Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gerald Steinacher


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:12, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Gerald Steinacher

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Appears to be vanity. Autobiography (by User:Steinacher) of an (entry-level) Assistant Professor(!) who has close to no citations in Google Scholar. No reliable sources whatsoever, no indication of any notability, scholarly recognition etc. Josh Gorand (talk) 01:20, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 02:09, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment. There is a long and respectful review of his book in the Wall Street Journal . Xxanthippe (talk) 02:50, 2 August 2012 (UTC).
 * Yes, by an "author of eight mystery novels on Hitler and the Nazis" (i.e. not an academic). I don't think this is sufficient to establish his notability as an academic. Assistant professors are as a general rule always never notable, it's the entry-level position for an academic. I know of many academics including historians who have hundreds of citations in Google Scholar but no Wikipedia biography, this guy has 4 at most including self-citations. The person in question fails WP:ACADEMIC. Also, "writing an autobiography on Wikipedia is strongly discouraged" per Autobiography. Josh Gorand (talk) 12:02, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose deletion. The editor who has asked for deletion has removed a sentence from the lead of the Michael Faulhaber article which asserts "Historian Gerald Steinacher noted that he "for a long time maintained bridges between fascism and the Church." Anybody who knows anything of the history of the period would realise that there is nothing particularly objectionable to this statement except to apologists. It appears to have been placed in the lead to balance what is clearly a rose tinted, old view, from Britiannica that doesn't reflect modern scholarship - see the main body of the article. Cardinal Faulhaber wasn't a Nazi but like the rest of the Church heirarchy he did seek to maintain some kind of modus vivendi in order to reduce the pressure on the Church. The scholar in question may have only appeared in recent years but already his book (Oxford University Press) has attracted favourable responses from people like Michael Phayer ("Steinacher's fine "Nazis auf der Flucht"), Robert Gerwarth ("Steinacher has set the bar for future research in this area") and from another recently published historian (Palgrave Macmillan) Paul O'Shea ("From a teacher's point of view, I would recommend Steinacher's book as an example to students of how to use archives and how to piece together an often patchy and scattered historical puzzle") ("Gerald Steinacher's excellent work") Yt95 (talk) 16:10, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Um, I came across this article beause the subject of the autobiography himself had promoted his book by adding it to the lead of the article on one of the most famous cardinals of the 20th century. The Encyclopedia Britannica provides the balanced view, whereas the opinion of one single assistant(!) professor has nothing to do in such an article introduction (relevant policy: Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion, WP:UNDUE) and had apparently been removed numerous times before but got added again by an IP, likely the subject himself. The inclusion criteria for academics are listed at WP:ACADEMIC and there is absolutely nothing in this article that demonstrates that he meets any of those criteria. Per WP:ACADEMIC, it's rather obvious that one book review by a non-academic in a newspaper does not establish notability as an academic/as an historian. As an academic, you start out as an assistant professor, then you can become an associate professor, and at some point you can become Professor, and at some point after that, you can receive a "named chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research" and meet e.g. criterion 5 in WP:ACADEMIC. This assistant professor could be notable in 10 or 20 years, but he isn't notable now. Josh Gorand (talk) 17:26, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * He may indeed be one of the most famous cardinals of the 20th century but with respect you do not appear to know much about him. You have altered what the Britannica said, i.e instead of "he became "a leading opponent of the Nazis" you changed it to ""he was "a prominent opponent of the Nazis." There is an important and none to subtle distinction between the two assertions. His viewpoint changed with time and that is why the cherry picked quotation from Britannica shouldn't be in the lead and neither for that matter should Steinacher's or any other scholars cherry picked quotations. If you take the time to read the body text of the article you can see that the lead doesn't summarise the Cardinals shifting viewpoints - of crucial importance is the signing of the Concordat in 1933. The unamed article writer of the Britannica article is clearly out of date in his opinions and the short stub length article probably dates from a long time ago and is a legacy of the printed version constraints that worked against easy updating.


 * Cardinal Faulhaber as a faithful son of the Church would always have opposed any Nazi teachings that went against Church doctrine but that is not the same as saying that he opposed the Nazis in principle as you wish to add via the hacked Britannica text. How could he since he approved the signing of the Concordat with Nazi Germany and also explicitly praised Hitler at that time. During this period the Church was indifferent to various types of political systems so long as it's interests were protected. It had already signed a Concordat with fascist Italy and supported other dictatorial regimes elsewhere in the world who agreed to protect Church interests. From my notebook (quotations to be verified) : Ian Kershaw summed up the ambiguities of these times:
 * "While more muted in the case of the Catholic Church, where the ideological clash with the regime was more fundamental and the 'Church struggle' a relentless was of attrition, recognition for the 'national achievements' of the regime and in particular the Fuhrer running alongside vehement condemnation of all interference in the domain of the Church amounted, here to, an uneasy dualism.....In a similar vein was Cardinal Faulhaber's combination - in a sermon delivered in 1936- of 'strong criticism of the present time', especially of the Nazi attacks on the denominational schools and the staging of 'morality trials' involving Catholic clergy, with a concluding request to the assembled congregation to join with him in an 'Our Father' for the Fuhrer."


 * Similarly Roderick Stackelberg who records:
 * As a convinced monarchist he was critical of the Weimar Republic and ambivalent towards Nazism after 1933. In this his attitude was representative of the Catholic Church hierarchy, which condemned Nazi racial doctrine in the early 1930’s but accepted the legitimacy of Hitler’s government and concluded a Concordat with that Government in 1933, renouncing all Catholic political opposition to the regime.


 * and that:
 * Faulhaber protested against the Nazi’s secret euthanasia program, but remained loyal to what he regarded as God-given secular authority; he failed to protest the murder of the Jews.


 * And Robert S. Wistrich who notes:
 * Faulhaber was supportive of Nazi foreign policy at the time of the Anschluss with Austria and the Czech crisis of 1938. In November 1939 he celebrated Hitler’s ‘miraculous’ escape from Johann Georg Elser’ (q.v) assassination attempt with a solemn mass in Munich.


 * Could you also please provide a link showing, as you claim, when Gerald Steinacher added the disputed quotations to the article and/or lead?

The above is just for starters but there is enough here and in the main body of the article itself to show that you are misrepresenting in the lead what modern scholarship records. I realise this page is about article deletions but I assume it is really about about pov pushing in the lead. I suggest taking out all cherry picked quotations from the lead. Yt95 (talk) 17:44, 3 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. His 2011 book is held by ~900 institutions and has been the subject of a long review in WSJ. The credentials of the review author are entirely irrelevant. Agricola44 (talk) 16:48, 2 August 2012 (UTC).
 * Several hundred libraries routinely buy everything published by that publisher and other publishers. They publish tons of stuff every year. It doesn't mean everyone who publish on them are notable. He is cited no more than 4 times (including self-citations). Josh Gorand (talk) 17:33, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I suggest you go back and review AfDs that have turned on published books. You'll find that ~900 is a very large number for an academic author. Having a review on that book in WSJ is even more unusual because of that publication's selectivity (as compared, e.g. to Publishers Weekly that reviews a very large fraction of all books published). I would also review WP:PROF: citations are only one way a person can pass. The "academic currency" in the humanities turns more on book publication than research papers and citations, and books are judged on institutional holdings. (Again, there is an enormous amt of precedent here.) Finally, I would also suggest dropping the judgmental comments on the author of the WSJ review – that is entirely irrelevant. Thx, Agricola44 (talk) 19:34, 2 August 2012 (UTC).


 * Keep his book was given a positive review by the guardian in june last year - he seems a notable respected academic writer- hardly just 'appears to be vanity' kind of article imo. Sayerslle (talk) 17:02, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep -- reviews of books in WSJ and The Guardian are sufficient for WP:PROF. Agricola's summary of the difference between humanities and science publications is very important. Online citation sites hugely undercount humanities citations, most of which are not published online. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 18:15, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Reference Books

 * Robert Solomon Wistrich  “Who's who in Nazi Germany”, Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0415260388
 * Roderick Stackelberg, “The Routledge companion to Nazi Germany”, Routledge, 2007, ISBN 0415308607
 * Ian Kershaw "The Hitler Myth", 1989, OUP, ISBN 0 19 280206 2