Talk:Arthur Seyss-Inquart

Name change
The ß is not commonly used in English and is used only in some of the German speaking countries (in Germany and Austria, but not in Switzerland and Liechtenstein). Also, the use was inconsistent in the article itself. I changed both the name and the inconsistencies in the text. gidonb 11:09, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * The ß is used in the extended Latin alphabet. The person was officially called Seyß-Inquart, so I propose to respect that fact. The ß can be changed into ss if technical reasons prevent from writing the ß. This is not the case here. If you would like to ban certain letters like ß or č I suggest you take the debate to a higher more general level on transliteration rules. Besednjak 19:00, 15 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I changed back to the common English spelling. Please discuss with a wider readership before making name changes. gidonb  03:37, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I should discuss with a wider readership before making name changes? A funny point of view, as it is you who changed the name June 24. Besednjak 10:38, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

For your convenience, I hereby copy our naming convention which explicitly states that the English name should be used unless a foreign name is more commonly used: ''Convention: Title your pages using the English name, if one exists, and give the native spelling on the first line of the article. If the native spelling is not in the Latin alphabet, also provide a Latin transliteration. Only use the native spelling as an article title if it is more commonly used in English than the anglicized form.'' gidonb  04:08, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes indeed. The question is which spelling is used more frequently. Quite some time the title Seyß-Inquart was not considered to be questionable. I have the impression that you renamed it just recently in order to use it as "proof" in your cruisade against diacritics at the Dutch wikipedia. I made few corrections, if you do not agree "discuss with a wider readersdhip first"?! I think his official name Seyß-Inquart is a fact of life. It should therefor be used, unless we would like to withhold information on this person. Besednjak 10:38, 16 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I regret your allegations. Any web search will prove to you that Seyss-Inquart is the common spelling in English. In German both spellings are being used. gidonb  19:16, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia generally uses common names; "ß" is difficult for most English language users to type, as there is no key for it on English keyboards. Jayjg (talk) 03:59, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It is fine to use the ss instead of ß if one does not want to use the most original spelling of the name. I accept that en.wikipedia is not using the most correct spelling of the name because this wikipedia decided to anglicise common foreign names. That is the case here.
 * One should however dsitinguish. In German Seyß with ß is the correct form. In German the ß in surnames of German individuals can be changed into ss only if the ß cannot be written for technical reasons. The information in the article that German uses Seyss and Seyß and that both are correct is untrue. Besednjak 15:58, 17 July 2005 (UTC)


 * If you do not want to face the facts, that is fine with me. gidonb  23:32, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Please respect that ß and ss cannot be used equally in Germany. The German spelling law states clearly: "Die amtliche Regelung der deutschen Rechtschreibung" - A Laut-Buchstaben-Zuordnungen - 0 Vorbemerkungen - §3.2.  and thus excludes surnames from the ß reform - ß cannot equally be replaced with ss.
 * If you do not face this fact, that is fine with me. Besednjak 11:48, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm amazed to find a whole page of discussion to an utterly trivial detail of spelling. Please bear in mind that in the English-speaking lands German ß is often mistaken for the letter b! JohnC 03:46 29 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Seyß-Inquart is not a significant figure in Swiss history, for which the Swiss can consider themselves fortunate. The 'b' with which ß could possibly be confused would be the capital B, which students in college German classes frequently used as a surrogate when typing (this was before computers were used in word processors or PCs). Because a capital B would never appear anywhere but initially in any German or English word, and that the German ß would never exist initially (no capital form exists) the substitution was understood.

Wikipedia supports diacritics well, so we might as well get umlauts, accents, hačeks, cedillas, or tildes, right in discussing foreign names and places here. We might not confuse English speakers by missing them in typewritten communications or e-mails in which we write of Köln, Salò, České Budějovice, Ploieşti, or São Paulo, but failing to get them right in Wikipedia articles is crass.--Paul from Michigan 20:44, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually we use Cologne, not Köln, per use common names. Here the common spelling in English is Seyss-Inquart. See references, external links, Google searches etc. gidonb (talk) 09:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

6 & 1/4
I was reading up on Seyss-Inquart and I have a vague memory of a tale that when he was the Fuehrer's stooge in the Netherlands, the Dutch liked to scrawl graffiti in the form of a "6 & 1/4" crossed out -- since "6 & 1/4" was what his name more or less sounded like phonetically in Dutch. I can't give any precise details of the story, but if anyone knows the details it might be an amusing note to add to this article. MrG 4.228.21.249 23:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

More to the point for the dutch situation is that there were quite a few more camps and transit camps.some even have plaques. I don't know how many it adds up, not 3, alltho by far not all were big. He was considered tyrannic. Seys-Inquart could have been a name in a dutch tradition, wich makes the joke unclear to english language.24.132.170.97 (talk) 04:43, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The place I've heard of 6 1/4 was in the book A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan. Allied troops happen upon the graffiti and the author gives pretty much the exact same explanation as is given above.  I don't really see how it would be notable enough for the article, but if someone wants it I can dig out the book and provide the exact reference. Sperril (talk) 03:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Traitor to Austria
Seyss-Inquart fits the definition of a traitor as one who, despite nominal responsibility to serve his country, betrays it by transforming it into a puppet state or by incorporating it into a tyrannical system. In The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (book), William Shirer calls him the "Vienna Quisling".


 * Not sure this really makes sense as Seyss-Inquart served largely in the Netherlands, not Austria.Historian932 (talk) 14:15, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

He was of course never tried for treason against Austria; other, more serious crimes took precedence. --Paul from Michigan 20:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, it's also nonsense. Seyss-Inquart wanted reunification with Germany. Essentially adding one part of Germany to another part. Now that's hardly treason. Those that did the Allies bidding could however be seen as traitors. But please, come up with a well formulated charge. 105.12.7.218 (talk) 13:30, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

"Weimar Republic"
"During the early years of the Weimar Republic, he was close to the Vaterländische Front."

That phrasing does not make sense. The Weimar Republic was the german state at that time; Austria was not a part of it, but an independent state. Correct would be "During the early years of the First Republic,..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.47.123.164 (talk) 15:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

What is meant by the statement that he declared the creation of the Donitz government? Incidentally government should not be in quotes, it may have been short-lived, but it was nevertheless the German government.124.197.15.138 (talk) 19:30, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Zajtich
First of all, I doubt that you have any primary source for the rumor that Arthur Seiß-Inquart's original surname was Zajtich. The German wikipedia says different and a search on the web and on Google Books produced no serious source for this most likely false rumor.

Second, you do not have any source for calling the surname "Zajtich" of czech or any other slavic origin. Actually it is more likely the Yiddish pronounciation of the Standard German word "zeitig". --El bes (talk) 11:06, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Zajtich is a hoax, there a no primary soucres. His father published a book in 1900/01 as Seyss, Emil. The most recent books which are telling about it are wrong. --Otberg (talk) 07:36, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yiddish-sounding "Zajtich" (like from Zeidich/Zedek/Tzadik or Seidl) sounds quite likely, but it is a false trail.
 * Nevertheless, it is definitely true that Seyss comes from its Polish form Zając (Seitz). Probably in the 1830s, his ancestors changed their name to more "noble-sounding" Seyss (and then to even more noble Seyss-Inquart). It is almost certain that Seyss' most original ancestors (like Tomasz Seitz *1751, Walenty Seitz *1768 or Jakub Fryderyk Seitz *1797) were Polish/Ukrainian Jews, regardless of their later Austrian residence. No wonder why Seyss-Inquart felt so called to deal with this Jewish question… Osidor (talk) 10:25, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Unsourced Apologist Rhetoric
This page is a bit of a disgrace but I don't have the time to fix it all now. By next week it will be a proper page with a lot of citations to scholarly books available through Google Books.

Rhetorical statement like "there is controversy over whether he was guilty of . . . waging wars of aggression," etc. etc. should not be allowed without citations to a scholarly source. If you take a poll among Historians in Amsterdam or anywhere else I don't think you will find any lack of consensus on whether Seyss-Inquart is guilty of waging wars of aggression and there are plenty of books and documents to back this up.

The same goes for the unsourced statement that he "allowed" the allies to drop food during the "hunger winter," as if it was some kind of act of kindness on his part. In the first place, it is not the "so-called hunger winter." In colloquial English, use of the phrase "so-called" means "it isn't true." It is a term of sarcastic derision.

Second, the 'hunger winter" was caused by the Nazi's food blockades of Holland's populous Western cities in retaliation for resistance activities.

Third, the food drops were made possible after a temporary truce was negotiated with the allies for the express purpose of dropping food. This is not the equivalent of the allies "being allowed" to drop food. The truce delayed the allied advance and gave the Germans time to escape with their equipment in an orderly fashion. Essentially, tens of thousands of starving children and elderly men and women were used by the Nazi's to cover their retreat. I'll source this on my next edit.

Finally, I don't care if you want to say that Seyss-Inquart was very smart, or that he found G-d, or that he faced death bravely, or that he dressed up as st. Nicholas and passed out candy to Jewish children, as long as you support these statements with citations. Seyss-Inquart could be the most misunderstood man in history since Caligula but it shouldn't be in this article unless you can back up your claims with citations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SMRTRNU (talk • contribs) 05:37, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It sounds like you have an ax to grind, the controversy over "waging wars of aggression" may be in reference to the fact that S-I didn't hold a command position in the government or military (he was an administrator), also "so-called" is not automatically derisive, it can be used when citing an unusually-named event (in English a "Hunger Winter" sounds very odd on its own).Historian932 (talk) 14:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Two notes
First, I agree that the German letter ß (double-S) is not used in English, and on English Wiki should be represented by two S's. This is common practice, as in Rudolf Hess, for example. (I find it quite irritating that some historians, such as the otherwise estimable Ian Kershaw, insist on using the ß.)

Second, based on the German Wiki entry, I changed the sentence about Seyss-Inquart's father, since I could see no reason for the reference to "Zajtich" without any accompanying explanation. The German Wiki entry says: ''Arthur Seyß-Inquart kam als Sohn des Pädagogen Emíl Seyß-Inquart (* 29. November 1841 Jaroslau, Lehrer am k.k. Staats-Gymnasium in Villach, 1882–88 Professor am Gymnasium in Iglau, danach Direktor des k.k. Deutschen Staats-Gymnasiums in Olmütz; † 17. Oktober 1920 Wien) und dessen Frau Auguste, geb. Hyrenbach, in Südmähren als jüngstes von sechs Geschwistern zur Welt.'' 22:04, 22 February 2012‎   Sca

Conversion to Catholicism
There's no source on the claim that Seyss-Inquart became a Catholic before his execution, and I can't find it anywhere. Perhaps an editor is confusing him with Hans Frank? Would like to clarify before I remove. Thanks ModerateMike729 (talk) 17:32, 2 October 2018 (UTC)


 * The German article cites this source: Johannes Koll: Arthur Seyß-Inquart und die deutsche Besatzungspolitik in den Niederlanden (1940–1945). Böhlau, Wien 2015, S. 582. Google translate tells me that SI presented himself as a "repentant Catholic", though I'm not sure this supports the claim that he did convert to Catholicism before his death.Gemchadur (talk) 17:32, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Struck comment from confirmed sockpuppet /. See. —  Newslinger  talk   13:53, 28 August 2019 (UTC)