User:Dsfish2/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.)

The article I will be evaluating is: Gestapo. The section that I will be focusing on is the Population ratios, methods and effectiveness section.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I have chosen this article and section on the Gestapo as it directly relates to the topic that I am studying in class. The viewpoints explained in the article need to be evaluated through a historiographical lense in order to determine the quality of it. Overall, I was not very impressed with the section and I wholeheartedly believe there is much to be fixed despite the amount of information within the section.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

The first evaluative criteria I will be discussing is the content of the section. The content within the section was directly related to the topic of the Gestapo in Nazi Gemany. However, there are a few drawbacks to the section. For example much of the content is not up to date as the theories are most post revisionist and don’t focus on the different facets of the argument behind the Gestapo. The content that is missing includes the post-revisionist and totalitarian views of the Gestapo. This content can come from historians such as Vandana Joshi, Claire Hall or Edward Crankshaw. Including Joshi’s research that focuses on denunciations between wives and husbands in Nazi Germany would bring an important perspective and expand upon the idea of denunciations as a whole. In the section it talks about how personal motives were part of denunciations but does not go into detail what those motives were. Including even a portion of Joshi’s work on denunciations and how in “denunciation reports one reads of housewives denouncing their husbands for political crime, but with strong reference to the everyday dramas of conjugal life.” Another perspective that would have been beneficial to expand upon was the original totalitarian perspective that historians such as Edward Crankshaw had on the Gestapo and Nazi Germany. The explanation that Crankshaw gives on how the Gestapo were able to function through legal means is one that seems to be missing from this section in the article. Having multiple sides to the story provides a more fleshed out perspective.

Tone and Balance is the next evaluative criteria I will use for this section. The biggest issue that I took with this section in the article was the lack of neutrality. It argued points such as “Contrary to popular belief, the Gestapo was not the all-pervasive, omnipotent agency in German society.” However, it did not discuss any facets of this “popular belief” and attempted to present their own preferred views on the subject as fact. Viewpoints such as that of Claire Hall who argues that the V-Leute, confidential informants, played an important role in the success of the Gestapo were completely bypassed. In their attempt to show a specific side of an argument the author of this section in the Wikipedia argument wrote in an almost persuasive manner.

The next evaluative criteria is Sources and References. Thankfully many of the sources used in this were from reliable secondary sources as it included arguments from Robert Gellately and Mallmann & Paul. Although it includes important information such as Gellately’s main thesis on the importance of denunciations and a self-policing state, it focused too heavily on it. Furthermore, the majority of the sources that this section was based from are not current as Gellately’s article that was referenced was from 1992. While there may not be any issues with where the sources actually came from, I do take issue as to which sources they chose and how many sources that they left out. Perhaps one thing that caught my attention was the discussion of how Eric Johnson and Richard Evans were in agreement with one another. Johnson was a firm believer in the idea that the German citizens were acting as agents within the regime; however, Evans does not share this same view. Evans argues that certain groups that have been labeled as “social outcasts” were actually in the majority and were persecuted against.

As for the organization and writing quality of the section, it was not lacking in understanding, rather it did not follow a set narrative structure. It seemed as though it was attempting to argue a certain point but did not want to fully flesh out the argument but rather just laid out “facts” that would fit the bill. There were no spelling or grammatical errors that I saw and the jargon that was used in the section was not hard to understand.

Lastly, for the overall impressions criteria I’ll lay some groundwork understanding as to the status of this article. This is a level - 5 vital article, meaning that it is an important article; however, due to its lacking and somewhat outdated information it has been moved down to a C-Class article. While the section did have great empirical data that argued for one specific point, there was not much else to it. This article is underdeveloped as it has decent groundwork laid out; however, after reading and discussing many of its issues, it has been weighed and found wanting.