Talk:Alexander Slawik

War work
This paragraph currently reads:

''During the Second World War, Dr Slawik, along with Dr Wolfgang Schmal, ran the Japanese desk of the language department of Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, with Second Lieutenant (German: Leutnant) Dr Walter Adler in charge. Little is known of Wolfgang Schmal or Walter Adler.''

Having had a thorough look at the original source, I would like to point out the following: While it is correct that Adler was in charge of Referat 13 - Japan (page 4), it is made clear on page 7 that Dr Slawik was one of the two translators (the other being Miss B. Dehn) of Gruppe B in Referat 13 - Japan. Both Gruppen A and B consisted of two translators and one Umsetzer and were responsible for translating; while group C with 4 staff members was responsible for decoding and filing.

So, Adler with the rank of an officer (Leutnant) and in his capacity as Referatsleiter was responsible for three Gruppen, and Slawik was a member of one of those three groups. His rank was Obergefreiter (page 7) which is merely a soldier. (Possibly the equivalent to a Private First Class in today's US Army.)

I would therefore suggest to change the section accordingly.

Additional helpful information:

Congruent to the original source, the German version of the Wikipedia article Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht shows that Second Lieutenant (Leutnant) Walter Adler was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel (Oberstleutnant) Kähler. Kähler was under the command of Colonel (Oberst) Kettler who was responsible for the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW/Chi). Kettler was under command of Field Marshal (Gereralfeldmarschall) Keitel who was in overall charge of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW). And by the way, it was Keitel who signed the German Instrument of Surrender after Hitler's suicide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FalcoPfalzgraf (talk • contribs) 11:30, 24 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Dr. Falco Pfalzgraf, thanks for your comment. I will expedite accordingly. I have this:Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. The German version has been translated from that. Took a bit of time to write it. I got this as well, B-Dienst. It took an age to write it. It is excellent that somebody is reading something I'm writing. If you happen to spot any other faults, please forward me a message to my talk page. Also please sign any comments you add by adding a ~, the four tildes. These will be converted into a signature, with date and time and all that, and enable folk to known who you are. I have several other articles if you fancy taking a look. You can take a look at my user page, at the bottom, contributions, then articles created. Thanks scope_creep (talk) 11:55, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the reason I put it as he ran the department, as opposed to commanded the department, was due to the fact that he was by far the most experienced, and concomitantly did most difficult translations. Out of them, he only one, who had spent a significant amount of time in Japan. He was the centre of the translation party. scope_creep (talk) 12:03, 24 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much indeed for everything. (I would prefer a native speaker of English to make the amendments in question.) Oh, and by the way this might interest you - but you might already know it. Best wishes, FalcoPfalzgraf (talk) 12:16, 24 August 2018 (UTC)