Talk:Schieder commission/Archive 1

Archive 1. Back to talk page.

Neutrality and factual accuracy disputed
This article was created by the WP:EEML with the stated aim of misrepresenting facts (see EEML-archives available to Arbcom), and was at least in substantial parts, if not as a whole, written by banned users and proxied by Radeksz whose topic ban is already agreed on and whose site ban is discussed (see oversighted diff 22:26, 3 December 2009 and EEML arbcom/pd). It needs to be revised thoroughly. Skäpperöd (talk) 08:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The article was not written by the WP:EEML, it was written by me and Molobo. It was created by me. It was not written with "the stated aim of misrepresenting facts" and there is nothing in the any archive which states that. This is completely false and Skapperod is simply lying here (I'm saying this per ).


 * According to Wikipedia policy it is fine to post on behalf of banned user as long as one takes full responsibility for the edits which I of course do. [See here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Banning_policy#Editing_on_behalf_of_banned_users]. Specifically: Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying", unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and they have independent reasons for making them.. I verified the changes and I've been thinking about writing this article myself for a long time. Molobo wrote portions of it and suggested sources.


 * In fact here is an example of an administrator doing exactly that for a banned user: on Embassy of Russia in Copenhagen and even giving that user DYK credit.


 * Finally, the article is neutral, a lot of hard work was put into it, it is extremely well sourced and all sources are available online and are in English so the information is easily [verifiable]. Please note that Skapperod is discussing editors rather than content and in so doing he is engaging in a personal attack, while trying to get rid of an article that doesn't fit his POV.radek (talk) 08:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Re "lying": Remember your traffic is online, what I said above can easily be verified and in fact has been by an admin already. Skäpperöd (talk) 16:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm fully aware of the fact that you've been busy reading other people's personal emails. There is nothing nowhere which says that this article was written to be biased. You are still lying here. I'll leave the admin you mention out of this for now.radek (talk) 19:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, so other than IDONTLIKETHEEDITORSWHOWROTETHISARTICLE do you have any other arguments justifying tagging this article and claiming its neutrality and factual accuracy is disputed? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:56, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I probably agree that Skapperöds true motivation to slap the article with several tags was similar to what Piotrus suspects. But at least it motivated me to read the original source by Robert Moeller, and I am dismayed to see that the article is far from being neutral.

The article says very little about the commission and the report itself. Instead it concentrates on two members and the controversial aspects of their life before the commission in the Nazi era. That of course is an effective way to discredit the commission and their results.

It should be noted that the source mentions some of these controversial aspects, but also makes it clear that the commission was an accomplished and distinguished group (page 58) and that they followed scholarly standards (see for example page 60). Whereas the source positively emphasizes that the German occupation was described in two volumes (page 59), this article emphasizes the same fact in a negative way („however, only the volumes….“).

I could go on, but you get the general idea of why this article is highly problematic and worrying. I am particularly concerned about the section Goals and work of the commission because according to the source these are rather the conclusions and not the goals of the commission. Pantherskin (talk) 21:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the constructive response. I am not sure if I agree with all of your conclusions; for example the comment about "following scholarly standards" is clarified on p.61 that it is based on how... Schieder described his own work (sic!). Regarding "Goals and work of the commission", pages 62-63 describe how this "scholarly work" was intended from the very beginning as a propaganda tool. That said, you are probably right that the current article is biased towards criticism of the commission. How about you try to rewrite the article to address those issues? PS. My suggestion to all editors: try to use individual page numbers in refs, instead of ranges. A 30 page range is not very helpful. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Pantherskin, thanks for constructive, specific criticism. Starting from the end of your comment:
 * Changing "goals" to "conclusions" might be fine. The thing is those were the goals of the commission. The volume they produced was the "conclusions". I guess you could say that these are "Conclusions" of Moeller "in regard to the commission".
 * page 59 - sure you can rewrite that. How about getting rid of the "however" and rewording the previous? Would that address the issue?
 * page 58 - the source says, as is clear from the source, that at the time they were doing their work Conze, Schieder and others were regarded as a "distinguished group". This was before their Nazi past came to light. This can of course be included in the article.
 * page 60 - the source says they tried to follow what they regarded as "scholarly standards". It also notes that these standards were quite different from standards in historical research at the time. This can be reworded also for clarity. Any suggestions?
 * the article follows the sources - the sources focus on the composition of the commission quite extensively, it also links up their Nazi-era activity (like proposals for "dejewification" of Poland and Belarus, or their scholarly activity at Kroningsberg) with their participation in the commission. The sources are pretty explicit about the fact that Schieder tried to choose fellow-ex Nazis who shared his "goals".

Pantherskin, please make appropriate edits or further suggestions. Believe it or not, these are very welcome.radek (talk) 01:50, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I've split up the Moeller reference so that the cites are to individual pages. Hopefully this will make raising specific criticisms and issues easier.radek (talk) 23:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Radel, could you update us on what issues raised above have been addressed? I am wondering if a WP:RFC for that article may be useful, to attract some truly neutral editors who could comment on whether the NPOV is observed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's what I wrote at Pantherskin's talk:

I split up the Moeller ref into page citations to make it easier to find the relevant info. I also added info on the commission's conclusions (including from other sources). I also expended the methodology section to incorporate some of the issues you raised at talk.

I would really appreciate it if you could comment on these issues further (and edit the article accordingly) - I think it's a good article and even if it has some issues these can be fixed with a bit of work.radek (talk) 00:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

scholarship
I'm going to split this off into a separate section. I think that going by Moeller, this is the portion where there's room for interpretation and personal biases might creep in when writing the article. Basically Moeller says that the commission tried to set certain high scholarly standards. But he also says that these standards were unusual for historical research and they were regarded as "high" by the commission itself. He also uses A LOT of scare quotes on the relevant pages to indicate - this is where a subjective reading part comes in - that he is presenting how the commission viewed itself and how it viewed its own work.

I've tried my best to present this in a NPOV way, without pushing the fact that Moeller is just presenting how the commission viewed itself (after all the title of the book is "The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany") to much but still including it. Others' comments are welcome.

BTW, I only have access to the Google Books version of Moeller and there's a lot of pages, particularly later in the book which are unavailable for preview. Some searches though give snippets which are very revealing (and which I could've used here but didn't in the interest of full verifiability). For example, it appears that another goal of the commission was to compare the expulsions to Auschwitz (pg. 181).

Otherwise, the missing parts appear to go into a lot more details about the brouhaha that exploded in German historical research in the 80's and 90's when Schieder and Conze's Nazi past emerged to light - and the amount of criticism that was applied to them by other German historians, including their former students like Broszat and Wehler. I can't see it well enough in GB so I'm not including it - though it's probably a notable enough episode in German historiography to merit its own article ("Conze and Schieder controversy"? or something like that). Anyway, I'm not going to be around to write that one.radek (talk) 00:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I can access p.181. Here's the relevant quote: "Although by the late 1950s most West German politicians paid only lip service to claims that Germany's borders should be shifted eastward, they continued to appear at the annual meetings of expelle groups, acknowledging tthe importance of these votes and the symbolic significance of the loss of the "German east". Political opposition from expelle groups to any moves toward better relations with eastern European countries in the 1970s emphasized that "Germans had suffered too" by pointing to the authoritative documentation that Schieder and his co-workers had assembled in the 1950s and asserting that "Auschwitz is only half of the truth, according to the findongs of the documentation of the crimes committeed during the expulsion." As such, based on this page, it is not possible to say that the goal of the commission was to draw comparisons with Auschwitz; it was the expellee groups which interpreted it that way. Let me know if there is something on specific other pages you'd like me to check (I cannot see pages 182-184, for the record). PS. An article on German historiography is badly needed... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Again...
The article says very little about the commission and the report itself. Instead it concentrates on two members and the controversial aspects of their life before the commission in the Nazi era. That of course is an effective way to discredit the commission and their results.

It should be noted that the source mentions some of these controversial aspects, but also makes it clear that the commission was an accomplished and distinguished group (page 58) and that they followed scholarly standards (see for example page 60). Whereas the source positively emphasizes that the German occupation was described in two volumes (page 59), this article emphasizes the same fact in a negative way („however, only the volumes….“).

I could go on, but you get the general idea of why this article is highly problematic and worrying. I am particularly concerned about the section Goals and work of the commission because according to the source these are rather the conclusions and not the goals of the commission. Pantherskin (talk) 08:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Looking over this once again, I want to note that all of these concerns have been addressed - did you actually read the article since the last changes? There's no "however, only the volumes..." in it. It says the commission was an accomplished group. It says they tried to follow what they though of 'scholarly standards'. You are just repeating what you said earlier, without having bothered to actually look at how the article changed in the meantime. I believe this is called "stonewalling".radek (talk) 20:18, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I've tried to include the fact that the commission was a "accomplished and distinguish group". I think you're misreading the source here. Please see the overview here
 * Moeller goes into some length on the background of the two commission members for a reason. In that aspect, the article as it is, just follows the sources. If the sources didn't spend so much time on the background of Shieder and Conze then yes, I would agree with you. But they do. This was actually a big dig deal among German historians (please note that there's no Polish historians cited here, even though they could be) in the 1980's and early 1990's. Likewise the fact that they did try to follow what they though were "scholarly standards" is also in the article. What else do you want me to say? Like in, what else that's in the sources? I though I put all the "positive" (I'm trying to be NPOV here but now you got me going over to the other side here) aspects of the commissions work into the article. You're gonna hafta be more specific - and edit the article yourself, otherwise I'm not sure how this can be helped.radek (talk) 08:52, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Seriously, this article still has a completely different slant than the publication. The article still overwhelmingly slanders the commission, their report and their conclusions by emphasizing the Nazi past of some commission members. It presents the conclusions of the commission as if they were the predetermined goals of the inquiry. And so on. What is clear is that an uninolved editor is needed who has the expertise to clean-up this article and bring it to acceptable encyclopaedic standards. Pantherskin (talk) 10:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, I understand your criticisms but can you please be specific about it? Like point out specific passages that are wrong? Or, if you think it's a question of balance can you please add the relevant material or at least indicate what kind of text from the source is needed here? I'm just having a bit of trouble seeing it myself but I'm perfectly willing to accommodate - these various objections. Please be specific.radek (talk) 10:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, part of your tendentious slant can be seen already in the way you summarise things here on talk: you talk of 'what they thought were "scholarly standards"' (your scare quotes). Well, this was not just what "they thought": this in fact was a highly sophisticated, very advanced methodology, and, to the best of my knowledge, is still widely recognised as such in present research. You said somewhere else the methodology was "uncommon". From what I can gather, yes, it was: in the sense of being highly innovative. It was pioneering. The whole tradition of social history writing in German historiography goes back to these guys. This is connected to people like Hans-Ulrich Wehler, who came to be a highly influential liberal/leftist historian, with highly important work studying the Nazi past, but was also a student of Schieder's and a collaborator in the commission. You claim in your article hat he "later broke with the tradition" of Schieder and Conze. Well, no, he didn't - at least not in the sense of breaking with this research methodology. He continued on just this basis, apparently. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Oy, please stop using phrases and words like "tendentious". I actually really care about this article and yes that means I want it to be NPOV. Throwing words like that around is not helpful. As to the scare quotes - I can only repeat what I said previously; the only reason I used them is because they're there in the sources. Please look at the Moeller reference again. I went to some trouble to split it up and make it easy for anyone to access the source. But he uses them (scare quotes - they do exist you know, for a reason) quite extensively. So it's not me, it's Moeller (the source cited). He tells a story and in doing so he adopts the POV of the commission at times. But then he is very clear about clarifying that that is what he is doing.

I also think I have a pretty good grasp of what "social history" is and the associated debates among historians (Molobo's probably more knowledgeable about this subject so maybe you should ask him - seriously, an honest question will get you an honest answer, and it's also why I asked him about this topic in the first place. He's a full time historian. I'm part time).

I would like nothing more than to expand the section on Wehler. And Broszat too for that matter. I admire these guys. But the fact that they were research assistants to the ex-Nazi guys and it's how they had to do earn their bones at the time is pretty obvious. Good for them that they broke away from it. May we have more Broszat's and Wehler's and Haar's - in real world and on wikipedia too.

Anyway. Fp. Make changes. Edit the article. All the sources are cited and online. There is nothing to stop you from including text based on them. I've actually got some more sources that are relevant but they're "Polish" and so on and but ... stupid me... I was trying to make this article super legit in "only English online sources used" kind of way.

This goes to both you and Pantherskin too. The article is not "owned" by anyone.I'm not Offliner or Skapperod. Feel free to run amock. It's yours. Please edit it and change shit around as much as you'd like. Please use reliable sources along the way. So far you're just making a lot of sleezy accusations and not willing to back it up with any kinds of edits. At the end of the day the article is here - so if you have problem please help, don't hinder. Edit. Edit. Edit. Unless you're just blowing smoke.


 * Well, I'm afraid it's a simple fact that recognising tendentiousness when I see it requires much less time than developing an alternative article, and I happen not to have much time for this. Perhaps later. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:03, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No, Radek. It is your responsiblity to conform to NPOV, and not ours. In particular given the circumstances under which this article was created by you (or rather by Molobo). In it is current this article is biased and tries to force a certain opinion about the Schieder commission on the reader. You say that this is how the source presents it, but that is blatantly not true as everyone can easily verify by reading the relevant chapter. Pantherskin (talk) 12:16, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * If you're going to make objections to the article, then yes it is your responsibility to point out any (potentially non-existent) problems with it. And now you're going back to IDON'TLIKEEIT by invoking the spectre of "Molobo".


 * Of course it is my responsibility to conform to NPOV. I have done so.
 * You keep saying "it is biased" but where? how? be specific YOUDON'TLIKEIT???? That's not the same thing. This article is neutral, well researched and unbiased - I have expanded it plenty to incorporate both the positive and negative aspects of the commission. If you don't think I did a good job, then ... hey, mister, edit the article yourself.
 * "It is blatantly true" as in "verifiable" - I made sure to provide as many sources as were available. I did a whole lot of research - but hey, congratulations for being able to destroy it with a single lie.
 * Read the source.radek (talk) 12:33, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks Radek for your constructive reply. I appreciate your openness and polite choice of words. I guess it would be the best if uninvolved editors will check this article, the underlying sources and rewrite if necessary. Pantherskin (talk) 17:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, read the article, read the sources and then say specifically which part is problematic, rather than playing this "Gee, shucks, I think, there might be problems here, but I won't tell you where they are" kind of theater. This late in the end game, I just don't have patience for the usual crap. Specific, criticism, now.radek (talk) 18:09, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Again thanks for your polite and constructive response. Re: "I won't tell you were they are" - and . Pantherskin (talk) 18:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe Radek answered your comments, politely, above. If his replies and edits have not sufficiently addressed them, please explain why not; and please try to quote part of an article and part of the source that is being contradicted. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It is possible Radek or I are biased in reading the source. This is true for eveyone, due to NPOV. If you think the article is still not neutral, then please do edit it, per WP:SOFIXIT. I am not seeing any specific points above, other then subjective opinions about the article being biased (and mind you, you should remember that you are not neutral, too - everybody is biased). As it appears we have primarily Polish and German editors arguing here, let's hope this discussion will be joined by neutral editors; for that reason I will start an RfC. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Is the article neutral?
Comments above focus on the neutrality of the article. Neutral editors are welcome to review the article (majority of sources are directly linked to Google Books) and comment on whether the article is cherry picking negative content from the sources and makes the article bias, or is it properly NPOV. Please feel free to edit the article as well. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it violates WP:NPOV and WP:COATRACK. The WP:EEML, including blocked editors, have been working on this article offline for months before Radeksz proxied it here . All non-EEML editors who commented so far have expressed concerns, but are being humiliated by the EEML and pressured to at once propose an alternative . This won't work. It will take time to bring this article to minimal wikipedia standards, and further contributions of the EEML are obviously not helpful on this task. Skäpperöd (talk) 18:31, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This section is for neutral editors, not parties of the arbitration. Please don't poison the well. Thank you, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Correction: In contrast to you, I am not subject to any arbitration. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I am striking my comment above as it is not expressing what I meant; I apologize for the confusion. Anybody is welcome to comment here; what I meant is that this is a place that we should wait for neutral editors to present their views, not continue arguments from above, particularly ones that deal with editors, and not content of the article. You are more then welcome to keep discussing the content of the article anywhere here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

On first sight the article doesn't look neutral at all. However, I am not familiar with the topic and too much of the sources is not accessible to me. I noticed that the article Federal Ministry for Displaced Persons, Refugees and War Victims did not exist, so I have created a free translation of the German version. It's interesting to compare how it (briefly) covers the topic. Based on this comparison: It may well be that the main problem of this article is the appearance of tendentiousness rather than actual tendentiousness. Hans Adler 20:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Valid points, particularly about the appreance; it is worth remembering that NPOV includes "due weight" as well. If the article is critical (or supportive) of something, it may mean it authors wrote it in a biased way - or it may mean that most mainstream sources are written in a critical (or supportive) fashion. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you have misunderstood me. I think the content may basically be OK, but the presentation is not. The same information is often much more convincing when presented in a matter-of-fact way than when you can feel the author's emotions. And additional information that doesn't directly contribute to the main thesis (Nazis writing history in West Germany, a well known problem) makes the article more credible overall. It's not undue weight to mention that these figures were influential, innovative historians as well as Nazis. That's part of the problem: Intelligent ruthless criminals were in charge in Germany. Hans Adler 21:20, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not sure where we disagree; but I fully support the idea that this article may need some rewriting due to unconcious and hard to control for bias on the part of its (mostly Polish) authors (primarily Radeksz). Could you try to correct that - remove non-neutral language, balance the facts, etc.? We've been trying to do so for the past few days, but bottom line is that parts of such bias are next to impossible to spot and identify by the authors, no matter if they agree with the critics. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I will see what I can do, hopefully tomorrow. Here is an article in German that supports the main thesis of the present article. It's called Historiker im Nationalsozialismus and is part of the Lexikon der "Vergangenheitsbewältigung" in Deutschland (Dictionary of Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Germany). Hans Adler 21:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you; for the record I cannot read German, and I think neither can Radek. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:17, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I think nobody blames you for not understanding the German sources and still being interested in the topic. But it seems the most interesting sources are in German, and I would still like to list them here for the convenience of those who can read them (especially myself). I want to be as transparent as possible, so please ask if you have any doubts about what a source says or about its original political context etc. I am also prepared to do the occasional translation of a paragraph or two. Hans Adler 23:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Here is a Deutschlandfunk review of the report from 2005, by Michael Stürmer. He says that for a long time political correctness in Germany required not to talk about the events, but that people including Günther Grass have started doing it now. He does not mention the problems with the book, and instead cites from the preface: "The population transfer of Germans from the east is an event whose full historical dimension cannot be judged yet. Whether one regards it as the last act in a war in which the written and unwritten laws of the commerce of nations and states were violated thousandfold and the elimination of entire peoples were not only proclaimed as a goal but had in fact been started, or whether one sees it as the last phase of a battle of nations that raged with increasing bitterness in the in the European mix of peoples. In either case the familiar standards of European history fail us." Hans Adler 23:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Here is another review by the historian Bernd Faulenbach, published by the German Federal Centre for Political Education. On first sight this seems to be by far the best source I have seen, so I give a summary.
 * Faulenbach says the commission's task was originally to document the population transfer in order to provide material for supporting the German position in any future peace negotiations. The commission consisted of reputed 'leading' (inverted commas in the source) historians. The historians soon forgot about the original political motive, a fact that led to conflicts with the sponsor. They said in the introduction that their guiding idea was "the concern that events of the horrible dimension of the mass expulsion could become forgotten, the deterring and arousing experiences from this European catastrophe could get lost for statesmen and politicians."
 * The authors collectively made it very clear that they were aware of the Germans' guilt. Faulenbach says that this is ironic given that Schieder and Conze had planned/supported similar projects for the Nazis, and that it is not clear whether they actually felt their personal guilt.
 * The last volume never appeared, "probably for political reasons". Some recent authors have cherry-picked the most horrible passages from the series. After this project historians focused on examining the population transfers perpetrated by the Nazis. But they did not tackle research of the Holocaust from the victims' point of view. Hans Adler 23:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Very interesting. I am not surprised that the most significant body of literature on that is in German. I really hope you'll find time to incorporate this into the article, and rewrite any parts that you think have problems with neutrality/bias/undue weight/etc. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 00:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * is another article, more detailed and specifically about the commission. Pantherskin (talk) 04:46, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that looks very helpful. Hans Adler 16:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Focus on Schieder and Conze
The relevant portion of Moeller here is pages 56-62. Six pages. Out of that half of 56, and 2/3 of 57 are devoted to Schieder personally, as an ex-Nazi and how they related to his work on the commission. The other 1/3 of 57 is about both Schieder and Rothfels and their background together. Most of 58 is on Conze and his past. About a third of pg. 60 and half of pg. 61 is also directly about Schieder and his goals.

The article follows this source. That's why it talks about Conze and Schieder, and their past, here. Their past is relevant to the work of the commission as the source makes clear. There's just no way to say this in more blunt terms.radek (talk) 19:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * And? The book is about German postwar historiography, and not exclusively about the Schieder commission. Pantherskin (talk) 20:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, but where it discusses the commission it focuses on Schieder and Conze's past.radek (talk) 20:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * You could you also say, where it discusses Schieder and Conze's past it focuses on the commission. Pantherskin (talk) 21:19, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I am afraid I am missing your point...? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The source says they followed very strict scientific standards, they wanted their report to stick. The source concludes that they did their work responsibly. Not the kind of "Nazis doing Nazi stuff" this article suggests. Already in September, you discussed on your WP:EEML how to spin the above source best, because you were indeed worried that others might actually read the source and find that this and other sources draw other conclusions and give the work of the commission good grades. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:24, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No, what was discussed - actually, just "said" by me - is that the fact that the commission tried to follow what it though to be scientific standards needs to be in the article in the interest of POV. I also expressed concern that you were going to try and bias the article by pulling things out of context.radek (talk) 22:56, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Clarification needed
On the source War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany By Robert G. Moeller.

On pages 61/62 according to Moeller "publication of the record of crimes... would establish... emphatically... hushed up" with reference to [31] The "Holocaust" Reception in West Germany: Right, Center and Left, Jeffrey Herf, New German Critique, No. 19, Special Issue 1: Germans and Jews (Winter, 1980), pp. 30-52. However I could not find any mention of Schieder in that source. Could anyone explain that to me?

Does anyone, who can read German, have access to and can check "Holocaust", eds. Peter Marthesheimer and Ivo Frenzel? It is apparently also a part of citation [31]. (Igny (talk) 20:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC))


 * Reading through the JSTOR article...radek (talk) 21:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

German Wikipedia proxies for the EEML
See the article on Werner Conze there where the whole issue is given prominence. Per sources.radek (talk) 20:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * And? That is an article about Werner Conze, not about the Schieder commission. Pantherskin (talk) 20:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * And? I see nothing wrong with seven lines out of ~100 discussing one prominent member here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * If only these seven lines would discuss Werner Conze. But they do not - they discuss his Nazi past and nothing else. And that not even in a very encyclopedic way. Pantherskin (talk) 21:19, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I support further rewriting that section; but the fact remains that Cozne was criticized for his performance in the Commission and bias in his works due to his past. As such, it is relevant here. The question is: do we want to summarize their biographies, or focus on the parts relevant to this article? I think the latter is the better approach, but if so, the sections need to make it clear they are not bio summaries. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You refer de:Werner Conze section Debate about Conze's role in the Nazi state. It says that Conze was a member of the Nazi party, and that from a modern perspective, some of his early works from the 1930s can be interpreted as anti-semitic and Nazi-friendly (there it focusses on two phrases, i.e. "dejewification of market places" and a "genetically healthy peasantry as the source of German blood"). The article further says that later works during the Nazi era are "free of zeitgeist idioms", and that overall, research did not find "serious charges" regarding his pre-1945 political stance.

It boils down to a historian who during his early education/carreer (he was 23 when the Nazis took over) did not oppose the Nazi policies, but did not become a fanatic either. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No that's your characterization of him, a false one, and not one that is actually found in sources. For sources, please look at for example this: : The famous Werner Conze and Theodor Schieder both gave ideological advice for "Lebensraum" policies in the German East, which included, after 1939, the suggestion of "dejudaization" of market towns in Lithuania and Poland. My emphasis on "after 1939" to indicate that this wasn't something that only happened in his "early education/carreer" (he was 30 when he wrote about "dejudaization" of Nazi occupied Poland) but pretty much up until the point when the Nazis lost power (taking into account his service on the Eastern Front). And then the next sentence talks about how even in the 1950's he still harbored his anti-semitic prejudices.


 * What it boils down to is that he stopped doing Nazi-supported and Nazi-supporting research when it became clear that that wasn't an option anymore.radek (talk) 22:33, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality and the lead
I think the leads should be expanded; it currently seems to focus too much on the Nazi past of the commission members, which can be seen as making the article (lead) biased due to undue weight on that issue. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Update: I have expanded the lead, feel free to improve it further. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

If I were to rewrite the article from scratch, I would organize it a bit differently. Something like I hope that helps. (Igny (talk) 21:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC))
 * 1) Lead
 * 2) Background (brief history of the expulsion)
 * 3) Creation of commission
 * 4) Methodology and results
 * 5) Criticism/controversies
 * Concur that this is the way to go here. Skäpperöd (talk) 15:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Could you give it a try? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Another question: Did the work of the commission lead anywhere? Any consequences? Any follow up? Perhaps any prominent politician who recently used the commission's findings in his agenda? (Igny (talk) 21:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC))


 * The estimates are regularly quoted by Erika Steinbach and the BdV (not to mention more unsavory characters).radek (talk) 02:11, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * And regularly quoted in scholarly publications too. Wow, you really have an axe to grind. Pantherskin (talk) 04:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Cite your sources, both of you... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 04:58, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Tendentiousness
Radek claims that he merely presents what the source(s) say. Let's put that to a test. The Moeller source, which is the only source which discusses the commission itself in detail mentions and discusses Hans Rothfels, a prominent member of the commission. Moeller discusses Hans Rothfels on page 57-58, including his Jewish heritage, his prosecution by the Nazis, and his forced emigration to the US. The most negative comment about Rothfels in Moeller is that Rothfels is a "loyal, patriotic German, particularly concerned to establish the significance of German cultural contributions in eastern Europe". So what does Radek write about Rothfels? Quote: "a German nationalist who in the interwar period advocated German domination of Eastern Europe and making its population into serfs". No source given for these claims, and of course no mention of that Rothfels was prosecuted by the Nazis.

Similarly, the article does not mention Peter Rassow, another prominent member of the commission, someone who was close to the resistance to the Nazis. Seems that this does not fit into the picture of the commission as a group of Ex-Nazis or to use Radek's DYK hook "the Schieder commission on the expulsion of Germans was headed by former Nazi Theodor Schieder, who during the Nazi era advocated "depopulating" Poland of its Jewish population". Pantherskin (talk) 22:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * For the record, I support adding sections describing other members of the commission. The argument that the current one is biased as it focuses on the most controversial figures seems logical and merits a reply (and further edits). Since you did the research, would you mind sections on Rothfels and Rassow? PS. Regardng Rothfels and serfs quote, I believe this may be the source: . --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Also from the source in relation to Rothfels' Jewish heritage and him being prosecuted by the Nazis:

"Rothfels, despite his Jewish origins, was close to Nazi positions of ethnic expansions in the East and left Germany only very reluctantly after his applications for honorary Aryan status were turned down despite Joachim von Ribbentrop's support".

(pg. viii) He wanted to be a Nazi, but the Nazi wouldn't let him be one.radek (talk) 02:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

And I didn't put anything on Rassow in because I couldn't find much. He is mentioned only once in Moeller (pg 231), on a page unavailable for preview in what appears to be a footnote. There is a little bit more about him on Google Books generally, but nothing to do with the commission (except just noting that he was a member). So no, this isn't some kind of conspiracy, it's simply following the sources (or lack of them in this regard). If you got any, please add them in.radek (talk) 02:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * And that exactly is tendentiousness. You say that you are following the source, but then somehow you are good at finding additional sources for negative information such as the claims about Hans Rothfels, but bad or unwilling to find anything about, for example Rassow. Pantherskin (talk) 04:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No, that's called "sources not being available". I looked. Whatever.radek (talk) 06:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Not available? Moeller discusses Rothfels, but you choose not to include this positive information, in favor of spending time to find negative information. Pantherskin (talk) 08:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Argh. Please. We were talking about availability of sources on Rassow - that's where the sources are unavailable. Now you're switching back to talking about Rothfels - as soon as I address one issue, you switch to another, then back again when I answer you on that one. It's like being a ping pong ball. Anyway - the supposed "positive" information is that he was prosecuted by the Nazis. I addressed that already - the sources are clear; he wanted to be a Nazi, he shared Nazi views, but because of his Jewish background the Nazis wouldn't let him be a Nazi. I went easy on him.radek (talk) 08:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * This is where the thing called collaboration comes in. If you believe there are sources that should be added, sofixit... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 04:57, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No, collaboration does not mean that other editors need to fix what tendentious editors ruined. This is rather were the thing called topic banning comes in.... Pantherskin (talk) 05:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Creating content is strange definition of ruining, particularly coming from editor who almost never does it. Tendentiousness, in my book, is criticizing content creation - and doing little else. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 05:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Posting biased attack articles as a proxy for a banned editor is not exactly content creation, or at least it is not if we care about the quality of content. But I guess we just have different opinions here. Pantherskin (talk) 08:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Annnnndddddddd we're back to the IDON'TLIKEIT.radek (talk) 08:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, Radek, I do not like how you (ok, I should say Molobo) create tendentious and biased articles, and attack anyone who dares to question the neutrality of your creation. You innocently claim that you just used what the source says, but that is evidently a lie (just kidding of course....). You excluded all information that could have put the commission in a better light, as for example what Moeller says about Rothfels. Instead you dod some further research to dig out controversial details, that you then added to the article. Funny how you avoided doing some extra research for Rassow or other honorable commission members. Pantherskin (talk) 09:07, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Radek said he couldn't find the information. If you found it, please, use it to expand and improve the article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * You probably mean Molobo couldn't find the information as Radek has not written this article. Pantherskin (talk) 22:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Name and scope of this article
I have not been able to verify that the commission that researched, wrote and edited the Documentation of the Displacement of the Germans from Eastern Central Europe is widely known as the "Schieder commission". Apart from Wikipedia mirrors, these are the uses that I found in English:
 * Ordinary Google search :
 * "Ruchniewicz introduces into the debate on the removal of the German population the question of research structures (such as Theodor Schieder's 'Commission', or the 'Joint Polish–German Commission for the Revision of School Textbooks') and their dependency on political pressures." Bernard Linek, Recent Debates on the Fate of the German Population in Upper Silesia 1945-1950. (Elsewhere the same author uses the expression "Theodor Schieder's team".)
 * Everything else was on a Wikipedia mirror or totally unrelated.
 * Google Books search :
 * No relevant results.
 * Google Scholar search :
 * No relevant results.

The German equivalent would be "Schieder-Kommission" or (less likely) "Schiederkommission". I tried that as well:
 * Ordinary Google search:
 * A Zeit article
 * Birgit Schwelling, Zeitgeschichte zwischen Erinnerung und Politik, 2008.
 * Google Books search:
 * 6 relevant results (all allow only snippet view).
 * Google Scholar search :
 * No additional results to the above.

Overall my impression is that the commission does not have a name, and that authors independently make up this term when they feel that they need it.

This brings me to the scope of this article. It makes no sense to discuss the commission without discussing its product in more detail. After all, the product was the reason for their existence. That the commission was led by former(?) Nazis is important only because of the commission's project. And until recently the reception of the commission consisted mostly in the reception of their work.

I would suggest renaming this article after the commission's product – but there is another problem here: I couldn't find an official translation of the title. Everybody seems to be referring to it under its original German title: "Dokumentation der Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Ost-Mitteleuropa". Under these circumstances I am not sure what is best. One thing is clear: The scope of even a renamed article would remain the same. We don't need a POV fork of existing articles on the events. We must discuss how the commission discussed them, but not in excessive detail. Hans Adler 16:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I have no objections to the use of the original German title; if no translation exists. I am however not convinced that the commission is non-notable. While the subjects of authors and their work are closely related, they are not one and the same... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:16, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, the commission is certainly notable. The only problem is that it doesn't seem to have a name. Normally it's once referred to in full with complicated circumlocutions containing the complete title of the work, and from then on it's just "the commission". Of course we can have articles about notable things without a name, but if our article title is as snappy as this one we will mislead people into thinking that it's an established term. (One could also argue that the "Schiedler commission" is a bit POV because it stresses Schiedler's role. But judging from everything I have read so far that seems to be appropriate.) In any case it's not an urgent matter. Perhaps someone finds a much better solution if we give it some time. Hans Adler 17:32, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed, I think we should first focus on making this article neutral and comprehensive. Once this is achieved, it will be easy to retitle it, split, or whatever we or others decide is the appropriate course of action. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

The issue of the proper name here is something I thought about while creating this article. Yes, I also found that the commission doesn't appear to have a name in the sources. I went with "Schieder commission" pretty much for the reason Hans mentions - he was the head of the commission and most sources on it stress his guideing role in it. The title of the volumes should probably go in the lede as well.

Ok, I'm done with this for awhile.radek (talk) 22:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Mediation
I was wondering if parties here would be interested in mediation? I does seem to me like the atmosphere here is not very pleasant, and I am not sure if we can fix it ourselves. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:07, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The fight between Radek and Pantherskin aside, I do not see a trouble big enough for the mediation. I am sure you and Hans can work something out, just give it some time. I will also try to contribute something some time later. (Igny (talk) 18:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC))


 * Personally I don't feel affected by the atmosphere. I can see the problem, but everybody is nice to me. Currently it looks as if the Polish speaking editors have run out of sources and among the German speakers I have drawn the Old Maid and won the right to work on the article on my own, based on the German sources. I already have a little stack of them, and I am prepared to do it, provided there isn't too much distraction from people discussing the current state of the article and whose responsibility it is etc. I will probably run out of steam rather soon, but perhaps we can get out of this situation without a formal mediator. Hans Adler 18:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * PS: This dispute is nothing compared to the big battle about whether "Leeds" is a city. Believe me. Hans Adler 18:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comments, Igny, Hans. For now I plan on limiting my involvement here; after all, if I don't have sources to help you with, I cannot do much anyway. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I do not have many sources either, I could try to neutralize the perceived POV issues. In particular, I do not think that some sentences about Schieder (e.g. his anti-semitic views) which could rightfully belong to his own article, are relevant here, unless there is a source directly linking the commission to anti-semitism for example. (Igny (talk) 18:42, 9 December 2009 (UTC))
 * Please do; as I said earlier there are some undue weight issues and I fully support fixing them. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not seeing much point in the mediation here either. Pantherskin, while making accusations here on talk has completely refused to edit the article in order to help address some of the issues. The other editor who has made objections, Skapperod, appears uninterested on working on this article at this moment as well. So it's not clear what exactly can be mediated right now.

I'm perfectly happy with Igny and Hans doing some work and I trust in their neutrality completely. I also hope that they keep on eye on the article for awhile.radek (talk) 22:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I do not see a point either as long as Radeksz doesn't refactor his outrageous personal attacks. The best would be if Radek and Piotrus stay away from this article, and I am sure Igny and Hans can work something out. And if not we just have another article in a sea of hundreds of thousands articles of dubious quality. Pantherskin (talk) 22:46, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite attempt
I began a reorganization of the article here. It is far from being finished, so if you want to criticize, be kind. Constructive comments would be welcome. One thing I disliked about this article was that nearly every time when some notable person is mentioned in this article, his Nazi past had to be emphasized (like such and such who was this and that during Nazi regime...) Keep in mind that at the time nearly every German had some Nazi past. And I do not think we are in position to judge them here. To challenge their motivation is ok, and to do that it suffices to describe their Nazi past once in a dedicated section. But we should not try to repeatedly ruin their reputation and defame them just to discredit the commission's work. Also these people have their own articles where you can be as specific with regard to the details as you want. Here the most important points have to be given as briefly as possible.

I will come back to it tomorrow. (Igny (talk) 04:26, 10 December 2009 (UTC))
 * I am a bit unhappy about your method. As I have announced in various places I am also going to work on this article and I am currently in the research phase. I certainly don't intend to improve the article in situ just for it to be replaced by someone else's private version afterwards. Moreover, your current draft looks like a POV fork for the opposite POV to me. There is nothing wrong with starting with a section "Background" for example, but it is going to be POV if it merely summarises (parts of) Expulsion of Germans after World War II as the "main article" tag implies. Nazi atrocities in the east, Volkstum ideology and the foundation of West Germany are all important parts of the background which are not discussed in that article. Hans Adler 07:33, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, that is why I did not actually finish the attempt. I did not put too much effort into it so I do not mind to discard it completely, I just wanted to show what I had in mind. (Igny (talk) 12:25, 10 December 2009 (UTC))


 * Ah, I see. Then I suggest that we work on it in place, with incremental changes. That way the article will improve while we are working on it, and everybody gets a chance to give us feedback. Hans Adler 12:39, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The more I learn about this topic the more interesting it gets. (As usual.) It turns out that this is a key link between German historical research before and after World War II, and that it gives a lot of insight into the early years of West Germany.


 * There is also the thrilling story of an elite group of historians in Königsberg who part ways to plan and support expulsions of Slavic people and annihilation of Jews. Who, after this backfires, find themselves rejoined in the project of describing the fate of their expelled fellow Germans. They think that the clock can be turned back (i.e. the former eastern territories of Germany be recovered) if only the world hears the pure, objective truth about the atrocities committed against the Germans. For political reasons they insist on documenting the expulsion of Germans to the most stringent scientific standards, going so far as to invent some of them (as well as a ground-breaking new research methodology).


 * Initially they can leave open the reasons that led to the expulsions. But as they try to finish the documentation off with an introductory volume, their past takes them in. Their scientific ethos carries them away, and they insist on explaining how the expulsion of Germans was the natural consequence of the earlier expulsion of non-Germans. The ministry that funds the project does not want to commit political suicide, and after several years of dispute the project is stopped incomplete. The historians initially plan to publish the final volume on their own, but run out of steam. Research of the impact of the holocaust and other German atrocities on their victims stays on the back burner of West German historical research.

The amazing thing is: The above two paragraphs are only slightly simplified for dramatic effect. This is material for a gripping featured article, but I doubt we have the right conditions here to write it. I propose the following strategy: Once I am satisfied that this article is essentially objective, I will translate it into German and initiate its further development at the German Wikipedia. I am confident that it will get the necessary number of eyes there, and that it will receive considerable feedback and (non-partisan) improvements. I believe quite a few historians are active on the German Wikipedia and unlikely to contribute to the article as long as it is only here. I will try to keep improvements synchronised between the two versions with reasonable delays. Hans Adler 11:57, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Translating the article for the German Wikipedia is a great idea. The historians there might give interesting and valuable input. Dr. Loosmark  12:05, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course I can't promise input from historians, and I am not very experienced with the German Wikipedia. (At least I have learned not to mention the English Wikipedia.) But they have a relatively high standard of debate, a high percentage of people who research in libraries, and low tolerance for disruption. I will try to put the article through their usual processes to win contributors, starting with the equivalent to DYK. Hans Adler 12:38, 11 December 2009 (UTC)