Talk:German aid to Soviet civilians in World War II

This does not agree with the historical record

Your list of isolated incidents of humanity among German soldiers is interesting. This does not agree with the historical record that is described by Snyder in Bloodlands pp.155-186. My understanding is that it was a court martial offense to give food to the civilian population in the USSR--Woogie10w (talk) 14:04, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

After a quick review, seems like this article is a content fork and has some POV or cherry picking issues. Kierzek (talk) 15:11, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Exceptional claims require exceptional sources[1], Is there a reliable source that tells readers that the Germans were really nice guys in Russia, don't be fooled by communist propaganda? I have not seen such a source, I doubt that it exists. --Woogie10w (talk) 16:49, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

It's not Wikipedia's job to label someone as "nice" or "bad", per WP:IMPARTIAL we just follow reliable sources. What Snyder says occured before the Severity Order of 10 October 1941, in summer. There are enough reliable sources for this particular aspect as well. And that's why we have Oscar Schindler, Fritz Schmenkel, etc.Brandmeister^talk 18:32, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Brandmeister I made this edit as your friend. I knew most of the older Germans in 1960's as "nice guys" ie. decent human beings. We would drink together and spoke the same language. Brandmeister You are going to have a difficult time to produce reliable sources to support the content of this article on English Wikipedia. To use an example from American history, there were slave holders in the ante-bellum south who were decent human beings and treated the slaves in a humane manner, make my day and try to create a Wikipedia article on this topic! --Woogie10w (talk) 20:34, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

I think there are enough reliable sources (currently 26) already to justify WP:SIZESPLIT from all related articles. Besides, where possible, the names of the sources are wikilinked. In that aid multiple people were involved with multiple facets (rescue, medical aid and food). As for the ante-bellum south, there was a minority too, but I haven't researched that topic (although there's at least one book, The Abolitionists and the South, 1831-1861). And just to clarify, actually I'm not a German despite my username, so bias-wise I consider myself a neutral editor here. Brandmeister^talk 21:10, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Sounds OK to me, I have intention to edit this article, I just crunch numbers on Wikipedia--Woogie10w (talk) 23:21, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

A personal note, fifty years ago I knew Germans who were really nice guys, they had to follow orders and preferred not to talk about the war. My dad was a US GI, he was proud of his service and liked to talk about how he helped the starving people in Holland.--Woogie10w (talk) 16:49, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Image; redirect proposal

I re-removed the image originigally deleted by The Quixotic Potato: a propaganda image just does not belong.

General comment: I don’t doubt that these incidents occurred. The page is essentially a collection of individual accounts, based on primary sources (news reports). There’s no analysis or scholarly synthesis as would be required of secondary sources on the topic of the “German aid to Soviet civilians in WWII”. As presented, the list gives undue weight to these incidents. For comparison, Wikipedia does not have an article on the “American aid to German civilians during WW2”.

As an aside, the list only serves to confirm the nature of the German occupational policies:

• “two German patrollers mistook him for a Jew due to his curly hair” and “prepared to shoot him” suggests that the patrol had orders to shoot Jews on the spot. I read about “Jew hunts” that rear-area Wehrmacht and police units went out on, so such actions must have been typical.
• In another example, the member of a reconnaissance unit warns a wife of a communist that she’d be the first on the list to be executed. This is consistent with the published accounts whereas Wehrmacht units would arrest / execute Communists, Jews, teachers, etc as the first thing that they would do after capturing a locality. This also confirms that such policies were common knowledge among regular soldiers. Often the executions were public, by hanging. And in this particular case, the woman was not even a communist herself, just guilty by association.
• Or that two women and five children could be killed without trial, following a mere suspicion of aiding a wounded “partisan”; they were to be shot the very next day. Jesus.

Etc. What I did read about the topic is not supportive of the view of the Wehrmacht soldiers as a whole were benevolent towards Soviet civilians. Wolfram Wette in The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality suggests that the fact that such incidents occurred and that German soldiers generally did not suffer consequences for disobeying criminal orders only underscores the overall criminality of the Wehrmacht and its policies. He says (IIRC) that the paucity of such examples puts the overall behaviour by the Wehrmacht troops in even worse a light.

Overall, this list comes across as a feel-good article but, ultimately, I’m not sure if it belongs in the current form. I suggest that it be *redirected* to Wehrmacht#Resistance to the Nazi regime, where several examples of assistance to victims are given. I note that the Wehrmacht page lists those with stand-alone articles, and I don’t think any incidents here are worth merging to the target article. Alternatively, a new section Wehrmacht#Assistance to victims can be created there and expanded with notable examples. I could look up Wette since I have the book. Feedback? K.e.coffman (talk) 01:33, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I have seen A Film Unfinished. I do not recommend watching it, because it made me very depressed, but it shows how propaganda in those days was made and how manipulative propaganda can be. Collecting a bunch of stuff that would be nonnotable on its own (WP:ONEEVENT) and combining it into an article causes problems with WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Redirecting the article would solve that problem, and notable examples can be added to Wehrmacht#Resistance to the Nazi regime. I am here to fix typos, I don't write articles. One of the projects I am working on is making a list of all the images made by Propagandakompanien and checking the locations where they are used to see if they are used appropriately. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 01:58, 23 December 2017 (UTC)