Talk:Myth of the clean Wehrmacht

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Myth of the clean Wehrmacht has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
August 17, 2019	Good article nominee	Listed
September 2, 2019	Guild of Copy Editors	Copyedited

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on September 14, 2019.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the myth of the clean Wehrmacht persisted in Germany until the 1990s, when it was eroded by the Wehrmacht Exhibition?

Current status: Good article

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Text and/or other creative content from this version of Franz Halder was copied or moved into Myth of the clean Wehrmacht with this edit on 23 July 2019. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

David Stahel (18 July 2018). "The Battle for Wikipedia: The New Age of 'Lost Victories'?". The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. Retrieved 1 April 2019. While the myth of the 'clean Wehrmacht' has long been debunked in academic circles, one of the problems in changing the popular perception has been online representations, such as Wikipedia.

This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination.

Discussions:

RM, Myth of the clean Wehrmacht → Clean Wehrmacht myth, Moved, 25 September 2022, Talk:Myth of the clean Wehrmacht#Requested move 25 September 2022
MRV, Myth of the clean Wehrmacht → Clean Wehrmacht myth, Overturned, 3 October 2022, Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2022 October#Myth of the clean Wehrmacht (closed)

The Lead is too long

According to the Wiki style manual, the lead "It gives the basics in a nutshell" and "a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs". The lead, in this current form is extremely lengthy and covers, in detail, subjects that are again covered in the main body of the article. The lead lacks brevity, and delves into too much detail.

There is just too much information for someone to glean what the article is about, and if it isn't moved down to an "overview" section, then it needs to be slimmed down significantly.

Maxq32 (talk) 20:04, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very long article on a very complicated subject. If you have specific suggestions for what to trim/move into the article body, please feel free to list them. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:20, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the lead length is good. MOS:LEAD suggests a four-paragraph lead for an article of this length, which is about where we are. I would like to tentatively propose cutting the Kramp-Karrenbauer quote. I'm speaking as someone who is not familiar with the body of scholarship on this topic, so our resident experts may know it's due for reasons unknown to me. At the very least, it's strange to see it mentioned in the lead but not the body. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:40, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 25 September 2022

This discussion was listed at Wikipedia:Move review on 3 October 2022. The result of the move review was overturn close.

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. While "Myth of [the] x" is not forbidden (we have several articles by this title other than articles about works by this name format), we definitely have a prominence of article titles in the "X myth" format. I don't find either format more or less in keeping with NDESC, so that doesn't apply. On the otherhand, "Myth of [the] x" does seem popular as the title of a work, while "X Myth" does not. Odd that. I'm going to pick moving this article as it aligns better with more of the articles we have about myths. Also "the" is avoided only at the start of an article title, not within the title. (Ie. no "The x myth", only "X myth".) UtherSRG (talk) 11:22, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please see this edit: the review of the discussion indicated clearly that the move/close was thought incorrect, inappropriate, and premature. I have reverted it. See also my note below. Drmies (talk) 17:34, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Myth of the clean Wehrmacht → Clean Wehrmacht myth – More idiomatic WP:NDESC. No change in scope or nature. —Brigade Piron (talk) 17:08, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, sources almost universally refer to it as the "Myth of the clean Wehrmacht." Also IMO thats not more idiomatic, I've never said or heard someone say "Clean Wehrmacht myth" but I've said "Myth of the clean Wehrmacht" hundreds of times and heard it used thousands of times. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:19, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, it is simply wrong that there is no usage of "Clean Wehrmacht myth" as a brief google search would have shown (see, eg Google Scholar). You are right that "myth of the Clean Wehrmacht", for reasons of flow and grammar, will more often be found within a prose sentence ("For example, the stubborn myth of the “clean" Wehrmacht, waging an honorable war while SS and police units engaged in genocide behind the front, has long been discarded.") However, this does not automatically mean that it is the best title. This article, for example, uses both forms indifferently (1).

It is pretty clear that the key element is the words "Clean Wehrmacht" and adding the word "myth" makes it into an WP:NDESC. In terms of Wikipedia rules on titles, see Wikipedia:Article titles#Avoid definite and indefinite articles (the) and Wikipedia:Article titles#Use nouns (of). Hence it is Creation myth, not "myth of the creation". —Brigade Piron (talk) 07:46, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. The sources more commonly use "myth of the clean Wehrmacht". Though the rules encourage a title change, they do not say that we should opt for simplification over what the sources use. IMO, "Clean Wehrmacht myth" also sounds kinda awful. Applodion (talk) 10:38, 1 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above 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.

Woah woah woah

The result of that discussion was clearly not move, @UtherSRG: what the hell is going on? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:45, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that move seems incredibly premature. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:31, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@HandThatFeeds: a move review is now open Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2022 October Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:39, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OK, admin intervention. I moved the article back; there is no consensus to move it, and the close was controversial. UtherSRG, I hope you understand that I am sort of putting a lid on it since leaving this undecided will just cause more heat when we have plenty of light. User:Brigade Piron, if you want to start this all over again, you are welcome to do so, but I think you'll have an uphill struggle that's probably not worth your time. Horse Eye's Back, I get your point, and thank you for opening up the review--but let's not get too personal please. Drmies (talk) 17:33, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Restoration of quote in introduction

Hi Firefangledfeathers, I removed Kramp-Karrenbauer's quote because it doesn't have anything to do with the myth; if anything, it feeds into it by emphasising the Wehrmacht's bravery. Killing civilians isn't brave, so I don't understand why you believe the comment is relevant here. Stara Marusya (talk) 02:31, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Stara Marusya. Thanks for giving your reason for removal. I'm not sure the quote feeds into the myth, and I think it's mostly related (though the source does not make this explicit) to the topic. That said, it's weird to have this quote highlighted in the lead and not in the body, and I wouldn't push for it to be in the body either. I removed it. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:54, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"The "Lost Cause" of Nazi Germany"

I don't see the need to spend three paragraphs and a whole subheading on repeating the arguments of a single source, especially when it's not one that's become common in the scholarly discourse. Eldomtom2 (talk) 22:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The section contains no analysis of those arguments by other sources, so IMHO the section seems unduly rambling for a GA reviewed page. BusterD (talk) 14:40, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It can probably be condensed into a single paragraph without really losing anything of substance. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:51, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]