Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prosecution of a dog in Federal Republic of Germany

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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 delete. After analyzing the discussion, it seems to me that consensus is towards deleting this article per WP:NOTNEWS. NW (Talk) 03:11, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Prosecution of a dog in Federal Republic of Germany[edit]

Prosecution of a dog in Federal Republic of Germany (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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This seems to fall foul of the WP:NOTNEWS policy. While the event received news coverage it does not constitute an encyclopaedic topic in itself or illustrate one that I can think of. The title is inaccurate too as it was the owner, not the dog, prosecuted. DanielRigal (talk) 00:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep, As I said in the talk page: The article is very important. It shows the extreme oddness of current laws of Federal Republic of Germany. It should remain in Wikipedia.--Veteran Soldier (talk) 00:05, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom andy (talk) 00:09, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - All three of the sources say that it was the owner, and not the dog, that was charged. DitzyNizzy (aka Jess)|(talk to me)|(What I've done) 00:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Probably could be listed as an example under Strafgesetzbuch § 86a, but not notable enough to have its own article.—Chowbok ☠ 00:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Per WP:NOT#NEWS. Joe Chill (talk) 00:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Per above reasons.  fetchcomms☛ 01:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: but perhaps deserves a mention elsewhere as stated by Chowbok. Mattg82 (talk) 01:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: None of the sources say that the dog was prosecuted, only the owner. Interesting quote: "He was planning to have the animal put down on the anniversary of Hitler's suicide." P Carn (talk) 01:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and rename. While clearly it's wrong to say that the case involved "prosecution of a dog", it's also clear that the case received substantial press attention, even outside of Germany; I remember reading about it at the time. Everyking (talk) 02:48, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge per Chowbok, in Strafgesetzbuch § 86a. --Cyclopiatalk 03:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Per WP:NOT#NEWS. Might just warrant mention in Strafgesetzbuch § 86a. --Boson (talk) 07:05, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since this now appears to be a normal case of insulting behaviour and illegal use of Nazi symbols by a man who also trained his dog to hold its paw in the air, I don't think it warrants a mention anywhere. --Boson (talk) 22:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Strafgesetzbuch § 86a --Brunk500 (talk) 07:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Ugh. We're not a newspaper. JBsupreme (talk) 08:33, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Three-line article, and half of it, including the title, is not in the sources provided. If there really were a prosecution against the dog, the case might be mildly interesting, but as it is, it is just a routine criminal case against a person. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:11, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete If the purpose for this article being here is that "It shows the extreme oddness of current laws of Federal Republic of Germany", all I can say is that the author has drawn the wrong conclusions. As others have pointed out, the dog wasn't criminally prosecuted, its owner was. There are extremely odd laws, in the United States and the United Kingdom, that permit the owner of a dog to be criminally prosecuted for various offenses, ranging from conducting a dog fight at one end of the spectrum, to (at the other end of the spectrum and of the dog) letting your dog crap on someone else's grass. "Adolf the Nazi Dog" is worth a mention in an article about German laws against Nazi symbolism. Mandsford (talk) 14:01, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete An article should be to give facts about its topic (which in this case is one minor incident so not notable), not to show something about something else. Mention this case in an article about the oddness of German laws and/or one about anti-Nazi laws (a truly WP:Notable and important topic.)Borock (talk) 14:40, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Although it received news coverage, not continued as an Encyclopedic topic.--WIMYV? (talk) 02:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge into the Strafgesetzbuch § 86a article; this piece of trivia merely goes to illustrate the lengths to which the Bundesrepublik will go to purge and cleanse any historical association with Nazism from contemporary society.Cdtew (talk) 21:12, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Important notes[edit]

I see from the above comments that most users think that the German court actually didn't prosecute the dog. Well, you are all wrong. Take a look at the following text from the Sun: Performing a Nazi salute is illegal in Germany - but Roland boasted of his pet's talent, even to police.

Adolf is now at an animal shelter while his owner spends five months in a Berlin jail. Staff are attempting to retrain the dog to do a shake-a-paw movement instead of the salute.

They have put a dog in a rehabilitation center to train him to not perform a Hitler salute! It means that they have jailed a dog for raising his hand. And actually they have prosecuted the dog, not only the owner. The owner's guilt was that his dog has performed Hitler salute. The incident was so odd that it attracted a huge amount of media coverage. Usually more than enough for a Wikipedia article. It showed the extreme oddness of German laws regarding anti-National Socialist things.

It was not just a NORMAL criminal procedure. This article should remain in Wikipedia.Veteran Soldier (talk) 18:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While I appreciate your concerns, there are two serious problems. First, Wikipedia is not a soapbox, so an article is not kept or deleted only because it helps or doesn't help a cause. Second, The Sun is a tabloid and as such is not a really reliable source. If there is media coverage, as you say, please find some serious newspaper reporting the thing, and we can start consider it seriously. --Cyclopiatalk 18:24, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I will find more media coverage if you want. But who says The Sun is a tabloid and as such is not a really reliable source?--Veteran Soldier (talk) 18:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, have you ever attempted to read it? It is notorious for its fabricated stories. Anyway, you can ask opinions at the reliable sources noticeboard if you're not convinced. --Cyclopiatalk 19:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you can read German, then read this article which closely confirms what The Sun says. The interesting thing in that page which does not need German knowledge is a set of pictures of various people like Merkel, Rumsfeld, Berlusconi ... who have raised their hands just like a Hitler salute. This article (which is being discussed for deletion) shows the ultimate oddness and stupidity of German laws to put someone in jail for raising his arm (or even his dog's arm). And I tell you, the amount of censorship (like Internet filtering etc...) and restriction of free speech, regarding the contents related to the former regime of Germany in Federal Republic of Germany is even higher than the most notorious dictatorship regimes of the world like North Korea.--Veteran Soldier (talk) 19:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm no fan of laws restricting speech either, but again, this is not the place to do politics. What we care is not if there is censorship or not, or what else. We care if the subject is worth an entry in encyclopedia or not. I don't know German but the article doesn't seem to come from a reliable source of some kind. Find some official news source, please. --Cyclopiatalk 19:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Those were the reasons of importance of this article. I don't really care if you are interested in politics (or whatever else) or not! Search the google yourself and you will find tones of information regarding this article. I no longer fight for it!--Veteran Soldier (talk) 19:43, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
[This] might be slightly more reliable. You will note that, according to that article, the dog was not prosecuted and that the man (allegedly with diminished responsibility due to brain damage) received a suspended sentence for his own actions. --Boson (talk) 20:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC). It appears he later went to prison when he repeated simlar offences (but no reliable mention of the dog).--Boson (talk) 12:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If this article is deleted please start a section in Strafgesetzbuch § 86a. It will find more interested readers there. (As an American I am for freedom of speech but I can well understand why the Germans passed these laws. Since they are laws they need to be enforced for all people equally, and maybe even dogs too. :-) )Borock (talk) 20:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I inserted a line in that page with the 2 decent links from that article. Tangurena (talk) 22:28, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That was removed very quickly. That article has a fairly long paragraph on the case of a leftist who was prosecuted for displaying a crossed-out swastika. I don't see why that should be allowed and not the dog. Borock (talk) 17:43, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The case in question established a legal precedent that crossed out symbols were permitted when used in an explicitly anti-Nazi context and changed the implementation of the law. Obviously such a case is far more important when talking about a law than a mere example of its implementation, which is what this is (at best). There is no precedent being set here. That said, I personally don't have an objection to it being used, very briefly, as an example in the article. I think maybe it got taken out because it was poorly placed within the article. --DanielRigal (talk) 17:56, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: To make a few obvious points arising from the above:
  1. Dogs do not have arms to raise. They have legs.
  2. Dogs are not jailed. They are impounded. A dog pound is not a "rehabilitation centre" or a jail. Impounding a dog is not a legal action of any sort against the dog. It may be a consequence of a legal action against the owner.
  3. If somebody is imprisoned then it is plausible that their dog might be impounded just because there is nobody else to look after it. If somebody is known to be planning to harm their dog then it is likely that the dog will be confiscated for its protection. There is every reason to expect that the dog might have been impounded irrespective of being trained to mimic the Nazi salute.
  4. If a dog is to be rehomed then it is likely that the dog pound will try to minimise its bad habits to make this easier. No sane person in Germany wants a dog that mimics the Nazi salute and it can be assumed that the dog pound don't want to have to look after it forever.
There really is very little odd about this story apart from the dog owner's behaviour. Everything else seems like normal process. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:45, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last comment, I fully understand your concerns and also the heavy amount of propaganda regarding the negative face of National Socialism which has effected most citizens of American and European countries. But when a government sends a dog to a dog pound (or whatever you call it) to train the animal to not raise his arm/leg/paw which might resemble a Hitler Salute, if you watch the incident without being affected by propaganda, it looks very odd.--Veteran Soldier (talk) 14:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is clear that you are trying to bend the facts to fit your ideology. That is unacceptable on Wikipedia. We are not here to debate politics or to help you in your strange quest to rehabilitate Nazism one dog at a time. We are writing an encyclopaedia here. --DanielRigal (talk) 15:49, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, your answer is what exactly I mentioned above about the effects of heavy propaganda. Accusation of everyone who talks about National Socialism of being an evil!--Veteran Soldier (talk) 17:24, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And I would add that accusing another editor of trying to "rehabilitate Nazism" is ugly talk that is even more unacceptable on Wikipedia, see WP:CIVIL. While I may not agree with Vet about the need for a separate article about this matter, I fully respect his argument concerning notability. Let's all try to keep perspective here. Mandsford (talk) 16:10, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Veteran Soldier has been quite open about his agenda, which is to use this article to discredit the German laws against Nazi symbols and propaganda. I appreciate that a phrase like "rehabilitate Nazism" is often flung around in ad hominem attack but it was certainly not my intention to accuse him of anything he had not already admitted to in the comments above. I apologise if I got it wrong or went too far. --DanielRigal (talk) 17:56, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep unusual event outside of what NOTNEWS is meant to cover. BBC and other major news covered it. The article can be written neutrally. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
Are you sure about this? If so, what do you see it as the actual core notable element of the event? I can't seem to latch on to anything substantial. Maybe if the prosecution had gone ahead, there would have been something, but as it was merely considered and the guy eventually ended up in prison for other stuff it seems to lack a core subject. Bear in mind that even RS sources do cover a lot of trivia, particularly when it is an animal story. --DanielRigal (talk) 21:24, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The lemma ist false. It ist not possible by law to prosecute animals in Germany. Only the dog's owner was prosecuted - and in the first place due to various offences of use of symbols of unconstitutional organisations with no connection to the dog and Defamation. When the case was brought to court he was on probation already for similar offences. The owner finally had to go to jail in 2007. The incident with the dog already occured in 2003. See the articels of the reputable german newspaper Die Welt: [1], [2], [3]. When somebody has to go to jail in Germany, his pet ist taken to an animal shelter if no friend or relative of the offender ist willing or able to take care of the pet - this is what happened here, it was no "punishment" for the dog.--Berlin-Jurist (talk) 11:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think the key question is whether the incident is notable, and the erroneous interpretation of the incident in the article and its title is confusing the issue. People should consider first and foremost that this incident received international news coverage. Everyking (talk) 05:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Assuming this report is actually true, can't it just be merged to animal trial--Eastlaw talk ⁄ contribs 15:11, 23 December 2009 (UTC)?[reply]
If it really was a genuine animal trial then I would agree but it isn't actually anything of the sort. --DanielRigal (talk) 16:31, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If anything could be considered as notable, then it is the fact, that a newspaper provides misleading information and as a result, people start - falsewise - to believe, that an animal trial could have taken place in Germany.
The first sentence of the article is entirely false ("A court in Federal Republic of Germany in 2007, prosecuted a dog, named Adolf and his owner for raising his arm like a Hitler salute.") The dog was not prosecuted at all and not even the owner was prosecuted for this incident (the charges regarding this incident were dropped, the owner was jailed for other incidents of use of symbols of unconstitutional organisations, see the BBC).--Berlin-Jurist (talk) 19:37, 24 December 2009 (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.
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