Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 23

message: This was indeed discussed some time ago. Calling this sociopath charismatic is not a compliment so there's no reason to qualify it with distracting "weasel" language. Lots of unhelpful, murderous people, including genocidal sociopaths like AH, have charisma. Wyss 08:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know why I have to repeat myself a few hundred times. It is not like I'm talking to illiterates. Please read what has been written, repeated and emphasize in the sections above - charisma is not being debated, its role is. -- Simonides 00:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Charisma

message: I would appreciate it Wyss if you stop reverting facts as your intro is too whitewashy and not as accurate as what Lacatosias and I agree on.
I will post this page at Requests for Comment and see what third parties believe. In the meanwhile let's leave the header as it is. -- Simonides 03:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverts and RfC 

message: At least three users don't seem to understand the diff between saying police powers were involved and violent police power was involved. It's very simple, it helps if you know a little history:
# Stalinist Russia was a police state in which millions were deported, tortured, executed without fair trial, etc. Police and para-military forces were involved, of course. However, unlike Nazi Germany, these forces did not beat up people on the streets, in their homes, in full view of others, and so on. The Post-Stalinist era did not see great changes in method; of course, the arbitrariness, censorship and death toll decreased drastically, but the Soviet Union remained a very strict police state.
# East Germany, practically micro-managed by the Stasi, was a police state which used similar methods, again with lower numbers of victims and with less visibility, but with equally dangerous consequences for anyone implicated in any "subversive" activity. The same extends to other Soviet "satellite states" like Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.
# North Korea, and certain Latin American, Middle Eastern and African countries are among modern police states with the grimmest human rights records. Once again, military and police forces are always under the government in these countries, but they do not all engage in public violence against citizens.
As shown above, all of the Nazi violence was of a different order and the words chosen are perhaps better than "brute force".
However, other op-ed language has crept into the header which in my opinion is not substantial enough and therefore does not belong. This includes "keen political skills", which has been debated above and which I will repeat stands for very little more than the specific propaganda and oratory skills already mentioned; and now the newly introduced "schadenfreude".
This is a header and not really a summary. I think violence and anti-Semitism belong in the header because they were significant aspects of Hitler/Hitlerianism which affected thousands if not millions. I wouldn't say that vague language like 'political skills' or that documented but not all that relevant 'schadenfreude' affected thousands if not millions. However, I'm open to suggestions about the latter.
Finally, NPOV is not about giving equal time to every single opinion and making every personality look like a mix of good and bad. It's about using unbiased information to project a contextually accurate picture. Trying to throw in information about, for ex., how much Hitler loved little furry animals to "balance" an article is no longer about NPOV, it's about being un/able to judge the value of facts. -- Simonides 04:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree that North Korea, Guatemala, and Zimbabwe are "not violent." We simply don't have to spell out every single method in the intro; that's what the article is for. Establish who he is, without specifics or judgment. --Golbez 09:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Zimbabwe, from time to time yes. I don't know enough about Guatemala; North Korea - the streets are practically deserted a lot of the time. Please look at what I'm saying - secret/ military police are violent, but not always publicly, and that's what I want to emphasize. It's not about "spelling out methods". Are you deliberately being trivialising? Do you think the difference between public violence and humiliation and secret torture is just a question of method? In the Soviet Union it was possibly to deny torture and it is true that even now many people don't know/ don't believe in Stalinist crimes, in Russia. In Nazi Germany the crowds cheered on. Talking about his violent methods is specific. Mentioning "keen political skills" is judgement. I find your judgement on the header rather skewed, not for any partisan reasons, but probably simply because you don't want any changes. -- Simonides 10:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why "violent" is not redundant & op-ed langauge 

message: I came in through WP:Requests for comment/Politics, on whether or not "violence" and "anti-semitism" are suitable terms for the into. 
I've read it over a few times, and feel it to be quite balanced at the moment (dont know whose reversion it is, and dont want to know!). There are some issues with the phrasing imho, for example the mild suggestion that violence was a tool he used to come to power, which was not really the case. Some intimidation, certainly, but the true paramilitary and police violence came later. 
Also, as a mild grammar issue, the sentence "Hitler gained popularity through his appeals to German nationalism, his anti-Semitism, his charismatic oratory, schadenfreude and promises of economic improvement" suggests that he made appeals to his charismatic oratory , which is kind of odd. I'll try a rephrasing. Feel free to play around with it. The Minister of War (Peace) 09:59, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi there, I think the open violence should be mentioned along with anti-Semitism, and I think we tried to point out that he used the violence to gain totalitarian control, not popularity! Your rephrasing is fine except for a nit in the second line - power is mentioned a second time too soon, sounds jarring. Alternatives? -- Simonides 10:55, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Violence and Request for comment 

message: Since Hitler's keen political skills consisted, for the most parr, precisely in his charimatic oratory and appeals to anto semitism, etc... adding it now would be a redundacy. The current version seems satifactory.--Lacatosias 10:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume you are in favour of keeping the term charismatic in the intro, rather than keen political skills - in my view User:The Minister of War is right to restore the term, and it also has quite a useful link. The current version is satisfactory.--shtove 11:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I never was opposed to the use of the term "charismatic". Here I was just pointing out that it would be unnecessary to have both terms: we end up with not only the laundry-list effect again but redudancy. In my other comment, I wasn't seriosuly isnsiting that we follow the Encylopedia American in using the word "unparalled", etc.. but just making some general observations about NPOV and what lead sections are supposed to do. --Lacatosias 11:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I support both terms. AH was charismatic, oratorically gifted and had highly developed political skills, which all contributed to how he was able to do so much damage to Europe. Talented people can do bad things too, etc. Wyss 14:30, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed the pargraph once again. Please mind what you revert Wyss. I have included "keen political skills", although i find them somewhat redundant. He was popular because he was a good speaker, he knew how to exploit it because he had "keen political skills". Still the term "keen political skills" is too vague, sounds too high-schoolish to me. If you really want to include that, i suggest you specify which skills (besides his gift for speaking) you want to include. The Minister of War (Peace) 16:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Before I try to address your concerns, I have to understand them better. What is it about keen political skills that you find highschoolish? (I hope it's not because you think the word keen is being used in the sense of cool, which i is not, for example). Wyss 18:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, Minister of War has nailed exactly what I was really thinking about "keen political skills" but I just coudnìt out my finger on it. Nothing ideological or biased, just seemed high-schoolish, with all respect.--Lacatosias 18:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Most of his biographers attribute AH with highly developed political skills, especially by the early 1930s. He didn't wrest control of all Western Europe by 1940 through dint of oratory alone. AH's political abilities are widely noted and supported. Wyss 17:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I think moving it down might not be a bad idea. Along the lines of what I wrote above (somewhere), the lead should be a summary not explain the rise of Hitler, all of the attributes of Hitler ot anything like that in any case. Just a suggestion but it is actually a kind of informal policy, I undertsand, in encypedia artciles.--Lacatosias 18:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is "spin." Lots of people like to portray AH as a cartoon character of evil, thinking that giving him credit for any talent or skills is to endorse what he did with them. He wasn't a cartoon character of evil, but something much more sophisticated and dangerous. Wyss 17:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely, I fully endorse this view. Also, I've been waiting to see if I'm the only German speaker here, but thankfully Str1977 has confirmed my view - schadenfreude is currently totally misplaced. It's just a hunch, but I'm afraid its German semantics might differ quite a bit from the English one. Jbetak 19:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Good, so we can remove "schadenfreude". And Wyss, about "keen political skills", let's quote your own words - If it's so generally held, finding a suitable citation in a secondary source by a peer-reviewed author shouldn't be much trouble. (ie not just a handful of web pages.) As with charisma, it's not the inclusion that's being debated so much as its relevance next to other factors that are already mentioned and provide more specific information. -- Simonides 23:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charismatic oratory and keen political skills...