# Talk:Wannsee Conference

"to avoid any repetition of the disputes that had arisen earlier in the annihilation campaign."
This is sudden information.  What disputes?  This needs context to show its meaning better.  What were the previous issues that had happened? 113.37.188.122 (talk) 07:38, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Heydrich was trying to prevent further complaints from his military and civilian subordinates about the genocide. — Diannaa (talk) 12:34, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Okay I have better wording in place. Check it when you have a minute. — Diannaa (talk) 12:40, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

We had in place for some time that Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen as translating to "Special Prosecution Book Poland". An IP changed it to read "Persecution Book Poland" stating in their edit summary that "Fahndung literally maens search / manhunt". My German/English dictionary also says "Fahndung" translates to "search", as does Google Translate. So I changed it to that. It was changed back by Alandeus who said "The link is to the 'Special Prosecution Book' article. That title would need to be changed first." I really don't think that because a different article is incorrect that this one has to be incorrect as well. Discussion welcome. — Diannaa (talk) 22:24, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
@Obenritter:, you speak German, right? What do you think the translation should read? Thanks, — Diannaa (talk) 23:53, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

I suspect "prosecution" is a mistake for "proscription", which is how many English sources translate it. Zerotalk 03:41, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
@Diannaa: Sorry for the slow response....been busy, Sonderfahndungsbuch is an unusual term to be sure. In their work Nazi-Deutsch/Nazi German: An English Lexicon of the Language of the Third Reich, authors Robert Michael and Karen Doerr translate it to "Special Tracing Book", but I am not a fan of this rendering either. It seems "Special Prosecution Book–Poland" would be more in keeping with the actual implied meaning, even though the literal translation is "special manhunt/search book–Poland." Remember translations are always about equivalency not literality. Michael and Doerr define the term Sonderfahndungsbuch as a  "Ledger of wanted persons lists compiled by the SD and the Gestapo and carried into Poland by each Eisatzgruppe. They add that it "contained the names of prominent Polish political figures and individuals who had participated in Polish uprisings in East Upper Silesia in 1919–1921, as well as names of politically active Jews, members of both groups to be killed when apprehended." (p. 377) Maybe the definition here makes this easier to render since the list within the ledger was recorded for Polish persons they wanted to prosecute. Let's also see what a fellow native English/German speaker like @Ermenrich: thinks here. --Obenritter (talk) 13:14, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Michael, Robert; Doerr, Karin (2002). Nazi-Deutsch/Nazi-German. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-32106-X.
Right. Even though there are various translations for "Fahndung", with "search" and "wanted list" being quite precise, I am glad to see that "prosecution" is proposed as keeping with the implied meaning. As a translator, I think it fits very well in the context of things. Alandeus (talk) 13:51, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
Additionally, "prosecution" – in comparison to just "search" – is more typical of the aggressive bureaucratic vocabulary the Nazis liked to use. Alandeus (talk) 08:07, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this - I would go by whatever translation is used by reliable sources, even if it is awkward. Fahndung literally means "manhunt", but I can see why this translation is inaccurate. Is there any secondary support for "prosecution"?--Ermenrich (talk) 11:47, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
A somewhat vague secondary support could be the following: If you take the Polish version of the term Sonderfahndungsbuch "Specjalna księga Polaków ściganych listem gończym" and enter it into DeepL, you get something with prosecute in it: "Special book of Poles prosecuted by appointment letter" as an English translation. My assumption is therefore that the English version of the Wikipedia Sonderfahndungsbuch article (published by a Pole in 2011) is basically a copy or translation of the older original Polish version (2010). Thus prosecution comes up via a two-step translation via Polish.
Otherwise, another secondary support may by hard to find. Alandeus (talk) 15:31, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
Must concur with Alandeus here, in that, a secondary source may be hard to come by but I am pretty convinced that the tone of Nazi language atop the context here combine to render this "Special Prosecution Book–Poland" and feel comfortable with that translation. It's certainly better than the one given by Doerr and Michael of "Special Tracing Book". While I am not totally indifferent about what Diannaa chooses among these to use, I trust whatever is eventually selected will be good enough. Unfortunately, even if we are considered subject-matter-experts for the government and/or within Academia, if we are unable to point directly to a published source in this case (it would even be vainglorious and self-serving to cite any one of us at this stage), we are bound by Wikipedia constraints to go with the best one in an RS that we trust. Right now, that looks like "Special Tracing Book–Poland" by default. Sadly so. Here is a case where Wikipedia would be better served to trust the translation of people with the appropriate bi-directional language skills and deep knowledge of Nazi Germany via consensus but I don't know if that takes precedent or not, but Diannaa will. --Obenritter (talk) 20:52, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
The German language has a lot of these long compound words that have layers of meaning beyond the literal translation. And sometimes the Nazis spoke using euphemisms. So there's some room for interpretation in my opinion. If everyone thinks "Special Tracing Book" is a poor translation, we shouldn't be obliged to use it just because it's sourced. We could potentially add a note: "Robert Michael and Karen Doerr, authors of Nazi-Deutsch/Nazi German: An English Lexicon of the Language of the Third Reich, translate it as "Special Tracing Book".  — Diannaa (talk) 01:32, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
"Tracing" is a poor translation. Technically "search" is the closest to "Fahndung". However, if you read the German instructions in the PDF of the original document, you read what the authorities are to do with the people once they are arrested, to whom they are to be turn over, and so on. So there is a certain element of prosecution here. Adding the suggested note about that book is a good option. Alandeus (talk) 06:50, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
Agree with "Special Prosecution Book–Poland" as the translation with a note from Michael and Doerr. --Obenritter (talk) 14:56, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
We will need a full citation - you implied that you have this book?  — Diannaa (talk) 23:33, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Prosecution_Book-Poland History, reference link there to https://www.sbc.org.pl/dlibra/publication/edition/24330?id=24330 Alandeus (talk) 06:56, 8 June 2023 (UTC)*
No, what I am looking for is Michael, Robert; Doerr, Karin (2002). Nazi-Deutsch/Nazi-German. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-32106-X. but we will also need a page number. I think it might be on page 377?  — Diannaa (talk) 13:16, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes Diannaa, I own this book and it is p. 377.--Obenritter (talk) 21:40, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
Good morning folks. I am the bilingual (German/English) IP who made the initial change in the main article. I have not been aware that my modest change has triggered such an expansive, learned (and good-natured!) discussion.
First, in my view the best referenced translation for Fahndungsbuch is  "Ledger of wanted persons". This is the initial proposal by Obenritter above, who also provides a source (Michael and Doerr 2002). Moreover, the equivalent Fahndungsbuch for Britain has also been translated as "wanted list" (Forces War Records. 28 February 2017) and it would be inconsistent to have different translations for the British book and for the Polish book. Finally, I like the fact that "persons" sounds formal/bureaucratic in English (in spoken English, the plural of "person" does not exist, it is avoided by using "people"), which reflects the bureaucratic ring of the German expression.
In summary, the complete translation is "Special Wanted Persons' Ledger Poland / "Special Ledger of Wanted Persons - Poland.
Here are my comments on the other proposals, in descending order of inferiority (pardon the expression):
Especially wanted persons (Forces War Records). The adverb "especially" is a grammatical error, as Sonder- in German is an adjective referring to the search list, not the people in it. As an aside, in theory it would grammatically be possible for Sonder to refer to Fahndung, rather than to the book, but it is inconceivable that the German author had a single search in mind to look for thousands of people, as these people would be living in different locations.

I wish to retract the preceding remark: Sonder indeed refers to Fahndung and not to the book, so "Book of Special/Extraordinary Manhunting" is correct, and "Manhunting - the Special/Extraordinary Book" is not correct. The argument against this correct translation provided above was that Fahndung is singular not plural, and therefore that the German authorities could not possibly envisage a single manhunt for numerous locations - this argument is flawed because German composite nouns cannot contain a plural, hence even if several manhunts are intended, the Fahndung in the composite nouns is grammatically correctly expressed as a singluar Fahndung. In fact exactly like in English - British stamp collection (not "British stamps collection"), or national picture gallery (not "national pictures gallery"). For the avoidance of doubt, I am not suggesting that this literal translation in bold should be used in the Wikipedia article, it is simply to illustrate my grammatical point on composite nouns.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.154.226.37 (talk • contribs) 08:50, June 27, 2023 (UTC)
wanted list I have come across this in Wikipedia, but leaving out "persons" robs the translation of its bureaucratic appearance.
manhunt list This is the closest literal translation for Fahndung, but is not used in formal English by the police.
search list Fahndung indeed can refer to a non-human search, typically a search for a car involved in a robbery. Correct but ambiguous here.
persecution list This is my initial correction in this Wikipedia article, as I thought at the time that someone had simply mis-typed persecution as prosecution. So my persecution was a quick fix but with hindsight not adequate (persecution would be Verfolgung in German, which is what happened in Poland, but not what any Nazi bureaucrat would brazenly have admitted to in the title).
tracing list Not a correct translation for Fahndung. Tracing (e.g. Nachspuerung) looks backwards, involving gathering of existing evidence etc, while Fahndung (search) includes looking forwards, involving border checks, roadblocks, house searches etc. in anticipation.
prosecution list This is both incorrect as a translation and worse, actively misleading. The people when caught were largely handed to execution/murder squads, not invariably faced with legal proceedings. Fahndung is a police term, not a judiciary term. Addendum 16Jun2023: Prosecution in German would have been strafrechtliche Verfolgung.
I will check here again in the next few days if you have any language questions, or if we need a longer consensus-finding process. 86.138.165.93 (talk) 11:54, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Nice explanation. Am in agreement. "Special Ledger of Wanted Persons - Poland" is not a complete translation of "Sonderfahndungsbuch". It is, however, a very good transliteration; i.e. it gets the meaning across well. Alandeus (talk) 12:58, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
While I would concede to the change mentioned above, the fact remains that the Nazis intended to "prosecute" these people once found without a judiciary process, and prosecute itself does not automatically imply legal fairness, especially in a Nazi context. In fact, the second definition of prosecute (almost ironically fitting) is: "the continuation of a course of action with a view to its completion" and in this case the Nazis considered these people "criminals" in their extra-judiciary understanding of the world and intended without question to carry out a course of action against them to completion; the last word here implies a death sentence. Either way, I am amenable to the change "Special Ledger of Wanted Persons–Poland" if this is indeed consensus given the explanation provided.--Obenritter (talk) 14:43, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
There does exist a plural for "person" in English.  It's of course "persons."  Although used mostly in formal legal language (eg "..perpetrated by person or persons unknown.") the term does exist. 70.187.40.175 (talk) 17:41, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

What is this source talking about?  Has anyone heard of troop trains?  Either the source is wrong, or the source has been misinterpreted; either way, this content does not belong here.  123.51.107.94 (talk) 22:31, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I will check the source book at the library tomorrow and see what it says.  — Diannaa (talk) 00:41, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
The book says that the original intention was to deport the Jews to camps in occupied areas of the Soviet Union and kill them there, but because victory over the Soviet Union was not forthcoming and there was no occupied Soviet territory to which they could be shipped (even via troop trains as you suggest), the plans had to be changed and the Jews were to be killed in situ in locations in the General Government instead. — Diannaa (talk) 20:25, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
Russian rail track gauge, the distance between rails, was different from German rail. German trains would not work on Russian rails. Passengers would have to be transferred to Russian trains. The available Russian trains were captured, needed for offensive military transport, and in short supply. That's likely what "impossible" means. The German trains that were used for the holocaust were the oldest, decrepit trains they had which were still functional as light rail passenger transport.
97.177.156.86 (talk) 20:07, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

I recently made an edit to the "Attendees" section of this page. There was new material provided with reliable sources cited in support. There were also numerous copy edits that I believe corrected, improved and clarified the content. The edit was completely reverted by User:Antique Rose with no explanation, which violates the guidance in Help:Reverting: "In the edit summary or on the talk page, succinctly explain why the change you are reverting was a bad idea or why reverting it is a better idea ... in the event of a content dispute, a convincing, politely-worded explanation gains much importance and avoids unnecessary disputes." 
I realize that Good Articles present a high bar for improvement, but to wholesale ban any changes without explanation or discussion does a disservice to good faith editors. The essay on Wikipedia:Reverting states: "Reverting is appropriate mostly for vandalism or other disruptive edits ... If you see a good-faith edit that you believe lowers the quality of the article, make a good-faith effort to reword instead of just reverting it ... editors often bundle multiple changes into a single edit, such as adding a new section while also fixing a copy error elsewhere on the page. If you object to only part of an edit, consider reverting only that part and leaving the rest alone." 
So, I would ask that the reverting editor provide the requisite explanation and reconsider the reversion to determine if there are parts that should be accepted or whether improvements can be offered, rather than being eliminated completely. I also welcome input from other interested regular editors of this page. Thank you. Historybuff0105 (talk) 22:16, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I almost removed it too because of the lack of sources. A source would be needed for each individual entry. Adding the fates of the participants is off-topic for this article as well.  — Diannaa (talk) 01:46, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
User:Diannaa, thank you for your response. Though I still believe listing the fate of the conference participants in the table provides important and useful information at a glance  — documenting those that were brought to justice and, more importantly, those who never were  — I accept your conclusion that it can be considered somewhat off topic. I appreciate you taking the time to review and to provide an explanation — something that was lacking in the original reversion. I still intend to revisit and support many of the less controversial copy edits that were also reverted. Collegially, — Historybuff0105 (talk) 17:03, 7 June 2024 (UTC)