Talk:War guilt question

Possible in-links
The following articles might be worth looking at as possible in-links to this article, after release to mainspace.


 * Aftermath of World War I
 * Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles
 * ✔️ Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War
 * ✔️ Commission of Responsibilities
 * ✔️ Dawes Plan
 * ✔️ Fourteen Points
 * ✔️ Fritz Fischer
 * ✔️ German collective guilt
 * ✔️ German nationalism
 * ✔️ Germany's Aims in the First World War
 * ✔️ Harry Elmer Barnes
 * ✔️ Hermann Lutz
 * ✔️ Hermann Kantorowicz
 * ✔️ Historiography of the causes of World War I
 * ✔️ Index of Germany-related articles
 * ✔️ Max Montgelas
 * ✔️ Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920)
 * ✔️ Scheidemann cabinet
 * ✔️ Template:Germany topics
 * ✔️ World Disarmament Conference

Mathglot (talk) 12:49, 20 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Others:
 * from Centre for the Study of the Causes of the War – two Further links, to the War Guilt Section, and the Working Committee of German Associations.

Redirects needed
Mathglot (talk) 10:40, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * ✔️ Arbeitsausschuss Deutscher Verbände --> ~#Working Committee of German Associations (section, subtopic, lang(de>en), possibilities, printworthy)
 * ✔️ Working Committee of German Associations --> ~#~ (section, subtopic, possibilities, printworthy)
 * Historians of the Sacred Union
 * Erfüllungspolitik --> ~#~ (section, subtopic, lang(de>en), possibilities, printworthy)

About the title
Q: Why is this article called "War guilt question", when every other Wikipedia calls it the same thing, after the German word for it?

A: Because a careful search of books and other reliable sources in English, shows that the English phrase is the more common one in English sources. Sources generally do mention the German word from which the English calque is derived, but then they use the English expression, or after the first time, a shortened version of it ("the question", "the issue", etc.). There are some English sources that do use the German word throughout, but they are a minority.

Q: What about the capitalization? Why not, "War Guilt Question"?

A: Same as above. Mathglot (talk) 10:26, 24 July 2020 (UTC)


 * It also has other names in English, including: war guilt thesis, question of German guilt, question of German war guilt, and war guilt problem. But some are just elegant variation, and none are as common in English as "war guilt question", which started to appear almost immediately, for example in 1920, and 1930.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mathglot (talk • contribs) 00:07, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Section structure of foreign Featured articles
Two articles on foreign Wikipedias have "Featured article" status: the French article, and the German article. (Note that they have the same name; the French article borrowed the German word as the title, because that's what reliable sources in French do.) Details on the section structure of these two articles follows. Mathglot (talk) 00:26, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

The section structure of the French Featured Article fr:Kriegsschuldfrage with translated section headers can be viewed in its entirety at User:Mathglot/sandbox/War guilt question/French article sections. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:23, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Here is the section organization from rev 202268988 of the German Featured Article Kriesgsschuldfrage, translated into English. It can be viewed at User:Mathglot/sandbox/War guilt question/German article sections. Mathglot (talk) 03:25, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Launch prep

 * Complete initial translations.
 * Mark expansion possibilities where only partly translated. (indicate useful, underutilized sources)
 * Brief intro paragraphs for #In the Weimar Republic, #Treaty of Versailles, #Reactions, #In other countries, #Post World War II.
 * Section #Dealing with the issue and responsibilities: not clear what the unifying theme is of this H3; also, needs intro para. Mathglot (talk) 21:08, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Section retitling and re-org – some of the section headers are far from ideal (blame the French article), and the overall section structure could be improved.
 * Start adding more English sources to the #Sources section, so they can be used to supplement, or in some cases replace, French or German sources if the English sources are as good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mathglot (talk • contribs) 22:51, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Pre-release: check Further templates with fr/de links, and possibly convert to Expand French or German. Mathglot (talk) 20:44, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
 * check Sfn linkage
 * Section Further reading: translate untranslated bits (month names, etc.), drop fr templates ('numero', etc)
 * Watch for efn notes > 26 which generate 2-letter bracketed superscript [aa], [ab], etc, when they are adjacent to ills
 * Draft categories
 * Draft cruft at top
 * Section top links: Main, Further, Further ill; ill's in line..

Mathglot (talk) 22:30, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Launched to main space. Only two article in-links currently; need to provide more. Mathglot (talk) 04:58, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Erfüllungspolitik section deleted
I have deleted the Erfüllungspolitik section and some of the Gustav Stresemann section because they have all but no relationship to war guilt and are written so badly (or at least the French wiki article that they're translated from was) that they make no coherent sense. Erfüllungspolitik wasn't a blanket policy of "appeasement" as the writer of the article seemed to think. It was a focused policy implemented by Chancellor Joseph Wirth in response to the London Ultimatum on reparations (see here): "Erfüllung" means "fulfilment", not "appeasement". Germany did not in any way "acknowledge part of its responsibility for the war" by agreeing to pay as the London Ultimatum demanded. Wirth was trying to show the Allies that the payments were too high in order to force them to be lowered. That was it. GHStPaulMN (talk) 01:41, 14 June 2024 (UTC)