Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Adolf Galland


 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.  No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Closed / not promoted per nominator's request -- Ian Rose (talk) 06:18, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Adolf Galland

 * Nominator(s): MisterBee1966 (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because with a little help from all of you I think I can take work to A-class. He and I had been working on this article, with the bulk of the work attributed to Dapi89 so far. As you may know Dapi89 chose to retire from Wikipedia leaving the article where it stands now. I want to bring his work to A-Class. Please help me in the process. Thanks MisterBee1966 (talk) 13:02, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments: Comment: I haven't appraised most of the article, but I think the Self-appraisal section needs another look:
 * Definitely getting there, but the prose needs a little bit of work in places. I've suggested some bits below:
 * " fought on the Western and the Defence of the Reich fronts" - I'm not an expert, but is the Defence of the Reich a front or rather a campaign?
 * good point! done MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:20, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * " Galland, born in Westerholt (now Herten), Westphalia a glider pilot in his youth" - there's a word missing here
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "as Germanys commander" > "Germany's"
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "General der Jagdflieger" - should the second mention of this be in italics as well?
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "Adolf Galland (junior) was the second of four sons of the land manager or bailiff to the Count von Westerholt Adolf Galland (senior)" - I found this hard to follow, partially because initially in the sentence the reader doesn't know if Adolf Galland (jnr) is our Adolf Galland or not. You also need some commas to clarify that his dad isn't the the Count.
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:14, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "Their father had pet names for all his family members. His wife Anna was called "Anita". Fritz, his older brother, was called "Toby", Adolf was "Keffer", Wilhelm-Ferdinand was nicknamed "Wutz" and Paul was called "Paulinchen" or since they were expecting a girl, occasionally "Paula"" - While Adolf's own pet name might be relevant, I'm not sure the others are in this context.
 * " a group of aviation enthusiasts brought the first glider club to Borkenberge" - ? Do we mean they created Borkenberge's first glider club, or that they brought the first glide club (in Germany...?) to Borkenberge?
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:13, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * " Gelsenkirchen Luftsportverein" - should this be in italics?
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * " Galland travelled by foot or horse-drawn wagon" - Did he do this routinely?
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:12, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * " it became the way for fledgling pilots" - "the way" or "a way"?
 * "set up ten schools, one in each of the seven military districts of Germany." - where did the other three go?
 * " and how everything worked on paper " - felt an informal way of phrasing this. "in theory", perhaps?
 * " to buy him his own Glider" > "glider"
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "before he'd passed" > "he had passed"
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * " life was hard for the Galland family economically and jobs were scarce" - should the jobs go in the front of this sentence; jobs were scarce for all, not just for the family.
 * good point! done MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:18, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "so he applied to the Deutsche Verkehrsfliegerschule" - he already did this at the end of the previous section, didn't he?
 * "Adolf was then assessed on performance. " - performance in what? (the paragraph hasn't got to him flying a plane yet, so its not 100% clear)
 * "he applied to join the German Army, convinced that he would soon be sent home" - suggest reversing this, e.g. "he was convinced he would soon be sent home, and he applied to join the German Army"
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:16, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * " the award of a B1 certificate for large aircraft over 2, 500 kg in weight" - "certificate allowing him to fly large..."?
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * " who came from clandestine programmes, meeting Hermann Göring for the first time" - "clandestine programmes"?
 * "after Galland had flown" - strictly speaking, this means that they won their respect at some point after his good flying; did you mean this, or did you mean "after Galland flew", meaning that this was what won their respect?
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "as a glider pilot winning some prizes" > "as a glider pilot, winning some prizes" Hchc2009 (talk) 20:00, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The tone is a bit patchy. "Galland did not pretend to have been error free.", for example; the rest is subtly off tone. I think you can probably see it, if you look; I'm struggling exactly to put into words. I'll try harder if you miss it.
 * Never been a big fan of bullet points, myself, but I recognise they might be the best way to present information in limited circumstances. However, I think, given that this passage is taken from one source, that the presented problems are arbitrary packaged up into particular things. Did Galland actually say they'd made four mistakes, or did he merely provide a commentary? I'm a bit worried that the source is shaping our presentation of this information, which might be better done by integrating it into the other text, or removing the bullet points and presenting it as a commentary and not a specific list.
 * I don't own the book which Dapi used here but I can confirm that Isby, David C (1998). The Luftwaffe Fighter Force The View from the Cockpit. London: Greenhill Books. ISBN 1-85367-327-7 uses a similar style to present the "four" areas of improvement. The chapter is called "The Most Important Mistakes of the Luftwaffe as Seen from the Standpoint of the GAF Fighter Force" by Adolf Galland. MisterBee1966 (talk) 14:59, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 22:10, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Regretful oppose It's good to see that this high-profile article is of good quality. However, I think that it's prose needs a lot of work. My comments are:
 * The article needs a through copy edit. I'm not going to highlight individual issues given how widespread the problems are, but the article's prose is not of A-class standard I'm afraid. The underlying paragraph structure, etc, is generally fine, but the grammar is a bit awkward throughout. I appreciate that you and Dapi aren't native English-speakers; I'd suggest listing this at WP:GOCE and/or asking for some of this project's copy editing specialists to have a go.
 * "The sport became so popular that the Reichswehr set up ten schools, one in each of the seven military districts of Germany." - where were the other three located?
 * What's a 'Geschwader'?
 * done MisterBee1966 (talk) 17:54, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The lead says that Galland "volunteered for the Condor Legion", but the relevant section of the article implies that he was posted to Spain
 * British Commonwealth air units always have a 'No.' at the front of their name (eg, '610 Squadron' should be 'No. 610 Squadron')
 * done not by me MisterBee1966 (talk) 17:48, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * 'European Theatre of Operations' is a term used mainly by the United States, and seems a bit odd when applied to Germany (as almost all of Germany's war effort was within Europe)
 * What was Galland's knowledge of Nazi war crimes as mentioned in the article? Was he implicated in any? Nick-D (talk) 10:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No worries. At least I know where to start. MisterBee1966 (talk) 16:11, 2 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.