmitted the source's main idea correctly), wait for the response from others and, when all criticism is addressed, implement proposed changes. After that we can pass to other parts of the article. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:55, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- To Petri who cleaned up refs layout: You meant well, but it was hardly worth the effort. Refs were posted solely for the record, and to counter interventionist's assertion that I'd not provided "adequate high quality references." Anyway, looks nice now. Many Thanks.
- To Paul: Yeah, I know my above posts are too wordy, but it had to be done that way, seeing as discussion had and was still becoming increasingly unmanageable and not helpful to the record. All the intertwined threads were being archived out of sequence relative to the order in which they were originally posted and subsequently evolved etc., and some kind of coherent record is necessary for my purposes.
- I need to clear up some macro policy issues before considering any further involvement with that article and some of its editors. In any event, I think I've already achieved my objective with what I'd set out to do initially, which was to precipitate extensive reworking and improvement of the lead (decolonisation etc etc), which was previously in a parlous state and long overdue for a facelift. You did well in reworking all that stuff. And maybe I've managed also to precipitate some improvements to Aftermath section, but we'll just have to wait and see exactly what is to be the outcome there (re denazification etc). Those preliminary few sections are probably the ones most likely to be read before the readers' eyes glaze over. Only the most dedicated soul would be sufficiently motivated to read the rest of that excessively overlong article. Thanks for your comments / suggestions, anyway. Communicat (talk) 20:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Communicat, ISBN's are not important if you give the title and author of a book, since we can easily find the ISBN and other publication info ourselves from a book site or search engine. The most vital thing, and the thing which you leave out in every case, is the page number of a citation in the book that supports the argument you are making, preferably along with a quote of up to a sentence of two showing the exact words with which the book backs you up. Can you supply those please? Saying "the whole book supports my argument" is simply not persuasive here, and will get you nowhere. You have to give the exact chapter and verse or else it's WP:OR. If you've already supplied page numbers and are saying they weren't received appropriately, please supply diffs of your edits with the citations, and of the responses that you're taking issue with.
You also misunderstand how arbitration works. Your requesting arbitration on an issue like this is like a newcomer to the city of London getting in an argument with his neighbor about a spilled drink, and then on not getting satisfaction, marching straight off to Buckingham Palace and asking Queen Elizabeth sort it out. Her Majesty is simply (almost) never going to look at any disputes between subjects unless every possible attempt (negotiations, police, courts, and ballot referenda) have been made to solve them some other way, a lot of people have looked into it and given their own conclusions, and there is still widespread disagreement about what to do. (Note that when one person A says "X" and everyone else says "Y", as seems to be happening here, that's not widespread disagreement, that's general agreement on Y even if person A doesn't like it.) If you refer a matter to arbitration, the first question the arbs will ask is "what else has been tried to solve this problem?" and unless they see a long list of prior failed attempts, they won't take the case.
GWH is doing a good job administratively (you can think of admins as the equivalent of the local police) and has also offered to get into a content discussion with you (he is more than qualified for this, as he knows a ton about military stuff). Have you read our guidelines on reliable sources and citations and our No original research policy? You should be familiar with those before getting in an argument like this.
I think your easiest solution is to switch to editing some other topic for a while, til you have more experience. GWH and others are right in observing that the editing atmosphere for this particular article is not very good. You are potentially a good editor but this place takes a while to get used to. You could also look for help from more experienced editors, perhaps from wp:Adopt-a-user. Finally, if you really want to pursue dispute resolution, the next step is probably to file a Request for comment. That asks for editors from other areas of wikipedia to look in on the issue and say what they think. In this case it's a safe bet that they will say roughly the same things that Arbcom, GWH, and others have already been telling you. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 22:50, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Additional comment I just noticed that Communicat says s/he had an edit or proposal rejected that cited something by Harry Hinsley, a respected WW2 historian. I don't think anything by Hinsley should be rejected as "fringe", though there may have been other reasons to think the edit was misplaced in the article. Communicat, the way to make a claim like that is to include a diff of the edit. The debating style around here basically requires including diffs of anything that you attribute to another editor that you're taking issue with. If your statement doesn't have diffs, it looks like you're presenting opinions without evidence. With the diffs, it's much easier for others to tell whether your complaints have merit. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 07:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- A search of this page and the archives shows that Hinsley has not been rejected, and no concrete edit supported by Hinsley has ever been suggested on the talk page by any editor. Using the article revision history search feature, I couldn't find a reference to Hinsley all the way back to 2003, so it seems unlikely one has ever been included then reverted.
- Anyone is free to suggest a concrete edit, with references, but complaining that particular sources aren't used without suggesting an actual edit is pointless IMO. There are, no doubt, hundreds of reliable WWII sources that aren't used in this article. (Hohum @) 13:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Both of you miss the point completely. Please read my posting properly, which concerned editors' oft-stated aversion / prejudice towards "revisionist" sources. Same editors evidently don't understand the historiographic meaning of "revisionist", which they derisively misinterpret as "commie propaganda", and Hinsley was referred to by me as an example of revisionist work (since Hinsley is certainly not a commie propagandist). The absence of highly relevant and authoritative Hinsley from article's source notations is also a good exmaple of the poor standard of sourcing / bias through omission, or whatever is the cause of said omission. Whereas, by contrast, we have a plethora of dubious questionable sources citing e.g. Kurdish Association of North America, and so forth. See relevant thread —Preceding unsigned comment added by Communicat (talk • contribs) 17:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- The word "revisionism" (in a context of history) has two meanings: the reinterpretation of orthodox views, or Denialism. Whereas denialism is hardly appropriate to this article, reinterpretation of old orthodox views must be included into this article, because majority of existing mainstream historical concepts were revisionist in the past. However, before making any edits it is necessary to demonstrate that these revisionist concepts have already become at least significant minority views.
- One way or the another, the way you want to achieve your goal is hardly satisfactory. You are trying to convince everyone that you are right and only after that you are going to propose something concrete. Although this way seems to be shorter and easier, you can see by yourself that it leads just to endless discussions, which are more relevant to someone's talk page, not to this page. Please, try to propose some concrete text. I am sure that that will be a way out of an impasse.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Full circle: Thanks for now conceding that revisionist accounts "must be included in this article", whereas before you were saying "there's no room in this article for revisionist accounts." But never mind. There's also the small intellectual challenge of accepting that what might be perceived in the West as minority position can and is at the same time perceived elsewhere as significant majority position.
- Both of you miss the point completely. Please read my posting properly, which concerned editors' oft-stated aversion / prejudice towards "revisionist" sources. Same editors evidently don't understand the historiographic meaning of "revisionist", which they derisively misinterpret as "commie propaganda", and Hinsley was referred to by me as an example of revisionist work (since Hinsley is certainly not a commie propagandist). The absence of highly relevant and authoritative Hinsley from article's source notations is also a good exmaple of the poor standard of sourcing / bias through omission, or whatever is the cause of said omission. Whereas, by contrast, we have a plethora of dubious questionable sources citing e.g. Kurdish Association of North America, and so forth. See relevant thread —Preceding unsigned comment added by Communicat (talk • contribs) 17:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- Communicat, ISBN's are not important if you give the title and author of a book, since we can easily find the ISBN and other publication info ourselves from a book site or search engine. The most vital thing, and the thing which you leave out in every case, is the page number of a citation in the book that supports the argument you are making, preferably along with a quote of up to a sentence of two showing the exact words with which the book backs you up. Can you supply those please? Saying "the whole book supports my argument" is simply not persuasive here, and will get you nowhere. You have to give the exact chapter and verse or else it's WP:OR. If you've already supplied page numbers and are saying they weren't received appropriately, please supply diffs of your edits with the citations, and of the responses that you're taking issue with.
- I need to clear up some macro policy issues before considering any further involvement with that article and some of its editors. In any event, I think I've already achieved my objective with what I'd set out to do initially, which was to precipitate extensive reworking and improvement of the lead (decolonisation etc etc), which was previously in a parlous state and long overdue for a facelift. You did well in reworking all that stuff. And maybe I've managed also to precipitate some improvements to Aftermath section, but we'll just have to wait and see exactly what is to be the outcome there (re denazification etc). Those preliminary few sections are probably the ones most likely to be read before the readers' eyes glaze over. Only the most dedicated soul would be sufficiently motivated to read the rest of that excessively overlong article. Thanks for your comments / suggestions, anyway. Communicat (talk) 20:45, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
- Re your Please, try to propose some concrete text. That's exactly what I been doing repeatedly the past, together with sources from established lines of research, and it was either blown up in my face or derisively strangled at birth as "fringe POV-pushing." A lot of thought and labour went into my proposed changes, sourcing etc etc. So, rather than having to go through all that again, (and to have it yet again mauled to death by those who fiercely resist change), it seems to me that the only practical way out of this impasses is via rapid and impartial arbitration, from which we all might learn a thing or two. Communicat (talk) 19:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- Incidentally, I have in fact tried the user-talk page route a few times. It was met with stony silence. Communicat (talk) 19:45, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Communicat, responding to some of your points above:
- You wrote: "A certain milhist editor / administrator, after I made brief changes (to lead, and to aftermath sections), immediately undid and reverted the changes ...". As mentioned before, in Wikipedia dispute resolution, allegations like that are worthless without diffs. If you want anyone to look into it, you have to give the diffs of the actual edits you are referring to. I already pointed to the help page about making diffs, but here it is again: WP:DIFF.
- Your other allegations of people being intimidated, disrupted, dismissed, etc. are also worthless without diffs. I'm sorry but that's just the way it is. Even people sympathetic to you and willing to give you a hearing are not going to read through 40+ volumes of talkpage archives to find the incidents you are complaining about. You have to give the diffs so observers can examine the statements firsthand without having to search for them.
- You also wrote "Re your Please, try to propose some concrete text. That's exactly what I been doing repeatedly the past, together with sources from established lines of research". I'd like to see a diff for that which includes a citation with a page number. I can discuss it with you starting from there. If it has something to do with Stan Winer's "Between the Lies", you either have to establish notability for that book or (probably easier) find a better-known author with a similar viewpoint. I'm no WW2 expert but I think you'll do a lot better trying to insert something cited to Hinsley than cited to Winer.
- I'm sorry I misinterpreted your statement about Hinsley. I thought you meant that you had submitted an edit cited to Hinsley and had it rejected, a complaint worth investigating. You were actually complaining that other people hadn't put anything into the article citing Hinsley, even though you had made no attempt to do it yourself. I overlooked that interpretation because it didn't occur to me that anyone might make such a ludicrous complaint. The way it works is if user X (that would be you) wants the article to include material citing Hinsley, user X is the one expected to find and add that material. Paul Siebert's advice is very well taken and you should try to absorb it as well as you can. If you can write a concrete proposed addition based on Hinsley, that's great, or at least worthy of discussion. Otherwise, you're completely on the wrong track complaining about Hinsley's absence from the article.
- Georgewilliamherbert (GWH) is an experienced and respected admin who does a lot of on-wiki DR (dispute resolution) work. He is doing a good job offering to engage with you about content and help you make good contributions. He is not going to ban or block you improperly. Admins in general don't do improper blocks very often, because they have to know what they're doing in order to become admins at all, and improper blocks get the blocking admin slapped around a fair bit. Most blocks are proper even though the blocked person often thinks otherwise. Actual improper blocks (they do happen sometimes) usually get sorted out at a level far below Arbcom. For that reason, appeals to Arbcom or Jimbo that say "I was blocked improperly" rarely succeed. Successful appeals involve the blocked person agreeing to modify their conduct to not repeat whatever got them blocked. And you might as well forget about Jimbo. If Arbcom turns down your appeal, Jimbo will too.
- Anyway though, the disagreements here aren't yet anywhere near the level of having to talk about blocks in other than a theoretical sense. Right now it's just a tedious but basically civil conversation trying to get misunderstandings straightened out.
- You asked GWH if he'd had formal training as a historian. If you don't mind I'd like to ask you the same question. Wikipedia does have a number of trained historians and they are in general very skilled at evaluating sources and writing arguments based on source citations. It would be helpful if you'd also write in that style.
- More generally I'd really like to suggest that you (temporarily!!!) find a less conflicted area of the encyclopedia to work in. Don't you have any interests besides WW2? The problems you're having in this talkpage are mostly because you're not a very experienced editor yet, and things don't work the way you expect them to, and that gets frustrating because you see others as acting badly, but they in turn see you as a newbie with unrealistic expectations. I think if you'll find it easier to get things done in this article, if you first improve your understanding of wiki collaboration by editing other articles. Thinking you can get that understanding by reading policy documents is a classic newbie error. That's like trying to learn English by reading grammar manuals, and even telling fluent speakers that they're speaking incorrectly, by citing manuals. The result is they laugh at you. The manuals can help clarify some issues, but you really have to learn by actual practice, and it takes a while. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 00:57, 1 September 2010 (UTC) Regards,
67.119.3.248 (talk) 00:57, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Thanks for your comments. As for my failure to provide diffs for mediation / arbitration purposes regarding offensive reverts without offending party allowing discussion, don't worry; I have all the relevant diffs. Where I come from, my understanding is that complainant first states grievance, responding party then replies and indicates whether h/she agrees or disagrees, if the latter, then complainant files evidence, (i.e. would be diffs in case of wiki). But it seems wiki process has other rules. And even if there are rules, the rules are worthless, as you've apparently stated above.
- Re your: If you've already supplied page numbers and are saying they weren't received appropriately, please supply diffs of your edits with the citations, and of the responses that you're taking issue with. Okay, the archives are full of examples, but here's a recent example submitted 23 August 2010 relative to denazification and improvement WW2 Aftermath section and still on the current talk page above, so diff isn't necessary:
- TEXT AS SUBMITTED: Secret arrangements were concluded between American military intelligence and former key figures in the anti-communist section of German military intelligence or Abwher, headed by General Reinhard Gehlen, to advise the Americans on how to go about establishing their own anti-Soviet networks in Europe. REFS: Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988, pp.42, 44 ISBN 1555841066; Richard Harris Smith, OSS: Secret history of the CIA, Berkeley: University of California Press 1972, p.240 ISBN 0440567351 OUTCOME: Quietly dropped from New Aftermath section. Finished. Kaput. Even though there was no consensual agreement to do so. In fact, consensus seemed to support inclusion of this topic. Discussion still on this current page at Restructuring aftermath section.
- Thanks for your interest.
- OK, I found that section. The first thing I noticed was that your proposed paragraph had five citations, but only two of the five citations had page numbers. So anyone examining the paragraph critically will immediately be on edge. You really have to include the page number in each and every citation. Second, I see that an awful lot of your remarks are written rather angrily and are about the actions of other users, rather than trying to discuss the proposed edit directly. That is called BATTLEGROUND editing and it's considered misconduct if it goes on for too long (we all engage in it occasionally so we are pretty forgiving if it's unintentional and doesn't persist). Please try to stay WP:COOL at all times. Third, there were some reasonable doubts raised about the paragraph's neutrality. Neutrality doesn't only mean that the paragraph is cited to mainstream sources, since mainstream sources don't always agree with each other, and your presentation of the source's facts may not match the source's overall viewpoint (that's why we want page numbers, to be able to check the source's viewpoint against yours). Rather, it means you've neutrally summarized the perspective you would get if you took every mainstream source on that subject (plus some minority sources), threw them all in a blender, and sampled the mix, while at the same time citing the individual sentences in your paragraph to specific sources. For a sentence like "When the divisions of postwar Europe began to emerge, the war crimes programmes and denazification policies of Britain and the United States were abandoned in favour of realpolitik." you really have to make a case that this is a wide consensus of many sources, not just one. Otherwise, you have to describe it as being the source's opinion, which is fine in a detailed article, but in an overview article requires justifying the amount of space.
Writing neutrally per the above is of course 1) quite hard to do, maybe even an unattainable ideal, and even harder in a high-level overview article like this, because you have to distill so much material into each sentence (plus you have to make the case that the topic is important enough to include at all); and 2) hard for others to recognize once you've done it, since what constitutes a neutral summary is of course a matter of opinion and can't be determined by a computer. So it's done by a consensus discussion, which means you have to develop much better diplomacy and negotiation skills than you're currently showing. Even after you've written what you think is neutral, you have to convince other people, which usually means accepting some changes that they propose. Regarding #1, you may have an easier time getting a paragraph like that into one of the subsidiary articles, instead of the main WW2 article which may not want to go into such low level details. Regarding #2, just try to relax, be less confrontational, don't threaten people with dispute resolution processes (which you will lose in anyway), that sort of thing. One way to help a paragraph's neutrality is to make it rely primarily on extremely prominent (not merely mainstream) sources, since the most prominent perspectives get the most representation under WP:WEIGHT. You can check prominence of a source by (among other methods) seeing how often it's cited by other works, e.g. through scholar.google.com. Of course that only scratches the surface--you probably know better than I do that historical research training puts a huge amount of emphasis on source evaluation. And you are still required to include some minority perspectives (not necessarily in every paragraph). This is all determined by consensus. There is not any computer formula to weigh sources neutrality, and shouldn't be, since Wikipedia is not "Botpedia". It's all about human collaboration, careful research, and sound editorial judgment, not policies or formulas. The parts of the encyclopedia that revolve around policies and disputes (e.g. partisan politics articles) are IMO basically crap and not worth reading, but this WW2 article isn't nearly that bad. So be nice. Anyway, I hope this helps. 67.122.209.135 (talk) 03:15, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- OK, I found that section. The first thing I noticed was that your proposed paragraph had five citations, but only two of the five citations had page numbers. So anyone examining the paragraph critically will immediately be on edge. You really have to include the page number in each and every citation. Second, I see that an awful lot of your remarks are written rather angrily and are about the actions of other users, rather than trying to discuss the proposed edit directly. That is called BATTLEGROUND editing and it's considered misconduct if it goes on for too long (we all engage in it occasionally so we are pretty forgiving if it's unintentional and doesn't persist). Please try to stay WP:COOL at all times. Third, there were some reasonable doubts raised about the paragraph's neutrality. Neutrality doesn't only mean that the paragraph is cited to mainstream sources, since mainstream sources don't always agree with each other, and your presentation of the source's facts may not match the source's overall viewpoint (that's why we want page numbers, to be able to check the source's viewpoint against yours). Rather, it means you've neutrally summarized the perspective you would get if you took every mainstream source on that subject (plus some minority sources), threw them all in a blender, and sampled the mix, while at the same time citing the individual sentences in your paragraph to specific sources. For a sentence like "When the divisions of postwar Europe began to emerge, the war crimes programmes and denazification policies of Britain and the United States were abandoned in favour of realpolitik." you really have to make a case that this is a wide consensus of many sources, not just one. Otherwise, you have to describe it as being the source's opinion, which is fine in a detailed article, but in an overview article requires justifying the amount of space.
- Thanks for your interest.
Revisionism Consensus?
If there is broad consensus re Paul's assertion above that "reinterpretation of old orthodox views must be included into this article", then a major breakthrough will have been achieved, with possible progress on the horizon. I'd much appreciate if active / involved editors would now indicate either "Yes" or "No". If there's consensus on "Yes", I will be happy to submit a concrete proposal, text and reliable sources for editorial consideration concerning changes. "No", will imply revisionism is still regarded as "fringe-POV pushing", which is at the heart of this dispute, and discussion will be terminated accordingly. Communicat (talk) 22:53, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- in principle yes, but you have to work by suggesting or making concrete sourced changed. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:33, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- The article should reflect the weight of modern scholarship on the war, and I think that this has been largely achieved (though there will always be room for improvement). I'd be happy to consider and comment on any concrete proposals to revise the article's text (which should be posted on this talk page first), but this is always going to have to be a very high level article, and there isn't much room to discuss different interpretations of events - hence the reason the article is simply a description of events and doesn't discuss the causes or results of events in any detail (as there isn't room to do so here and there are multiple sub-articles for just about every sentence in the article where this is - or should be - covered). Nick-D (talk) 23:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
- It isn't important whether you label them revisionist or not. What matters is their reliability. We don't have a quota on revisionist sources. We do have a quota of unreliable sources of zero, and for reliable of 100%. You are asking for a rubber stamp for an unknown variable, and you are unlikely to get it. I suggest that you make a concrete edit suggestion, with the sources you want, and take part in the same wikipedia processes as everyone else. (Hohum @) 00:49, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'm perfectly willing to see a variety of non-Western or revisionist sources, provided the article stays at a high level and that the sources are reliable. However, if you bring up Winer again, I will laugh out loud and know you're not serious. I promise to keep an open mind about any other source and review any concrete proposal. --Habap (talk) 01:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Provisional yes. Following Pauls qualifiers that (1) revisionism should not be denialism (which in the context of war crimes of the allies is less far fetched than Paul seems to suggest), and (2) the included revisionist concepts are at least significant minority views (preferably attributed to more than 1 reliable source). Arnoutf (talk) 11:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'm perfectly willing to see a variety of non-Western or revisionist sources, provided the article stays at a high level and that the sources are reliable. However, if you bring up Winer again, I will laugh out loud and know you're not serious. I promise to keep an open mind about any other source and review any concrete proposal. --Habap (talk) 01:29, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Simple "yes" or "no" would have sufficed. But for purpose of this poll I'll take it as four times "yes", regardless of qualifications and preconditions attached. Two or three abstentions from other active editors noted. Loud silence from "uninvolved" intervening party, so I'll take that as an abstention as well. I'll wait another 24 hrs for any late response, then I'll take it from there. Communicat (talk) 23:23, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Um. Wikipedia is not about Black and White. If you can't follow the policy's greyness here (Arnoutf's conditions seem reasonable) then you're going to get yourself in trouble rapidly.
- We've always had policy on minority viewpoints. We certainly encourage discussion of them. We also have WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV.
- If the sources are notable, meet Reliable Sources policy, and you can keep proportional balance in coverage and not singlemindedly promote fringe viewpoints (revisionist or not) then go ahead.
- Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:48, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'll take that as a "yes". WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV are precisely the rules that I propose be enforced. Communicat (talk) 01:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I was, before you blocked me, going to provide some concrete text & reliable sources, seeing as every one polled was ostensibly in support of the view that "reinterpretation of old orthodox views must be included into this article". However, plans have changed in view of subsequent developments and arrangements. So, no concrete text and supporting refs for you. See instead new section at bottom of page. Communicat (talk) 00:53, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
SIGINT
Article says "SIGINT (signals intelligence) was the countering process of decryption". SIGINT refers to all forms of signals intelligence, such as traffic analysis, interception of non-encrypted traffic, and processing of info acquired by intercepts. Sentence should say "Cryptanalysis was the countering process of decryption". Next sentence about deception, how about mentioning Englandspiel (aka Operation Nordpol) on the Axis side. The overall section covers good stuff but IMO it should be expanded, since it had longer reaching consequences than a lot of battles and operations that (while consequential for the participants) are important taken as an aggregate but individually start sounding all the same. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 03:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Support..I like this proposal...can only help readers understand better if we link this up.Moxy (talk) 04:10, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Neither the current text or the proposed replacement reads well. I'd suggest that it be reworded as something like "The Allies and Axis attempted to break their opponents' codes, with the most successful examples of this being the Allied cryptanalysis of the Enigma and breaking of the Japanese naval codes." I'm not very familiar with Axis codebreaking successes, but they weren't comparable in their scope to those of the Allies so any comparison would need to be carefully worded. Nick-D (talk) 04:30, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Per Hinsley[4],
- They [Allied cryptanalysts] were hardly ever rivalled by Axis success in reading our ciphers. There were two major exceptions to the lack of success by the Axis against Allied ciphers. One was that they did have some success in reading a British naval cipher which was for a longish time also shared with the American navy in relation to convoy escorting.
They were successful in reading that for a long period from 1940 to the end of '42. And the other was that they didn't exactly capture but they managed to extract of copy of the cipher that was being used by the American Military Attache in Cairo for a period when Rommel was at his most dangerous. And from that too the Germans obtained some great advantage.
But generally speaking, except possibly in relation to the convoy cipher, there was never any great cryptanalytical rivalry. The Germans were completely outclassed in terms of Ultra. The Italians also made very little progress against any important allied cipher.
- They [Allied cryptanalysts] were hardly ever rivalled by Axis success in reading our ciphers. There were two major exceptions to the lack of success by the Axis against Allied ciphers. One was that they did have some success in reading a British naval cipher which was for a longish time also shared with the American navy in relation to convoy escorting.
- German cryptanalysis of British naval ciphers is also discussed a bit in Stephen Budiansky, "Battle of Wits" chapter 8, "Paranoia is our profession". The Germans also broke the US M-209 machine cipher but that was only used for lower level traffic AFAIK. There is some info in the M-209 article. A book came out a few years ago about German cryptanalysis based on recently declassified info. I've been wanting to read it but I don't remember the title. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 05:18, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Might be worth mentioning the Western Allies never shared the Ultra secret with their Soviet ally, which left the USSR at distinct strategic disadvantage in fight against Hitler. See Winterbotham et al. Communicat (talk) 16:20, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Hinsley discusses that a little in the talk that I cited just above. It's been a while since I read Budiansky's book but I think it's also mentioned in there. Basically they were sure that the Soviets wouldn't have been able to keep it secret. Winterbotham's book created a sensation when it came out, because it brought info about Ultra to a public that knew nothing about it before, but Winterbotham himself wasn't that aware of the big picture, and the book is full of errors. It's better to go by newer sources that have the benefit of info that came out after Winterbotham's book. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 16:54, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Winterbotham's book has some errors because he was forced to write it completely from memory, Brit govt having denied him access to official docs of the time. His assertion that at no time did MI consider sharing Ultra intel with the Russians has never been contested, not even by MI. His book is notable because it opened the floodgates for other works about Ulta, most notably Bennett's authoritative work with which you're no doubt familiar. Importance of Ultra in Western Allied strategy is either absent from or completely downplayed in wiki milhist articles. When I did submit a reliable Bennett reference (journal article "Ultra and some command decisions") with sourced page numbers etc to one milhist article Western Betrayal some time ago, it was promptly thrown out by consensus as "commie propaganda". That kind of censorship by a reactionary clique has got to change. An uphill task. Communicat (talk) 00:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Do you have a diff about your Bennett reference being rejected? I haven't read Bennett's books but AFAIK they should be usable as Wikipedia sourcing, though I think they are from the 1980's. A lot of formerly secret US and UK Ultra-related docs were released in the late 1990's, and so books published in 2000 or later that used this material should be considered the most reliable. According to Hinsley, the UK did give Ultra intel to the Soviets, though they didn't tell the Soviets about the actual Ultra program (they said the info was coming from spies rather than from codebreaking). Budiansky may also say something about this. Anyway, please try to relax a bit. 67.122.209.135 (talk) 01:38, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- I can provide releant diff at opportune and appropriate time. Meanwhile, I don't agree with your assessment as to which books are "most reliable". if you're not acquainted with Ralph Bennett, then we're not on the same page. I'd recommmend his work Ultra and Mediterraen Strategy, and also his article "Ultra and some command decisions", Journal of Contemporary History, Vol 16, 1981.
- Do you have a diff about your Bennett reference being rejected? I haven't read Bennett's books but AFAIK they should be usable as Wikipedia sourcing, though I think they are from the 1980's. A lot of formerly secret US and UK Ultra-related docs were released in the late 1990's, and so books published in 2000 or later that used this material should be considered the most reliable. According to Hinsley, the UK did give Ultra intel to the Soviets, though they didn't tell the Soviets about the actual Ultra program (they said the info was coming from spies rather than from codebreaking). Budiansky may also say something about this. Anyway, please try to relax a bit. 67.122.209.135 (talk) 01:38, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Winterbotham's book has some errors because he was forced to write it completely from memory, Brit govt having denied him access to official docs of the time. His assertion that at no time did MI consider sharing Ultra intel with the Russians has never been contested, not even by MI. His book is notable because it opened the floodgates for other works about Ulta, most notably Bennett's authoritative work with which you're no doubt familiar. Importance of Ultra in Western Allied strategy is either absent from or completely downplayed in wiki milhist articles. When I did submit a reliable Bennett reference (journal article "Ultra and some command decisions") with sourced page numbers etc to one milhist article Western Betrayal some time ago, it was promptly thrown out by consensus as "commie propaganda". That kind of censorship by a reactionary clique has got to change. An uphill task. Communicat (talk) 00:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Hinsley discusses that a little in the talk that I cited just above. It's been a while since I read Budiansky's book but I think it's also mentioned in there. Basically they were sure that the Soviets wouldn't have been able to keep it secret. Winterbotham's book created a sensation when it came out, because it brought info about Ultra to a public that knew nothing about it before, but Winterbotham himself wasn't that aware of the big picture, and the book is full of errors. It's better to go by newer sources that have the benefit of info that came out after Winterbotham's book. 67.119.3.248 (talk) 16:54, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Might be worth mentioning the Western Allies never shared the Ultra secret with their Soviet ally, which left the USSR at distinct strategic disadvantage in fight against Hitler. See Winterbotham et al. Communicat (talk) 16:20, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
- Per Hinsley[4],
- As for intel provided to Soviets: I'm fairly certain Churchill's selective provision of Ulta intel to the Soviets was strategically self-serving. Also, it's one thing to provide someone with intel that YOU surmise he needs, and another thing entirely to provide intel that he knows he needs. Far as article is concerned, the point is that 10 years after the article's first appearance, reliable Hinsley and Bennett remain conspicuously absent from references, (as is conspicuously absent from the article content the crucial matter of strategy per se); whereas there's a preponderence of minutae about mostly side-show issues, and what one editor has aptly described as "crappy POV pushing references." In other words, sloppy and partisan editing, whatever the reason or reasons for it. Communicat (talk) 17:41, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Communicat, please consider this to be an opportune and appropriate time to provide the diffs. I'm interested in looking at them. There is absolutely no reason to keep them in your pocket. I can't evaluate your claim of having had a Bennett citation rejected unless I see a diff. You can keep repeating the claim until you are blue in the face, but it won't be taken seriously until a diff appears. I'm just not interested in hearing any more about that claim unless you provide a diff. That's part of the culture here: no diff = no credibility.
I'm aware of Bennett's books, I just haven't ever gotten around to reading them. If you want me to check out your claim that they say something about Churchill withholding Ultra intel from the Soviets, you have to give page numbers. If you do that, I will go to the library and see if I can check them. I'm not going to read through 1000's of pages (IIRC there are 4 volumes) looking for mentions of intel withheld from Soviets. I did manage to download and skim the "command decisions" article (from 1981) and it basically said a lot was unknown because relevant docs weren't released. The docs came out later so I'd expect a lot of the then-unknown stuff is now known, thus the notion that newer sources are better. I also didn't notice anything in it about intel sharing with the Soviets but again, if you give a page number I will check it.
More cogently, Ultra right now occupies about half a sentence in the article. I'm in favor of expanding it considerably, like maybe to two or three sentences, e.g. about its use in the North Africa campaign. Anything about the details of intel transfer to the Soviets would IMO be way too deep in the weeds to mention in this article unless you can show multiple sources giving that issue quite a lot of prominence. Again, it would be fine in one of the subsidiary articles if you've got cites to Hinsley or Bennett with page numbers. The overview article has to present a stupendously complex subject in a limited space, so has to give a very selective, high-altitude view. If you're interested in writing about fine-grained details about intel transfer, that's great, you're just in the wrong article for that. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 21:06, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
- Communicat, please consider this to be an opportune and appropriate time to provide the diffs. I'm interested in looking at them. There is absolutely no reason to keep them in your pocket. I can't evaluate your claim of having had a Bennett citation rejected unless I see a diff. You can keep repeating the claim until you are blue in the face, but it won't be taken seriously until a diff appears. I'm just not interested in hearing any more about that claim unless you provide a diff. That's part of the culture here: no diff = no credibility.
- As for intel provided to Soviets: I'm fairly certain Churchill's selective provision of Ulta intel to the Soviets was strategically self-serving. Also, it's one thing to provide someone with intel that YOU surmise he needs, and another thing entirely to provide intel that he knows he needs. Far as article is concerned, the point is that 10 years after the article's first appearance, reliable Hinsley and Bennett remain conspicuously absent from references, (as is conspicuously absent from the article content the crucial matter of strategy per se); whereas there's a preponderence of minutae about mostly side-show issues, and what one editor has aptly described as "crappy POV pushing references." In other words, sloppy and partisan editing, whatever the reason or reasons for it. Communicat (talk) 17:41, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
OK, I found the diffs myself. You added material cited to Hinsley and Bennett to Western betrayal on 23 February 2010[5] and removed it yourself on 16 March.[6] In the edit, the relevant paragraph with cites says:
- At no time during this period and throughout World War II did the Western Allies consider sharing with the Soviet Union their decisive strategic advantage over the enemy, namely the copious and vitally important military intelligence obtained from the ultra-secret interception and decoding of German mility signals at every level of command. This operation, one of the most closely guarded secrets of World War II and code-named Ultra, provided the Western Allies with constant and reliable information about the strength, disposition and intentions of the enemy at any given time. [1] Armed with this vital intelligence, Western military commanders at pivotal moments of the war in Europe made a series of seemingly inexplicable command decisions, the end results of which served to prolong the fighting in Europe while depriving the Red Army of relief on the Russian-German front where the Soviet Union continued to carry the brunt of the war against Hitler.[2]
- ^ FW Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1974; FH Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its influence on Strategy and Operations, (4 Vols), London: HMSO, 1977-1988 (official history); Ralph Bennett, Ultra in the West, London: Hutchinson 1979.
- ^ Ralph Bennett, "Ultra and Some Command decisions", Journal of Contemporary History, Vol 16, 1981, pp.145-6; Ralph Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy 1941-1945, London: Bodley Head 1981
The cites include a book by Winterbotham, 4 volumes by Hinsley, and 2 volumes by Bennett, all without page numbers and therefore unverifiable, plus Bennett's "Ultra and Some Command decisions" article which (yay!!!) finally includes page numbers (pp. 145-6). I downloaded the article through my library's subscription (JSTOR 260620) and skimmed through the whole thing (not too bad since it's just 21 pages) and I read pp.145-6 carefully. I didn't see anything in the whole article supporting the thesis that the Allies kept Ultra intel away from the Soviets, and nothing on pp.145-6 had anything to do with the Soviets or the Russian-German front (the pages were about operations inside Europe). The only thing I found about Russia at all was on p. 141, which mentioned Hitler pulled back troops from Russia into France to fight back the Allies after D-day. The claim in your paragraph's first sentence (that the Allies didn't share intel with Russia) contradicts other sources including Hinsley himself (see [[7] Q&A at end). With no slight intended to Winterbotham, I don't think his book is much of an authority on high-level strategic stuff like that. He was an RAF Group Captain whose role in Ultra was basically to take processed intel from Bletchley and route it out to field units in the European theatre. Our article F. W. Winterbotham is pretty consistent with other materials I remember reading and explains further. He doesn't sound likely to have been involved in UK-Russian diplomacy and his book is acknowledged to have many flaws. Budiansky (ISBN 0743217349) p. 268-9 does discuss the issue a little bit but his take is much more nuanced than yours. Basically the UK did give stuff to the Russians but had to be careful because they knew that the Germans had broken the Russian codes, and the Russians refused to fix their procedures, and the Russians were a pain in the neck to deal with in regard to intel cooperation in general.
So overall, your addition above really does come across as propaganda and its sourcing is nowhere near acceptable by Wikipedia's standards for disputed content. It's good that you used some more respectable sources than Stan Winer in that edit, but you really have to change your whole approach to editing. Every contentious statement has to be cited to a specific source with a page number. You have to be able to source not only facts, but also any interpretations of the facts. If a fact or interpretation is disputed or doubtful in any significant way, you can't present it without in-text attribution no matter how good a source you use. You can't write "X happened [cite]"; you have to write "So-and-so says X happened [cite]". The one verifiable source you gave (the Command Decisions article) could support a claim that European theatre commanders didn't always use Ultra intel as well as they might have (the errors sounded to me like standard military snafus), but your connecting that with the Soviets looks like pure WP:SYNTH. So I can't really defend you from much of the criticism you've received at this point. I dug up your edit so I could give you some independent corroboration if the edit was any good, but I'm afraid it totally failed. Probably anything else you've written that's still in WP articles has to be checked against its citations as I did above, or else removed if the cites don't have page numbers. Regards, 67.122.211.178 (talk) 05:53, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- This is not the only article where Communicat is making claims (that whether true or not) are not supported by the sources. I discuss some of this briefly in the last section of Talk:History of South Africa. The evidence provided here by 67.122.211.178 convinced me it was better to scrap Communicat's edits there rather than pick through and attempt to find the bits actually supported by the sources. Edward321 (talk) 13:46, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- Eward, If you have a problem with my edits at South Africa history page, please raise queries and discuss them there before reverting without any discussion. Your attention is drawn to WP:CON. Communicat (talk) 22:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- Pls see Wikipedia:Burden of proof and Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle.Moxy (talk) 22:32, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- Unsigned editor above: WP:TLDR By the way, Cavendish sugests Philby told Russians about existence of Ultra, so Churhill hiding it from them was probably a waste of time anyway. Thanks for your interest. Try to relax a bit. Communicat (talk) 22:28, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, Hinsley says the same thing in that talk I linked. I wonder if anything has come out of the former USSR archives about it. Anyway, look, your editing has a bad problem and I went to some trouble to lay it out for you (or for other users if it comes to that). You write like a historian, combining data from multiple sources to create your own thesis and present it. That's great for history journals, but unacceptable for Wikipedia. I hope you can change your pattern. If not, there is IMO enough evidence already for a fairly solid RFC against you. Please change. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 23:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- Moxy, I get rudely rapped over the knuckles when I refactor. But you get away with it. Never mind, because in any event there seems to be a WP rule for everything, and a WP rule against everything. The real intellectual challenge seems to be to find a balance between the two, which nobody inluding myself seems able to do.
- Re unsigned editor above: Thanks. You have been the very first editor to provide helpful criticism and guidance, which I believe is supposed to be the function of administrator. Usually my work is simply undone and reverted by admin and others without discussion; a kind of slap in the face. Talk about civility. Hmmm. Nice people.
- Suggestion: instead of administrators and others engaging in endless displacement activity, why isn't anyone prepared to address the real issue around here, namely the primary issue I raised (again) at Reply to uninvolved intervening party which bears repeating:
- WP:FRINGE, (and probably other wiki rules as well), states that: "In general, Wikipedia should always give prominence to established lines of research found in reliable sources and present neutral descriptions of other claims with respect to their historical prominence (and) ideas should not be excluded from the encyclopedia simply because they are widely held to be wrong." Please note that the rule does NOT state: Wikipedia should always give prominence to established WESTERN lines of research found in reliable WESTERN sources." Yet this is exactly what the existing WW2 article does do. Not even one non-Western source is cited among the 340 odd sources cited ....
- On my bookshelf right here beside me are no less that seven English language non-Western histories of WW2, some of them by Soviet historians. So there's no question about the existence of English language non-Western histories. These are considered reliable and established lines of research in their respective non-Western countries of origin, just as the Western sources cited in the article are considered to be reliable and from established lines of research in the West. Therefore both Western and non-Western positions should be reflected in the article, if it is to claim that it's NPOV, which it is not. Forget about all the efforts to discredit me, some of which are perfectly valid. Just address the issue at hand, namely POV bias through omission as repeatedly alleged by me, and which has resulted in a lot of displacement activity that seeks to evade the central issue of NPOV. Even or especially the intervening administrator has managed to evade the issue. The unsigned editor in this section admits that he has reliable access to history library resources so, if he has the time and inclination, maybe HE can come up with some reliable non-Western sources in the interests of NPOV, which everyone claims I'm contravening (among other things). Communicat (talk) 23:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, Hinsley says the same thing in that talk I linked. I wonder if anything has come out of the former USSR archives about it. Anyway, look, your editing has a bad problem and I went to some trouble to lay it out for you (or for other users if it comes to that). You write like a historian, combining data from multiple sources to create your own thesis and present it. That's great for history journals, but unacceptable for Wikipedia. I hope you can change your pattern. If not, there is IMO enough evidence already for a fairly solid RFC against you. Please change. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 23:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry that was misinterpreted.... I was not trying to bite you i was just trying to show you a few more pages...before someone else goes into a rant quoting the 2 pages.(juts trying to prevent long talks about nothing.)Moxy (talk) 00:01, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- Unsigned editor Re page numbers issue: allow me to confess my modus operandi. When I've been submitting material, my primary objective was /is to introduce an IDEA, with some supporting material to show the direction the idea might take. The material as submitted either has page numbers, or no page numbers, or page numbers that are not entirely accurate. This is because I don't want the refs to be plagiarised to the benefit only of college students who trawl these pages in search of reliable refs for their "own" essays. If, in the unlikely event, the IDEA is accepted and contribution retained, then I can and do correct the page numbers. It can then still be plagiarised of course, but having been accepted by wiki, the refs are of benefit not only to college kids but also and especially to wiki. I emphasise, my submissions have NOT been rejected solely because of page number references. It is the very IDEA that has been rejected outright and usually without discussion, and so the question does not even arise as to the accuracy or otherwise of the page numbers. You may not like it, but that's the way it was. And there's no point complaining or referring to comment or whatever, because I'm more or less done with that article and its editors, in any event. Communicat (talk) 00:25, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- Incidentally, with regard to the Western Betrayal article that you're citing for my lack of page numbers, I seem to recall that the entire article was itself notable for an absence of page numbers and/or very poor referencing. I merely followed suit, for sake of consistency. Maybe somebody has fixed it since then, probably not. I can't be bothered to check. I think, if you cite tht article, you should read the entire discussion that accompanied it at the time of my involvement, most notably the insults and abuse that I endured, which had nothing to do with page numbers, I assure you. But enough of this. I look forward to your response re Western / non-Western POv primary matter, which is the real matter at issue. Communicat (talk) 01:59, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- Communicat. Are you ever going to suggest a concrete edit, providing reliable sources, as you have been asked many times, which is the way changes are made; or continue to disrupt the talk page with endless complaints, which will achieve nothing constructive? Several experienced editors have given you this advice. Yes or no will suffice. (Hohum @) 01:49, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- No. See my recent posting under poll results, at Revisionism consensus Thanks for your interest. All will become clear later. Communicat (talk) 01:59, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- Communicat. Are you ever going to suggest a concrete edit, providing reliable sources, as you have been asked many times, which is the way changes are made; or continue to disrupt the talk page with endless complaints, which will achieve nothing constructive? Several experienced editors have given you this advice. Yes or no will suffice. (Hohum @) 01:49, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- Eward, If you have a problem with my edits at South Africa history page, please raise queries and discuss them there before reverting without any discussion. Your attention is drawn to WP:CON. Communicat (talk) 22:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Take it or leave it
I know you take some of my ideas seriously, otherwise I would not have managed to precipitate a major revision of the lead and aftermath sections. So I'll try precipitating something further, this time at a macro level. (I'm not complaining about your article, just making some hopefully constructive suggestions towards its overall improvement).
Firstly, You need to get rid of the curious notion that this is a "summary" article. It is the main WW2 article, the overview article, and therefore must present clearly what is arrived at through consensus as the main points of WW2. I suspect it's somehow ended up being dubbed "summary" article because its just so much easier for editors to rehash or summarise existing WW2 sub-articles, rather than engage in the really challening work of researching and establishing by discussion the main points for themselves.
The article is too long by far. Some of the bottom sections can usefully be moved to become stand-alones for further development. This will release space in main article to expand remaining sections and/or include what's currently absent and IMO should be among the main points of the overview (not summary) article, viz.,
(1) Run-up to the war (appeasement etc)
(2) The Big Three and the wartime relationship between them.
(3) Strategy or strategies of all concerned.
(4) Crucial role of signals intelligence (relates to strategy and tactics)
Composite photo at top page has very cluttered appearance (in keeping with clutter of article as a whole). Move the excellent Big Three colour foto from Western Betrayal page to replace cluttered composite pic on top page WW2 main article. Find another pic for Western Betrayal. Yes, I know they (the Poles etc) will complain bitterly, but what the hell, you can find ways 'round that.
Narrative text throughout is dense and far from reader-friendly. Unsigned editor has made very valid comment (under New Aftermath section somewhere) to the effect "Generally I prefer an approach of threading a narrative through some especially sharp events, rather than rattling off a bunch of stuff as a big blur." 67.122.209.135 (talk) 08:36, 2 September 2010 (UTC). And that article sure is one big blur.
That's all I have to say. Take it or leave it. I'm done. Nice knowing you all. Communicat (talk) 02:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- Starting from the end. How do you propose to understand your "I'm done"? Does it mean that you decided to stop your work on this page? If yes, please, disregard my next comments.
- With regard to "an approach of threading a narrative through some especially sharp events", I believe that that would be a good idea, provided that, but only provided, that a consensus has been achieved about these key event. Although I am not sure if it is possible, we can try. Please, propose your list to initiate the discussion.
- Re collage. What concretely is wrong with this picture?
- Re 4. You haven't demonstrate so far that that role was critical. Please provide sources and quotes.
- Re 3. How, in your opinion, can it be represented concisely and consistently (taking into account that different scholars have different views on that account)?
- Re 2. Yes, however, another Big Three (Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito) should also be discussed. Let's think about a separate section devoted to internal relations within these two blocs.
- Re 1. Some scholars, mostly Central European, believe that the genuine Stalin's goal was the alliance with Hitler or a war, not collective security in Europe, so the Soviet position during Munich agreement was a pure hypocrisy. We need to demonstrate that, according to the majority views, the Litvinov's line was a genuine Soviet position before discussing the appeasement policy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:54, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- I'm done with trying to help edit this article. But I'll respond to your queries anyway.
- Re collage: it's "noisy" and cluttered. Tries to convey simultaneously too much visual information. Basic tenet of communication theory: if excess of information is transmitted, the less chance there is of actual communication taking place. (Bit like the discussion page). Big Three pic ex Western Betrayal applicable only if Big Three (or five or six) section included.
- Re 4. Plenty of reliable sources, including especially Hinsley, and very active unsigned editor above probably has access to plenty more.
- Re 3. A challenge, but there's definitely a concise and objective way of doing it. Problem is, established non-Western lines of research and also Western revisionist sources would need to be given parity with "mainstream" Western sources for NPOV, and as everybody knows, there exists very clear aversion towards any of that.
- Re 2. Concur.
- Re 1. Yes, all that and more, esp. Chamberlain's involvement etc. etc. Communicat (talk) 17:54, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
- Six pictures showing different aspects of WWII are hardly too much. By contrast, the Big Three photo would shift an accent form ordinary people to the leaders, which is hardly appropriate.
- re 4. Imo, intelligence (except information obtained by Richard Sorge) had minimal effect on the course of the war on the Eastern Front. Intelligence appeared to be unable to anticipate German counter-attack in Ardennes. It was useful against Japan in Pacific and Germany in Atlantic, however, that is not sufficient to devote any specific attention to it in this article. However, my knowledge on that account may be insufficient, so, if you believe I am wrong, please, explain (with sources and quotes, if possible, to save my time). Thank you in advance.
- re 3. So do that, please. If the text will be short and good enough I'll try to help to introduce it into the article.
- re 2. Try to propose concrete wording (e.g. "Leaders" subsection).
- re 1. Older versions of this article devoted some space to it. However, that lead to fierce debates regarding the balance between POVs on that account (see [8], [9] etc. There were looong debates last year), so finally a consensus was achieved that any historical interpretations of these events should be left beyond the scope of this article. Please look through these debates first. If upon having read all of that you will have some new arguments and ideas, I will gladly discuss them with you, because I myself is not completely satisfied with this compromise.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:08, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
I have always found it easier to show what changes are believed needed with refs, as this is much easier to follow then wishing to change the tone of the article as a whole or sections as a whole...Like done below as only an example...note this could be doen over and over again and in most cases shows what and y at the same time...Moxy (talk) 20:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
- In July 1937, Japan captured the former Chinese imperial capital of Beiping after instigating the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which culminated in the Japanese campaign to invade all of China.
to-
- In July 1937, Japan captured the ancient' Chinese imperial capital of Beiping since tensions between the Empire of Japan and China had been fanned since the Invasion of Manchuria in 1931.<ref here> After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Japanese began a campaign to invade all of China.<ref here>
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Moxy (talk • contribs) 20:20, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Communicat appears to have quit editing this article, which is probably a good thing for now, since until he gets more experience he's better off editing articles that aren't under as many types of pressures and constraints as this one. I stopped by here to try to help with his situation and ended up commenting a bit on the article itself, so I'll address the above before moving on (keep in mind that my WW2 knowledge is mostly limited to one very narrow area, that being the cryptologic side of Ultra):
- 4. Sigint was quite important -- Hinsley claims Ultra shortened the war by years. In particular he says D-day could not have happened in 1944 without it. His talk linked above[10] is pretty interesting. I wouldn't give sigint a lot of space in the article but I'd reorganize the article a bit and then mention sigint in several places. I'd compress the "technology" section at the end to a short paragraph and move it to the end of the introduction, so that technological stuff could be referred to later. Sigint was especially important in the Pacific, in North Africa, in the U-boat war, and post D-day. The Ardennes were a notable exception, and that was because (Budiansky p. 326) "Allied generals paid one last terrible price for their slipping into the old familiar habits of commanding armies and too little time reading the enemy's intentions. ... Ultra had in fact provided ample warnings".
- 3. Not many ideas on this and not sure how interesting it is.
- 2. I agree about concentrating more on the people and less on the leaders, the exception being Hitler, since (for better or worse) in popular conception, he is the single personality most associated with the war.
- 1. I'd like to see something said about what the different countries wanted from the war. I.e. Germany's desire to seize other countries' resources to get out of post-WW1 economic stress (if that's an accepted explanation), and whatever the corresponding issues in Japan might have been. I'd briefly mention the German-Japanese agreement about how they would carve up the US after the war as a point of interest/amusement even if it didn't have much overall importance.
I'm not crazy about the collage (it really does look cluttered) but don't have bright ideas for alternatives.
Sharp events (pop history version since that's all I know): 1) rise of fascism and Hitler; 2) entry of main belligerents (invasion of Poland, battles of Britain and France, bombing of Pearl Harbor); 3) D-day and surrounding actions; 4) atomic bombing of Japan and decisions leading to it. The current "course of the war" section reads to me like "list of explosions in World War II" and I can barely read it. I'd like to have some more stuff on technology. Here are some good notes from a talk by the mathematician William Kahan: [11]. They're probably not directly citeable as RS, but could be a good source of inspiration for further research. 67.122.211.178 (talk) 05:14, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
67.122.211.178 (talk) 05:14, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
- Regarding the lead image. I think it would be almost impossible to gain consensus on a photograph of a single event as representative of the entire war, and would consume a lot of bandwidth
arguing aboutdiscussing it. Collages have been used on similar articles in order to show the breadth, and likely satisfy some national pride issues. It may be possible to have a single image rather than a photograph - for instance a world map with axis and allies - although agreeing on the format of that would likely be time consuming too. It's an old chestnut (see the archives, also the infobox archives), which took significant discussion to get where it is now. (Hohum @) 15:02, 6 September 2010 (UTC)- Concur.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
- Re: "Communicat appears to have quit editing this article, which is probably a good thing for now..." I am not sure. Although he proposed only few concrete things, he initiated several discussions that lead (and will lead) to improvement of the article.
- Re: " Sigint was especially important in the Pacific, in North Africa, in the U-boat war, and post D-day." i.e. only for the smaller part of key WWII events.
- Re: "Sharp events (pop history version since that's all I know)..." The problem is that not all of these events were really sharp (or they are sharp only in popular western culture; I would say, the events you listed are simply the events where the US or the UK were directly involved), whereas many other sharp and strategically important events have been left beyond the scope. The current version of the "Course of the war" section tries to describe these events, mostly ignored by mass media, which makes it hard to read for unprepared reader. The problem is, however, that we don't have to and cannot strengthen existing stereotypes, we must build the article based on what reliable academic sources say. --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
- (Speak of the devil). Paul, you've explicitly invited me to comment on worth of Ultra, etc, so I trust this will not be interpreted as fringe-POV pushing or sockpuppetry or whatever. Firstly: each and every strategic and important tactical wartime decision to act (or not act) was based essentially upon reliable intelligence. (Much the same applies in peace-time diplomacy as well, for that matter). The ultra-secret interception and decoding of German mility signals at every level of command.during WW2 provided the Western Allies with a very clear and decisive strategic advantage over the enemy. It was one of the most closely guarded secrets of World War II , and it provided the Western Allies with constant and reliable information about the strength, disposition and intentions of the enemy at any given time (except for a relatively short period in respect of German naval codes in the Battle of the Atlantic) . (REF; FW Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1974; FH Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its influence on Strategy and Operations, (4 Vols), London: HMSO, 1977-1988 (official history); Ralph Bennett, Ultra in the West, London: Hutchinson 1979.)
- Yet, even though armed with such vital and accurate intelligence, the Western military leadership made seemingly inexplicable command decisions that served to prolong the fighting in Europe while depriving the Red Army of relief on the Russian-German front, where the Soviet Union continued to carry the brunt of the war against Germany. Ralph Bennett, so far as I know, is the only Western historian to have touched upon some of those decisions, without offering any provable hypothesis as to WHY such seemingly inexplicable decisions (not to act) were made. Investigative journalist and researcher Stan Winer is the only other writer to have focused on the issue at any length, (and for which he has drawn much flak). However, as you yourself have observed, although Winer's hypothesis has not yet been proved, his sources are accurate and reliable. Moreover, as Winer himself states in the introduction to his much maligned work, his purpose is neither to produce a comprehensive history nor to postulate a hypothesis or to get people to agree with his own conclusions. His stated purpose, as he puts it, "is simply to motivate readers to pursue their own lines of research and form their own conclusions."
- Now, to address the Ardennes question that you've raised, and quoting Winer whose sources are accurate and reliable, the Ardennes needs to be viewed against a wider panorama of Western failures on the Western or Second Front. The intelligence was certainly there for the Western commanders to use appropriately had they been ordered to do so. The perplexing question is: WHY did the Western command structure fail to act upon it? I quote from Chapter Six of Between the Lies:
START EXTRACT:
- In Belgium, where the stated intention of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) was to capture the crucial maritime port of Antwerp, SHAEF disregarded explicit intelligence warnings that the Germans were about to secure the approaches to the port. The invading force, failing to move swiftly on the offensive before the Germans completed defence preparations, ended up with Antwerp rendered entirely useless to them for the next six months. This made it impossible for an immediate advance on the Ruhr or on Berlin, which would have been practicable only if Montgomery's 40 divisions could be supplied through Antwerp. (REFS: Ralph Bennett, Ralph, "Ultra and Some Command Decisions", Journal of Contemporary History, Vol 16, 1981 p.135; Basil Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War, London: Cassell 1965, p.536)
- It was virtually a repeat performance of the stalling and procrastination that had occurred just a few months earlier at Anzio in Italy, where the Germans were wholly unprepared for amphibious landings. Excellent conditions had existed here for providing substantial relief to the Red Army on the eastern front by launching a determined Allied thrust northwards through Italy. SHAEF clearly ignored available intelligence showing conditions to be ideal for an immediate and unopposed advance on Rome. Instead, the military command waited until the Germans had organised an effective defence and counter-attack. The New Zealand and Indian contingents of the landing force took particularly heavy casualties, with the enemy then retiring north of Rome in good order. There the Germans established a new and unyielding line in Tuscany where the Italian campaign would drag on for at least another year, at a cost of many more Allied lives. (REFS: The account of the Italian campaign draws on: Martin Blumenson, Anzio: Philadelphia: Lippencott, 1963: Peter Calvocoressi and Guy Wint, Total War: Causes and Courses of the Second World War, Harmondsworth: Penguin 1986, pp. 511-2; Bennett, Ralph, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy 1941-1945, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989, p.282. Fraser, David, And We Shall Shock Them: The British Army in the Second World War, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1983, p.282)
- A final episode in the patterned distribution of intelligence "failures" and unheroic command decisions occurred in December 1944, when the invading force, even though armed with Ultra intelligence, "failed to anticipate" the German offensive in the Ardennes — the Battle of the Bulge -- where the Germans inflicted major casualties on the Anglo-American armies and nearly halted the Allied advance in its tracks. Field Marshal Albrecht Kesselring was later to reveal that Germany's 10th Army, the defending force in Italy, was so unprepared that it would have been virtually annihilated had the Western Allies immediately advanced their attack once a beach-head was established. (REF: Albrecht Kesselring, Memoirs, London: Greenhill 1988, p.193.)
ENDS EXTRACT
- There are many flaws in Winer's work, including his inability to provide conclusive proof of the reason or reasons why the Western Allies failed to act on constant, copious and reliable sigint, such as occured at the Battle of the Bulge which you've raised. The explanation he offers, remember, is that the West, and Churchill in particular, wanted to weaken and deprive the Red Army of relief on the Eastern Front. Winer manages to overlook that Churchill in particular did not consider the Italian threatre as one of immediate strategic importance. He had his sights set instead on the Balkans -- a flank from which to eventually thwart or threaten a weakened post-war Russia. There was friction between Roosevelt and Churchill in this regard. In short, Churchill's war ambitions and his strategic decisions, including his influence on SHAEF, on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and especially on Montgomery during the Ardennes offensive arose from post-war imperial ambitions. (On Churchill and Balkans: see Anthony Verrier, Through the Looking Glass: British Foreign Policy in the Age of Illusions, London: Jonathan Cape, 1983, pp.34-6
- All of this could of course more usefully give substance to a wiki article on the subject of Alternative History -- except that someone has already laid claim to a wiki page en titled Alternative history, (and then filled it with a whole lot of science-fiction crap). So, if you're interested, you might want to pursue Winer's sources and see if something worthwhile comes of it in terms of any proposed Strategy and/or expanded Sigint section in possible improvement of the main WW2 article. If so, there will predictably be a great deal of acrimonious WP:BATTLEFIELD involved, from which I'd prefer to keep myself at a very safe distance. Remember, it is not Winer's controversial public domain "fringe" work that's suggested for citation, but rather have a closer look at his reliable sources, from which to MAYBE launch your own endeavours to improve/expand the article if or where appropriate. Good luck to you. Communicat (talk) 19:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
- I am not sure what your proposing..should this talk not be at Ultra or Signals intelligence? Is there something you wish to change here? Moxy (talk) 20:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
- ...and it's all based on a source which has been found to be unreliable in dicussions here and elsewhere (and just because it cites reliable sources doesn't make it reliable). This is a waste of time. Nick-D (talk) 22:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
- Back to Winer again, Seriously? (Hohum @) 23:17, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
- Dear Communicat, I believe you realise that in any event we are talking about addition of just a couple of sentences devoted to this subject. Could you please propose the draft of these sentence with explanation of where they are supposed to be added?--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- You specifically questioned the importance of wartime intelligence generally, and its relevance to the Ardennes debacle in particular. I've answered your query as requested. Have a nice day. Communicat (talk) 13:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Thank you. However, please, keep in mind that it is probably a good moment for stopping to educate others and for starting to propose some concrete text. You were an initiator of this discussion, so it is natural to expect you to propose some concrete text, not only general considerations. I am ready to discuss introduction of some text about sigint into the article, however, I am not ready to do your part of a job. Please, try to behave as a collaborator, not as a supervisor who provides just general ideas and expect others to develop them. We all have our own ideas and we cannot spend our time developing yours.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- PS. It would be great if you abandoned your aut Caesar aut nihil strategy and, for instance, commented on my comments of the Aftermath draft.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Eurocentric. Communicat (talk) 20:56, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- You specifically questioned the importance of wartime intelligence generally, and its relevance to the Ardennes debacle in particular. I've answered your query as requested. Have a nice day. Communicat (talk) 13:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Dear Communicat, I believe you realise that in any event we are talking about addition of just a couple of sentences devoted to this subject. Could you please propose the draft of these sentence with explanation of where they are supposed to be added?--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Back to Winer again, Seriously? (Hohum @) 23:17, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
- ...and it's all based on a source which has been found to be unreliable in dicussions here and elsewhere (and just because it cites reliable sources doesn't make it reliable). This is a waste of time. Nick-D (talk) 22:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
- Goodness, but Winer's writing is comically bad. He's trying to say that every failure in the West was intended to hurt the Soviets. That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've read in a long time. I told you I'd laugh out loud if you brought him up and I am. There is next to nothing in that excerpt that has anything to do with the Ardennes. A single sentence and not a particularly useful one at that. --Habap (talk) 12:25, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- Read the extract properly. It says "the Germans inflicted major casualties on the Anglo-American armies" at Ardennes. Never mind just hurting the Soviets. And at Anzio: "The New Zealand and Indian contingents of the landing force took particularly heavy casualties, with the enemy then retiring north of Rome in good order." Everybody (except the Germans) suffered as a consequence of available Ultra intel not being acted upon, and to this day nobody can prove why, though some like Winer have offered reasonably convincing hypotheses that are unacceptable to others. Incidentally, you might have noticed that that we were talking about SIGINT, not about personal attacks. Have you anything significant to contribute to the subject of SIGNINT and its apparently disputed importance vis-a-vis an article of military history? Communicat (talk) 20:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- You're relying on a ridiculously unreliable source. A lone sentence in three paragraphs "to address the Ardennes question" is hardly relevant. Winer puts "failures" and "failed to anticipate" in quotes, which leads me to believe he thinks it was done intentionally so that they would not be "providing substantial relief to the Red Army on the eastern front by launching a determined Allied thrust northwards through Italy." I'm not making a personal attack. I'm pointing out that his argument is ridiculous. In your time in the service, didn't you ever see commanders have a variety of pieces of intelligence and choose the wrong ones to believe? I think Anzio was a failure of command, and I squarely blame Mark Clark, not Ultra.I think you'll find a lot of historians firmly place the blame on Clark.
- So, if you're quoting Winer and stating that he has "offered a reasonably convincing" theory, please state that theory. If it's that the western allies failed to properly use Ultra intelligence in order to hurt the Soviets, I would say you're not presenting a minority position, but, rather, a fringe position that is not evident in the literature.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Habap (talk • contribs)
- Read the extract properly. It says "the Germans inflicted major casualties on the Anglo-American armies" at Ardennes. Never mind just hurting the Soviets. And at Anzio: "The New Zealand and Indian contingents of the landing force took particularly heavy casualties, with the enemy then retiring north of Rome in good order." Everybody (except the Germans) suffered as a consequence of available Ultra intel not being acted upon, and to this day nobody can prove why, though some like Winer have offered reasonably convincing hypotheses that are unacceptable to others. Incidentally, you might have noticed that that we were talking about SIGINT, not about personal attacks. Have you anything significant to contribute to the subject of SIGNINT and its apparently disputed importance vis-a-vis an article of military history? Communicat (talk) 20:39, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
- I am not sure what your proposing..should this talk not be at Ultra or Signals intelligence? Is there something you wish to change here? Moxy (talk) 20:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
ussr
whats ussr??
also its not right that america is above britain because we fought all of it but they didnt maybe it should be China, britain, ussr, america, then commonwealth, cos china fought more than all of it and france shouldnt be in it cos they were rubbish and surrendered just so paris wouldnt be ruined but go bombed afterwards anyway
what is ussr? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.2.249.20 (talk) 11:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
- The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or better known as the Soviet Union. Nick-D (talk) 11:48, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
- I find it tragic that you don't know what the USSR was. Someone please go check if Lenin is rolling over in his tomb, forgotten already. --Habap (talk) 21:34, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
i find it tragic that you think you are funny
and yeah the order should be changed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.197.76 (talk) 17:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- Does it even matter how the top three are ordered? How would you want them ordered and why? Jmlk17 17:16, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)How do you propose to do that? Before making any proposal, please, familiarise yourself with previous discussions there[12] and there[13]. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- I myself posted here[14] stating for the order to be changed agreeing with Staberinde, to UK-USSR-USA for allies, would seem more logical chronologically ordered, plus even if you raise the argument of contribution then the United Kingdom was fighting on many fronts across the globe, not to mention the impact of the British Commonwealth. However El gato verde wasn't having it and with most things here was conveniently ignored. --SuperDan89 (talk) 05:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
it should go ussr uk usa china commonwealth i dont think usa should be second, it never faced invasion and not one us civilian died..it's insulting, if they lost their freedom was never really on the line they were a million miles from it all