Template:Did you know nominations/Erich Hoepner

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:40, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Erich Hoepner edit

  • ... that Erich Hoepner, a German World War II general, shared Adolf Hitler's sentiment that the war against the Soviet Union should be conducted as a "war of extermination"? Source: Crowe, David M. (2013). Crimes of State Past and Present: Government-Sponsored Atrocities and International Legal Responses. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-98681-2. p. 90.

Improved to Good Article status by K.e.coffman (talk). Self-nominated at 00:16, 27 April 2018 (UTC).

  • Nominated within 7 days of GA approval. New enough, long enough, well referenced, neutrally written, no close paraphrasing seen. All images are freely-licensed. Both hooks verified and refs cited inline. No QPQ needed for first-time nominator. Good to go. Yoninah (talk) 17:11, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
@Yoninah: On second thoughts, I like the 2nd hook better. Should I swap them out? Or just leave this comment here? K.e.coffman (talk) 01:58, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
No, I'll just strikethrough the first one. Reiterating tick for ALT1. Yoninah (talk) 10:53, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I think the hook overstates the case by describing Hoepner as "deeply implicated" in "the crimes of the Wehrmacht". It makes him sound like a major war criminal, when his main offence appears to be that he implemented the Commissar Order (as did all the Eastern Front commanders IIRC). Also "the crimes" makes him sound as if he was implicated in all of them. I also think there are some POV aspects to this article, especially the lead, but I think I'll overlook those. I suggest though that the proposed hook be modified as follows:
  • ... that World War II German general Erich Hoepner was a member of the military resistance to Adolf Hitler, but was also implicated in war crimes? Gatoclass (talk) 16:01, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Gatoclass, I can see your problem with the hook, but I really do not see any problems in the lead of the article. "Deeply implicated" can in fact be seen in the article given that his own directive preceded the official OKW one, but that does bring us into interpretational territory. However, I do not agree with de-linking crimes of the Wehrmacht and replacing it with the generic "war crimes"--these were specific ones, and surely we can come up with a good phrasing for it. Taking ALT 1 and leaving out two words will do this (and I'm keeping your suggested shift from appositive to internal pre-head modifier) (ha, I see you also opted for "also" instead of "deeply"--great minds think alike):
ALT3... that German World War II general Erich Hoepner was a member of the military resistance to Adolf Hitler, but was also implicated in crimes of the Wehrmacht? Drmies (talk) 16:12, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Actually Drmies, I didn't dispense with the crimes of the Wehrmacht link, I just piped it, the reason being again that I think it implies he was involved in all of them (and there are rather a lot of crimes listed on that page). Perhaps substituting "crimes of the Wehrmacht" with "war crimes on the Eastern Front" (again piping the "war crimes" link) would help narrow it down a bit? Gatoclass (talk) 16:25, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Ha, I didn't see it was a piped link--sorry. But I took out "the" in order to indicate that it wasn't "all". I prefer to keep "Wehrmacht" in there, explicitly. Drmies (talk) 16:42, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
All right, I'm not going to sweat this, it's a fairly minor point after all. I guess I thought it might be a good idea to downplay the "war crimes of the Wehrmacht" link somewhat as that article looks like a bit of a mess to me (Herero massacres, First World War, Waffen-SS etc. - what do these have to do with crimes of the Wehrmacht, specifically?) But I digress. Let's go with ALT3 then. I have restored Yoninah's tick. Gatoclass (talk) 17:50, 7 May 2018 (UTC)