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The Last Days

according to a report of Leonore Lappin the Wiking serrenered near Graz. From the Balaton to Graz is a straight line, so Chechoslovakia seems to be wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.114.182.217 ( talk) 17:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC) reply

War Crimes

Simple point of fact: Einsatzgruppe A did not operate in the Ukraine. Presumably, EG C or D was intended.


July 9: Divisional troops massacre Jews at L'viv:

"...A similar gauntlet, but more lethal, was organized four days later by officers of the Waffen-SS Viking division following the shooting death of the commander of one of the division's regiments. [note: may have been SS-Staf. Hilmar Wackerle of the Westland regt.?] Günther Otto, a twenty-one year-old butcher assigned to the train that carried fresh meat for the troops, described the experience in a Nurenburg trial deposition after the war:

'...The members of the meat train and the bakery company systematically rounded up all Jews who could be found based on their facial characteristic and their speech, as most of them spoke Yiddish. Obersturmführer Braunnagel of the bakery company and Untersturmführer Kochalty were in charge of rounding them up. Then a path was formed by two rows of soldiers. Most of the soldiers were from the meat train and the bakery company, but some of them were from the 1st Mountain Hunter Division. The Jews were then forced to run down the path and while doing so the people on both sides beat them with their rifle butts and bayonets. At the end of the path stood a number of SS and Wehrmacht officers with machine pistols, with which they shot the Jews dead as soon as they had entered into the bomb crater [being used as a mass grave]. [Superior officers of the regiment] were part of this group that conducted the shootings. About fifty to sixty Jews were killed in this manner."*

The Viking Division 'had been indoctrinated with anti-Semitic thoughts in Dachau and Weuberg' by a major and a corporal, Otto explained, 'but we were never told that the anti-Semitic program went as far as extermination.'"**

Peter Neumann, a young SS officer in the division, write in a letter "Liquidations, executions, purges. All these words, synonyms with destruction, seem completely banal and devoid of meaning once one has gotten used to them."**

  • Masters of Death: The SS Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust pg. 63
    • Ibid. pg 146


From diary of Keijo Kääriäinen.

"22.8.41...Usually we don't anymore shoot all prisoners but in the begening,apart of Ukrainians who we had orders to release immediadly,others were deaths own.Once our company did drive 300 Russians to river and all were machinegunned there.... To the Finns is this kind of butchery made repulsive impression.I have avoided from killing of prisoners and have succeed in that..."

Panttipataljoona by Mauno Jokipii -- Molobo 22:36, 2 August 2005 (UTC) reply

none of this is proven, and cannot be said to actually refer to the Wiking division. these alleged atrocities cannot be proven, nor are they accepted by the scholarly public, because they are uncorroborated and cannot be backed up by any scholarly research.

-- Jadger 17:22, 16 March 2006 (UTC) reply

"Proven" ?? They are statements from witnesses/participants. What more do you want? What "scholarly public" does not accept that Waffen-SS units committed numerous atrocities? You claim to be fighting POV but you are pushing an alternative POV.

DMorpheus 20:36, 21 March 2006 (UTC) reply

well, first it needs cited, and second, it needs to be peer reviewed to be credible. And thirdly, have these finnish soldiers testified? this comes from a diary, and diaries are easily forged or edited to exaggerate or fake an occurence, case in point: the hitler diaries.

for instance, from my diary from yesterday: "29.03.06... This morning, I won 100 million dollars in the lottery, and was named king of the world, now this puts a heavy burden on me, as I feel I must properly represent everyone on God's green earth."

of course I am just as infallible as this Finnish soldier, so surely what I just stated in my diary is true.

-- Jadger 22:01, 30 March 2006 (UTC) reply

Hello, I edited "infamous" since with a good combat record and without war crimes convictions there is no need for bias. Kenaz9 13:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC) reply

Edited War Crimes sections since "some sources" are not sufficient proof. Kenaz9 17:05, 10 May 2006 (UTC) reply

additions

Someone has gone through and started adding this to almost every divisional page - "Still it was a part of the Waffen-SS, which was found to be a criminal organization at the Nuremberg Trials." Personally I find it a bit redundant and most divisional pages it was reverted quickly. I suspect someone with an agenda was adding it, as to some SS divisions are not notable outside of being 'criminals' user:Pzg Ratzinger History is always written by the winners of the war. I believe that might have motivated this "someone" to add such comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.166.44.122 ( talk) 19:45, 28 August 2014 (UTC) reply

details

"the SS divisions defeated two Soviet tank armies (totalling over 1,000 tanks) and destroyed over 800 tanks. At no time did the SS divisions have any more than 50 panzers in working order."

Was there any particular reason for the astounding performance of this division in battle? More details should be added as to how the Germans managed to inflict so many casualties with so little equipment

The Soviet attack was very poorly coordinated and failed to advance rapidly. Therefore the Soviets took unusually heavy tank loses from German field artillery and towed antitank guns. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.225.131.141 ( talk) 16:42, 17 August 2015 (UTC) reply

or perhaps those numbers are simply inaccurate. DMorpheus2 ( talk) 20:28, 9 December 2016 (UTC) reply

New redirect from redundant article SS-Division Wiking

SS-Division Wiking now redirects to this article. As all content in the source article was deemed redundant or not properly sourced by the merging editor, thus no new text was added to this, the target article, 5th SS Panzergrenadier Division Wiking. Zalktis 09:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC) reply

Unsourced statement.

I removed the following sentence, which was carefully hidden in tiny print at the bottom of the page. " Assigment of the officers to lead the foreign volunteers in SS Wiking seems to have been a penal action. " It's unsourced and there's no indication that anyone was being "punished" by being assigned to this division. If it's going to go back in the article, it should be sourced and the statement "seems to have been" should be worded more carefully. As it's written it sounds much more like opinion and not fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.23.46.25 ( talk) 21:14, 23 July 2010 (UTC) reply

Sources

Are these WP:RS sources?

Some of the statements they support are not controversial (i.e. 'division was renamed'). Still, would they be considered encyclopedic sources that have a place on Wikipedia?

Would appreciate your opinions. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 04:03, 26 November 2015 (UTC) reply

I stopped following this page several years ago. I am sure you know the answer to this by now since this was written in 2015. 2015 on here seems like a long time ago now. At any rate, no, not considered RS sources. Kierzek ( talk) 10:49, 11 September 2021 (UTC) reply

In-line citations

Hi, I would like to start removing some of the unsourced material, tagged with citation needed, unless there are editors who are able to provide them. Please let me know. K.e.coffman ( talk) 06:25, 2 December 2015 (UTC) reply

Okay, not much to salvage here. Anyone interested in participating? Otherwise, I will continue to remove unsourced or poorly sourced (i.e. axishistory.com) material. K.e.coffman ( talk) 07:44, 4 December 2015 (UTC) reply
@K.e.coffman sorry for the newby question, but why is information sourced from axishistory.com viewed as unreliable? Homerx007x ( talk) 10:16, 5 February 2023 (UTC) reply
Please see: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#User-generated_content. -- K.e.coffman ( talk) 19:08, 6 February 2023 (UTC) reply

Dubious unsourced claims

After the recent reverts, PeaceMaker and I discussed the topic on my Talk page; I also solicited feedback from Nick-D. Here's the discussion on my Talk page -- Mass removal of uncited or poorly cited material.

With Nick's guidance in mind, I'd like to re-edit the article. I will try to keep the troop movements and battles as much as possible, as potentially verifiable down the road. However, I'd like to remove non-NPOV language and dubious claims, along the lines of "acquired grudging approval of the Heer" or "destroyed 100 enemy tanks." (More can be found in the above linked discussion).

Please let me know if there are any questions or concerns. K.e.coffman ( talk) 23:27, 5 December 2015 (UTC) reply

I've largely completed my edits on this article. If anyone is interested in giving the article a run-through for any ce issues or other improvements, that would be great. K.e.coffman ( talk) 23:40, 6 December 2015 (UTC) reply

Formation

@ Kierzek: I removed the nationalities from the 1st para as there were being discussed twice in this section. Compare:

  • 1st para: ...the creation of two regiments: the Waffen SS Regiment Nordland (for Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish volunteers), and the Waffen SS Regiment Westland (for Dutch, and Flemish volunteers).[1][2]
  • 3rd para: The division was formed around three motorised infantry regiments: Germania; formed mostly from ethnic Germans; Westland, consisting mainly of Dutch and Flemish volunteers; and Nordland, composed mostly of Danes, Norwegians and Swedes.[3]

One of these statements should go as a duplicate, no? Perhaps remove the 2nd statement? K.e.coffman ( talk) 19:11, 7 December 2015 (UTC) reply

I see what you mean; I read it too fast before and agree it needs tweaked; see what you think now. Kierzek ( talk) 19:39, 7 December 2015 (UTC) reply
Yes, that works. K.e.coffman ( talk) 19:49, 7 December 2015 (UTC) reply

SS ranks

Continuing the discussion from my talk page with @ Kierzek: on German words used in articles. Here are my thoughts:

(1) Italics

Ranks are not generally italicized in English-language literature that I've used so far, even when the unit names are italicized:

-- so I believe they are more commonly treated as English words at this point.

As an aside, I wanted to see what my English translation of Germany and the Second World War (Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg) uses, and it turns out that they use an English translation with capitalization, not the original German rank (I'm not advocating this route, just thought that it was interesting in the work that's originated from German historians). So it's SS Colonel Fegelein, SS Major-General Nebe, etc.

In any case, I believe that the route without italics is the better option as it reduces visual clutter.

[Kierzek, I did read the follow up msg about prior discussions, but I believe the issue raised on that threat, and the linked one, was of outright translation (with or without capitalization), so I don't think that applies to the matter of italics.]

(2) Linking

On the matter of linking, again I believe it's unnecessary/distracting, as it creates visual clutter as well. Furthermore, it creates a further issue for page usability. There've been many instanced where I wanted to click on the person, but end up on the page discussing the rank itself.

Wondering what Kierzek and others think on these issues. K.e.coffman ( talk) 01:21, 8 December 2015 (UTC) reply

There can always be over-linking which can be cut down on; the rule in general is to link once in the lead and once at first use in the main article; unless it is a list.
And for the main point, the consensus per WP:MOS, as I pointed out on your talk page, is to use italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that are not currently used in English. So I must strongly disagree with any changes therein when one is using a German term in its original form for an article; it should be kept in the proper form of the isolated foreign words; consistent with the grammar rules of the original language; frankly, it does not matter what the rule for English is, if the word is not commonly adopted in English for certain use, such as Waffen-SS. Now there is also the argument that when translated to English it should be capitalized, as well. Lastly, as I pointed out on your talk page, some of the books you cite through Google Books preview are actually in italics in the printed book form. However, what is most important is the MOS followed herein. This is from a recent discussion where it came up (put here for others to read, since I know you already read it K.e.) [1]. I invite others to comment: @ OberRanks: @ Peacemaker67: @ MisterBee1966: @ Nick-D: @ Diannaa:. Cheers, Kierzek ( talk) 01:48, 8 December 2015 (UTC) reply
As pointed out, this is a rehash of a recent discussion, and there is a MOS-compliant consensus on it. I haven't seen anything that challenges that consensus. Leave them in italics in German. I usually only link them once in the body, the exception being sortable tables. Cheers, Peacemaker67 ( crack... thump) 02:19, 8 December 2015 (UTC) reply
I believe the consensus may be evolving, such as when recently it's been decided that Waffen-SS should be rendered as Waffen-SS without italics. In general, I think the less clutter, the better, and the trend may be to treat these ranks as English terms (i.e. without italics) and / or provide translations.
My print books offer a variety of treatments, such as Exploitation, resettlement, mass murder by Alex Kay uses no italics for "SS-Briganefürher". Hitler's war in the East by Müller and Ueberschar uses the German term plus translation "SS-Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General". Messages of Murder by Headland and Hitler's Empire by Mazower use "Higher SS and Police Leader" for Jeckeln and Frank respectively, rather than SS-Obergruppenführer. Along with the example of Germany and the Second World War by Müller and al. that I mentioned earlier, which uses straight up translation. (I have more books, including some mentioned above, on order and I will check in them, because now I'm genuinely curious.)
In any case, we are not going to resolve this on this thread -- something to think about for the future.
Regarding linking, I believe it's appropriate to provide linking to SS-Obergruppenführer on the biographical articles, e.i. Person X was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer, or in Dates of rank sections. In the course of the divisional articles, I believe it's an overkill, such as "when commander X was killed in action, SS-Standartenführer Y assumed command." Please see an example from this article.
What are the thoughts on this? K.e.coffman ( talk) 03:11, 8 December 2015 (UTC) reply
As indicated by Peacemaker, this topic, in a slightly different context, was recently discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators#Mass page move. My personal preference, leave them in italics in German and link them on first occurrence only. MisterBee1966 ( talk) 06:21, 8 December 2015 (UTC) reply
Per MB, I link generally all foreign ranks in italics at first mention (per MOS), and I usually also add a note about the US Army equivalence for context. I don't plan to change that practice in any article I work on without a strong consensus from a Milhist-level discussion (certainly not a discussion on one SS division page). MB has taken dozens of RK lists and bios to FA/FL and A/AL with his current practice, and I've developed several FAs for both SS bios and divisions with mine. That is where the consensus has developed, where content is created and reviewed. My view is that this is a waste of time. Peacemaker67 ( crack... thump) 07:47, 8 December 2015 (UTC) reply

Nevermind then – these are fairly minor tweaks, and I will go with the current consensus. Much of Waffen-SS content has significant issues of NPOV language and unsourced dubious claims; I will focus on those. K.e.coffman ( talk) 08:02, 8 December 2015 (UTC) reply

Research notes

bakery

So right now, the War Crimes section refers to Wiking division's bakery column. There is no context for this; what is the reader supposed to imagine a "bakery column" is? --jpgordon 𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇 05:48, 9 March 2017 (UTC) reply

I agree, it's an odd usage. I suspect it stems from a poor or too-literal translation, since there is also mention of a meat unit. We should perhaps replace all that with a more generic 'mess section' or even more-generic 'logistics unit'. DMorpheus2 ( talk) 13:12, 9 March 2017 (UTC) reply
I made some edits; let me know what you think DMorpheus2 ( talk) 16:32, 9 March 2017 (UTC) reply
Certainly makes more sense. --jpgordon 𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇 20:24, 9 March 2017 (UTC) reply
Its better, thanks guys. Kierzek ( talk) 14:31, 10 March 2017 (UTC) reply

Tank strength

There should be something, shouldn't there? Asgrrr ( talk) 23:55, 16 April 2018 (UTC) reply

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 17:21, 8 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Found an issue. I'm new, can someone share tips on how best to correct?

Hi all.

I'm new to this, but an enjoying it immensely. While reading through this article I've found a couple issues. Both issues are in the section titled "Invasion of the Soviet Union", 2nd paragraph.

Firstly I'm this sentence: "In February 1942, the Soviet’s winter offensive had established breakthroughs on either side of the transportation hub of Izium." the word either is wrong. After further reading of this paragraph is clear that it's been edited incorrectly before. I will later read the original information to correct this sentence, but I'd like to see what this paragraph looked like before it was last edited. Would someone be able to share with me what the best way is to do this?

If explaining this would take too much time, please let me know and I'll research it myself; I just thought that with a specific example here it would be a great way for me to possibly learn exactly how someone else would correct this real mistake.

Cheers Homerx007x ( talk) 10:12, 5 February 2023 (UTC) reply

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