Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Schutzstaffel/archive1

Schutzstaffel

Self nomination of this article. Extensive historical research has gone into covering every branch of the SS including a history of the group's existence. References are cited and links are provided to several other SS related article -Husnock 22:09, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Object, despite readability the article is not exactly aesthetically sublime. I think we could do better than one picture for the entire subject. —Oldak Quill 23:37, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Neutral. Very good coverage of controversial albeit magnetic topic, although as mentioned above it needs more pictures - tanks, perhaps, or people running with guns, or Derren Nesbitt from 'Where Eagles Dare'. There is however a picture of Himmler in the article on Gestapo. There doesn't seem to be anything about the SS tank divisions, which were extraordinary for a larger version of the Metropolitan Police; it's glaring, because the comics I used to read were full of "crack SS Panzer divisions", and this is still a cliche today.[1] I remember reading somewhere that the SS were forced by circumstance to progressively shelve their ideal of racial purity as casualities mounted, lowering their imaginary 'bar' in order to keep up the numbers; I don't know if this is true or not, but the article only mentions the increased use of non-German conscripts. I find it ironic that a generation of anti-Nazi education has ensured that some of the best articles on Wikipedia are on Nazi topics.-Ashley Pomeroy 21:30, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ashley, I dunno whether the general SS article should contain so much detailed information about one of its organizations i.e. the Waffen-SS. Andries 14:50, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Neutral for the moment

Points Pro FA

1. Well resesearched and detailed (thanks Husnock)

Points Contra FA

1. Article contains some unattributed statements, like the SS is held responsible in the intro (by whom? by the IMT?) I think this is important because I believe there are quite a lot of ex-Waffen SS men who were stigmatized though they had nothing to do with the RSHA, war crimes or Holocaust. (can be fixed quickly)
2. The subject is very large and diverse (yes, even the SS was large and diverse) and as a result the article has become slightly difficult to understand quickly. I think the German version has a better organization of the topics
3. At least one more pic would be nice (can be fixed quickly)
4. May be the SS magazine Das schwarze Korps should be mentioned. (can be fixec quickly)
5. May be we should also mention that the SS had non-members who could contribute financially at a certain period
6. Didn't the SS members swear loyalty to the person of Adolf Hitler, not to Germany or the Nazi-party but to Hitler as a person? If so, this should be mentioned (quit scary and cult like)
7. The court system of the SS re-introduced duels for insults, I read. May be this should be mentioned too.

• Some sentences that I find doubtful that may be due to my ignorance

• The SS fighting units, called the Waffen-SS, were to prove highly distinguished and in many cases more distinguished than the German army, the Wehrmacht

(I thought that there a few excellent divisions but also a few below Wehrmacht standards)

• The most powerful men in the SS were the SS and Police Leaders,

(I though the SS heads of the Amter were more powerful and that the SSHPF were Himmler’s strategy against the growing power of the heads of the Amter)

• Since the SS was, by its very nature, a criminal organization

( the SS men believed that they were dealing with enemies of the Reich)

• SS Judges have themselves admitted that the mass murder of Jews and the shooting of women and children was against German law.

(this is something I was not aware of. I always thought that the SS men followed the law)

Andries 14:23, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Andries, actually, the SS gave little regard for German Law. With their own courts and police and no media investigative reporters (my speculation), they had little reason to. For example, German laws regarding cremation stipulated that each body to be cremated needed paperwork identifying the cause of death, signed by a physician. Each form had a unique number on it, which was also on a ceramic disc to go into the oven with the body and into the urn with the ashes. At first the SS forged all the certificates and randomly filled urns with mixed ashes and random id discs, but eventually they didn't bother. In my opinion, the "final solution" was in no way compatible with German law, but rather with the (barbaric) whims and (murderous) fancies of the SS. (the cremation law stuff I got from a special exhibit at the Jüdisches Museum in Berlin--the exhibit was about a little company called "Topf & Söhnen" that made ovens...)(http://www.topfundsoehne.de/) jethrotull4321 30. Sept 2006

• object
  • Several Waffen SS units turned out to be a fighting disaster, not all were a success.
  • The term "Freikorps" is not expanded on and is crucial for understanding the SS in the beginning and in particular Hitler's feelings for many of the SS men.
  • "some say" needs to be made more specific.
  • there needs to be a statement of the limitations of the effective powers of the SS in Germany. They were not all powerful and failed in a large number of their goals.
  • it is not true to say that the order police was fully integrated into the SS; they maintained a separate chain of command long into the war (Browning p7)
  • many other things I don't have immediate time to check. Please consider expanding your referencences and referencing each fact. You could use a footnoting system such as Wikipedia:Footnote3 or other equivalent system to show these matches.

Mozzerati 10:17, 2005 Apr 2 (UTC)