User:EmileighWard/sandbox

After looking over the talk page for Langer, i found minimal information or conversation that took place. It seems to me that he just merely isn't of much interest to people, at least to the extent that they are willing to put in a little effort to make changes or additions to his page. Therefore, an issue i have with the current page would be its lack of detail and explanation. While this is presumably due to its inherently short length, Langers page simple spews out a few tidbits of information and does not expand on what was just stated. For example it was stated the he did not have his MD but his PhD, however they did not say what his PhD was in and why he was accepted into the American Psychiatric Association regardless of his lack of MD. A few references i have found that may be beneficial to his page would be the first reference listed, to which we get a little more insight as to what kind of research he Langer did and his interactions with other psychologists, the second being a journal article of the assessment of Adolf Hitler which includes information as to the interaction and content that took place and was developed between Langer and Hitler. references: Gifford, Sanford. "The Rediscovery of Walter Langer, 1899–1981." American Imago, vol. 74 no. 4, 2017, pp. 467-482. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/aim.2017.0032 Coolidge, F. L., Davis, F. L., & Segal, D. L. (2007). Understanding madmen: A DSM-IV assessment of Adolf Hitler. Individual Differences Research, 5(1), 30-43. Lastly, for Dr. Council, I am slightly concerned with the ability to produce enough information for this page. After digging deeper and deeper to my ability there truly is limited information on Langer, and when there is it is solely focused on the major overlapping details of Hitler. i attempted to look on google scholar and NDSU libraries, do you have an suggestions? Additionally, i believe the majority of information gathered will be from Langers writing of The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret War Time Report, would it be a problem to have the majority of citing come from this? i believe it to truly be the most beneficial, overarching, and applicable source of information for this page. EmileighWard (talk) 18:23, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

• First, for Emiileigh, just because there's not much chatter on the talk page doesn't mean people aren't interested. There's usually not nearly as much as there should be on Talk pages for articles.
• Regarding your questions,
  • 1. I happen to have some personal interest in Langer and his work with the OSS in WWII. I can point you toward additional sources. He is an important figure both in military psychology/psychiatry and in psychological profiling.
  • 2. I don't think it would be a problem to focus on the analysis of Hitler - that's what Langer's best know for. Even if you don't find a lot of additional information, cross-linking his article with other relevant articles on military psychology in WWII would be useful and worthwhile. J.R. Council (talk) 02:49, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi Group, For assignment 4 I noticed that one of the biggest problems with the original Wikipedia article on Langer is that it doesn't really mention his education or training at all, other than the fact that he graduated from Harvard in 1923. I think it would be important to include this, as Langer was trained in Psychoanalysis during a time when students could only be fully trained in the discipline in Europe. So, he studied in Austria and was analyzed by Anna Freud at one point. During his time in Austria he also helped efforts against the rise of Nazism and helped many Jews and Anti-Nazi activists escape. These details I feel are not only interesting but also help paint a picture of his perspective and the background that he would have been able to draw from with his work on Hitler. Emileigh- I found a few decent sources on his time in Vienna and also a Wikipedia entry for his brother that has more information about their family, so I will see what else I can find. I think we can still do it and there is enough info out there for us to add a few small sections about his personal life and education, and a much longer section on his research. Another thought I had, was that we might be able to call around to Universities where he studied or taught and see if they have anything archived about him? Depending on how deep we want to get into things. I will update with more ideas and my sources later tonight. So in essence the main change I'm suggesting is I think we should add an "Education and Early Life" section or something to that effect. Let me know what you think. Xanthe.dick (talk) 23:16, 2 October 2018 (UTC)Xanthe.dick (talk) 23:03, 2 October 2018 (UTC)Xanthe.dick

• I think looking into archival materials would take much more effort than I expect for this project. That's very ambitious. I think you can find plenty of material through published sources.

I found this source: "Origins of the Psychological Profiling of Political Leaders: The US Office of Strategic Services and Adolf Hitler" in the Journal of Intelligence and National Security, Vol 29 Issue 5 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2013.834217?src=recsys& It gives a bit of background on Langer and the lasting legacy of his work as well as surrounding controversies. I think we could potentially use this to add in a "Legacy" section where we talk about how his profile of Hitler helped shape later research and the idea of profiling political leaders. There is also this paper co-written by Langer- "An American analyst in Vienna During the Anschluss 1936-1938" https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/1520-6696%28197801%2914%3A1%3C37%3A%3AAID-JHBS2300140107%3E3.0.CO%3B2-F which is cited in the Wikipedia article so is technically against the rules and wont count as one of my two sources, but the authors of the Wikipedia article could have taken a lot more from it and there is a lot of info there that we should still use. Xanthe.dick (talk) 06:47, 3 October 2018 (UTC)Xanthe.dick

Xanthe's Sources:

• Xanthe: maybe I missed it, but I couldn't find any questions or comments for me. Please let me know if you addressed that part of the assignment. If not, ask me a couple of questions for full credit. J.R. Council (talk) 02:49, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Looking at Langers wikipedia page the majority of the article was very surface level that offered little to no specific detail on Langer. The part that stuck out to me the most is his publications. The wikipedia page only offered two publications: "The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report" and "Psychology & Human Living" I found three more books he had about Hitler: "A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend" "A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend" and "Adolph Hitler" I think adding to this could prove to be somewhat beneficial. While looking for sources to add to the page i came across one that was pretty beneficial. I had trouble looking for another article which leads me to my first question, what is a good approach for finding useful information to use in wikipedia page. My second question is It seems as though theres only select articles on Langer so should we just make the most out of those or focus on looking for more sources? Flyingeagle42 (talk) 03:49, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

• Good questions, Bruce.
  • 1. I've always found that by reading an article carefully and checking it's references, you'll find more papers that can lead you to additional information and references.
  • 2. As I suggested to Emileigh, linking to relevant Wikipedia pages, as well as backlinking to your article from them, can be really helpful to readers who are interested in a topic. In this and other ways, editing an article can be just as useful as bringing in new material. However, it looks like Xanthe found quite a bit. There are many ways to get new information. Sleuthing can be fun. For one thing, obituaries often have valuable background you won't find elsewhere. J.R. Council (talk) 02:49, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Final lead section

Walter Charles Langer (February 5, 1899 – July 4, 1981) was an American Psychoanalyst who was best known for preparing a psychological analysis of Adolf Hitler in 1943. Langer studied the field of psychoanalytics at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he also worked as a professor upon completion of his education. The field of psychoanalytics later led Langer to be employed by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) where in the year of 1943 he prepared a psychological analysis of Adolf Hitler. Within this analysis, Langer successfully predicted Hitlers suicide as the "most plausible outcome", as well as the possibility of a military coup against Hitler well before the assassination attempt of 1944. Following his psychological analysis and Hitlers death, Langer wrote a report surrounding the events of Adolf Hitler's life titled “The Mind of Adolf Hitler: A Secret Wartime Report”. This publication is Langers most notable work however he has also produced writings such as “Psychology and Human Living”, “A Psychological analysis of Adolf Hitler: His Life and Legend”, and “Dissecting the Hitler Mind”. EmileighWard (talk) 04:38, 9 November 2018 (UTC) Xanthe.dick (talk) 04:43, 9 November 2018 (UTC)Xanthe.dick Flyingeagle42 (talk) 05:40, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Dr. Council's comments on group lead

You've done a nice job on this. There's not a huge amount of information on Langer, so it's not going to be that long of an article. This lead is a good size and amount of detail for your topic. Other commenets:

• Proofread!
• Add links to related topics mentioned in the lead, like Adolph Hitler. Add reference citations.
• If you haven't started already, please proceed to writing the main body of the article. Just flesh out the lead, and add additional information at the appropriate spots.
  • Be sure to break your article into its main parts, and add section and subsection titles to organize and make it easy for the reader to follow.

J.R. Council (talk) 21:26, 20 November 2018 (UTC) Dr. Council, I am wondering how to do in text citations for the article. As of now I have just used a regular format for writing papers but I am aware it is different for wikipedia however I am not sure how to do this.EmileighWard (talk) 03:34, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

• Hi Emily. Sorry I missed your question until now. Wikipedia has its own way of doing references, but it has the advantage of generating the reference list automatically. It also makes adding in new citations to a paper you've already cited very easy. Lots of help is available in my Wikipedia resources page on Bb., as well as from Wikipedia and Wikiedu.org. Here is a useful link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Referencing_for_beginners
• Here is a general beginner's guide that has a lot of useful information about formatting and editing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Cheatsheet J.R. Council (talk) 23:32, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Rough Draft

Walter Charles Langer (February 5, 1899 – July 4, 1981) was an American psychoanalyst who was best known for preparing a psychological analysis of Adolf Hitler in 1943. Langer studied the field of psychoanalysis at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he also worked as a professor upon completion of his education. The field of psychoanalytics later led Langer to be employed by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) where in the year of 1943 he prepared a psychological analysis of Adolf Hitler. Within this analysis, Langer successfully predicted Hitlers suicide as the "most plausible outcome", as well as the possibility of a military coup against Hitler well before the assassination attempt of 1944. Following his psychological analysis and Hitlers death, Langer wrote a report surrounding the events of Adolf Hitler's life titled “The Mind of Adolf Hitler: A Secret Wartime Report”. This publication is Langers most notable work however he has also produced writings such as “Psychology and Human Living”, “A Psychological analysis of Adolf Hitler: His Life and Legend”, and “Dissecting the Hitler Mind”. EmileighWard (talk) 03:23, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Early life

Langer was born on February 5, 1899, in South Boston, to Charles Rudolph and Johanna Rockenbach. Johanna, his mother was from Bavaria while his father, Charles from Silesia Germany. Langer had an older brother named William and Rudolph Langer. The family later moved when Charles became an owner of a florist shop. After their father passed away on 1899, the family lost all their savings. To help support the family Walter worked at a grocery store while going to school. Just after two years of high school, Walter had to drop out and get a full-time job as an apprentice electrician, where he mostly wired houses for two years. While the family moved to Cambridge, he was admitted to Rindge Technical High School to finish out his high school education. He was later accepted at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and during the World War I, serviced in the military for 27 months. After being discharged in 1919, Walter chose to peruse the psychology field at the University of Harvard. Flyingeagle42 (talk) 03:33, 22 November 2018 (UTC) Flyingeagle42 (talk) 18:32, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Education

Langer attended Harvard University, graduating as part of the class of 1923. Langer continued to study at Harvard until attaining his PhD in Psychology in 1935. The same year, he traveled to pursue studies in psychoanalysis in Vienna, Austria where he studied under Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund Freud. Langer also saw Freud regularly during this time and accompanied him on his trip into exile in 1938. In addition to Freud, Langer helped many Jewish scientists and Anti-Nazi activists escape, obtaining visas for many Austrian analysts and transporting small groups of refugees to the Swiss border. Xanthe.dick (talk) 03:36, 21 November 2018 (UTC)Xanthe.dick

Career

Charles Langer worked as a psychoanalyst out of Harvard University. Following his graduation, Langer was accepted into the American Psychiatric Association (APA). However, Langer was accepted into the APA against common practice as he was the first to be admitted without obtaining an M.D. It wasn’t until after finishing high school late and being accepted into MIT that he discovered his interest in psychoanalytics and decided to abandon the route of an electrician. While attending college, World War One had begun and Langer was more than happy to enlist, although only serving twenty seven months. While away at war he was able to view a wide array of body language and contextual actions of those around him. This experience had lead to Langers increased interest in interpreting and analyzing others. It was Langers time serving his country that sparked his interest and guided him to pursue psychology and behaviorism at Harvard University after being discharged from the service in 1919 EmileighWard (talk) 03:32, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

After accumulating enough money from publishing a high school textbook titled "Psychology and Human Living", Langer traveled to Germany and began working with Anna Freud . Langers time in Germany had overlapped with the historical entrance of Adolf Hitler. As Hitler gained power in Germany, Langer had first-hand experience as to the devastation that was brought to the civilians of the country. Due to his educational background and direct experience, Langer had a personal interest in Adolf Hitler and went to work for the OSS to which he would later predict Hitler’s means of death. Langer also continued to produce multiple books in relation to Adolf Hitler after his death, the most notable being "The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report". EmileighWard (talk) 03:31, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Legacy

Langer’s most popular work, The Mind of Adolf Hitler helped put psychology on the map in American popular culture. Despite many controversies, the profile has been influential in the field of profiling political leaders. Langer himself offered a statement on the value of psychobiography for political means, stating: “I may be naïve in diplomatic matters, but I like to believe that if such a study of Hitler had been made years earlier, under less tension, and with more opportunity to gather first-hand information, there might not have been a Munich; a similar study of Stalin might have produced a different Yalta; one of Castro might have prevented the Cuban situation; and one of President Diem might have avoided our deep involvement in Vietnam. Studies of this type cannot solve our international problems. That would be too much to expect. They might, however, help to avoid some of the serious blunders we seemed to have made because we were ignorant of the psychological factors involved and the nature of the leaders with whom we were negotiating.”

Following the Langer profile, US presidents began requesting profiles of foreign diplomats before important events and meetings. Notably, John F. Kennedy requested a profile of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as part of his preparation for the 1961 Vienna Summit, and President Richard Nixon asked the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for profiles of both Mao Zedong and Chou Enlai before embarking on his first visit to China.

From 1965-1986, the CIA operated a Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, directed By Gerald M. Post, who cited Langer as an influence. Although the center was closed with the dissolution of the Cold War, personality research and psychobiography of political leaders continues to be of interest to both government agencies and the general public.Xanthe.dick (talk) 03:53, 21 November 2018 (UTC)Xanthe.dick

Changes based on Dr. Council's feedback

Added in text citations with proper formatting, proofread/edited for typos, and cut down for conciseness.

I also attempted to correctly cite the same source multiple times however I was not able to get it formatted correctly after trying multiple times. They are all cited but not very neatly, I did the best I could at adjusting this EmileighWard (talk) 21:09, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

• Nice job! Although I think you still need to add some citations to back up your statements. I am sending this off to user:Ian (Wiki Ed) for his approval. J.R. Council (talk) 23:40, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

• I made some deletions of material I did not think was pertinent.

I don't see any contributions from Bruce, or statements that he contributed. J.R. Council (talk) 23:44, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

I worked on the early life section while making edits throughout the article. Ive signed my name showing my contributions. Flyingeagle42 (talk) 18:36, 5 December 2018 (UTC)