Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Night of the Long Knives

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 21:04, 31 July 2007.

Night of the Long Knives[edit]

Self-nomination. This article details a critical event in modern history. I have used a variety of scholarly sources to document it, especially the two most respected sources in English on Hitler, those by Richard J. Evans and Ian Kershaw. I have sourced almost every factual statement in the article, and strove to cover all significant points even-handedly. Although I have dramatically overhauled the article, I did it after responding to constructive criticisms of a number of editors. It has been peer reviewed by four or five established editors (see discussion page). It also passed GA status on its first nomination. I have also examined the article for WP:MOS adherence. Again, this is an important subject, and it deserves to be a FA. I welcome any suggestions on how to further improve this article.--Mcattell 01:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment are there any web refs available?Rlevse 11:56, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are a couple of websites that deal with the subject matter. One is so throughly erroneous (meaning contradicted by written sources by professional historians) I didn't include it in the external sources area. One is adequate, but does not deal with the subject as well as any of the books do. Some of the major books cited have been scanned and available on the web at Amazon.com, through the "Search Inside" feature. If you search for "purge" or "knives" in the book, you can get to the material that deals with the subject matter. Hope this helps. --Mcattell 13:11, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Print based material is always preferred over web based material, so good job on using book sources. LuciferMorgan 13:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Night of the Long Knives represented a turning point in the conduct of German government. From then on, it was clear that the Nazi Party was in unquestioned control of the state, that Hitler was in control of the Nazi party, and that both were fully prepared to use brutal violence to accomplish their political objectives. - Would you say this is a viewpoint commonly held by scholars who've studied the event, or are there historians who hold a differing view as to the significance of this event? LuciferMorgan 13:43, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

~~That sentence was one of the few that have remained intact from the article of several months ago, and probably needs to be revised. I will revise within the next twelve hours.~~--Mcattell 15:32, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, as I was just curious as to whether historians wholly agree on that or if they have differing arguments (as you know, historians tend to emphasis certain events and motives etc.). LuciferMorgan 17:53, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done: I limited the concluding paragraph to statement that adheres to the broad consensus of historians of the era.--Mcattell 23:16, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if it's a broadly held opinion by historians, then I proclaim my Support. Good work, and I hope you lend your talents to other Nazi events like the Reichstag Fire or Kristallnacht - I find it an interesting period of history. LuciferMorgan 01:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Article is very well-written and informative, discusses an important topic, has many reliable references, and has images that greatly add to the article (with detailed rationales for the two fair use images). that require such).

Upon reading the article, I had a few minor concerns:

Wording - as the German courts and parliament, or Reichstag - Is clarification of "Reichstag" necessary? This is a fairly familiar term for most people, and people who would like to learn more about it can easily click on the link. If clarification is necessary, I would think it should go after the prominent wikilink, such as: as the German courts and Reichstag, or parliament. The same goes for the sentence about the Reichswehr, though I'll admit this is a less familiar term that may be in need of clarification. Done
Link to Reichstag - The wikilink in the article for Reichstag directed the user to the dab page for Reichstag. I fixed the link, and it now directs to Reichstag (institution), but possibly the Reichstag (building) article would also be appropriate. Anyway, as the dab page is clearly not the intended redirect, I went ahead and changed the link.
Quote - "A chancellor sentences and shoots members of his own private army!" he wrote. - Not a grammar expert, but wouldn't He wrote, "A chancellor sentences and shoots members of his own private army!" or "A chancellor sentences and shoots members of his own private army!", he wrote be more appropriate? Done
Online links - I know it has already been mentioned above that there are no online refs available, but are there absolutely no websites that give non-contradictory information that could be used as external links? A few external links would add to the article and give readers the chance to go outside Wikipedia and get more information.

There is a website called "Spartacus International" that used to be in external links, but I removed it because most of what is written there is flat-out wrong. Not only that, but it's just stub. In fact, the site seems to implicitly excuse Hitler by incorrectly minimizing his role. Just a few examples from that site:

"Many were shot as soon as they were captured but Hitler decided to pardon Roehm because of his past services to the movement." That's completely untrue. No historian that I have ever read mentions anything about a pardon. It never happened. Why would Hitler even issue a "pardon" since the courts were never involved in the first place?

"However, after much pressure from Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler, Hitler agreed that Roehm should die." False. Goering and Himmler wanted Rohm to die, but they did not have to pressure Hitler. Hitler made his own decision.

"The purge of the SA was kept secret until it was announced by Adolf Hitler on 13th July." Again, flat-out wrong. As it is now correctly stated in the Wikipedia article, Gobbels made a radio address to the nation much earlier to try to squelch rapidly spreading rumors about the purge.

Most of the earlier entry on Wikipedia, from a few months ago, seems to have been simply cut and paste from this site. I won't object if somebody adds this site to the "External Links" section, but when a website contains such erroneous information I (IMHO) would prefer that Wikipedia not directly link to it, because it implicitly lends credence to the stub. In any event, I think that the subject of Nazism itself leads to more erroneous and disreputable sites than, say, the history of New Zealand, so we should choose external links with care. In any event, I did add links to Brittanica Concise, a free site, and to a site at the Holocaust Museum. Done--Mcattell 16:39, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Overall, my concerns are minimal. This is a great article that is worthy of FA status. A job well done. Raime 01:51, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

~~I think that these are excellent points, and I will address them soon.~~

Done Thanks for your help.--Mcattell 02:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support I think this is FA quality, I do have some small concerns.
- Hitler and the Sturmabteilung (SA) I wonder if the first few paragraphs need a little reorganization. The section starts in 1933 with Hilter's appointment and follows the next few month's political events. Then we jump back the 1920's and then focus in June 1932 how that violent month had influence on support for Hitler. Then we reintroduce Hitler's appointment and the political events following it and the rest of the section continues chronologically.
- Conflict between the army and the SA
  - A combat veteran of the First World War, Röhm had recently announced that he would execute twelve men in retaliation for the killing of any stormtrooper. This sentence must have been moved around, because I cannot place what "recently" should be compared with. Also I am not sure who is killing SA members? the army? the communists in street brawls? This just seems out of context.
  - Blomberg and many of his fellow officers regarded the SA as a plebeian brown-uniformed mob that endangered the position of the army as the sole repository of German military power. and Blomberg and others in the military saw the SA as a source of recruits for an enlarged and revitalized army. These statements seem contradictory, and it especially troubling because they are separated by a paragraph. I think the issue of how they could hold both views at the same time needs to addressed. Whether with "at worst, at best" or focusing on the first view being about an independent uncontrolled SA and the second view being their hope for the SA once brought to heel.
  - In January 1934, Röhm presented Blomberg with a memorandum demanding that the SA replace the army as the nation's ground forces, and that the Reichswehr become a training adjunct to the SA. I still would like a little more background about this. What possessed Rohm to make such a move? Why did he think it would be supported? How did Blomberg immediately respond? Did anything happen between the memo and the meeting at the end of Feb.?
- Growing pressure against the SA:Good work on this section since the peer review. I think is much more informative now.
  - By the spring of 1934, Röhm's vision of a new German army with the SA at its core came into conflict with Hitler's plan to consolidate power and expand the Reichswehr. Because their plans for the army were mutually exclusive, Röhm's success could only come at Hitler's expense. Considering we already covered the memo and the pledge this seems to be backtracking. It seems to me that after Rohm signs the pledge his "vision of a new German army with the SA at its core" is pretty much dead. If I am correct I think you need to do a little rearrangement here; memo, conflicting visions, and finally meeting resulting in pledge. If I am wrong, maybe you can clarify that Rohm did not plan on honoring that pledge or signed only because it was expedient. Or something else actually based on sources to reinforce that his vision held even after signing the pledge.
  - and the hoped for (but never attained) command of the army for Göring. I find this very awkward, how about something like "and Goring saw the destruction of a chief rival for the future command of the army."
- Purge
  - Enraged, Hitler tore the epaulets off the shirt of Obergruppenfuhrer Schneidhuber, the Chief of the Munich Police, and shouted at him that he would be shot. Is this the Chief of Munich Police a member of the SA? or was he supposed to have stopped the street violence? I am a little confused about how this ties in.
  - Arriving back at party headquarters in Munich, Hitler addressed the assembled. Consumed with rage, Hitler denounced "the worst treachery in world history." The fact that no plot by Röhm to overthrow the regime ever existed did not prevent Hitler from denouncing the leadership of the SA. "Undisciplined and disobedient characters, and asocial or diseased elements," according to Hitler, would be annihilated. The crowd, which included many SA members fortunate enough to escape arrest, shouted its approval. Hess even volunteered to shoot the "traitors" himself. Göbbels, who had been with Hitler at Bad Wiessee, set the final phase of the plan in motion. Upon returning to Berlin, he telephoned Göring with the codeword Kolibri to loose the execution squads on the rest of their unsuspecting victims This paragraph is a little problematic and lacks cohesion. "the assembled" needs to be clarified. The second and third sentence need to be combined somehow so you not talk of how Hilter wasn't prevented from denouncing the plot after a quote of him denouncing the plot. Is Hess at this assembly? Is Gobbels? Does the reaction of the assembly have an impact on Gobbels putting the purge in motion?
  - Such relentless violence cemented the fearsome reputation of the Gestapo as the Nazis' secret police. I am not very skilled at grammar but this sentence doesn't sit well with me.
- Aftermath
  - The army's support for the purge, however, would have consequences for the institution. This doesn't really say anything, what are "consequences for the institution"? consequences on it's independence? consequences on it's reputation?
  - the later enormity of the Holocaust. Earlier "the commandant of the Dachau concentration camp" is mentioned. Is the Holocaust an ongoing or future event at this time?
- Tone:In the peer review one of my big concerns was tone. You have done a great job addressing that. There were two phrasing that still seemed overly dramatic to me.
  - Germany's inter-war experiment with democracy, the Weimar Republic.
  - loose the execution squads on the rest of their unsuspecting victims.--BirgitteSB 23:19, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Conditional support after some issues are addressed:
- In Aftermath, we read: Concerned with presenting the massacre as legally sanctioned, Hitler had the cabinet approve a measure on July 3 that declared, "The measures taken on June 30, July 1 and 2 to suppress treasonous assaults are legal as acts of self-defense by the State." In the next paragraph, we read: In the following weeks, Reich Justice Minister Franz Gürtner, a conservative who had been Bavarian Justice Minister in the years of the Weimar Republic, demonstrated his loyalty to the new regime by writing a law that added a legal veneer to the purge. It met no opposition in the Reichstag.
  - These paragraphs read as though they are describing two different measures, while in fact they both talk about the same law passed by the Cabinet, the Gesetz über Maßnahmen der Staatsnotwehr of July 3, 1934. This should be cleaned up. (The paragraphs also contradict each other as to who provided the impetus for this law: Hitler or Gürtner?)
  - Also, the legal citation for the law should be provided (RGB 1934 I, S. 529).
  - Since Hitler had made the Reichstag pass the Enabling Act of 1933 which allowed the Executive to enact laws, it apears superfluous to mention that the law met no opposition in the Reichstag. The Reichstag had already ceased to function as a legislative assembly, and I'm not eve sure whether it regularly met at all at this time.
  - Instead of "as legally sanctioned", wouldn't be "as lawful" better? Sandstein 07:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These are excellent suggestions, and I will address them within the next week. (I'm a little sick right now). --Mcattell 16:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support An engaging and articulate retelling of a fairly shocking series of events. Ceoil 20:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.