Talk:Manie Maritz

Stub
This article is currently a stub. There seems to be a lot of information in Africans on Maritz perhapse someone who can read Africans can expand the article using one of those sources. -- PBS (talk) 23:09, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Gerrit Maritz
I did not put in a redirect for the name Gerrit Maritz as this seems to be the name of a Gerrit Maritz, a Voortrekker leader who's name makes up part of Pietermaritzburg, and to do so would be misleading. Someone needs to create an article on Gert (Gerrit) Maritz the Voortrekker leader. -- PBS (talk) 23:09, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Anti-semitic?
This web source Jews on Commando by by D.Y. Saks (2005), says "Maritz’s known penchant for brutality and his virulent antisemitism" and in a footnote states "Maritz became a Nazi sympathiser and was convicted and fined during the 1930s for stirring up racial hatred against Jews. He died as a result of burns received in a car smash in 1940." -- PBS (talk) 23:09, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * @PBS have changed the headings etc to try to be as neutral as possible and reflect all points of view (i was recently pointed to WP:V :) anyway, can you please give it a once over and do any polishings? - then, please remember to ping me from the gerrit maritz (maritzburg) page, i have that content and citations ready as well - but you must do the initial setups etc. i am still too much of a newby :) Zarpboer (talk) 11:20, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

2014
Copied from User talk:Zarpboer  You have added a lot of information to the biography article on Manie Maritz which was previously a small but fully cited biography. Much of the new information you have added is unsourced, please provide sources for that information. -- PBS (talk) 20:36, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Hello PBS, thank you for your comments! Can you please tell me more? I did add accepted, neutral sources, but if there is a sentence or something which you think is not generally known or accepted, please tell me so that I can add the specific source that the page still requires. thank you so much for your assistance! Zarpboer (talk) 09:13, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry PBS - I saw the citation required and your most excellent formatting! iam adding the citations in the next few minutes, will ping you from talk for your kind once over... Then, if you will start the Gerrit Maritz page and do the basic setups I will add content and citations for that as well, again, thank you so much! It is so cool to learn new things all the time :) Zarpboer (talk) 09:24, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I am not going to edit the page further for now, but to balance it there are couple of things that need further expansion to help balance the biography. Those are what he did in the Boer War and what he did in the rebellion (which are the chief reasons that he is notable).
 * As a specific issue I predict that someone will strongly object to the POV you present with sentences such as "At the start of the first world war, he betrayed his sworn country". The source for this is by its nature a biased source and I think does not reflect the more balanced view of the morality of the events. -- PBS (talk) 12:00, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The POV is from the Krause reference, PBS, it is the general accepted academic view and not my own view. About Maritz, I do not think that I have any strong views, personally. Not British or German or Afrikaner or Boer, etc. etc. I tried to do a neutral encyclopedic view though, and Krause seems to be in the middle - One side says hero, boer and the other side says facist pig... anyway, Krause because academically accepted and makes sense to me as well, - as far as I have researched - he was an army officer, which in his own 'memoirs' (and in the general accepted version of events) crossed the German border, in one army uniform and returned two days later in a different army uniform with a 'treaty' from the German government. The Union was a valid and unchallenged country, so was Britain. Historically, there are claims that he freed all the former Union colonies and republics and established a new free South African government with Beyers etc. but that did not exist and was not recognised, maybe if he chose only the Orange free state or only the ZAR - but he did not... anyway, the German treaty depended on the outcome of actions, promising German suffrage on failure. - Therefore the middle/neutral view is that he was just a traitor. - Regarding what he did in the Second Boer War - You can look to the words on page 108 of Krause, as kind words. "unworthy acts" he committed as a boer 'general' in the last view days of the war - if you consider the British POV and military citations, are very nice and very NEUTRAL in fact to say: he fought bravely is probably non neutral, this person loved killing and torturing, even pow, so maybe that bit should be taken out of the present page? - . If the Boerevolk or others want to delve deeper into this, one could add the actions and atrocities committed at the close of the second boer war? There were good reasons why Smuts disassociated himself from Maritz - probably this all should be added anyway, otherwise someone reading the page may also think that it slants in terms of neutrality? maybe my pov is slanted? i guess i started out on this page thinking one thing and the more i researched and looked at source and other historians, the more i saw how unbalanced my initial ideas were. Maybe i have now come to develop a non neutral POV from too much research into a previously obscure, emotive and not that notable individual. Anyway, you said balance it if I add the atrocities this dude committed in the boer war, the POV will seem even more slanted? - Then you said: what he did in the rebellion well he captured men under his command and sent them to German South West, as pow, over 80 percent of them died, without even one shot being fired. This dude is simply a very very bad person - I am not saying as bad as Hitler, but certainly bad and with no honor - If you look at wars, they are bad things, but honorable men do not enjoy killing and brutality? The neutral (and nice) view is simply that he fought bravely and was just a traitor -or am i missing something myself - please nudge me in the right direction?  Zarpboer (talk) 13:00, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I said that I would not edit the page again. But I have done so! This is because you reverted the changes I made to the lead. See lead of MOS:LEAD: "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies". Having made that change to the lead it is necessary to place his birth into a section, having done that I think that the other section need to be rearranged. I have the page on my watch list. So if I have done anything that you think needs changing lets discuss it further on the talk page of the article so that the discussion is in a public place and others can put in the tuppence worth. -- PBS (talk) 13:05, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Personally I would not include the word "brave" in the article but rather describe what he did and if he was decorated for valour, mentioned in despatches, (whatever the Boer equivalent was). The issue of whether he was a traitor or not, is one that need to be described by whether he was tried and found guilty of treason. See "let the facts speak for themselves". -- PBS (talk) 13:19, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * thanks @ PBS, but the heading is also not so cool... The Encyclopedia Britanica citation does not say 'Boer general' in fact, the last confirmed rank this officer had, was that of German General. His field promotion, by Smuts, at the close of the second boer war, was not confirmed. So, to call him a Boer General is not correct. There is also no historic reference to Maritz being appointed as a Boer General by any Boer Volksraad, at best, the highest boer rank he could have achieved during the rebellion, was that of just commandant, as he could have been elected as such by his own commando. If I am wrong - please supply accepted citations to a confirmed Boer rank of General - Otherwise we could agree to use the same wording style of the Britannica reference and cover the detail in the content? - then he did not receive any decorations, if he did - i cannot find them - and i did look hard - he is mentioned in the British dispatches, he was not convicted of treason - but he received a pardon for treason while he was in portugal though, and only then returned to the Union - so why would he need to be pardonned if he was not guilty as the Union claimed? will look at WP:MORALIZE - thanks for teaching me new stuff! Zarpboer (talk) 13:27, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The lead does not have to carry any citations for information contained in the article. It does however need citations for any information not included in the article. So at the moment the EB citation is needed because his year of birth is not mentioned in the body of the article. If the year of birth is mentioned in the body of article then a citation on the lead is not needed. According to the body of the article he was a brevet/field promoted general and as a summary of the body of the text the lead reflects that. What you are talking about is more complicated and nuanced and that needs to be in the body of the text and then summarised in the lead. If that is not what he was then more details will have to be given over exactly what rank he was, and that will involve filling in more detail about his Commando career. The point of the lead is that he is notable because he was fairly prominent in the Boer War and was a leader in the Rebellion.
 * If he was pardoned for treason by the Union then that is a fact that can speak for itself. It does not mean he was a traitor in his own eyes or those who supported him, or necessarily in the eyes of the person who reads the article. -- PBS (talk) 13:48, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, not so much... See, David Berkowitz also did not consider himself a serial killer, neither did the thousands of people that support him, they claim to be a religion (satanic cult) - anyway, serial killers are as serial killers do. traitors are as traitors do. In the rebellion of 1914, Boer General De Wet was not a traitor? yet he was also rebel. Just not a traitorous rebel :) Anyway - No probs, PBS, you seem to have stronger feelings than me about some of the details, so i will not change/add anything else on the page as i do not know what i should add and what not - and i do not feel strongly about anything either in terms of POV or whatever, so please accept my apologies if I offended you in any way, it was never my intention, i really just wanted to improve it - but there are thousands of other pages that i can work on :) Zarpboer (talk) 08:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC)