Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Karl Heinz Lichte

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (L). (non-admin closure) Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 08:07, 8 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Karl Heinz Lichte[edit]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

An unremarkable SS captain; significant RS coverage cannot be found; no evidence of the award can be found in the archives. What comes are trivial mentions in heavily POV works: Willi Fey's Armor Battles of the Waffen-SS and Peter Strassner's European Volunteers.

The article was created in late 2008 using non WP:RS & fringe sources, such as frontjkemper.info and ritterkreuztraeger.de: 2008 version. The latter web site is black listed at WikiProject Spam: link to report. The article was one of about 500 pages created around that timeframe by editor Jim Sweeney (now retired). The only reliable citations that can be found is Veit Scherzer's Knight's Cross Holders book which disputes the award; this is insufficient to overcome WP:BIO1E and lack of reliable sources.

The topic of the notability of Knight's Cross winners has been extensively discussed here: Notability in Knight's Cross Holder Articles; the summary in this subsection (Part 3). There's currently no consensus whether a single award of the Knight's Cross meets WP:SOLDIER #1, given that many were not awarded for valour and that too many were awarded overall (over 7,000).

Available sources on KC winners were discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heinrich Debus (SS officer), with an insightful contribution from editor Assayer, who provided historiographic perspective on the sources (Thomas & Wegmann; Krätschmer; others) that were mentioned in related discussions. Per available information, such sources, even if available on the subject (which is not certain), are non-RS for the purpose of establishing notability. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:37, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:53, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:53, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:53, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete In addition to the lack of reliable sources, the one source that exists is unsure whether the award was made. Doesn't meet the notability guidelines. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:50, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I agree, there definitely doesn't seem enough coverage to warrant a stand alone article here. Potentially a redirect to List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (L) might be sustainable, though, or if it has been decided to treat the disputed/unconfirmed recipients separately to whatever solution is agreed upon in that manner. Thoughts on this approach? Could this be applied more broadly to the other stub-like KC articles that do not seem to have sufficient coverage to write a full length bio? (The benefit I see is that it would allow re-creation if, at a later date, more in depth coverage was located, while at the same time allowing readers to find the information that is currently known without supporting a large number of perma-stubs). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:07, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm open to redirect on confirmed awards (though I have !voted delete on them in general because I think that is a better option since I suspect search is unlikely and I don't see the need to preserve the edit history for articles based entirely on unreliable sources.) For unverified awards, I don't see need for a redirect at all. These very well could have been people who made up their claim to the award for which they are supposedly noteworthy. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:49, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect name to list article where mentioned. Otherwise, at this point, not seeing notability for stand alone article. If it is kept in the end, then it would help if someone could expand it with more in depth information. Because it is not there at present. Kierzek (talk) 12:23, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment -- the approach that editor AustralianRupert mentions ("Potentially a redirect (...) applied more broadly to the other stub-like KC articles?") has been proposed at the discussion that I linked to above. Please see the summary in this subsection (Part 3) (search for "Ok, here's a stab at a set of suggestion" to go directly to the details of the proposal). However, this has been objected to by editor Peacemaker ("There is nothing approaching a consensus for such action here"), so it did not look like a compromise solution was possible, hence the AfDs.

What has changed since then is that the source that was mentioned on the linked thread (Thomas & Wegmann) has been deem insufficient and/or unreliable, even if it were to be produced, and that essentially no reliable historiography exists on the bulk of KC winners, either in English or German, unless they were notable for other things:

"...Though it might be possible to reconstruct the military careers of each and every Knight's Cross recipients, these biographies present a distorted picture of the actual events (i.e., if the provision "played an important role in a significant military event" in WP:Soldier, is to be based on historical fact instead of Nazi propaganda). Veteran's organizations, particularly of the Waffen-SS, have based their image as an elite on their Knight's Cross Recipients. Collectors of militaria have an interest in such biographies (which is the reason, why Thomas & Wegmann reproduce bestowals documents). But on the whole, individual Knight's Cross recipients like Debus did never reveive any WP:SIGCOV by historiography, let alone in the broader public" (from Debus AfD).

Thus, most of the KC winner articles that have been brought to AfD recently were deleted (with a couple of redirects); none were closed as keep or no consensus. So perhaps this could be revisited, although I'm not confident that a consensus on this matter can be achieved with the editor.

In this particular case, like editor TonyBallioni, I believe that preserving the article history that contains inaccurate and/or biased information is not in the best interest of the project. Delete & redirect may be a better approach, or simply delete. K.e.coffman (talk) 15:24, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm less open to redirects for articles where the status of the award is unclear. I think just deleting makes more sense and there isn't really a need for recreating the article as a redirect. Delete and redirect makes much more sense for the ones where the award is verified but notability isn't established. This particular article just makes sense to delete to me. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:44, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

G'day, no worries, seems fair enough. I think the question about the listing of the unverified recipients on the parent lists needs to be resolved before wholesale AfDs and PRODs, though. My suggestion in this regard is a narrowly focused RFC that asks a very specific question. The exact question would need to be carefully thought out so that it was neutrally worded, but once that was determined I think that would offer the way forward. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:37, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I think a narrow RFC on the topic seems the best way to proceed. I'm striking my delete !vote for this AfD and changing to redirect in the interim. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:35, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect - to List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (L). Does seem to lack SIGCOV for standalone article, but still potentially a valid search term even if the award is unverified. Someone interested in the KC might well turn to Wikipedia to find out more about this issue. Deleting and not leaving a redirect, or evening deleting and then redirecting seems overly cautious and unnecessary. Just because we have a redirect doesn't imply anything about whether the award was actually made so it doesn't cost us anything. Equally if the topic receives further coverage at a later date the article can be recreated (if there is consensus to do so). Anotherclown (talk) 03:58, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect per above. I still think unverified stub-like articles probably should be deleted, but think redirecting the existing AfD's is a good compromise until such an RFC can be concluded. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:35, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete another article on a non-notable SS officer.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:59, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.