Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heinrich Debus (SS officer)


 * 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 delete. The "keep"s are weakly argued, making reference to either no notability standard or to WP:SOLDIER, a mere essay that has no authority, or to sources that are yet to appear. Whether a redirect is warranted is a separate issue not sufficiently discussed here.  Sandstein  10:51, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Heinrich Debus (SS officer)

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Notability -- an unremarkable SS captain; significant RS coverage cannot be found.

This article is one of roughly 500 similar stub articles created by editor Jim Sweeney in the span of about three months in late 2008 to early 2009.

The topic of the notability of Knight's Cross winners has been extensively discussed here: Notability in Knight's Cross Holder Articles; the summary in this subsection (Part 3). There's currently no consensus that a single award of the Knight's Cross meets SOLDIER1 due to the facts that not all were awarded for valour, and that too many were awarded (over 7,000).

Note: the multi-volume source referenced below --Franz THOMAS & Günter WEGMANN (Hrsg.) Die Ritterkreuzträger der Deutschen Wehrmacht 1939-1945 Osnabrück 1985 -- would not have information on the subject, since he was the member of the Waffen-SS not the Wehrmacht. So the assertion by editors below that the series will have "several pages" on the subject is not based on fact. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:55, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:55, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:55, 28 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Redirect name to list article where mentioned. Otherwise, at this point, not seeing notability for stand alone article. If it is kept in the end, then it would help if someone could expand it with more in depth information. Because it is not there at present. Kierzek (talk) 19:00, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep until consensus has been achieved one way or another about whether or not the KC meets the notability criteria. Deletion of valid KC winner articles for which other sourcing cannot be found is premature until that has happened.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:32, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment -- I don't believe the above to be a valid argument in a deletion discussion as WP:SOLDIER (which is a project-specific essay) does not trump WP:GNG, which still needs to be demonstrated via significant RS coverage. K.e.coffman (talk) 19:46, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Given that the GNG is just a guideline, I'm not so sure about that. At any rate, what about Franz Thomas & Günter Wegmann's multi-volume "Die Ritterkreuzträger der Deutschen Wehrmacht, 1939-1945"? I strongly suspect that it's far more than a simple listing of recipients like Fellgiebel. I do not believe that you have exhausted the German-language sources, especially since I'm fairly certain that many are not available electronically. Or Mark Yerger's books in English that cover various units and other awards that the KC winners might also be in? You may think that he is biased or not, but the basic biographical facts would still be reliable, IMO. The taint from any bias does not extend to simple facts.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:09, 28 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep I am fine deleting articles about subjects that don't meet GNG or SOLDIER. I oppose this current round of de-Nazification, however. With a citation to prove award of the Knight's Cross the subject meets SOLDIER. I know not everyone agrees but I'm not trying to systematically undo Jim Sweeney's work, either. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 00:31, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment -- the above commentary does not provide policy-based considerations.
 * @Sturmvoge: in the case of a single KC award, the claim to notability is based on only one even (WP:BIO1E). Even if we were to accept Thomas and Wegman as RS (of which I'm not convinced), this would result in a WP:PSEUDO biography. The number of sources does not really matter, if the claim to notability is based on only one event. Yerger, for example, is likely to be drawing on the same sources as Thomas & Wegman did.
 * @Chris Troutman: SOLDIER is a MILHIST essay, and Wiki projects do not decide notability; only the community as a whole. Moreso, frequently awarded highest awards (Knight's Cross) do not imply the same level of notability as rarely awarded highest awards (Victoria Cross). In this particular case, even the project members acknowledge that not all KC awards meet SOLDIER1, as only a portion of them were awarded for valour; the rest were for given for successful completion of missions (aka "successful military leadership"), and would not qualify under SOLDIER1. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:10, 29 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep Sturm is right, Thomas & Wegmann;s multi-volume series will have a page or two devoted to this chap, when taken with other sources, he will meet GNG. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:18, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment -- editor is mistaken; as a member of Waffen-SS, the subject would not be covered by above authors. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:46, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 13:40, 31 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment: for context, here's how the source is described in the aforementioned discussion (emphasis mine):
 * Authors such as Dörr, Thomas and Wegmann provide a detailed coverage of the military career based on the military records of the German National Archives. This information includes trainings, units assigned to and commands held and date of promotions and other awards presented. In many instances, if this information was not lost, they also state who, for what actions, and who approved the nomination of the KC.


 * This does not sound like "significant coverage" to me; this is still BLP1E situation and a brief bio, using which would result in a WP:PSEUDO biography.


 * Separately, I've seen Thomas and Wegmann used in dozens of articles to cite various awards, but I don't recall seeing them cited for biographical data. See, for example: Clemens-Heinrich Graf von Kageneck or Felix Adamowitsch. Collection of materials by Charles Hamilton's Leaders and Personalities of the Third Reich does include information on low-ranking soldiers; see for example this edit on the subject's article.


 * So stating that Thomas & Wegmann will have this coverage is an insufficient argument in this discussion, as the source has not been produced and the extent of biographical data is unknown. Similar to, I do not believe that, even if the Thomas & Wegmann entry was produced, it would be sufficient to meet GNG. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:17, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * You have a better argument regarding the lack of multiple sources, but have failed to establish that they don't exist, especially in German. You believe that Thomas & Wegman won't, based solely on a snippet view; I simply don't know, but until that is established one way or another there is no reason to delete this. And your claim of WP:BIO1E is meaningless given that the vast majority of MoH or VC winners are notable only because of their medal.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:19, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
 * To quote MSJapan from aforementioned discussion: "According to the KC article, there were 7,161 awards of this decoration in six years. That's four times as many in that period as there have ever been for the VC, and twice as many as there have ever been for the US MOH. (...) Recipients of the KC often have no other sourcing for them other than their KC citation, which is not saying much when we compare it to the sources we have on VC/MOH recipients. Therefore, there's a preponderance of evidence that indicates that it doesn't seem to be prestigious enough to merit inclusion based solely on receiving it." This comes down to the rarity of the award; it's much more likely to have sufficient coverage when the award is rare, such as MOH or VC, vs the mass award such as the KC.
 * The prestige of the KC system as a whole also deteriorated as the war progress. For the full years that the Oak Leaves (2nd award to those who already had a KC) were in effect, the following numbers were awarded:
 * 50 in 1941
 * 111 in 1942
 * 192 in 1943
 * 328 in 1944
 * 194 in the first four months of 1945.
 * The rate of award was almost doubling every year. At the rate the High Command was going, they would have awarded 600 Oak Leaves by the end of 1945, almost as much as in the three preceding years.
 * Thus it's understandable why there's no sufficient coverage on all of the 7000+ recipients. The aforementioned discussion was exhaustive and Thomas & Wegmann was all that was put forth for the low-ranking officers and soldiers. What's available is generally from WP:QS authors, such as Kurowski, Agte, Landwehr, etc. No better sources have been presented at this AfD and the Wilhelm Beck AfD, and I believe they do not exist. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:35, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete officer who received an award from a regime that had engaged in reward inflation so much that we should not bow to their willingness to give out awards in establishing notability. John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:27, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   09:37, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 19:40, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — UY Scuti Talk  19:04, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete not notable for anything outside of the Knights Cross, and I do not belive that consititues enough notability to meet WP:GNG in itself. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:53, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Debus was a member of the Waffen-SS. Therefore I would assume that he is not included in Thomas' & Wegmann's work on the Ritterkreuzträger of the Wehrmacht. One would have to turn to Ernst-Günther Krätschmer's Die Ritterkreuzträger der Waffen-SS (1st ed., 1955) instead. That book is strongly biased, to say the least. Krätschmer, a Waffen-SS veteran himself, and Paul Hausser, who wrote the preface, tried to promote a positive image of the Waffen-SS. Debus is also mentioned about five times in Peter Strassner's Europäische Freiwillige (1968), which deals with the 5. SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking". Historian Karsten Wilke, who wrote his Ph.D. thesis about the HIAG (veteran's organization of the Waffen-SS), characterized this book as apologetic. Needless to say, that the respective publishers are considered to be on the extreme right. Strassner's book was published by Munin, the HIAG's own publishing house. These are not, what I would consider to be reliable sources. First, because of their unbalanced and ideologically distorted representation of facts. Second, because they don't meet basic historiographical standards. That kind of literature is special interest.--Assayer (talk) 23:38, 13 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment Please allow me to correct some assumptions made here. Thomas' & Wegmann's work on recipients of the Knight's Cross has multiple volumes and series and is covers recipients who served as infantry men, pioneers, etc. These books include both soldiers who served in the Heer of the Wehrmacht and in the Waffen-SS . As mentioned before, these books are based on the analysis and research of the German Federal Archives and are endorsed by the Military History Research Office (MGFA). The MGFA is the central federal institution in Germany for all questions about German military history. Does this meet the criteria of Wikipedia? I leave this question to the more knowledgeable editors here. Cheers MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:53, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment -- this is interesting; I checked the "Franz THOMAS u. Günter WEGMANN (Hrsg.) Die Ritterkreuzträger der Deutschen Wehrmacht 1939-1945" entries at Sources referenced by Scherzer in the above discussion, and the subheadings for the series include (1) infantry; (2) paratroops (Fallschirmjäger); (3) air defense forces (Flugabwehrtruppe); (4) mountain troops (Gebirgstruppe). Many of the SS divisions were Panzer / Panzergrenadier. Were there perhaps other books not included in the listing then? Or do they include Waffen-SS under Deutschen Wehrmacht? Do the books contain anything specific on the subject of the article under discussion? K.e.coffman (talk) 07:42, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment - I know Scherzer's work and it is RS. I don't know the other work by Thomas' & Wegmann and therefore rely on others above for statements of their work. A problem I see with a number of these bio articles is a lack of detail as to the event or events which led to the awarding of the Knight's Cross. And clearly in this case given the man was a member of a combat division and received the award "while second in command of the 5th SS Reconnaissance Battalion in May 1944", shows that this is not one that was awarded for any political based reasons. Does not anyone have any RS source to add to the event or events which gives readers more detail? I don't have a source which would since I don't have my copy of: Schneider, Jost W. (1993). Their Honor Was Loyalty: An Illustrated and Documentary History of the Knight's Cross Holders of the Waffen-SS and Police, 1940-1945, any more. Otherwise, as I state above, at this point, not seeing notability for stand alone article. Kierzek (talk) 13:03, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment -- at this point, no new sources have been presented; and I don't believe they exist. Even if Thomas & Wegmann covered the subject, it still does not overcome the lack of multiple RS and WP:BIO1E, and the fact that such coverage would be run-of-the-mill: decorations, service postings, etc. This is bio article that falls too far short of GNG and is not saved by SOLDIER due to the mass nature of the KC awards (compare to only 181 Victoria Crosses awarded during WWII). K.e.coffman (talk) 08:29, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment According to the information I have found on a booksellers's page, Thomas & Wegmann do indeed include recipients of the Waffen-SS. Whether Debus is actually included in the respective volume "Teil VIIIa", I do not know. I would question, however, that the MGFA "endorsed" these books. I found a single review of the second volume of this series by Florian Berberich in the MGFA's journal MGZ 40 (1986), pp. 276f. He considers it to be an important reference work for soldiers and for people interested in military history, and suggests that the work could be helpful even for military historians. What sounds convincing at first glance, needs to be put in perspective, though. In 1990, when reviewing another publication by Thomas (and Manfred Dörr) on the bearers of the Close Combat Clasp in Gold, Reinhard Stumpf of the MGFA made clear that for the time being the research on military symbols would remain to be the domain of enthusiasts outside of professional historiography. (MGZ 47/1990, p. 298) More recently, historians like Sönke Neitzel, Peter Lieb and Christian Hartmann have tried to utilize statistics of military awards as an indicator for combat value of individual units, but, as Roman Töppel has shown (Das Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes und der Kampfwert militärischer Verbände, Ztschr Heereskunde 446/2012), to receive a Knight's Cross a soldier needed more than to be "extremely brave on the battlefield". To be considered for the award he also needed a superior officer who would propose him. In his biography of Jochen Peiper, historian Jens Westemeier described Peiper's favoritism concerning these proposals and spoke of "Ordenskameraderie".  For example, Westemeier calls the award for Georg Preuß "a bad joke".
 * To cut a long story short, even though it might be possible to reconstruct the military careers of each and every Knight's Cross recipients, these biographies present a distorted picture of the actual events (i.e., if the provision "played an important role in a significant military event" in WP:Soldier, is to be based on historical fact instead of Nazi propaganda). Veteran's organizations, particularly of the Waffen-SS, have based their image as an elite on their Knight's Cross Recipients. Collectors of militaria have an interest in such biographies (which is the reason, why Thomas & Wegmann reproduce bestowals documents). But on the whole, individual Knight's Cross recipients like Debus did never reveive any WP:SIGCOV by historiography, let alone in the broader public. --Assayer (talk) 00:50, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the additional information -- this confirms to me that Thomas & Wegmann is not quite RS. Likewise, I've found that there's no reliable historiography on individual KC holders, unless they are notable for other things, such as for being high level commanders or for their post-war careers. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:14, 20 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Redirect to List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (D) At the moment I don't see enough to pass GNG. This is essentially a WP:BIO1E. I would have advocated a keep, but it seems the award has been awarded to so many recipients that I doubt receiving it would confer an automatic notability. I would recommend a redirect to List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (D) where the subject is mentioned. A redirect also preserves the edit history should any further information about the subject be researched in the future. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 17:41, 14 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. 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.