Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Treseburg massacre


 * 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. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:33, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Treseburg massacre

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I am not a fan of the US-centrism in Wikipedia, and I do not like the common one-sided representation of history topics in which the US is involved, but I am afraid this is just unsalvageable POV. Ymblanter (talk) 08:18, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 09:33, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 09:33, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 09:33, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 09:33, 6 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. The name is OR - as only Wikipedia refers to this as a "Treseburg massacre". Finding sources at all for the event (I tried with unit names, dates, numbers, etc) is difficult. Incidents of shooting captures POWs (all sides, including the US) during WWII were rather common which may be why this smaller scale execution (e.g. see Chenogne massacre, or Dachau liberation reprisals for larger events) doesn't not seem to have SIGCOV. Icewhiz (talk) 09:48, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Suggestion. I suggest that the information be incorporated (in reduced form and with adequate sourcing) into Treseburg. Doremo (talk) 14:53, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I second this suggestion. There's only about 1 paragraph worth of text on this and that can be covered in the town article, if adequate sources can be found. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:14, 7 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep. There are sources listed, so would be worth asking the authors/contributors to expand it. Disagree that's OR. Regards, DPdH (talk) 05:34, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge, per Doremo. —Brigade Piron (talk) 14:27, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment Source 3, the book, seems to be available online on Google books (in German). The author also has a German WP article. The source which the author uses for this event is a book called Zeitzeugen - Der Harz in 1945; its online too, here (page 32). There are a few additional articles in some local German newspapers; but thats pretty much it. I doubt that there is anyhing substantial in English language sources, it seems to be pretty niche. Dead Mary (talk) 21:24, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete (possibly with a brief merge). This seems to be an unsubstantiated allegation, which was only made 60 years after the event.  If it happened, it was very wrong, but did it?  At most we have one side of the story from the alleged survivor.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:01, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. Looking through the sources, I think there's enough here to meet WP:GNG. Granted, they're all in German, but that, in and of itself, shouldn't matter. If it's not kept, it should definitely be merged/redirected into Treseburg in order to WP:PRESERVE the information. Ejgreen77 (talk) 16:29, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Allegations made 60 years after the event with no contemporary corroboration, no contemporary documentation are mere allegations.  All that we have here is WP:PRIMARY, and, as we all know, memoirs and memories are often inaccurate. This is not fact; it is not corroborated; and available sourcing therefore fails  WP:GNG. E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:05, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Beyond the impossibility of knowing why these young fighters where killed, there is the question of POV-pushing by sources.    The Townsfolk interviewed would like to build a memorial that,"Instead of the current inscription "14 unknown German soldiers" would describe dead as  "five soldiers" plus  "nine shot young people."  But these 9 young men were German soldiers; it had become a desperate war for Germany, with the result that the the Hitler Youth,  teenage boys as young as eleven, were given guns and sent to the front as soldiers, to kill and to die.  Source #1 on the page, the Volksstimmeis pushing revisionist history according to which American soldiers executed unarmed German "boys".   The 2nd source describes a retired American Army Captain who came to Treseburg to apologize to the town for American atrocities during the WWII.  "I came from America to ask for forgiveness for the murder committed by US forces, to take responsibility for this war crime and to acknowledge the illegitimacy of these murders."  I can find no indication that Drucker knows or pretends to know anything that German and American investigators and historians do not know.  His appears to be a minor academic and political activist, for world peace and against global warming.  But there do not appear to be any records of what went on in Treseburg, no contemporary accounts of why or precisely by whom those young soldiers where shot.   Editors shhod be aware that the two newspapers used to source this page are pushing  revisionist history in which American war criminals murdered innocent young German boys during what we used to call the invasion of Germany.  Could there have been a war crime committed on that date in that place?  Certainly.  Do we have evidence for what happened?  No.  Nothing except an assertion made 60 years later.E.M.Gregory (talk) 00:36, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete. A non-notable episode based on the lack of coverage in RS.My very best wishes (talk) 02:28, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   11:48, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete the concern with verifying this wartime incident appear to be insurmountable.A.Jacobin (talk) 14:28, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Merge per Doremo. Mosaicberry (talk) 15:14, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - because it's apparently a synthesis of a historical fact (that 9 people were apparently killed) into a named event. I don't like the merge proposal because I am not convinced the event is significantly related to the village's article. Not to be harsh, but it's hard to make note of every occasion on which 9 people were killed during WWII. I... just don't know. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia  ᐐT₳LKᐬ  21:05, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: The merge point isn't whether it is a significant event in WWII (if it were, the suggestion would be to make it a subsection of the WWII article, which would be silly). However, it may be a significant event in the history of Treseburg. Doremo (talk) 12:38, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTRUMOR. In agreement with . We don't know what happened, so the article is just a collection of uncorroborated and unverifiable claims, and therefore fails WP:GNG despite having sources.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  02:03, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete this OR, SYNTH, RUMOUR. Unsubstantiated.Tamsier (talk) 12:04, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep - Per sources and passes WP:GNG treshhold.BabbaQ (talk) 16:59, 18 March 2019 (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.