Talk:Oradour-sur-Glane massacre/Archive 1

Archive 1

Old talk

I deleted the following paragraph: While Oradour-sur-Glane was an insolated incident on the West front, such barbarities were much more common in the East, where the Soviet Union heroically battled the Nazis. In 186 Belarus villages the Nazis burned every villager alive, including women and children; 9,200 Belarus villages and 209 cities were destroyed, the 186 burned villages were never re-established after war. The Khatyn Memorial commemorates the tragic fate of the burned villages. Terms such as "heroically" are highly POV, and this paragraph reads as if it's an attempt to downgrade the incident. Let each "massacre" stand on its own merits. RickK 20:40, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

I am putting the paragraph back. If you want to edit it, feel free, but removing it completely is wrong, in my opinion. The context is very relevant here. And yes, the paragraph is an attempt to downgrade the incident, because that would be the proper context for the event the article describes. As it was, the article was POV, because it implied that the events at Oradour-sur-Glane were special by omitting the facts about Belarus. The word "heroically", on the other hand, is not POV, it's a fact (though I understand what you meant). Information about the context is not provided anywhere else in the article, so that paragraph is needed. And your last sentence is in bad taste, by the way. Paranoid 23:28, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. There have been thousands of "massacres" through the years, and the events in Belarus, while tragic, were no more tragic than any other massacre. Why are you singling out what happened in one place in one time, instead of listing all the other massacres that happened throughout history? I will revert. RickK 23:33, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

Well, the events in Belarus are directly related - they happened during the WW2, they were done by Nazi/SS and they involved wholesale murders of villagers and destruction of villages. It's not me who is singling out something, it's you - you imply that Oradour-sur-Glane was special, but I am saying that it was "no more tragic than any other massacre". This is like writing about a particular Jew being killed by Nazis as something extraordinary, concealing the fact that it was a part of the Holocaust. I am not denying OSG was important, I am just saying that proper context is important too. Paranoid 10:04, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've listed the article on Wikipedia:Requests for comment. RickK 23:33, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

(saw this on RFC) I agree with Rick that we don't need to be comparing various massacres merits. I also though, enjoy having context. How about something like While Oradour-sur-Glane was an insolated incident on the West front, such barbarities were much more common in the East, where the Soviet Union battled the Nazis. Examples include.....

Put it at the end of the entry, as almost a "further reading" type of thing? Lyellin 09:47, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

Who in the SS decided about the mass executions? Lammerding? The SS was a huge organization. Andries 00:32, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The context would be nice, but the disputed addition was overly freighted with POV and could use some sources to back up its claims. It's not POV for the article to imply that Oradour-sur-Glane is special; the implication is just that it's special enough to warrant an encyclopedia article. The article doesn't denigrate massacres in Belarus or elsewhere on the eastern front. I would suggest that if the context is so important to include in Wikipedia, start by writing articles about the massacres in the East that are as well-researched as this one. --Michael Snow 21:54, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree with RickK and Michael Snow. These events might be important, too, but they just don't belong into this article. regards, High on a tree 00:06, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Or see Sant'Anna di Stazzema. If Paranoid insists on linking to another SS village massacre to prove that Oradour was not unique, we should rather take this example, because there is an existing article about it. But I still think we shouldn't link to a particular incident.

By the way and for what it's worth, it should perhaps be noted that the Khatyn memorial is somewhat controversial because of the Katyn massacre - to cite an article from the CIA website (The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field): Meanwhile, the Soviets obliterated references to Katyn on maps and in official reference works. Then, in 1969, Moscow did something strange that many believe was further calculated to confuse the issue further: it chose a small village named Khatyn as the cite for Belorussia's national war memorial. There was no apparent reason for the selection. Khatyn was one of 9,200 Belorussian villages the Germans had destroyed and one of more than a hundred where they had killed civilians in retaliation for partisan attacks. In Latin transliteration, however, Katyn and Khatyn look and sound alike, though they are spelled and pronounced quite differently in Russian and Belorussian.

regards, High on a tree 04:38, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

German POV on Oradour

I would like to explain something about this diff (which I recently added):

To an extent it was difficult to "come out of the closet" with even this limited account of what I know about these issues. That's because my grand-uncle may have been a Waffen-SS officer, BUT he also was the old man who kindly gave us these cherries from his orchard. My grandfather may for a time have worked in der Fuehrer's headquarters as a Wehrmacht officer, BUT he also was my role model granddaddy who (despite having lost his right arm in the war) taught me how to swim and drove us around in his Mercedes car. My great-grandmother may have been a fervent and early Nazi supporter and Nazi party member, BUT she also was this loving old lady who would welcome, look after and nurture an otherwise troubled kid (myself).

And then there's the aspect that it's quite problematic to add the German perspective, in that it undoubtedly will be perceived by some as an attempt to "justify" these war crimes. Some will take massive exception to even suggesting that there was a German perspective and that the Germans who committed these war crimes were anything but pure, personified evil. And what's worse, I really can't blame very much anyone arguing thus — these horrific acts were (and still are) just too appalling. People will feel that what I have to say besmirches the memory of the victims and tries to cast blame on the French Resistance — when I really don't want to do anything of the sort. It's not easy to tell the whole story. But maybe it needs to be told?

As regards to my said edit to the article, I have no doubt that it will be edited away at by angry and indignant contributors and that it possibly will ultimately get deleted. It appears that this is already starting. A cleanup notice has already been posted to the article.

Leaving the German POV in there will probably take more than a few people having the article on their watchlist. I can't do that alone and I actually don't DARE to defend the edit in question very much. — That's because it's a very controversial matter and I am not free from (German collective) guilt so I probably would prefer to tread lightly (my urge to apologize on behalf of my family is much greater than any urge to lunge into an edit war over this).

Ropers 18:25, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Rather than outline your master plan to keep your grandfather's POV the foremost element in this article, how about finding a reputable, citable, source that supports it? Or how about whittling it down to a concise statement, one that is not longer than the description of the act it seeks to justify? All criminals believe their acts to be justified: that's unremarkable. Your kindly old grandpa's justification is an irrational assertion that it is proper to punish someone for the actions of someone else, and your wording is extraordinarily sympathetic to the argument. I would particularly be interested in any quotations you have in which Nazis deem all the children of Oradour-sur-Glane terrorists, or any quotations which suggest that the word "terrorism" is used here because it would have been preferred by Nazis -- rather than to make a modern-day political point. - Nunh-huh 01:20, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why has a cleanup notice been added to this page? The page seems quite well written to me. Adding the German PoV in no way justifies Nazi attrocities at Oradour-sur-Glane. It simply shows that people who may have decent motivations can do very bad things. It's far too easy to assume that only Nazis could perform such acts. This is a very important lesson for us all to learn. Bill 19:00, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

To bring attention to it so it can be cleaned up. Please don't claim the article ever said that "only Nazis could perform such acts". It's not true. Nunh-huh - 01:26, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I didn't claim the article ever said that. I said that, "It's far too easy to assume that only Nazis could perform such acts". Please do not attribute to me things I didn't say. Bill 17:24, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

And I didn't claim you said it, I asked you not to say it. Since you certainly seemed to suggest it. - Nunh-huh 17:27, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Removal of most of the Nazi POV section

Please note: I've trimmed down the Nazi apologia section, by removing the following text: -- The Anome 01:27, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Removed text:

Nazi Waffen-SS soldiers felt that the law and overall justice was on their side and that the fate of the free world was in their hands. They saw their actions as part of a worldwide struggle against an insidious faith-based and racial enemy — ie. "world Jewry"; according to Nazi ideology an assumed worldwide Jewish conspiracy was ultimately behind almost every opposition to Nazi superiority. They felt that if they had to do some very dirty work to get the job done then so be it and they were willing to make such moral sacrifices in "defence" of their country, which they loved very much (the old "archenemy" France had been seen as a threat to Germany). They often argued that there would be scores of lives saved for every presumed or actual "terrorist" (ie. Resistance fighter) they killed. They also saw little fault in brutally murdering supposed "terrorist sympathisers". The Nazis believed that by keeping the initiative and staying on the offense with big fell swoops such as the massacre at Oradour, they could shock members of the Resistance into ceasing their "terrorist" activities and cause them to loose support among the wider civilian populace. By being ready to deliberately kill civilians who just happened to live in a town suspected of housing Resistance fighters, they thus intended to make it too dangerous for awed and frightened civilians to support or even be close to the "terrorists", leading to the latter getting ostracised. Today it is very widely accepted that such Nazi reasoning and judgement was extremely flawed, morally wrong and reprehensible, as was their general ideology.

End quote.

Reading the above, I think that it was wrong to dismiss it simply as 'Nazi Apologia', 'Nazi POV' or as an attempt to somehow partially justify this atrocity. After reading it through several times, I think that it is part of a 'mental exercise' - an attempt to understand how otherwise-'normal' men could do such a thing, by temporarily 'remote seeing' the atrocity from the other angle - through the eyes of a fanatical totally-indoctrinated SS zealot. Although it is over-long, I think that we have 'thrown the baby out with the bath water' here. It also misses one point: The men who carried out this atrocity believed that they were the founding force of a thousand-year reich. In other words: at the time they committed this crime, they had no idea that they would ever in their lifetimes be called upon to defend or explain their actions to anybody. There have been famous experiments conducted where otherwise 'normal' human beings can be pursuaded (or deluded) into seemingly inflicting uncharacteristic cruelty on others when they have been duped into believing that 'black is white', or that the 'wrong' that they are doing is actually 'right'.

Having said that, I don't think that the above should be reinserted, because it is outside the scope of the article. In fact I would go on to delete whole swathes of the article itself. I think that with highly-controversial subjects such this, Auschwitz, Dresden etc. it is best to simply stick rigidly to the physical facts of what actually happened, their chronology and nothing else, with no interpretation or opinion. Like a Policeman's statement in court.

There can be no possible excuse for such an act, and when emotions run so deep, any attempt to put the act into historical context will be taken by some as 'apologia'. But it would be interesting (given a 60 year gap) to now try to 'understand the unforgivable' elsewhere, using this atrocity (and the removed text above) as part of the 'setup scenario' for the exercise.

What I personally want to know is how you could possibly assemble a group of 200 soldiers, and successfully order them to carry out such an act as this, especially on women and children. True, we are talking about members of the SS, so there were probably a larger percentage of brutal homicidal maniacs present than there would be in a random sample of 'Fritz public' plucked from German streets, but surely there must have even been SS men present who thought that this was really 'not why they joined-up', especially as they committed this act upon people whom they had not been indoctrinated to think of as 'Untermensch'. ChrisRed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment This might explain a few things about how they managed to get that many people to do such terrbile things...

Attempted re-write of controversial section

I've now attempted to do an NPOV re-write of the now cut-down controversial section, and slightly expanded it. Please revise as needed. -- The Anome 01:36, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

• While this is now very much improved, there's still the problem that we explicitly give one POV (killing a village of men, women, and children is a brilliant tactical strategy that saves valuable German lives, which are the ones that really count) without explicitly giving the other (the lives of French children are at least as valuable as those of Nazi soldiers, and soldiers killing unarmed civilian children is a bad thing.) - Nunh-huh 18:41, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• I've tried to edit a little (brutal, but deliberate German policy). But I do see Nunh-huh's point. I think much of the problem lies in this sentence: "They believed that there would be scores of German lives saved for every presumed or actual "terrorist" (ie. Resistance fighter) they killed, and saw little fault in brutally murdering supposed 'terrorist sympathisers'". The problem is that the German troops conducting the massacre can't really have thought that all the men, women, and children they killed at Oradour were part of the Resistance. And the sentence may obliquely suggest this. It probably needs to be reworked, but I'm not sure how to do it. The main point that needs to be made is that the Germans viewed the Resistance as terrorists. It's important not to lose sight of this, as it informs other analagous historical situations. Bill 19:30, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• • Yes, the comparison is probably being made because someone wants to use it as an analogy. History is often distorted to make political points, and it's often effective. In any case, the denotations and connotations of the word "terrorist" has changed between 1944 and 2004. The fact (if it is one) that Germans preferentially called the French Resistance "terrorists" is certainly not the "main point that needs to be made" in an article on Oradour-sur-Glane. - Nunh-huh 19:55, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• "That Germans [considered] the French Resistance "terrorists" is the main point of the paragraph. Certainly not the article. Ta ta. Bill 20:09, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• • Well, that certainly makes more sense. But we have no references that state they did so consider them, or that it was anymore than an incidental characterization (I presume the word we are talking about here is actually "Terroristin", and would point out that the only explicit references that have been evoked (Mein Kampf parts I & II) certainly don't say anything about how the French Resistance were "terrorists", having been published by 1926, before the Resistance existed, or had any need to exist. The Nazis' point presumably being that "terrorists" waged unfair war, a point which will be accepted by those who wish to have the rules of war defined by Nazis. - Nunh-huh 20:22, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

SS soldiers were further angered by finding atrocities commited by some resistants; in particular a German ambulance in which all the wounded had been killed and the driver and assistance tied into the cab before te vehicle was set on fire.

Do we have references for this? This sounds like some kind of made-up excuse. ("Yes, we massacred an entire village, but it's because we were told than one of our ambulances had been ambushed"). If nobody can point to any source for this, it should be removed. David.Monniaux 09:53, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the Das Reich division that committed the reprisal in Oradour placed the explosives in the church - there was no known resistance movement in Oradour. There was also no fire-fight, the townsfolk were segregated into men and women/children, the men ushered into barns where they were eventually shot with machine guns and then set on fire, and the church was barricaded and blown up using explosives and grenades. For a source, refer to various publications, such as Robert Hebras' account (survivor of the massacre), and Max Hasting's Das Reich. Bryn Buck 12.27, March 28, 2006 (UTC)

You are correct. Without any reference to the material in this article, it seems like it was entirely made up. This account is much different than multiple accounts that I have read about this event.

Is there a reason why that opening section has been let stand? It comes off as a bizarre apologia for the Germans (going on at some length about how awful the Resistance was, without mention that civilian reprisals were standard German tactics), while portraying the death of the village as a tragic accident that was really the maquis's fault, instead of the deliberate torching by the German that it was. I'm reluctant to leap into editing an article without knowing the community-keepers, but it's awfully disgusting as is. -- tavella 5/22/06.

• Looks a lot better now. -- tavella

Pictures

A couple of days ago I was amazed there were no pictures of Oradour-sur-Glane in this article. I searched around on Wikimedia, and I could not find any there either! Therefore I have now uploaded 19 of my own photographs to Wikimedia, and inserted a selection of them to this article. I hope they are to your satisfactions. They were taken during a visit on June 11 2004. If you are interested in seeing more of them, check out my dedicated gallery in Wikimedia: Wikimedia:Oradour-sur-Glane.

Regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennis 14:27, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

• These are very informative for those of us who have not visited, also very moving. Thanks so much! .John M Brear (talk) 13:25, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposed correction and addition

I would like to suggest one correction and one addition to this article,

1) This article still gives the name of the Sturmbannführer as Otto Diekmann. However, his true name seems to have been Adolf Diekmann. His name is given as such in the German wikipedia article “Oradour”, and this information is confirmed by the website http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Oradour-sur-Glane/OldPhotos/SSofficers.html, saying that “In most books, his name is given as Otto Dickmann, but SS records show that his name was Adolf Diekmann.“ Also http://www.oradour.info/general/faqlist.htm says that “I have seen his name spelt as, 'Diekmann', 'Dickmann' and 'Dieckmann', however the correct spelling from his SS records is, 'Diekmann' and his first name was, 'Adolf', not, 'Otto', as appears in many publications“. Even a photo of the grave of Adolf Diekmann is available at http://www.oradour.info/images/diekman4.htm so this information is very likely to be correct. I suggest a corresponding correction in this article.

2) In its present form, this article withholds one important piece of information which can also be found in the German wikipedia and can be translated as, “Obersturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann had the order of the Regimentskommandeur to make the mayor of this place [Oradour] give him the names of 30 persons who could serve as hostages, in order to exchange them for his friend, Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe, who had been captured by the Résistance shortly before. However, Adolf Diekmann gave the order to burn down the village and to kill all people without exception.’’

This means that Adolf Diekmann by far exceeded his orders when he ordered the massacre, and that’s what this article just does not mention in its present form. Besides, this article also hides the fact that even some of the Nazis themselves had tried to prosecute Diekmann, as can be read as well in the German wikipedia,

“Diekmann’s superior, Standartenführer Stadler, initiated judicial investigations to be carried out agaist him, and also Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, the German commander in Limoges, general Gleiniger, and the government of Vichy protested against the massacre. However, Diekmann did not have to face any consequences because he was killed in action few days later at the front of the invasion. Also a big part of the third company, who had committed the massacre, was annihilated few days later. Besides, Hitler forbad to take legal proceedings.“

I suggest that also this information is added. The German wikipedia is the second-largest after the English and is worked on by a very active and critical community who would not allow for dubious information to remain, and the quoted sentences have never been contested for more than a year.

Besides, the case of the wrong first name of Obersturmbannführer Diekmann shows how much serious work could still be done with this English article. -- Consputus

This should be sourced. Such military order and subsequent proceedings would have been archived. 193.132.242.1 09:46, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

WPMILHIST Assessment

A very nice article, for length and detail. But I wonder, as the article is titled "Oradour-sur-Glane" and not "Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre" or the like, if there is anything else worthwhile to be said about the village. When was it founded? Was this event in any way related to larger more significant events? Did the village feature in any earlier historical events? Did any of its inhabitants feature in earlier events? (If not, then not, and that's fine. But if yes, then it should probably be included.) LordAmeth 18:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Merge/This article is about the village

The article about the massacre should be Oradour-sur-Glane massacre (redirect now). --84.234.60.154 (talk) 16:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

• Disagree This is a ruined village...historically speaking, this is what makes this village most notable, and is the focal point of the town's history. smooth0⁷0₇ (talk) 20:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
• Disagree - The village no longer exists as anything other than a memorial to the massacre. Jooler (talk) 16:34, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
• Comment Jooler, from a quick look at fr:Oradour-sur-Glane, it seems to me that there is a new village next to the original. Though that article is mostly about the WWII massacre, it does give some history and information that are missing from the en article, which covers only the massacre. (The en article does provide a population chart in the Demographic evolution section, which, though not referenced or explained, looks to be a copy of the one in the fr article). My take:
  • This article is a duplicate of the one linked above by the anonymous poster (artcom.pl), which sets us up for increasing WP chaos by having two articles with the same content.
  • Smooth... may be correct about the notability, but for consistency and neatness, we should either just keep the massacre article and abandon this one, or make this one a stub with a link to the massacre article. -Eric ^talk 18:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Political reasons for acquittal?

I have read (sorry no references) that the main reason the malgré-nous were pardoned (and by extension the Alsatians who were at Oradour) was the desire by the French government to placate the people of Alsace, since that region (along with the industrial region[s] in Germany bordering it to the East) formed the heart of the nascent European Coal and Steel Community (which became part of the foundation for the current-day EU). In other words, it was more important to establish a political framework that would help lower the possibility of a future pan-European war than it was to convict the handful of former SS they had in custody. I believe the French also sealed the court records for this case, extending until later in the 21st century. Historian932 (talk) 03:23, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Reference for Germans destroying wrong village?

The article claims that the SS confused Oradour-sur-Glane for another village beginning with the name "Oradour"…is there a reference for this? I have never heard this, and it seems like it would add another interesting although tragic element to the story. Historian932 (talk) 03:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Edit : There is no evidence about it. Most talks about it were from locals. It looks like they focused willingly Oradour /s Glane. - They wanted to go from Limoges to Saint Junien. Oradour sur Vayres is NOT on that road. - Evidences found proposed maps of the village with notes from the SS. - Would you really believe SS could not read a map ?

Most of references can be found in le Centre de la Mémoire d'Oradour /s Glane. Flavien (who worked in the village as a guide) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.231.168.152 (talk) 11:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

This article also suggests that the Germans chose Oradour because they thought Kämpfe was being held there. According to the French Wikipedia, Weidinger was the source of this story. He may not be the most reliable source... Bever (talk) 00:31, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Split massacre from the town

The article about the massacre should be created, it's a separate and notable event from the town itself.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

And what information would be left for the article about the town? There's just not enough for an article about the town; if there were we'd have one.- Nunh-huh 23:29, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

See Talk:Oradour-sur-Glane#Merge.2FThis_article_is_about_the_village above. If there isn't enough material for an article about the town, then we don't need an article about the town, or we leave it as a stub. -Eric ^talk 11:41, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Two Sides to A Story - That's What History Is

Look, no one wants to make the Nazis look sympathetic somehow, but if this is going to be a historical entry then the full story should be told. It seems like people are trying to say anything said in German accounts is automatically a lie, but everything said by the Allies is 100% correct... and that's nonsense. For the first 50 years after the war that was somewhat the standard for reporting, but it's seen for what it is now, and modern historians are writing books almost daily these days going into World War II in a much less biased way.

The Germans accounts in no way excuse the behavior of the SS troops at Oradour-sur-Glane... nor should the presentation of these accounts be automatically seen as such in some sort of knee jerk way. The German side of things goes a long way to explaining why such a horrible act would occur... while again, in no way excusing it.

This is a link is pulled up quick which gives the German account - http://www.humanitas-international.org/archive/oradour-sur-glane/german-account.htm - This is from a humanitarian website recommended by The History Channel. Probably best known for its Holocaust Project classroom aid.

And this is another - http://www.scrapbookpages.com/oradour-sur-glane/Story/SSversion01.html

There's a lot more than this out there, both on and offline (some is neo-nazi crap, but then again some is extreme franco-phile stuff too). I just stumbled into this wiki entry and decided to add this all quick, so these are links I pulled up just now.

I've read similar statements in books, even before the Internet got big... especially the parts about the German Garrison in Tulle surrendering and the Partisans mutilating and killing 62 of them - everything from bashing heads and cutting genitals off (found shoved in their mouths), to dragging them to death behind trucks. Also, how one of the acts leading directly to Oradour-sur-Glane was the discovery of a German Medical Unit that had been killed horribly - its men tied to their trucks and burned alive by Partisans. (Diekmann was also told by French collaborators that Oradour was a nest of Partisan activity and that his captured friend was going to be burned alive there.)

This is also part of the real reason for the acquittals of involved German soldiers and the sealing of French Court records to do with it... there was enough evidence to show both war crimes commited by Partisans in the area, and Oradour being heavily involved in Partisan activity. The French did not let SS troopers accused of such war crimes go free because of any want to placate Alsatians or Germans... the extreme of what happened at Oradour went beyond any such possibility, excepting that in finding the Germans guilty, the other details of what the French Resistance did there would have been exposed publicly right then, and under the pre-1949 Geneva Convention standards, reprisals against Partisans were a somewhat allowed grey area. Oradour would have been an embarassment for the French also then, and at the time is was more important to build the myth of the French Resistance, considering the after effects of World War II on French pride (an attitude which led to things like Dien Bein Phu and Algeria - the French military trying to get its honor back).

The court records will be unsealed soon enough... many such records are being released or reported fairly for the first time, which is why so many new books on World War II are being written, now telling of the bad both sides did.

I know that some don't want to hear such things. They want their side to be the white hat innocents and the other side to be total evil, and so a lopsided reporting is done. But this is not supposed to be a place for bias or "promotion of causes". The innocent civilians Oradour-sur-Glane were the innocents... and the ugly truth of what Partisans often did doesnt excuse the Germans taking their revenge on children at all (even if the Geneva Convention was hazy on the issue of reprisals until the rewrite of 1949). It just shows more of the details, and that war is truly a disgusting thing all around... and should be reported.

More of the details regarding World War II are coming out every year, details that were often surpressed in the past and there are some today who are still trying to. Heck, 20 years ago people believed we never shot German prisoners and that's been blown to hell since (I actually saw a wiki discussion on Malmedy where a guy was saying Americans never killed German prisoners... tell that to General Omar Bradley: he ordered that no German Snipers be taken prisoner... and Patton, who thought the Nuremberg trials on the subject were hypocritical). Even major movies like "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers" have gone as far as depicting it. War is an ugly thing, and bias doesnt help people face that.

You can ignore or hide from it all you want... fact is the books that are coming out now are giving a much more unbiased view of what both sides did during the war. Consider New York Times Bestsellers like "The Fall of Berlin" by: Antony Beevor and "Armageddon" by: Max Hastings... both going into detail on the unimaginable extremes of mass murder and rape committed by the Russians as they poured over Poland and East Germany. These are things that were hardly reported 20+ years ago (though Cornelius Ryan's classic "The Last Battle" did break the mold a half century ago in describing some of what the Russians did and their leaders promoted back when no one would report any attrocities but those done by the Germans) Even so, the reporting of hundreds of thousands of acts of rape against German, Polish, Czech, etc., women and children doesnt excuse the Nazis at all, nor do these historians want to do that... it just reports history... and also reports the truth of other crimes.

In the same way, the details of Oradour-sur-Glane are now being reported in a less biased way. And don't get mad at me because of it... I think it's all disgusting. I just want history to be history, not opinion. And I've read a LOT on these subjects, in the hope of learning truth.

This isnt a place for knee jerk reactions. Truth isnt intended as support for either side... historians are supposed to rise above the bias and report facts, even if they don't like them. Thankfully we are getting a much wider picture from modern historians today.

9Fafner9 (talk) 07:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

revisionist controversial lines?

What exactly happened is still highly controversial. Some lines of the article reflect only a part of these controversies, and some other lines might also be seen as controversial, not to say revisionist. For a more extended presentation of these controversies, please rather refer to the corresponding featured article of the French Wikipedia about the slaughter of Oradour-sur-Glane.

I also heard a completely different version of the incident. The SS separated the men from the rest (not necessary, if the plan is to kill everyone). The women and children were placed in the church. There were explosives and ammunitions stored in the church, they went off causing the fire in the church. The bang of the explosion gave the SS-men the impression that they are under attack. So they shot the men. I recall someone writing on this. His name is Vincent Reynouard, if I recall correctly --41.151.201.169 (talk) 13:27, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

This view - that French partisans set the fire off by accident - is given also in the book The Face of Courage, a book about the 98 Germans who were awarded both the Knight's Cross and the Close Combat Clasp in Gold. The author is Florian Berger, and it was produced in softcover by Stackpole.174.0.48.147 (talk) 03:17, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

About Oradour-sur-Glane and about an ambiguous website.

Hello everybody, I find the Oradour-sur-Glane article mixes various versions that I've read on the subject, icluding versions that you usually read on revisionist websites.

I've talked with fr:Utilisateur:Couthon, who wrote big parts of the corresponding article on the french wikipedia fr:Massacre d'Oradour-sur-Glane, he agrees with me.

For instance: Early on the morning of June 10, 1944, Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann, commanding the I battalion of the 4th Waffen-SS ("Der Führer") Panzer-Grenadier Regiment, informed Sturmbannführer Otto Weidinger at regimental headquarters that he had been approached by two French civilians who claimed that a German officer was being held by the Resistance in Oradour-sur-Vayres, a nearby town. The captured German was alleged to be Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, who may have been captured by the Maquis the day before.: it is only an hypothesis for explaining the massacre, but it is just an hypothesis and should not be written as if it was an historical fact.

The sentence: Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann claimed that it was a just retaliation due to partisan activity in nearby Tulle and the kidnapping of Helmut Kämpfe. The German Nazi authorities wanted to prosecute Diekmann for the massacre, but he was killed in action some days later before he could stand trial is, in our opinion, quite questionable as well. We don't know any serious book that speaks of a direct link between the partisan activity in nearby Tulle and Oradour (that is not that nearby: 120 km). Nor have we read anywhere that The German Nazi authorities wanted to prosecute Diekmann for the massacre, apart on revisionist sites... As well as the paragraph Diekmann's conduct, that you read mainly on revisionist sites... Have you got any serious source for this paragraph?

Please refer to the article of the French speaking wikipedia, that is quite complete, and to the paragraph of this article about the revisionist versions (fr:Massacre_d'Oradour-sur-Glane#Le récit de Weidinger : une_thèse révisionniste).

By the way, speaking of revisionism, parts of the English speaking article seem to be influenced by this site http://www.scrapbookpages.com/, that contains quite a lot of revisionist pages (according to a man who's specialised in the WWII on the French speaking wikipedia, many of the pages of this site, that contains more than 1 300 of them, are revisionist ; see for instance http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Oradour-sur-Glane/OldPhotos/SSofficers.html). A source of the article links to this website, without any warning about the content of this website. Well, when you consider that this site may have been a source of the article, you understand better some mix-ups... In the last 3 days, I've been corresponding very much per email with the webmaster of this website. He knows very well his subject, is very nice and polite, but is also very revisionist (not only to speak of what he told me about the WWII, but also what he told me of the implication of the Jews in September 11th...). Once again I don't say that this guy and his thesis are necessarily wrong, but he and his website tell a version very, hmm.. let's say, different (euphemism). If you are interested I may forward you our mails, so that you see what he exactly thinks about the WWII and September 11th. That's very interesting and makes much clearer what you can read about his website. Well, I think that when you put a link in an article toward such a website, the least that you must do is to put beside a warning against some of the things that you can read on the website. On the French speaking wikipedia, all the links toward this website have been suppressed (not by me ; I had just put a warning, other wikipedians went to see more carefully the website in question and decided to suppress all the links). On the English speaking wikipedia, 68 articles link to this website...

For the discussion that we're having on the subject, see maybe also http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_Projet:Nazisme#Site_douteux (in French), where you'll also find some extracts, in English, of the mails that I received from the webmaster of this website. I've also left a message on the Nationalsozialismus portal of the german wikipedia. I've also left a message to User:Brian_Crawford but haven't received any reply yet...

If you want to speak more about this, or about the website scrapbookpages that I mentioned above, you should maybe get in touch with, for instance, fr:Utilisateur:Couthon or fr:Utilisateur:Lebob, on the French speaking wikipedia. I've been a bit in touch with them, they seem to know much better the subject than me :-). I think that they can speak English.

We'd be glad to have your opinion on this subject.

Thank you for your comments :-) Matthieu, 62.178.30.180 (talk) 15:15, 25 May 2009 (UTC).

fr:Utilisateur:Lebob can also be found on wiki (en) as Lebob-BE. --Lebob-BE (talk) 11:55, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Although there may be problems with the English article on the events at OSG, it wouldn't surprise me if both the French and German articles on this subject showed more POV for obvious reasons. For instance, you mention links to the scrapbookpages.com website being supressed on the French version. That worries me, as although rather rambling, this website doesn't come across as being particularly strongly revisionist in nature, and also contain plenty of condemnation of SS actions. I havent read the French OSG article, cos my French isn't good enough, but I don't see a problem with the current English version, and the sentences you find problematic (e.g. Diekmann having been headed for a court martial had he not been killed) are supported by sources other than those from historical revisionists.1812ahill (talk) 15:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Down this road, on a summer day in 1944

According to the article, the event occurred on June 10, 1944, which is still Springtime. Summer does not begin until approximately June 21. Such a simple and obvious error indicates the need to be vigilant and ensure that wartime stories are not embellished in fictitious ways.John Paul Parks (talk) 02:15, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing in the summer article to suggest that describing June 10 as "a summer day" is in any way at odds with normal use - it certainly is not a "fictitious embellishment". What is your point? Ghughesarch (talk) 23:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Why a new village has been built?

The question might seem strange, but when only 6 people survived, why did they rebuilt the village a few meters distance from the old? For whom? --88.78.121.160 (talk) 15:40, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't have any specific information, but, in general, settlements grow where they do for some reason intrinsic to the area. It could be to host a market for goods from surrounding farms, it could be a transportation center, there's any number of reasons why a village was needed there. Today, there's also tourist trade to the old town to be hosted. And, let's see, in the 3 generations since the end of the war, those 6 people could now potentially have grown to several hundred. BMK (talk) 19:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Errors and revisionism

Could you please check this article with the version on wikipédia in French. The actual version in English is not acceptable regarding the recent historical books. My English is far from fluent, so I can't contribute directly on this article. You can contact me on wikipédia in French, using the discussion page of the article in French ; my user name is fr:Utilisateur:Couthon. Sincerly yours. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.129.29 (talk) 06:00, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

The task is too broad; I will contact you at the French talk page for more details about this. ( P.S. 'actual' est un faux ami; pour fr 'actuel' on dit 'current' en anglais.) Mathglot (talk) 22:13, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Historical revisionism in ELs

An IP has twice attempted to add links to Flemish revisionist and Holocaust denier Herbert Verbeke's website to the article, and I have removed them. Other editors should be on the lookout for other IPs doing the same to related articles. BMK (talk) 19:34, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Omissions

This article contains very serious omissions. Please note that official French files are still suppressed for another 40 years. Zmcguiness (talk) 11:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Wow! So I guess in 40 years we'll find out that the Nazis were blameless and that the French had it coming to them -- is that it? BMK (talk) 17:33, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

French communists often committed atrocities to blame the Germans. The French government then seals the records to hide the truth. 47.201.179.7 (talk) 13:04, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. But no consensus on whether the commune should be moved to the primary topic, that will require another discussion if anyone wants it moved. Jenks24 (talk) 06:41, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

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Oradour-sur-Glane → Oradour-sur-Glane massacre – Correct title about the event. The Category:Oradour-sur-Glane massacre is named in this way, as well as all the interlinks. Following history, I suppose tat the article has this title because, originally, was about the municipality but talking at almost about the massacre. When they were split a new page about the commune was created. Note: Oradour-sur-Glane (commune) should be IMHO reanmed as "Oradour-sur-Glane" (see interlinks) with a hatnote to this event... Maybe, but I don't know. Regards. --Dэя-Бøяg 17:44, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• Support move, but since the massacre is the primary topic, leave "Oradour-sur-Glane" as a redirect to this article, and leave the commune article as is. In any case, move this article to "....massacre". BMK (talk) 19:17, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support move and support move of Oradour-sur-Glane (commune) to Oradour-sur-Glane, with hatnote or mentioning the massacre in the first sentence. While the massacre is the most notable thing about the place, the commune still is clearly the primary topic, as the massacre is not called "Oradour-sur-Glane". —Kusma (t·c) 09:16, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Oradour-sur-Glane massacre/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Well, a mix of serious versions of the event (the major part of the article), unreliable versions (that is that are probably not to be read in any academic book; anyway we can't check as no source is given), and of questionable versions (that you usually find on revisionist websites...). One of the linked website, scrapbookpages.com, is, in my opinion, and in the opinion of 3 other wikipedians whose opinion I've asked, a revisionist website... See the talk page of the article for more details... Matthieu, 62.178.30.180 (talk) 14:54, 26 May 2009 (UTC).

Last edited at 06:42, 19 November 2015 (UTC). Substituted at 01:56, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Koriukivka massacre

Largest Atrocity?

That claim is not supported by the source. The source seems unreliable. Dresden/Hiroshima/Nagasaki/etc would seem to be larger. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 14:36, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Those are not what is meant by "atrocity" in this context, with the possible exception of Dresden. BMK (talk) 14:41, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I'd agree with you on that. But, I'd also think that as it's hard to define atrocity, it's hard to use the term, even when backed up with a source, I'm guessing that there are other sources that would contradict the claim. Unless there was a very clear and reliable source, I think the best thing for the article, is to leave out that particular claim. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 10:23, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Fine by me, I was accommodating another editor. BMK (talk) 14:16, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. If the other editor comments, I will discuss it with them. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 14:20, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Infobox and repeated xrefs

I added an Infobox and deleted repeated xrefs, actions that are in accordance with MoS, but these have been twice reverted by User: Beyond My Ken on the basis that "These are not improvements" and it is not necessary to follow MoS. Comments please. Mztourist (talk) 07:32, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

(1) The MoS says nothing about infoboxes being necessary or required or preferred; whether or not an article should have an infobox is totally a matter of editorial consensus, which you do not have

(2) As for your other edits, you didn't just remove "xrefs" (they're called Wikilinks, as I've told you before), you also removed:

• "642 dead inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane who had been killed in just a few hours." This appears to me to be an attempt to minimize the horror of the atrocity
• You removed the lede image from its prominent position at the top of the page and moved it down to the gallery, so there is no visual image at the top of the article to bring to the reader the extent of the effects of the massacre
• You removed a link to "Nazi Party" from "Nazi", which has never appeared in the article before
• You removed a link to "Southern France" which has never appeared in the article before
• You removed a link to "Vichy France" which has never appeared before
• You removed a link from "Battle of Normandy" to "Operation Overlord"

And so on.

In my opinion, your changes were aimed at making the article less sharply critical of the Nazis, and to deprive the reader of the opportunity, once they had read down the article, to link to articles which would provide further information. Thus, I judged they were, in general, not improvements. I stand by that judgment. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:46, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

(1) An Infobox presents a useful summary of the event and, in this case the responsible party, the 2nd SS Panzer Division, something that you later accuse me of obscuring. A geo-locator box should be absolutely uncontroversial. In both cases these exist without your apparent objection on the Tulle massacre page on which you have made similar edit reverts and on many other massacre pages. (2) xrefs vs wikilinks - whatever you call them, should only appear once on a page per MoS. In relation to the specific examples you give:

• "642 dead inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane who had been killed in just a few hours." The words "inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane who had been killed in just a few hours" add nothing. The preceding paragraph explains how they were killed and how long it took. This is not "an attempt to minimize the horror of the atrocity" as you suggest
• "You removed a link to "Nazi Party" from "Nazi", which has never appeared in the article before." Describing the Waffen-SS as Nazis adds nothing
• "You removed a link to "Southern France" which has never appeared in the article before." Southern France is a huge area, how does wikilinking this help anyone?
• "You removed a link to "Vichy France" which has never appeared before". Vichy Regime appears earlier and is wikilinked, they are synonymous
• "You removed a link from "Battle of Normandy" to "Operation Overlord"". Invasion of Normandy appears earlier and so does not need to be repeated.

"your changes were aimed at making the article less sharply critical of the Nazis". My edits do no such thing, nowhere did I delete any information that would have any such effect. You are assuming bad faith with no supporting evidence.

"and to deprive the reader of the opportunity, once they had read down the article, to link to articles which would provide further information". Again this is incorrect, I simply deleted repeated and in a few cases, unnecessary, wikilinks (Southern France, non-existent wikilink to Helmut Kämpfe) all in accordance with the MoS. Mztourist (talk) 09:06, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

You see, I don't really care all that much about MoS, I care about making our articles better for our readers. Period. Everything else is secondary. Rules are bullshit if they hurt the article, and your edits hgurt the article.

You'd do well to read the very beginning of WP:MOS, which says:

[MoS] is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.

In other words, it is not there to be followed blindly, without consideration of the value it may add or detract from the article.

Anyway, now that we've both had our say, let's allow other editors to express their opinions. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:29, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes you clearly don't care about MoS, however I don't understand how you can believe that no Infobox and repeated xrefs/wikilinks in any way makes this better for our readers. I also note that you have not responded to my rebuttal of your baseless accusations that my edits were made to "minimize the horror of the atrocity" or to make "the article less sharply critical of the Nazis" Mztourist (talk) 11:02, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

RfC regarding Infobox and map

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There's a unanimous consensus to include both the infobox and the map.Nick-D's tweak(s) may be followed.Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 14:23, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

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I have added a massacre infobox and map (Diff here: [1]) that follows the standard used for other massacres such as Tulle massacre, however User:Beyond My Ken has repeatedly reverted this stating that "These are not improvements", "No consensus for this edit" and "The article stays in the status quo ante until you have a consensus to make the disputed edit." I have tried to discuss this with Beyond My Ken (see discussion immediately above) but have made no progress. I regard an Infobox and map as completely uncontroversial, helpful to any reader and in line with MoS, but Beyond My Ken does not believe that MoS should be followed. Comments please. Mztourist (talk) 10:02, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Survey

• Support inclusion of infobox and map. Clear and concise summary - which is often is the only thing people look at. No concrete opinion on other issues.Icewhiz (talk) 10:48, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
• Both the infobox and map seem useful to me. Showing the location is particularly important given that this war crime occurred well away from any active combat zone, as the 2nd Panzer Division moved towards Normandy. I'd suggest tweaking the infobox so the image is larger though, adding the exact date, removing the symbol for the division (adds nothing, and will confuse readers) and referring to Germany as 'Germany' rather than the incorrect 'Nazi Germany' (there was no such country: it was just 'Germany'). Nick-D (talk) 11:15, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose both as unnecessary and redundant. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:37, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
• Support basically per Nick. Parsecboy (talk) 20:59, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
• Support inclusion of an infobox and a map. Opinion: Useful to readers.CuriousMind01 (talk) 11:00, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
• Support inclusion of infobox and map since the claim of reduntantcy could be make for almost every infobox, in my humble opinion. I agree with the amendments suggested by Nick-D, although the reference to Nazi Germany seems not so troublesome to me. Lord Ics (talk) 16:16, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
• Support inclusion of a short infobox and map. A quick reference for readers. Kierzek (talk) 15:49, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
• Support inclusion of all edits that were reverted. All edits in the rest of the article look fine to me too. I don't feel Beyond my ken is contributing to wp here (nor in the other rfc). I hope we don't get more rfc's like these two. PizzaMan ♨♨♨ 20:13, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support A map, adding a map of a massacre, is not an improvement? I agree with Nick regarding infobox. scope_creep (talk) 21:40, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

• Support inclusion of infobox and map. per others, this is a Clear and concise summary, I don't see why we would not want this (and I generally dislike info-boxes!). Pincrete (talk) 15:27, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support both. Maybe it's personal preference, but I support a presumption of including info-boxes in all articles, lest there is a rebuttal as to why there should not be one. Seeing none here, I support it. Infoboxes help in the basic understanding of the article, and is helpful unless there is not enough information or the information is disputed. I don't believe that is at work here. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia ^ᐐT₳LKᐬ 18:11, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support both map and infobox. Of course it’s an improvement, they contextualise and summarise as well as visually making the article better. Baffled as to why they were removed to be honest. Mramoeba (talk) 18:31, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support both with Nick D's changes per above. The only major advantage of not having the infobox was the large image size. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 05:04, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support I do not understand BMK's opposition to adding a useful infobox and map. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:51, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Improvements

OP has been indefinitely blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:08, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

For the person who undid my careful and necessary edits, baldly claiming that they were "Not improvements": "but" means that the succeeding clause contrasts with the preceding clause. The old village being maintained as a memorial does not contrast with a new village being built. "Charles de Gaulle ordered the original maintained as a permanent memorial" is not grammatically correct English. A sentence beginning "Shane Harris concludes the addendum..." requires that the sense of "concludes" is "finishes". The sense here is not "finishes", it is "infers". To be grammatically correct, the sentence must read "Shane Harris concludes that the addendum..." In the sentence "the noted 1973–74 British documentary television series The World at War", "noted" merely reflects some personal opinion about this documentary. That is not a neutral point of view. Sergow (talk) 12:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC) You may have carefully considered them, but they're still not improvements. And simply posting a comment here doesn't give you carte blanche to restore your edits, you need a WP:CONSENSUS here to do so. You don't have one, so I've restored the status quo ante. Do not restore your edits again, you would be in violation of WP:Edit warring. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:17, 2 May 2021 (UTC) Fixing horrendous grammar blunders does not require any talk page consensus. I assume that you introduced these errors. Are you a native speaker of English? Sergow (talk) 20:03, 2 May 2021 (UTC) It does when your "corrections" are disputed, and yours have been. You are edit warring with no consensus. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:19, 2 May 2021 (UTC) Nobody has disputed them. You've just said that you don't like them. No competent editor would object to correct grammar. Either you do not understand English grammar, or you are just trying to be a bully. Which is it? Sergow (talk) 21:46, 2 May 2021 (UTC) I agree with Sergow's edits. Beyond My Ken you've done this before with my edits, claiming that they weren't improvements and it had to go to RFC to get my changes endorsed, you don't WP:OWN this page. Mztourist (talk) 04:13, 3 May 2021 (UTC) Of course not, but I do have the same right as any other editor, to dispute changes that I do not believe improve the article. Others can disagree, and if there are more who disagree with me than agree with me, the changes are instituted. In this case Sergow didn't wait for a consensus, something they do not have the right to do. I will continue to dispute changes that I believe are not improvements on this and every other article I edit, which has nothing to do with "ownership" and everything to do with maintaining the quality of Wikipedia. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:37, 3 May 2021 (UTC) The allegation that @Beyond My Ken: has made against @Sergow: involves a strangely made-up, utterly pointless disagreement concerning the use of proper grammar (that is, the standard grammar used by educated people in an English-speaking country). The issue is that BMK prefers the sentence: A new village was built nearby after the war, but President Charles de Gaulle ordered the original maintained as a permanent memorial and museum. rather than Sergow's sentence (actually, Sergow's improvement made the single run-on sentence into two sentences). A new village was built nearby after the war. President Charles de Gaulle ordered that the ruins of the original village be maintained as a permanent memorial and museum. Sergow gave a very cogent explanation for the changes on this talk page. BMK's reply was "You may have carefully considered them, but they're still not improvements." BMK has a consistent behavior of finding a recent change and reverting it without making an edit summary to explain why the change was made. BMK does this even when the change is an improvement to the encyclopedia. This is what BMK has done here. Consistent with past behavior, BMK's process is to revert/disagree, with little more than an opinion,/revert/disagree, and then declares an edit war. And as BMK's want, takes it to the Administrator's Notice Board seeking endorsement. BMK has difficulty with collaboration and compromising with other editors. BMK's doesn't present any logical reasons for maintaining the "status quo ante" other than a dislike of Sergow's change and the peculiar requirement that the change does not have WP:CONSENSUS. Seriously, correcting poor grammar requires a consensus? Sergow makes a very cogent observation, "Either you do not understand English grammar, or you are just trying to be a bully." I vote "bully" and since Sergow's first edit was on May 1, Beyond My Ken is BITing. If this was the first time BMK created such a tempest in a teapot, I would not be involved; however, BMK does this unwarranted edit warring often. BMK, usually has no legitimate argument, so will fall back on some misdirection claims all of the great editing done in the past and how hard BMK has worked. (BMK you don't need to make that argument here as I have just done it for you. What you have or haven't done in the past is not particularly relevant to this unwarranted disagreement with Sergow.) Osomite hablemos 05:55, 3 May 2021 (UTC) Yeah, if and when you rack up more than 7.5 edits per month, you'll have a better feel for Wikipedia than you apparently do. (And, BTW, Osomite do you have an opinion about why an editor might have created an account in June 2020, and only start editing with it 10 months later?) Get some smarts, please. Alright, Let's take the first sentence, it unpacks as "A new village was built nearby after the war, but [rather than raze the old village, which would be the normal course of action in such a circumstance,] President Charles de Gaulle ordered the original maintained as a permanent memorial and museum." I'd say that pretty much everyone who reads the sentence understands that context, which is completely lost with Sergow's "grammatical correction". And etc. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:54, 3 May 2021 (UTC) @Beyond My Ken: you are edit warring against @Sergow: for no logical reason. The parsing of your preferred sentence is quite kafkaesque. Is your opinion the only one that counts? Have you no sense of decency? It is unfortunate that you invest your time in needless edit warring when your efforts could be put to use in collaboration to improve the encyclopedia's content. Osomite hablemos 19:01, 3 May 2021 (UTC) Your comment only shows that you have absolutely no idea what "kafkaesque" means. It reminds me of the great number of people who misuse "orwellian". Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:16, 3 May 2021 (UTC) @Beyond My Ken:. Your arrogance is amazing. Now you are challenging the definition of the word kafkaesque and claim that I have "absolutely no idea what it means". BMK, you characterize your Wikipedia participation with "a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality", (by the way, for your information, that is the definition of kafkaesque). And just so you will not have to claim that I have absolutely no idea of what "arrogance" means, the definition of arrogance is "when a person believes he or she is better than others and knows more than everyone else, or when a person believes he is capable of something he really isn't. An example of arrogance is when a person thinks he is never wrong." Osomite hablemos 22:50, 3 May 2021 (UTC) Challenging the definition of "kafkaesque"? Not at all. My comment was not directed to the meaning of the word, but to your apparent lack of understanding of it, which was just as obvious as the meaning of the sentence in the article before Sergow got hold of it. As for your other point: "Oft times the man who knows will be taken for arrogant by the unlettered." Holds as true now as it did back then. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:21, 4 May 2021 (UTC) @Beyond My Ken:, clever "quote". You made it up, didn't you? You do carry on so. The more you carry on, the more you show your arrogance. And, the more you carry on, tres kafkaesque. Osomite hablemos 09:15, 4 May 2021 (UTC) "If the shoe fits, who cares what street the cobbler's shop is on?" Beyond My Ken (talk) 10:22, 4 May 2021 (UTC) Sergow has been indefinitely blocked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:08, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

tagged for uncited material a year ago...

Whomever added (most?) of the content to the Massacre section, please add references to each paragraph. This section was tagged for no references a year ago, and no action has been taken. Unsourced material can be deleted. 50.111.44.55 (talk) 07:13, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

In the early days of Wikipedia, there was not nearly as much emphasis on being explicit about sourcing, nor, on that sourcing being in-line references. As a result, many articles were built up with material that was accurate, but not sourced, or was just generally sourced with the listing of a book or website. This material, which has been in the article for many years, has become the status quo of the article, and should not be deleted without a consensus to do so on the talk page. It differs from new unsourced information in being somewhat protected by its having been in the article for so long.

I would recommend that you do not remove anything of that nature without first discussing it here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:45, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

That's NEVER been true, Ken. Jimbo made that plain since the beginning - in fact, he wanted ALL unsourced material removed immediately. 50.111.44.55 (talk) 04:51, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

It certainly is true -- and there are numerous things that "Jimbo made plain from the beginning" which have not survived (or barely so) after 20 years of actual, practical building of an encyclopedia, because our rules are (supposedly) based on our practices, not on absolutes.

Yes, the goal, the ideal, is that all unsourced material should eventually be sourced, but material which has a long history of being part of an article's status quo must be dealt with differently than new unsourced material. This is not to say that it can't or shouldn't be removed, it is only to say that it must be discussed as to whether it is untrue/unfactual/unverifiable or true/factual/verifiable and simply in need of sourcing.

If you were to undertake a campaign of going to various articles and removing long-standing unsourced information, I can absolutely guarantee that you would meet with a great deal of resistance and demands for discussion -- and rightfully so. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:05, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

IP50, you're right, it does need sourcing. The French article is well-sourced, and I'm looking at how best to introduce proper sourcing to that section here. For starters, I'm importing some of the sources used most heavily in the French article that correspond to portions of the #Massacre section (which should perhaps be renamed something else, per MOS:NOBACKREF, but that is of lesser importance right now). You're welcome to join in as well. If you have any issues with French sources, drop a note here or on my Talk page, and I can translate; however, on-line translation now gives pretty decent results for most things, so you can try that as well (offline only, for your own information; please do not introduce any machine translated text directly into the article). Thanks Mathglot (talk) 01:48, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, not my area of expertise so I don't have any material in my private library on this matter - I'm more of an ancient historian. Cheers! - HammerFilmFan (unlogged) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.44.55 (talk) 00:51, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Death toll at Oradur is now recognised as 643, not 642.

The death toll at Oradur is now recognised to be 643. Ramona Dominguez Gil, a Spanish academic, was staying in the village with her son and his family, refugees from Franco. She was only added to the list of victims in 2020. See this article in Le Monde: https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2020/10/02/ramona-dominguez-gil-victime-jusqu-ici-ignoree-du-massacre-d-oradour-sur-glane_6054555_3246.html Jeremynicholls14 (talk) 15:18, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Edit: full list of the 643 victims here: https://gw.geneanet.org/oradour1944?lang=fr&m=TT&sm=S&t=Victime+du+Massacre+(Mort+pour+la+France) Jeremynicholls14 (talk) 15:39, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Article updated. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:43, 9 June 2021 (UTC)