Template:Did you know nominations/Ulenspiegel

Ulenspiegel

 * ... that Ulenspiegel was one of the most important satirical journals in postwar Germany?
 * *ALT1:... that the founders of Ulenspiegel began working on the magazine immediately after being released from Nazi imprisonment?
 * ALT2:... that although the title of the postwar satirical journal Ulenspiegel means owl mirror in High German, in Low German it means "kiss my behind"?
 * ALT3:... that Ulenspiegel, one of the most important satirical journals in postwar Germany, ran afoul of first the American censors and then the Communists?
 * Reviewed: Groningse Bachvereniging
 * Comment: Review to follow (probably tomorrow). Updated, see link directly above.

Created/expanded by Marrante (talk). Self nom at 08:58, 25 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I have reviewed Groningse Bachvereniging. Link above. Marrante (talk) 19:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Symbol possible vote.svg Newness and length are fine. The article is for the most part neutrally written, but "Ulenspiegel—like no other magazine in postwar Germany—symbolized the optimism and democratic, anti-fascist new era before the polarization of the cold war and the division of Germany." is a value judgment that needs a reference. There are also other pieces of information that need references: the sentence after that one; the "embracing ex-Nazis" bit earlier in the paragraph (it may be in the reference but I didn't see it); the role of Peter de Mendelssohn; that they met on the Ku-damm and Sandberg had a comp with him; and "being too western and modern" as the reason for its closure. I find refs for all the suggested hooks except ALT3, because of that last point. Less importantly, the two sets of references to the book by Scott-Smith and Krabbendam (refs 1 and 7) need to be checked - I found stuff ascribed to one page that was actually on the next page, so I changed the first ref to it to the range of pages dealing with the magazine, not noticing there was another ref to the second page. The writing is generally clear (I made some small tweaks), but the organization is not clear, with the founding as a separate subsection under Background, the description as another subsection under Background and continuing the history, and then another separate section headed History. So if the unreferenced points and the organization are fixed, it will be fine :-) I think all the hooks are interesting (and I made minor style/punctuation changes to a couple of them); I like ALT1 most but I think it needs just a bit more background. How about:
 * ALT4... that the founders of the post-war German satirical magazine Ulenspiegel began working on it immediately after being released from Nazi imprisonment?   Yngvadottir (talk) 04:54, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Some of those problems have to do with the translation process and starting with a pre-existing article (the original translation) that then evolves as I look for references to back it up and in doing so, becomes drastically different. Plus, in this case, the article spawned a few others (to fix some critical red links), so I was suddenly very busy. German WP articles often have few if any inline refs, but will have lots of books, so you know this stuff is coming from somewhere. But try to find it. I'll go back and look at the issues you address. You're right about ALT1. Thanks for the review. Marrante (talk) 06:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC) (amended Marrante (talk) 06:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC))
 * Oh I do understand; I sometimes create articles in the same way and all too often I wish they would have said where they got that! Hopefully you can find cites. Yngvadottir (talk) 06:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Marrante, I see on your user page that you are quite ok with the German language. But if you need a hand with interpreting / reviewing a source, ping me on my talk page. I'll see whether I can help.  Schwede 66  08:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you. What I need more help with is finding some sources. This article was picked up from the German WP with no inline refs. I expanded it a bit in looking for refs, found a lot, but some key points are still lacking a ref. I have taken care of some of the issues mentioned by Yngvadottir, but still need to track down sources for others. I will be back on this task later today. Marrante (talk) 09:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The bit about "embracing ex-Nazis" was from this sentence in the ref used, "The image of the happy embrace between a partner with dollars and a partner with swastikas did not coincide with the notion of a transnational partnership that the ICD intended to disseminate." Regarding Peter de Mendelssohn, all I've been able to do is find reference to OMGUS, him handing out licenses and a footnote that says he was friends with several communists. I had been looking for a source for the information about the meeting on the bridge, but that must have come from Sandberg's own memoirs or something like that. I have no access to it. Marrante (talk) 16:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I think I'm at a point where I can't do anymore. I've added some refs (and thank you, Yngvadottir, for the Spiegel ref, etc.) and not quite everything you mentioned has been addressed because I simply couldn't find anything, try though I did. I'm ready to either comment out or remove those portions, specifically the business about the meeting with the comp at the Ku-damm and the business about sponsorship, which may actually be more phrasing than anything, since I have Carlebach bringing Sandberg to ICD. I left in the bit about the sponsors because if I take it out, there's no reason for Mendelssohn's name to be in the article, since I can't connect him with Sandberg directly by name. It's now written in a way that it's a simple one-sentence removal, if need be, though I'd like to preserve the sentence, if it's removed. Can you give it another once-over to see if the article is otherwise okay now? Please let me know if there is more to do. Marrante (talk) 17:40, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll have a look in an hour or two; someone has just shown me a vid of the Lagarfljóts Worm on an unimpeachable Icelandic TV site, so I'm mucking about with Icelandic for a little while now :-) I'll then do some more newspaper searching myself and if necessary comment out stuff. I agree it's sad when that has to happen - as I say I wish de.wikipedia editors would footnote more - but I do see you've made changes and judging by Der Spiegel there may be more in the press archives. Do you have a preference for the hook? My thinking is that ALT2, while fully supported and a nice dab of earthy humor for the Main Page, would not do justice to the chutzpah these writers and illustrators showed. If you disagree, maybe we should go with that one in the spirit of the German satirical tradition :-) Yngvadottir (talk) 18:19, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Symbol confirmed.svg I changed the wording of the "ex-Nazis" passage, created an overarching "History" section, and found and added some more sources. More than one person is credited as being editor, with some variation between sources, so I changed that. I was unable to substantiate either Peter de Mendelssohn's role, although all sources agree he was responsible for politically vetting journalists and the information may be on p. 111 of Capturing the German Eye, which I am unable to see, or the Ku-damm meeting, although there is a source stating that Sandberg conceived the desire to start a modern Simplicissimus while still in prison, so it's plausible he had a comp, and there are several stating that he turned down a license to publish Der Tagesspiegel, which also makes de Mendelssohn more than likely to have been involved. So since this is not FAC, I'm leaving those bits in. I see you found a source for the "too modern" and I found one for insufficiently proletarian and added it. I forgot to state earlier that I checked about half the sources for overly close paraphrasing as well as for accuracy, and found no problems. So it's good to go - for any of the hooks, although I'm commenting out the original of ALT1. Yngvadottir (talk) 23:00, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your improvements. Good finds on those additional sources. I don't have a strong preference regarding the hooks. I did re-number the tweaked ALT1 to ALT4 and add a bullet, just to make it stand out a bit more, though. Again, Yngvadottir, thanks for all your work on this nom. Marrante (talk) 07:14, 8 February 2012 (UTC)