Talk:Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy

Is it collaboration if:

• You keep the trains running?
• You allow Nazis to use your ports or airspace?
• You export food to Nazi Germany?
  • What if it's tobacco?
• You deport Jews or other people knowing they will be killed?
• You maintain a list of Jews?
• You publicly espouse anti-Semitism?
• You accept funding from the Nazi government?
• You allow them to use you in their propaganda, ie portray you as Nordic übermenschen?
• You turn back refugees from your borders?
• What if you refuse them transit visas?
• You sabotage your own country, which is not occupied by Nazis?
  • What if it isn't occupied by Nazis but is fighting them elsewhere?
• You voluntarily enlist in a Fascist army?
• You enlist in a Fascist army to get out of a POW camp?

I could go on. All of these are real; there are no trick questions. I am looking for a way to break up a big topic. Comments welcome. Elinruby (talk) 01:46, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

If RS say it was, yes. Slatersteven (talk) 10:19, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't believe definitive definitions are possible as to what comprises "collaboration" and what comprises "resistance." In both cases the gray areas are wide. To my mind, the great majority of the people in the occupied countries of Western Europe were passive collaborators to some extent and only a small minority (1-3 percent) were part of the organized resistance to German occupation. Most people tolerated the Germans to survive, or prosper, or with the opinion that they could serve their country best by cooperation with the Germans where cooperation was possible. I wouldn't be too hard on the passive collaborators -- nor buy into exaggerations of the participation in and accomplishments of the resistance. After a war everybody likes to claim they were on the winning side. Smallchief (talk) 11:54, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

It’s collaboration if the reliable sources say it is. Editors deciding what is and isn’t collaboration is original research. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 12:32, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, many sections of this article have no source -- reliable or not. I agree that only reliable sources should be used on wikipedia -- but an editor has to use discretion, honesty, and impartiality in evaluating the information in so-called "reliable sources." In controversial topics such as this, nationalistic fervor often trumps a search for reality. I'm not a robot. Smallchief (talk) 14:59, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

No they do not as that violates wp:or. But in one repct you are rioght, and that is why wp:rs is clear, sources have to be third party. So one can argue that if a source is published by a party with a wp:coi it is not an rs. Slatersteven (talk) 15:08, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Give an editor some credit as he sorts though contradictory "reliable sources" and selects a tone that is fair to all of them. Using reliable sources, a biased editor could portray resistance movements as brave, noble, and successful or as back-biting, fragmented, partisan failures. Both interpretations have some truth to them. Smallchief (talk)

They asked for comments, they have received them. No one has so far done any more than say "we go with what RS say". Slatersteven (talk) 15:25, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

And I am interested in them. We're going to have to split the article pretty soon and doing so by continent is awkward because of the colonial empires. I think everybody agrees that Vichy was a collaborationist régime, but we have all of the above in different countries. One thought I recently had is that a Belgian (for example) voluntarily joining the SS is definitely collaborating, and such instances are scattered through the country sections. If we consolidate those and spin it off that would reduce the article size and allow somebody to get into gray areas like POWs who joined because they didn't think they would survive the camps.

All suggestions and comments welcome. I am trying to remediate the referencing as dispassionately as possible. 02:35, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

@Shakescene: another idea. We could do both? @Mathglot: you might be interested if you aren't too busy, or want a break from what you're busy with Elinruby (talk) 04:31, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

As far as Europe is concerned, it is hard to go past Raphael Lemkin's Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. There are more specific texts on collaboration in different countries, but I have found with Yugoslavia that it is important to examine the possible national biases and the eminence of academics when deciding whose views determine the academic consensus. For example, it is not difficult to find Serb or Croat academics published mainly or only in Serbia or Croatia who seek to justify or downplay collaboration by Serbs and Croats. In such cases, you only have to look to subject matter specialists who, while they sometimes have family ties to the former Yugoslavia or were even born there, are published outside the former Yugoslavia by high quality university presses (Tomasevich, Hoare, Pavlowitch etc). I am sure the same would apply elsewhere in the world. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:26, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, that is helpful. FYI, Belarus is completely unsourced and while Kosovo has references that superficially look reliable not one of the dozen or so I just checked can be verified through Google Books; they either have no page number in the reference or no preview. Which doesn't mean they aren't just fine, but it's a problem in this context Elinruby (talk) 06:47, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Scope should correspond with the lede. From current lede: "In nations occupied by the Axis powers in World War II, some citizens and organizations collaborated..." and "Collaboration has been defined as cooperation between elements of the population of a defeated state and representatives of the victorious power." (emphasis mine) Romania and Bulgaria were Axis members, not occupied, and therefore should be removed from here. Along the similar lines, Hungary was only occupied after 1944 coup, so everything previous should be trimmed. There are Axis Powers, Responsibility for the Holocaust, and dedicated country specific articles for that stuff. Only a small part of Egypt west of El-Alamein was occupied, and current content is completely irrelevant to that. Whole "business collaboration" section has literally nothing to do with collaborating with an occupying power.--Staberinde (talk) 22:00, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

@Staberinde agree. This article was recently laboriously edited by a single editor. This is the most correct version editors might consider regressing to eliminate mistakes addressed above. - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:10, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@Staberinde Or begin removing mistakes such as removing Axis power countries such as Romania etc. but that would take time. I would revert to the correct version and then maybe examine what could be saved later. - GizzyCatBella🍁 14:21, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

It would be better to rewrite the lede. And I'm lumbered with a long section of misrepresentation that was reverted back in. The Middle East needs to be revisited, that's true, but if as proposed we spinoff all the regimental history, some of it may be important. we aren't sure what to do about individuals who broadcast propaganda. Pending a split, we are trimming out mentions like "and there was this one guy, he was definitely a notorious anti-communist." Most of the material GCB so dismissively proposed to revert is referencing, so *that* is a bad idea. Elinruby (talk) 23:32, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

PS - The Business collaboration section Was written by Piotrus, I believe he said; he definitely suggested expanding it. I actually agree with him -- these manufacturers were deeply involved in the forced labor programs, so they definitely bear responsibility for many hundreds of deaths. Yet that is lost in the current list-like section. I'd actually like to spin it off and expand it. Let's see what @Piotrus: thinks Elinruby (talk) 01:08, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Regarding spinning of a list, we already have the List of companies involved in the Holocaust... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:44, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

So... Is everything in the section covered somewhere else? Elinruby (talk) 03:04, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

By the way, "collaborationist" is almost exclusively used with respect to Vichy. Maybe we should move that to France. Elinruby (talk) 03:04, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and has a specific, different meaning than "collaborator", although non-specialists often conflate them. Mathglot (talk) 10:18, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Jewish collaborator section

It's only about Poland. Elinruby (talk) 06:24, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

WP:JUSTDOIT Marcelus (talk) 06:54, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I hear you. I did post at NPOV, but I am already going to go to wikihell for something I do here so...may as well . I hate deleting stuff but this is a case for it Elinruby (talk) 07:44, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Regarding this removal. If it's about Poland, then maybe it should be merged (but it was split from Polish section following the discussion seen in Talk:Collaboration with the Axis powers/Archive 7); see also Talk:Collaboration_with_the_Axis_powers/Archive_6#How_to_best_title_the_section_related_to_Category:Jewish_Nazi_collaborators?? Or split into its own article. We have Category:Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany with no main article, to which this section was arguably its equivalent in prose, and redirects like Jewish collaboration which you've just made to point to thin air. It is a very controversial subject, but IMHO we should improve this content, not erase it. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:13, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I have no opinion about the controversy and no objection to the material going elsewhere. My objection to it is solely based on weight, in that it is solely about individuals in a single country, whereas there are entire massacres in other countries that aren't yet mentioned, and the article is oversize. I do suggest that you review my failed verification tag and consider deleting that one guy, as all the source provided claims is that he was known to call fellow prisoners "dirty Jew". Or sourcing his mention better. However, I did review several of the other names mentioned and agree that those were collaborators. Elinruby (talk) 09:49, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby Since you already removed the content, and given your arguments, I'd suggest that you copy the removed content (minus stuff that failed verification) to the redirect I linked above. Interested editors can work to expand / improve the content there, or, if necessary, AfD the resulting article if they feel it is unsalvageable. Then you can add a see also entry to this article (or consider summarizing this in a much shorter form and retaining a much shorter section). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:59, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Ok. I considered copying it to the talk page; I agree that the redirect would be better. Probably tomorrow. A summary would require reading all of it, and possibly research to avoid generalizing too much, and my interest is minimal; more interested in the guy who became president of the European Parliament. It seems to me there is an issue of power that needs to be weighed. Definitely a time sink, but I'll commit to copying it to the redirect. Elinruby (talk) 10:11, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Please either re-add the removed content or add it to the redirect when you can, I am happy to edit and summarize it today and tomorrow. Shouldn't be WP:BLANK such info, even if it could have been better incorporated into the article. LegalSmeagolian (talk) 16:43, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

If you are going to remove large blocks of cited text just for being undue, discuss first and allow time for a consensus to form on which page it is due. WP:PRESERVE WP:NORUSH. Sennalen (talk) 17:07, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

This is an overview article about collaboration with the Axis everywhere in the world. Which needs to be cut. I just removed some other text which had been tagged as unsourced since 2011. Nobody else is addressing any of this, except in Poland. I posted to draw attention to the question of whether a woman who informed on other Jews to save her parents is more important than a massacre in Malaysia, which is what we had. I am inclined to say no and am feeling a bit impatient with the concept. Was her choice deplorable mmmmyes but I am glad I didn't have to make it. Is it notable enough for an article about Jewish collaboration in the Warsaw ghetto? Most likely but I would have to do a lot of reading to make that call. I am not questioning whether such collaboration existed, as it did in other places I am more familiar with. As an aside I think the article should be completely rewritten and probably also split so if we wind up with a collaboration in Eastern Europe it may become DUE there. As it is as a prelude to a rewriting, I have my hands full fixing copyvio and NPOV and sketchy referencing with respect to large groups of people, not just individuals.

I am about to be unavailable for several hours. If anyone wants to get started on working on the material, feel free to copy it over yourself. I have no objection, although I suggest you read it over with a critical eye as one of the names failed verification and the sourcing for several others is a Times of Israel article saying that the Polish government is wrong. It does mention these names though, down near the bottom. As RS though, there must be something better.

Meanwhile if it is somehow important that I be the one to do it, I've said I will, but I will miss lunch if I don't go now and while I am there I have offline tasks to do Elinruby (talk) 19:57, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Regardless of whether or not one source is bad and whether the section needs re-writing, this is not a case of WP:BLOWITUP. Most of the content in that section was well sourced, and since the topic was already lacking a new article, some of the information became at risk of being lost if other editors did not notice this. There are many documented instances of such collaboration, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jewish_collaboration_with_Nazi_Germany so I just don't understand why you would delete such information? I am not going to be the one to make a new article on such a controversial subject, but nearly all the text you removed was indeed sourced, so I am just confused why you did not rephrase it to state how small a minority actively collaborated. If you could just revert your previous edit for now I don't think that would cut into your lunch break. LegalSmeagolian (talk) 20:17, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

please take yes for an answer and go read up on due weight. Elinruby (talk) 23:15, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby the above user (LegalSmeagolian) can’t edit that topic area (30/500). You should discuss massive removal of source content first, don’t just delete it. - GizzyCatBella🍁 00:16, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

The section is on the small side for an article. It might fit at Nazi crimes against the Polish nation. Sennalen (talk) 00:49, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

That’s not an appropriate article, these collaborators weren't Nazis. - GizzyCatBella🍁 02:14, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

what's wrong with Collaboration in German-occupied Poland? I don't see these people mentioned in the section about Jewish collaboration or the one about individual collaboration. Elinruby (talk) 04:05, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

I seriously suggest better sourcing though. Elinruby (talk) 04:07, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

That seems ideal. Sennalen (talk) 04:10, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

A summary there would be good, yes - just like here. But we need a main article for the phenomena of Category:Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany, per WP:CATMAIN, and the content here is relevant, no? There is stuff in that category that is not Poland related and can be used to globalize this topic beyond Poland (ex. Lehi_(militant_group)#Activities_and_operations_during_World_War_II). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:21, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh you're here now, Piotrus. I guess I don't have to fix my mention of you. I hear you on catmain. But I leave that in your capable hands. I have copied the material to the redirect as you requested. For now I'm removing individuals from this article, unless they had choices, like Pétain and Bousquet. Did you ever comment on the split proposal? Because that would relieve the size pressure and might be one way to solve this. Elinruby (talk) 04:34, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

I did minor c/e to at Jewish collaboration, activating CATMAIN and such. Hopefully editors will improve this article in the future. PS. I don't think I was ever called a "template" before... :P _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:46, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

@GizzyCatBella: but I'm supposed be polite when he lectures me on Wikipedia policy? I don't see why material about Poland should be treated differently than other material. I'm back and will now carry out the edit request cough demand as I told Piotrus I would. Elinruby (talk) 04:15, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Not trying to lecture you, just refresh you. LegalSmeagolian (talk) 13:10, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

It's pretty insulting no matter what you call it. But fine. I still think you should read up on due weight. Have a nice day. Elinruby (talk) 13:44, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

—— Shakescene (talk) 04:22, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

BRD fail: moving text here in the absence of discussion

Enough is enough: the following text was reverted back into the article then abandoned. if someone can fashion a well-sourced summary out of this we can discuss including that. i personally don't think Jewish collaborators should get extra focus Elinruby (talk) 00:59, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Extended content

<! -- == Jewish collaboration == --> See also: Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany Though Germany was trying to kill all Jews in the Holocaust, there were a few Jews who, under the threat of death, collaborated with the Germans. The collaborators included individuals such as Gestapo collaborators Abraham Gancwajch and Stella Kubler, concentration-camp kapos like Eliezer Gruenbaum, Judenrat (Jewish council) members and bosses such as Chaim Rumkowski, and organizations such as Żagiew or Group 13 in the Warsaw Ghetto. Individual and group collaborators with the Gestapo operated in other cities and towns across German-occupied Poland—Alfred Nossig in Warsaw, Józef Diamand in Kraków, Szama Grajer in Lublin. Around the early 1940s, the Gestapo has been estimated to have had around 15,000 Jewish agents in occupied Poland. Jewish agents helped the Germans in return for limited freedom and other compensations (food, money) for the collaborators and their relatives, or simply under the threat of "collaborate or die". One of their assignments was to hunt down Jews who were in hiding; one of the most infamous cases involved about 2,500 Jews being lured out of hiding and subsequently captured by the Germans in the aftermath of the Hotel Polski affair in which Żagiew agents were involved. Jewish collaborators also informed Germany's Gestapo of Polish resistance, including on its efforts to hide Jews. and engaged in racketeering, blackmail, and extortion in the Warsaw Ghetto. During the war, some Jewish collaborators were executed by the Polish underground and the Jewish resistance. After World War II, a number of others were tried in Jewish transition camps and in Israel, though none of them received sentences of more than 18 months' imprisonment. References

• Agree with the removal: the contents is not suitable in the present state. Moreover, most of it is about Poland, so if anything should be covered in the already existing section, when better sources are presented. --K.e.coffman (talk) 03:48, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
• As per my comments here and here. François Robere (talk) 10:48, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
• I also agree with the removal. However, the corresponding article, Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany, needs to be attended and should not be left in its current state. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 11:03, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

  I agree, but I have my hands full here. I still have the problem of "volunteers" who may or may not have been conscripts or POWs. And the Soviet Union and the Balkans. And maybe Finland and the rest of this talk page. If you care to tackle the spinoff page, Gitz, I'm certainly not going to argue with you. I don't think anyone is working on it. The last time I checked it, it looked very much like the above, minus the reference tagging. Elinruby (talk) 12:02, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

• Agree with the removal and the new article (which has the same content) should be BLAR'd back to here. Levivich (talk) 16:43, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

User:Elinruby, you say that this text was reverted back in but having checked the article history meticulously, I don't see where this text was even removed in the first place, much less "reverted back in". Maybe I missed it. Can you provide the diffs where someone is removing it and then where someone is restoring it? The closest I can find is the text just being moved from the Poland section to its own section. Volunteer Marek 16:35, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

special:Diff/1141031634 Levivich (talk) 16:41, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Ah ok, so a completely uninvolved editor restored it, which is why I missed it because I was looking for the "usuals". Perhaps someone should ping them? Volunteer Marek 16:56, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

By all means: @User:Sennalen Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:35, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I said it shouldn't be removed until it existed on another page like Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany. After that page was made, I said it was fine to remove it here. There is no more disagreement about the content. Elinruby continues being mad about it for unclear reasons. Sennalen (talk) 19:05, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

There never was any disagreement. I posted to the Noticeboard because there was nobody here to discuss it with but my Vichy France buddy, who knows a trainwreck when he sees one and was busy with collaboration with the Japanese. Piotrus, seeing the post, asked me to put it on the redirect and I agreed, then you came along with your magic revert pen, into a situation where there previously had been collegial disagreement and an agreed-upon course of action, and created a freaking problem that made me spend hours documenting what I had already seen. That's what I am mad about. But fine, you refused to discuss and made me bring all these people in here to do it for you. Brah voe Elinruby (talk) 23:01, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

If there is a consensus to put it back here or TNT it there or whatever, I am not an impediment to any of that. My only red line was deleting it while there was an unresolved Talk page discussion on what to do with it. Sennalen (talk) 19:07, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

multiple requests to undo on their talk page Elinruby (talk) 18:04, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

You two need to move that discussion over here. Volunteer Marek 18:26, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

All discussions about this content should be in one place, here. I've BLAR'd the recent spinout back here and left a message on that talk page pointing to this discussion. This content needed WP:TNT and basically somebody, whoever wants to, should propose some content, or at least some sources for some content, and see if there's consensus to include it in this article. We only need a spinout if and when the content gets too long for this article. Levivich (talk) 18:34, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

The phenomenon was not limited to Poland. Judenrats (or analogous institutions) and ghetto police were everywhere there were ghettos, so for example in the Soviet Union or Lithuania. We also have the special case of Georg Kareski in Germany. So it seems to me that the phenomenon as such is worth describing. Albeit taking into account the peculiarities and describing the special situation in which Jewish communities were in during the Holocaust. It seems to me that this should be the main topic of the article. Certainly, one should be wary of narratives along the lines of "Jewish co-responsibility for the Holocaust," etc. And the different attitudes taken by figures such as Czerniaków, Rumkowski and Gancwajch cannot be put on an equal footing. This is my opinion when it comes to the Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany article.

While as for a separate section in this article. It is a matter of consideration whether it is needed at all, or whether perhaps it is better to describe the displays of Jewish collaboration in the sections of individual countries (Poland, Lithuania, etc.). I do not have a definite opinion on this subject.Marcelus (talk) 20:57, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Good sources:

Good sources: Blum, Alain; Chopard, Thomas; Koustova, Emilia (2020). "Survivors, Collaborators and Partisans?". Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. 68 (2): 222–255. Finder, Gabriel N.; Prusin, Alexander V. (2008). "Jewish Collaborators on Trial in Poland 1944–1956". Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry. 20: 122–148. Finkel, Evgeny (2017). Ordinary Jews. Choice and Survival during the Holocaust. Levine, Herbert S. (1975). "A Jewish Collaborator in Nazi Germany: The Strange Career of Georg Kareski, 1933-37". Central European History. 8 (3): 251–281. Mędykowski, Witold (2006). "Przeciw swoim: Wzorce kolaboracji żydowskiej w Krakowie i okolicy" [Against Their Own: Patterns of Jewish Collaboration in and around Kraków]. Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały. 2: 202–220. Person, Katarzyna (2022). "Rehabilitation of Individuals Suspected of Collaboration: The Jewish Civic Court under the Central Committee of Jews in Poland, 1946–1950". In Le Bourhis, Eric; Tcherneva, Irina; Voisin, Vanessa (eds.). Seeking Accountability for Nazi and War Crimes in East and Central Europe: A People’s Justice?. pp. 261–282. Marcelus (talk) 20:57, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

My objection to this section is that it puts a woman who informed in an effort to save her parents on a par with the French government rounding up French Jews for transport. I am not excusing the woman, but I am grateful nobody ever forced that choice on me and I question how much agency she had.

And by the way, @Sennalen:, you completely misread the situation. Piotrus asked me to move it to the redirect rather than delete, and I agreed, (possibly on my user page?) because I am trying to clean up *this* page and I'm an inclusionist, and have no objection to material getting cleaned up. But there was no discussion, there hadn't *been* any discussion in the weeks I'd been working on it, except for an editor I'd been working on France with and a few somewhat helpful drivebys. As it was, OK, I was bold, you reverted and then you refused to discuss.

And left the text abandoned here. It sucks. I haven't investigated who wrote it but look, just look, at that referencing. I want nothing to do with it. If somebody can write a verifiable summary then maaaayyybe, but I personally don't think we should have a badly-referenced special section for Jews in Poland, masquerading as a worldwide phenomenon. Elinruby (talk) 22:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

There was discussion. I said I have no more objections to you proceeding with your plan. I don't know what you want to keep discussing. Sennalen (talk) 22:45, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Sennalen: I am putting you down for "I have no intention of discussing my actions", is that correct?

It all happened before you got there. And yeah, I did some discussing on your talk page, which you stonewalled, but my experience is that the revert-happy are also quick to claim edit-warring. This is a fraught topic and frankly I didn't trust you. You were sufficiently mistaken in your preconceptions to yell OWN, and claim I was responsible for the appalling condition of this article. That's not discussion. Read a little further before you ride in like the Lone Ranger next time. Bah. Timr for a cup of tea. Better yet, stay out of problems that you aren't there to solve. Elinruby (talk) 23:16, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Sennalen: I am putting you down for "I have no intention of discussing my actions", is that correct?

This also seems to me to be the main probleme. The "Jewish" section was the only one that described in detail individual collaboration, it is a matter of finding the right WP:BALANCE. If a separate section were to exist it would have to describe the phenomenon of Jewish collaboration skillfully and in an appropriate tone. Marcelus (talk) 23:11, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Ok. I would like to look at that, but propose something quick in case they topic ban you for trying to fix that other article. If it is along the lines of my rewritten lede tho, it might be a possible plus. I tried to explain motivations in the lede without either blanket-blaming or excusing. Escapees from the ghetto are conceivably a reason to separately discuss Jews come to think of it, but you'll have to be really open to input if it is going to do you or the article any good. But I am willing to work in good faith with you if you do the same. (And I also welcome input on the lede, and the ongoing question of what is a collaborator) Elinruby (talk) 23:25, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Re The "Jewish" section was the only one that described in detail individual collaboration is a relevant consideration and is also the reason why I think that the section shouldn't deal with Georg Kareski [1] and with most of the "Good sources" listed in the collapsable box. A section (or self-standing article) on "Jewish collaboration with the Axis powers" shouldn't be a list of Jews who collaborated with Nazism. We'd better distinguish between "Jewish collaboration" and "collaboration by Jews" (or "Jewish collaborators"): while "Jewish collaboration" may be a relevant subject (though basically identical/overlappig with Judenrat), "Jews collaborators" has much less historical significance. Do we have articles on "Frenchmen who collaborated with the Nazis", "British citizens who betrayed their country", etc.? Since the other sections in the article don't usually deal with individuals unless they are in positions of authority, the subject of a Jewish section should also be insititutionalised cooperation by representatives of the Jewish communities, or at least Jewish organisations and groups of people. To quote from the removed text, no Gestapo collaborators Abraham Gancwajch and Stella Kubler, concentration-camp kapos like Eliezer Gruenbaum, Judenrat (Jewish council) members and bosses such as Chaim Rumkowski, please. (By the way, a section on Italian collaboration is still missing: Italian Social Republic) Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:47, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, you speak Italian... But please both of you, let's voluntarily restrict ourselves for purposes of this page to what can be verified online, since there are so many areas of dispute. And you mean collaboration *with* Italian fascists, right? Elinruby (talk) 01:05, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

No, collaboration by Italian fascists with Nazi occupiers (following the Armistice of Cassibile, Italy was no longer an "Axis power"). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 01:09, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I stand corrected. We've been having a messy discussion about what exactly is a collaborator. I think that the scope you have just defined would be ok even with the people complaining about including countries that at some point were Axis powers (Hungary,Soviet Union). Go ahead and start working on that period then. There is also a huge unreferenced mess in areas occupied at some point by Italy. (Yugoslavia!) I really really want some page numbers though, mkay? Just saying. Peace love and understanding Elinruby (talk) 01:54, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

The split-out content has been redirected back here: [2]. So now it is efffectively deleted; and I don't think we have consensus for that. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:41, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

@Levevich: phone for you. Meanwhile, Piotrus please take a look at the reference tagging on the section I removed from the article. Elinruby (talk) 05:04, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

@Levivich: Elinruby (talk) 05:06, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

So meanwhile -- Piotrus, there actually was a consensus. You haven't been working on this article. I realize you have your hands full but the article has been sitting around tagged like this for days and days and days now. If you want to work on other article instead, I'm fine with that, but you should examine the tagging above, and you aren't an editor that is currently working on *this* article. Your contributions have amounted to reasoning with GCB, and while this has actually been invaluable, when I have to post to noticeboards to get some tags responded to, you aren't exactly active on the page are you. Sorry to say. Elinruby (talk) 05:19, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Apart from any Redirects, {{@Piotrus}}, Elinruby pasted the full text of this article's former "Jewish collaboration" section at the top of this discussion topic. Just open up the light green bar entitled "Extended content" —— Shakescene (talk) 05:34, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and as the version in "Extended content" above shows, that text is worse than the tags on the spin-out indicate. Much of it was sourced to an unreliable source (see RSN discussion). Much of it was tagged failed verification. It's all highly controversial content (see WP:EXCEPTIONAL). Despite having been removed and restored like 10 days ago, apparently none of the problems have been fixed. Elin was right to remove it from the page -- it clearly doesn't have either local consensus here or meet the global consensus of our policies, and in BRD, doing the "R" without the "D" is also known as "stonewalling". Per WP:ONUS, the disputed content should stay out until there is consensus for inclusion. And if it doesn't have consensus here, it doesn't have consensus on a stand-alone page, either, nor does the spin-out have consensus, either. Most importantly, we should avoid splitting the discussion: this is the place to discuss what content to include and where. Levivich (talk) 06:22, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough, we can do better then a newspaper (I thought that was removed a while ago). Marcelus listed some good sources above. This section / topic likely needs a major rewrite with scholarly, not newspaper, sources. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:38, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

re tagging: in fairness to Piotrus the tags came after the spinoff. I am fairly certain that I told him there were reference problems (discussion would be in Archive 9 above) but I started tagging after the text was reverted back in, systematically checking through the references and tagging as I went because hey, I am capable of error and if we were going to do BRD I wanted to be able to talk specifics. Piotrus those failed verification tags don't include any of the sources that don't have a preview, and is in addition to those. I don't know if Levivich is right about spinoffs but Sennalen was over her head and should not have reverted the text's removal. *I* don't want to rewrite the text and am ill-equipped to do so especially since I don't think this article should have that section. Marcellus was making a proposal earlier though and I said I was willing to discuss it if he produced a draft. Maybe you could work with him on that? Elinruby (talk) 07:38, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Piotrus that the section/topic needs a major rewrite with scholarly, not newspaper, sources. I don't have any interest or intention of writing it, but anyone who wants to can propose some draft language or make a bold edit. In case it matters, an edit would not be "reverting" me if it was an expansion with new language (as opposed to replacing the old language). Levivich (talk) 02:33, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Lead paragraph

• All* of the sources in the lede discuss France specifically Elinruby (talk) 03:54, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

There's also a copyvio in the second paragraph Elinruby (talk) 05:25, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I think I have fixed that copyvio (3rd one I have found in this article) so I removed the tag for that. I have also re-written the lede to be less simplistically accusatory, but it is still very focused on France. Possibly unduly, possibly not; France is a very well-known example, and one of the less controversial. nonetheless until we split this article, its scope is still world-wide, and there are other countries in the world besides France. Working on referencing. Elinruby (talk) 03:41, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Moving out Asian sections barely trims this article

I finally did the deed and moved collaboration with Japan to Collaboration with Imperial Japan. However, this barely scratches the surface, since it moved only about 16,000 bytes out of 222 k (~7%), leaving a bloated 206 kilobytes here, which is just over what's considered a reasonable limit on Wikipedia. And, though it might just scrape the ceiling, few people are going to read all of that at one sitting (after 15 years working, on and off, on War of 1812, I still haven't read the whole article through). I see two major needs:

1. The non-Asian portion that remains still needs drastic pruning. But almost all of the recent edits I've seen (justified though individual ones might be) have added to this article's length, not trimmed it. Not every nominal volunteer Waffen-SS unit (e.g. the British Free Corps) need be mentioned here, rather than at its own country's collaboration (or resistance or WW2) page. Ditto for isolated idiosyncratic individual collaborationists or microscopic paper pro-Axis parties. But there are also major excisions and abridgements that still would need to be made to maintain balance and return this page as a useful, coherent, readable summary and comparative narrative for a topic that would interest the general reader.
2. The new article I created, Collaboration with Imperial Japan, now something of a skeleton, needs major work to make it more useful, informative and coherent. I've done enough work as I reasonably can for the moment, and with any luck, some experts on Asian history, Asian nationalism, and the Asian theatre of World War II will join in contribute, fill out and correct what is there currently.

—— Shakescene (talk) 03:46, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

We do need experts for collaboration with Japan. I've made an effort but I am positive that we are missing a lot.

Since we're getting nothing but crickets on our various proposals, I think bolder moves are in order. I'll see what I can do with the volunteer units, but much of it is completely unsourced. And somebody seems to have conflated units that were ideologically driven with recruiting PoWs and forced labor. I totally agree about the British Free Corps, btw. Some countries may not longer have an entry after the volunteer units spin off, but maybe that's a feature not a bug. Anyway, here goes. Elinruby (talk) 07:30, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Re your edit summary for adding Japanese to the lead, one of the sources is for Burma. Maybe I need to be explicit about this.Elinruby (talk) 07:34, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Sources in #Jewish collaboration

Several sources in the section are tagged as "unreliable". Some of them can be removed per WP:APLRS, along with the statements to which they're attached. François Robere (talk) 12:14, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Channel Islands

i really feel like the length is undue, but I can't come up with a way to condense the multiple sentences about the collaboration accusations being unfounded. Moving past it to other problems but I do see it. There are also still discussions of volunteer units that should be summarized and moved to the draft, but I am getting tired and just want to smooth out any problems created by the major snippage I just did. Elinruby (talk) 13:11, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

France: do we need this milhist here for context?

it could probably help another article if not: Vichy was also reluctant to either disarm or surrender its naval fleet in North Africa to the British, who worried that it might fall into German hands. Eventually the British Royal Navy sank or disabled most of the French Navy, killing over a thousand French sailors in a July 1940 attack on the Algerian naval port at Mers-el-Kébir.

References

Egypt

I hear the people saying it's UNDUE. I think it may tie into Abyssinia, but would be ok with the text getting copied to the talk page, here for example, while we figure that one out. Elinruby (talk) 15:25, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

British collaborators

seem to be missing at present. See British Free Corps as well as John Amery, [[ George Johnson Armstrong]], Norman Baillie-Stewart, Leonard Banning, Victor Carey, Dolly Eckersley, Gertrude Hiscox, Jessie Jordan, William Joyce, John Lingshaw, Arthur Owens, Jack Trevor etc. Possible sources:

• Pryce-Jones, David (31 October 2020). "Britain's Nazi collaborators". The Critic Magazine. Retrieved 3 March 2023.
• Philpot, Robert (17 September 2018). "The men and women who plotted to stab Britain in the back during WWII". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 3 March 2023.

BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:07, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

• No, as this is a general article, and we should not have lists of every collaborator. Slatersteven (talk) 12:27, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

• However,I did just discover that Wikipedia has a List of Allied traitors during World War II with an ample UK section. But I may add a brief line here about Lord Haw Haw and his colleagues. —— Shakescene (talk) 14:06, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

• I think Haw Haw is notable enough on his own to be mentioned here. Slatersteven (talk) 14:20, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

We've been taking out individuals for space reasons, unless they were political decision-makers. I'd rather not make exceptions to that since I think we should delete the appallingly-sourced section on Jewish collaborators that was POINTily reverted back in.

However I was thinking that there is probably enough material for an article about propaganda broad broadcasters. Another such was Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and it seems to me that I noticed a couple of Japanese-Americans when I was clicking around in the category, which is, on the other hand, totally about individual people. Elinruby (talk) 23:27, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Review for national pride

The comments in the British section have reminded me that a lot of the country sections seem to seek to minimize the extent of collaboration in particular countries. I propose that we scrutinize them all, as there actually seem to have been a lot of British collaborators, as long as we aren't defining collaboration to require occupation. Also see Belarus and Denmark. Just a something to mull over; I know we all have multiple other irons in the fire. Elinruby (talk) 23:47, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

¶ I don't think that (relatively speaking) there was that much opportunity for British collaboration. Most of what we might consider collaboration (restricted as we try to be to collaboration with an occupier, as opposed to treason, sabotage or defeatism in a threatened but unoccupied country) was just assistance to the Axis from outside. The exceptions here are those Britons who either absconded to Germany (like Lord Haw-Haw [William Joyce]) or found themselves under Axis occupation, e.g. the Channel Islanders and P.G. Wodehouse living in France when the Germans came.

National pride and Yugoslavia

To raise up a hornet's nest from a question (like Poland's) of mortal interest to Serbs, Croats, Communists and anti-Communists, do we need to balance the discussion of the Chetniks' sometime collaboration with Germany and Italy with the ever-problematic German–Yugoslav Partisan negotiations? Although they might have led to a more lasting arrangement, the resulting understandings lasted only a few weeks or months until Adolf Hitler ordered an end. Whether included or excluded, they pose gnarly questions of neutrality, balance and WP:Undue weight and could, if incorrectly or improperly handled, invite very heated debates, reversions, counter-reversions, and special pleading (q.v. the long contention over Jewish collaboration balanced against Polish collaboration). —— Shakescene (talk) 01:33, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

I have looked at that but there is a steep learning curve. My best suggestion at the moment is a lot of talk page discussion. It seems a lot of what went on was in the category of welcoming what was perceived as outside help with ethnic nationalist disputes.Elinruby (talk) 23:12, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

France

For a long time France maintained that Vichy was not a legitimate government, presumably to downplay French responsibility. 00:42, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Morocco

The Morocco subsection refers to Vichy — both administrative arrangements and anti-Semitic campaigns, but unless we can show that the Vichy anti-Semitism in these cases was directly done to please, placate or obey German (or even less likely, Italian) occupiers, the whole subsection is irrelevant to this article's topic and should therefore be excised or moved somewhere else. French anti-Semitism (like French philo-Semitism) has it own deep, rich roots long preceding any Axis occupation — no one attributes the anti-Dreyfus campaign to collaboration with foreign powers.

—— Shakescene (talk) 04:11, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

a good point. Give me a little time to mull it over though; I need a break from this article. Or if you copy it here to be worked on or moved. I am probably ok with whatever but would prefer not to need to track the material down in the history Elinruby (talk) 20:49, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

With this talk page again approaching 100k, what could be archived?

This talk page is now around 86,000 bytes (of which nearly 10,000 is just importing the Jewish collaboration section from the Article page).

At some point, we'll need to move some of this page as it now exists either into #/Archive 9 or into a fresh Archive 10.

I'd like to know which current Talk Page sections other editors here think could be archived and which they'd like to keep here, either because the topic hasn't been fully resolved, or because they'd like to keep it handy for reference purposes (e.g. #Is it collaboration if: or various sets of sources and citations).

On the other hand, some simple queries or discussions of topics now settled (e.g. should we split between Asia and Europe/Africa?) can probably be safely moved to Archives with no significant loss to useful current discussion. Any candidates for archiving or keeping here? —— Shakescene (talk) 21:52, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

first top six sections can go unless you need something there. I was looking up how to archive and I'll get Madagascar and Brittany, which should help quite a bit, but I want to find a home for the text. The French Navy too. The very long BRD fail section has an active discussion. I'm not sure we're done with British collabotators. HtH Elinruby (talk) 22:29, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

And yeah, splitting off Asia is settled Elinruby (talk) 22:30, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

All right (if jumping the gun), I went ahead and moved about three dozen sections from this page to #/Archive 9, whose contents page now reads as follows:

== Contents ==

• 1 * "Self-defense"
• 2 * Is a separate Political collaboration section still needed?
• 3 * Marseilles roundup conflated w/ Battle of Marseilles
• 4 * Axis
• 5 * Poland : failed verification
  • 5.1 * References
• 6 * Polish puppet government considered but rejected by Germans
• 7 * Jewish collaborator section
• 8 * Going to need a split
• 9 * Request for Input
• 10 * France
• 11 * Iraq
• 12 * Lebanon and possibly South Africa
• 13 * Reichskommissariat Ostland
• 14 * Needs work: no discussion of collaboration
• 15 * South Africa
  • 15.1 * South Africa
• 16 * High-priority: Estonia
• 17 * Note on references
• 18 * Adrian Weale
• 19 * Volunteers -split proposal
• 20 * Kosovo
• 21 * Greece
• 22 * Hong Kong
• 23 * Sweden

Of course, anyone who wants to move any of these back here for further discussion should feel free to do so.

—— Shakescene (talk) 02:39, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Added * 24Madagascar: this is milhist, needs a home to contents of #/Archive 9 —— Shakescene (talk) 05:18, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I've moved the Jewish collaborator section of Archive 9 into a new /Jewish collaboration archive page, together with the BRD fail section formerly here (on the current Talk page). This new archive already has 40,000 bytes, and moving those sections here significantly cuts both this page and /Archive 9, while giving us more breathing room here to consider all the other questions and queries. —— Shakescene (talk) 15:10, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm not at all sure about this. I had missed this comment and I spent 5 minutes looking around for our recent discussions on "Jewish collaboration". Having them here doesn't look halpful to me. I suggest we move them back either to this talk page or to Archive 9 or to a newly created Archive 10. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:58, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

It has been reverted back; the subpage link above links back to this page now. Also: 100k is not a problem for server load, this isn't 1998. If the size of the page is a problem for your scrolling finger, collapsing a few sections (but leaving them here) will solve that. If you're not sure how to collapse, reply below with a suggestion of what to collapse, and if there doesn't seem to be any objection, I can collapse it for you. I've also added a "Skip" nav box at the top, to get you instantly to the bottom of the page, no scrolling needed. Mathglot (talk) 17:32, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

"volunteers"

For clarity:

I'm working on the "volunteers" off in my sandbox. The section is pretty much uncited, except for the references I had added to the French section. The articles the wikilinked in the list are almost all completely uncited also. I am expecting this to become a separate article, or perhaps a different section here if if this text turns out to also be impossible to substantiate and a lot of of it has to be cut.

One of the reasons for consolidating discussions of volunteer units is that scattered all through this articles are Lots of sentences like: Unit A was recruited from place x and sent to place y where they committed a massacre in village x₁. The unit was renamed to B, and merged into Army M.

I considered a draft but for whatever reason I'm not longer autopatrolled and I'd get a barrage of reference tags., which would annoy me and maybe make me uncivil.

I'll share it here when I have something coherent. Meanwhile most of the material was copied, not removed, from the article, but for decision-making purposes, if other editors are working on articles, it would help this initiative if you could make notes below here. For some countries, if we remove volunteer military units almost no information will be left. We do have a rough consensus, I think, that voluntarily enlisting in an Axis Army would make you an Axis collaborators. What I am trying to figure out is which of these volunteer units was truly voluntary.

Reading through the article I have seen mentions of

• Ideological true believers (Norway? Or was that appeasement? Belgium? France)
• Lied to (Denmark?)
• Conscripts
• Hungry (POWs?)

So anyway, please let me know here if you find applicable stuff in the sections you are working Elinruby (talk) 04:42, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Task distribution

Here is my understanding of the situation:

Shakescene -- in charge of sanity, format, pointy questions about balance, Did or is doing work on puppet states and collaboration with Japan

Marcelus - discussing Jewish collaboration, has done some work on Estonia that improved that section. Maybe a bit too milhist but I'm thinking it's a first draft and it's still better than the rewritten copyvio that we had there.

Gitz6666 - seemed to be suggesting he cover Italy after the Germans invaded it. Has not actually confirmed that.

Me: deep dives, getting yelled at.Elinruby (talk) 04:53, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Archiving the Jewish collaboration sections (copied from a User talk page)

Talk:Collaboration with the Axis powers

Hi, I'm not sure I understand the move of the discussion to a sub-page: [3]. It would be difficult to find the discussion (Talk:Collaboration with the Axis powers/Jewish collaboration) unless you spot the diff in the article history. The discussion also appears to be still active. Could you clarify? -- K.e.coffman (talk) 21:11, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

(1) Thanks for a very useful comment (about the visibility and retrievability of this archive page). While I was able to do something similar a few years ago at Talk:War of 1812 [4], I couldn't format the added index item very elegantly (I think because the articles used different archive bots), but you can see that I did insert a pointer. If you have greater skill and knowledge with this kind of formatting, please go ahead.

(2) The main reasons I sent two "Jewish collaboration" topics to an archive were (a) because of the physical size of the then-existing Talk Page (pressing beyond the recommended limit of 100,000 bytes), (b) because the enormous length of this topic's extended disputes hampered my reading of other Talk Page items, and (c) to keep several current and future Talk Page discussions of Jewish collaboration together and thus more coherent (not duplicating points in ignorance of earlier discussion). See, for example, my rationales at Talk:Collaboration with the Axis powers#With this talk page again approaching 100k, what could be archived?.

@Elinruby and K.e.coffman: —— Shakescene (talk) 03:53, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I support keeping the discussion together and have mostly left matters of layout to Shakescene. I largely caused the space crunch by copying the text to talk, as I don't want to delete work that isn't duplicated elsewhere, and the current state of the section tagging is indicative of my reason for preferring to put my time elsewhere. It is notable that the size of the thread tripled overnight.

However, while I rather like the idea of a subpage, I see the point about difficulty finding that subpage. I was envisioning something like a pinned post at the top of the page. Is something like that possible, @Mathglot:? I was looking under the impression that the thread was close to done, but maybe I just wanted to to be.

I take it that you are participating, K.e.coffman? If so I appreciate that. Incidentally, I noticed earlier today that much of the material is duplicated at Collaboration in German-occupied Poland. Ping me if there are any questions about this response. Elinruby (talk) 04:18, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

It's not conventional to move a discussion to a subpage (other than an Archive), although I've seen various highly specialized supporting information (like references for the Buddha, or definitions of gender-related terms) placed in a subpage, which is then referred to from the Talk pages; but the content of the subpages themselves did not contain any discussion at all, just information. Imho, the information moved from Talk to the subpage should be reinstated, and the subpage should be deleted. Just because the discussion is long is no reason to move it to a subpage. As far as pinning it, it's technically feasiable but that's usually reserved for some topic of lasting importance that should always be visible to all editors and never be archived; does this page meet that standard? Mathglot (talk) 05:11, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Not really.

Speaking for myself, I deleted the section weeks ago, thinking well, it will still be in the history. Somebody parachuted in and reverted that and proceeded to do nothing with it. Nor did anyone else. I've essentially tag-bombed it, but I stand by those tags, and nobody did anything about them or the problems they represent, including the heavily used source that got scoffed at at RSN. Levivich has posted that he is not going to rewrite the section. Marcelus seemed somewhat interested but now seems more interested in the Baltics, where we do need him. So. The question is, is this text still needed, for rewrites or for the Arbcom case? I think the arbitrators can navigate article histories, and anyone who might want to do a rewrite is a long-standing editor. Maybe we should stick to the letter of policy with this article, hmm? Whatever that is; don't think I have ever looked up archiving policy. I don't want to ping all those people here to Shakescene's talk page. What I *could* do if it seems like a good idea is do the pinging in a post on the talk page asking if anyone is going to rewrite the section and saying that on second thought the thread is simply moving to the archives. Elinruby (talk) 05:48, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

¶ Although I rather dread the possible results, I'm copying this section of my Talk page to a new section of Collabo Talk. I just hope that this discussion won't convert into yet another interminable, dense contention that clogs up everything else.

And, of course, thanks to everyone for his or her comments. —— Shakescene (talk) 06:07, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

[User:Shakescene|—— Shakescene]] (talk) 06:04, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby: Yes, I wanted to check on the discussion but could not find it, until I looked through the article history.

@Shakescene: Hi, I don't think this addresses the issue still: [5], since these threads are not searchable via the archive box. And as I mentioned, I wanted to comment further, so it did not look to me that the discussion has concluded. I suggest the thread(s) be restored to this page, and be allowed to be archived by the bot in the regular way. Meanwhile, I changed the archiving period from 90 to 10 days, for while the Talk page is very active. Hopefully, this will help alleviate the clutter. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:14, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

(1) I'm too sleepy now to consider and explore this right now, but by copying from an earlier version of Talk:War of 1812, I was able (purely for illustration) to post at the top of this page a sample of the expanded archive box (including /Jewish collaboration) that I was trying to make.

There are technical problems with this that I don't know enough to adjust (e.g. specifying Miszabot as the archive), but simply by appearance, it should clarify what I was hoping to achieve. As with the War of 1812 example, there is also space to insert the dates covered by each archive page. On the other hand, this sample box can be modified or removed for technical reasons, once its illustrative purpose has been served.

(2) "Who won?" was a perennial topic at Talk:War of 1812, so, without a dedicated archive, one would have to search through all those twenty-odd archives to find, learn from, and avoid duplicating earlier discussions covering the same ground. And the other active and archive pages became bloated with this one particular question, making it hard to find and comment on other topics. Something similar can be said about the nomenclature disputes at Talk:The Bronx. But I did go through the titles at Archives 1 to 7 of this Talk page and did not find a similar backlog of disconnected discussions of Jewish collaboration — which makes consolidation less of a consideration, although the two closely-related discussions of Jewish collaboration did come from separate archives. The current consoldated archive would also make a relevant, connected space for any future dicussions of Jewish collaboration

(3) I still believe that restoring the latest discussions here would increase both the physical bloat and the impediment to navigating all the other topics worth discussing.

Enough for now. Best wishes —— Shakescene (talk) 07:50, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

it was an endless topic because an editor kept asserting with a straight face that Canadian history was a fringe theory, mumble. But that is another matter. I see merit in both positions here, but since I a still annoyed about the war of 1812 and am weary of Poland in the Holocaust. I am going to stay out of this discussion. Elinruby (talk) 08:08, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Actually, I guess I shouldn't. I don't see anything in help: archiving about doing this. I certainly didn't agree with it at War of 1812, but as I recall I was preoccupied with getting dragged to some drama board for daring to suggest that the American version of events might be incorrect, even though I wasn't in fact advocating a change. I mention this not to relitigate the way Deathlibrarian kept getting shouted down, but to say that much as I disagree with the existence of the section, especially in its current state, I don't think that Wikipedia should segregate attempts to discuss that way. We only have a couple of sections on this topic. If the threads proliferate (and I am about to start another) it might in fact be a good idea to maintain a duplicate dedicated archive. But maybe we should stick to policy and refrain from novel formatting. Elinruby (talk) 19:50, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps solution is to pin, as I have done, #Jewish collaboration with Axis nations to the top (no.1) of this current Talk Page, where it reads

For a consolidated discussion of this topic, please go to /Jewish collaboration.

I think that this pointer and item no. 2, the invaluable and handy set of questions posed by Elinruby, #Is it collaboration if:, should stay at the top of this Talk Page and not archive over time. Those interested in discussing the topic would see it on the Table of Contents (or at first scroll) and be directed to a page with all the previous discussion. —— Shakescene (talk) 01:23, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Basically, as long as people can find the Jewish collaboratiin thread I personally am ok with whatever. But it is very important that people be able to find the thread. And btw Marcelus is indeed drafting a rewrite. I also think that those questions are important, but then I would. More importantly they are currently mostly unanswered,Elinruby (talk) 07:01, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

@Shakescene:, while there is precedent for creation of Talk subpages in certain situations (like grouping lists of definitions, or lists of references), they are not used as an alternative to discussion on the main Talk page. Your creation of the /Jewish collaboration subpage is problematic for a couple of reasons: it's confusing to people, as it isn't clear whether it is an archive (therefore, no further discussion should take place there), or if it's open to further discussion, and it's fragmenting the discussions, because it isn't clear where to look or comment. If it is an archive page, then it should follow the standard naming sequence, which at this Talk page is numeric; if it's a discussion page still open to further comment, then the content belongs here on this page, per WP:TALK. (Claims of this page getting too big to contain it are a red herring; this page is very far from being large enough to cause problems.)

So, I think you have two choices:

• If the page is not open to further comment, then please rename it in standard archiving name sequence. (Don't worry about incoming links to the current name; a redirect-from-move will take care of that.)
• If it is still open to further comment, then copy the content here to the Talk page. (Combined size would be 90kb, which is nowhere close to too large.) If you are worried about your scrolling finger getting tired because of that added section, that is not a problem: we can collapse it.

Please pick one, as the current situation is causing confusion, and is contrary to Talk guidelines. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:55, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I've moved the content of the subpage back into this page, which can be found here. Feel free to collapse it, if you wish. In either case, it will get picked up by the bot, and archived at the appropriate time, if there are no further replies that section. The old subpage has been moved to Draft. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 10:09, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Jewish collaboration with Axis nations

For a consolidated discussion of this topic, please go to /Jewish collaboration.

—— Shakescene (talk) 17:58, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

All Jewish collaborators were Polish?

I encountered this assertion in a troll through the archives last night. This seems to explain why the removed section only dealt with Polish Jews. I am NOT suggesting its return, and definitely not in its currently form, but surely kapos existed elsewhere, and surely, at least in the form of trying to survive, this is not just a Polish phenomenon? Or Jewish for that matter?

I feel the need of a reality check, this assertion having been made with such utter assurance. Elinruby (talk) 20:02, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm working on Jewish collaboration section in my sandbox (you can see here: User:Marcelus/sandbox10), I was planning to post here for discussion, because it's almost finished.

And to answer your question: no they weren't all Polish Jews. Yehuda Bauer for example as two the most "collaborationist" Judenrat leaders lists David Cohen and Abraham Asscher from Amsterdam ghetto. Judenrats (or similiar bodies) existed everywhere where German set up ghettos, so Poland, Soviet Union, Baltic countries, but also in Bohemia, Netherlands etc. Marcelus (talk) 20:09, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Ok. Thank you, I sort of needed to hear that from someone. I think, if you would, hold off on starting another thread until we get some sort of decision on archive format; I will go read your sandbox later today. And maybe reply here? We should have a decision soon on archiving, and right now I need a break; the archives were pretty discouraging. Elinruby (talk) 20:34, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

@Marcelus: based on a fast skim I think I like where you're going with it, and you do provide a rationale for a separate section about Jews. You need more references though. Pinging @Zero0000: who was telling me something about Lehi a while back. Elinruby (talk) 20:49, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Is this collaboration?

   Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force

Main article: Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force

The Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force, composed of volunteers, was formed in 1944. Its leadership was Lithuanian, and its weapons came from the Germans. The purpose of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force was to defend Lithuania against the approaching Soviet Army and to defend the civilian population in the Lithuanian territory from actions by Soviet and Polish partisans. The LTDF disbanded itself after it was ordered put itself under direct German command, and refused to swear the Hitler Oath. Shortly before it was disbanded, the LTDF suffered a major defeat by Polish partisans in the battle of Murowana Oszmianka. Elinruby (talk) 10:10, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

If sources describes it as such it definitely is. IMO it is it main purpose was to fight against Germany's enemies using Germany's equipment Marcelus (talk) 10:28, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, yes it is. Slatersteven (talk) 11:04, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby

Viewing the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force as collaborationist is wrong considering these facts:

• Refusal to obey German orders and only listening to the orders of Lithuanians themselves
• Lithuanians purposefully delaying and not swearing the Hitler Oath
• Its personnel was severely punished for disobedience to the Germans: ~80 soldiers were killed in Paneriai, while ~52 officers, including the commander, were deported to the Salaspils concentration camp.

Sources for this (in Lithuanian, not much exists in English): [6], [7].

In this English-language book, it says: In 1944, the Germans granted permission for General Povilas Plechavičius to form a Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force consisting of about 20,000 soldiers. The Germans aimed to utilize this force countering Soviets, but when the Germans attempted to assign SS-related tasks to the newly formed unit, General Povilas Plechavičius refused to comply. Therefore, soon after creation of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force the Germans realized that the unit was pro-Lithuanian and posed a threat to the Nazi regime. As a result, the Germans arrested the newly created unit's staff members and disbanded the unit. However, a substantial part of unit's soldiers joined the underground and contributed towards Lithuanian armed resistance efforts against the Soviets after World War II.

@Marcelus, the Polish Armija Krajowa in the Vilnius Region was armed and uniformed by Germans and fought against Germany's enemies - the Soviet partisans. So, if you say that the LTDF was collaborationist because it had German weapons and uniforms, then you should view the AK as a German collaborator as well, for consistency's sake. Cukrakalnis (talk) 17:54, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

As I said, we need to rely on sources and describe the whole complexity of the situation, what I mean is that the mention of the LVR should be in the article with an explanation that it was a failed attempt and the Lithuanians and Germans envisioned it differently. Mention of the short-lived German-Polish arrangement in Belarus should also be included. Marcelus (talk) 18:41, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

There are actually several instances of stuff like this in other countries. Just to take the discussion out of the Baltics. There's one unit (Ukrainian? Albanian? I can find it) where two brigades defected to the Free French the minute they got to the Western Front. (Apparently the Germans didn't trust them closer to home). Either the Danish or the Dutch unit was assured that they would be used for home defense but instead were sent to the Eastern Front, where they were decimated.

Getting back to this instance: How about, in the big re-write that's coming, we say that they were recruited and armed, then refused to serve? And then in the likely spinoff we go into further detail? Please note that is about more than Lithuania as there are several units with similar circumstances. Also note, the above discussion is based on wp-en articles about individual units that are very badly referenced, and referencing help would be appreciated Elinruby (talk) 21:59, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Bottom line, describing the whole complexity of the situation sounds good to me. My answer to my own question is more questions. What were these people told, and beyond accepting weapons, did they take any overt action on behalf of the Germans, even one that they perceived to also be in their own interests? Belarus section needs help. I have already noticed that the Charlemagne SS were there and they definitely *were* ideological collaborators, but I haven't done anything about it yet because I have a poor grasp of the overall context. Elinruby (talk) 23:52, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I offer my help in re-writing certain sections of the article, e.g. Lithuania and the Soviet Union (including Belarus), as I have read a lot of material about them and consider myself to have a sufficiently solid grasp of their context. I agree that the complex situations should be described wherever they arise. Although there is the problem of having arguably doubtful cases in an article titled Collaboration with the Axis powers, because the reader very easily could consider all people and units named here as collaborators, which is unfair IMO.

Before any major re-writing, these are the questions I think should be answered:

• What is the WP:SCOPE here? You already asked that above (the section Is it collaboration if:) almost a month ago, but it doesn't seem like anything clear came out of that and the current WP:LEDE does not have a sharp definition. Perhaps the material now in the lede should be moved to a new section definition or something similar. My approach would be that the intention is what matters most and that these cases should be highlighted.
• What about Japan? The Empire of Japan was certainly an Axis power, but collaboration with it is barely mentioned in this article. That said, it is linked to at the very top of the article.
• This article lacks conciseness and clarity. Certain sections have a disprotionate amount of material compared to others: e.g. ~23kB for the Baltic states and ~15kB for the whole of the Soviet Union. The section on Transcaucasia is basically only about Armenia. I find it amusing that the subsection of Central Asia is included under Collaboration by country in Europe, because it was part of the USSR. Considering how bloated this article is, I would think that there should be a rule capping the maximum of paragraphs per section (maybe 3), otherwise it is too much.

Essentially, much of the material in this article should be moved to dedicated and specific articles, which would be linked to in this article, just to keep the article within manageable limits. The article's scope should be tightened and the sections cut down to no more than just a few paragraphs. Entire books and monographs can be written about each country, so we should be careful to not get lost in rabbit-holes. It really is very easy to get bogged down in literature and lose track of the basics and the most important things. (Just a general caution, not directed personally to anyone.) Cukrakalnis (talk) 14:23, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

P.S. the lack of consistent citing in this article is a total nightmare Cukrakalnis (talk) 14:25, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

The Soviet Union has already been highlighted as a problem and one that I for one am very ill-equipped to tackle. Feel free. Re spinoffs, yes I agree, the scope is much too huge. Japan was spun off a couple weeks ago but also needs a huge amount of help. The volunteer units have been proposed by me as another spinoff as there were many shades of collaboration there that deserve more detail. The obstacle to further breaking it up is a lack of outside comment on proposals. Currently it's organized by continent but IMHO it may make more sense to split by empire. IE British, French, German, Italian. Soviet.Union, although that was not de jure an empire of course. Totally agree on rabbit holes; have been down several in this effort. I think the answer to the balance problem is to spinoff and expand though; I've trimmed the longer sections quite a bit already and there isn't much fat there. And the military history context has been a problem Elinruby (talk) 23:28, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby Since you asked me to comment here, and since I used to edit this topic area long ago, I'll offer a few thoughts. It's a difficult question, and basically, we should stick to what the sources say. If we have sources that clearly call LTDF collaborators, then quote them. Otherwise, this is complicated and maybe we should split such content into a dedicated article? There may be some OR/SYNTH issues, if we use some definition of collaboration and then argue that LTDF meets it even if no RS actually says so. The case of Battle of Murowana Oszmianka is very interesting, in general, as I think it was LTDF's largest battle. So from that angle, the only fight this formation got into was against the Polish partisans, right? So on the surface, they did act, if briefly, as German's auxiliaries, from what I recall. But, again, we should focus on what do the reliable sources say? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:04, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

As for WP:Scope, I think we can easily limit ourselves to collaboration with Nazi Germany. We will then avoid the situation where Romania, which was part of the Axis, is listed as a "collaborator." And a collaboration with Japan or even Italy is a separate topic.

As for the length of sections, I think we can't think that big country = big section, small country = small section. It all depends on the complexity of a country's situation. For example when it comes to the Baltic countries, their peculiarity lies in the existence of many relatively small different collaborative formations (vide Estonia). Each of them must be mentioned along with their specifics ( for example, how they were recruited, to whom they were subordinate, etc.). This lengthens the article. In other countries, the collaborations may have been numerically larger, but less complicated, making them take less space to describe.

Another issue is the current division, which should be rethought. Because, for example, we have the subsection "Ukraine", as part of the "Soviet Union". In view of this, where should the collaboration of Ukrainians from eastern Poland be described? At the moment it is not mentioned at all (Roland Battalion, OUN, etc.). Similarly, Belarusians or Volksdeutsche? Perhaps instead of "Ukraine" it should be "Ukrainians"? Marcelus (talk) 11:55, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@Marcelus @Elinruby The article's title is "Collaboration with the Axis powers". Perhaps the Collaboration with the Axis powers should be renamed to Collaboration with Nazi Germany (now a redirect to this), while a new article called Collaboration with Fascist Italy be created to take in the sections almost partly/exclusively about that (British Somaliland, Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, Slovene Lands)?

In case the article is made to be specifically about collaboration with Germany, I would be very much in favour entirely removing the sections - Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary - which now mostly focus on those unoccupied states and their treatment of Jews, so there's actually not that much about collaboration itself in the Romania and Hungary sections.

Removing the material that is Italy-related to a specialized article and removing unoccupied countries from an article about collaboration (which implies occupation) would remove 20-25 kB from this gigantic article of <200kB.

I understand the issue with Ukraine, so I think the wisest division would be a sections about Ukrainians (Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany already exists). Overall, considering how collaboration in Nazi Germany worked due to their views about race, etc., would it not be better to have sections based on nationality or even ethnicity? This would have the benefit of not singling out Jews in their own section at the very end. This would also split up the Czechoslovakia section into Czechs and Slovaks, which definitely had different experiences during this time. Just putting things out there, so to speak.

I will try and clean up the Category:Collaboration with the Axis Powers, because it is an unbelievable mess which suffers from overcategorization. Cukrakalnis (talk) 20:45, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

My rationale for Hungary was that it was *not* an Axis power when its top general cut a personal side deal with the Nazis that tipped the country into the fascism column, and the prime minister committed suicide. Romania is there from an early exploration of the collaboration in the Balkans topic area, in which I claim zero expertise so this is of course discussable. I did not find anything of the kind for Romania but it was very much a shallow dive. Good idea on the category.

(A bit later) I know I keep asking this but: Is it collaboration if you singlehandedly send an entire country into fascism? Because of some dream of empire? I am not convinced that occupation of one's country of citizenship in a sine qua non for collaboration. We have a category for US collaborators for example. Not... declaiming, just... Innocently asking questions. 22:01, 15 March 2023 (UTC) Elinruby (talk) 22:01, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

I keep hearing "whatever the sources say". It's true, but simplistic. Which sources? About collaboration? I am using the one at Collaboration in warfare. I keep meaning to being those sources over here. About who collaborated? The sourcing in this article when I got here was poor to be polite. National narratives diverge. Individual sources may or may not be controversial. None of this, AFAICT has been particularly your fault; I am just venting. But that is something of an answer, and I do not know the answer to my own question, so I am going to shut up now for the moment at least. Elinruby (talk) 02:53, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

(on re-reading myself} Sorry to confusingly rant, guys, I think I was talking about Wartime collaboration above, but I should have added the definition I was talking about while I had it open, because I didn't find it when I looked for it earlier. I think it must have been in one of the sources for that article; it had to do with agency, or whether collaboration was a freely made choice. I'll nail that down, but meanwhile Piotrus' definition of intention amounts to the same thing, I think. If you signed but to protect your neighbors from going to a gulag then maybe the people who signed up to bring an Aryan nation into being are Nazi-er Nazis. Meanwhile I added a different reference to the lede; the ones I replaced were for Burma, which is no longer in this article, because we spun off Collaboration with Japan, and the Middle East, which is poorly developed and maybe should be left for future work, as they say. The rewritten lede is mine and although I wrote it carefully I am open to changes, of course, except that what was there was mostly about a definition created to discuss Vichy France so let's not just revert it, hmmm? Elinruby (talk) 11:53, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

also against a hard and fast rule about length, at least until we address the issue of the Channel Islands having its own section. This is because strictly speaking it isn't part of Britain, but although somebody seems to think there was collaboration there, given the difference in scale it doesn't seem due for its section to be the same length as the USSR. Good point about Central Asia. We also need to address that the Ukraine section seems very fixated on "Ukrainians" and pogroms. Ukrainian... Police? UNA? There are divergent narratives here I believe but we need to do better than "Ukrainians". Also pls note that Algeria was part of France at the time. Elinruby (talk) 22:16, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

(I see I messed up the indent again. Very sleepy, sorry. Talk amongst yourselves, getting coffee.)Elinruby (talk) 22:18, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Proposal for the "Jewish collaboration" section

Link, feel free to comment, I'm waiting for opinions and I'm open to changes Marcelus (talk) 11:31, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby nobody made any comments, I think we can move the section from my sandbox to the article and work on it there, what do you think? Marcelus (talk) 10:17, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

I read the draft and I think it's good. It adequately addresses the concern I had raised above (the subject of a Jewish section should also be insititutionalised cooperation by representatives of the Jewish communities, or at least Jewish organisations and groups of people) and is supported by good sources. Two minor remarks

• After the sentence (from the draft) "In some of the larger ghettos, the Judenrats were forced to prepare lists and hand over people to the Germans for deportation", we could following Bauer 2001 more closely and specify that Only in some of the larger ghettos were the Jundenräte forced to provide the Germans with lists and cooperate in the handing over of victims. In most places this never happened (verbatim quotation from p. 143).
• Re Jewish police, we could mention the case of Calel Perechodnik, since we have a dedicated article. E.g., immediately before the sentence "In 14 ghettos, Jewish police cooperated with the resistance movement" (from the draft) we could have "In his memoir, the Jewish policeman Calel Perechodnik tells of handing over his own wife and daughter to the killers and of his subsequent remorse".

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:18, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

I am reading too many things at once. My brain just exploded. More comments later, but yeah, although I still think that it should be its own article, for now I agree that it doesn't need to be in a sandbox. It's a vast improvement in referencing over what was there. I still think that if it is worth covering as a global phenomenon then it's worth its own article, but that growth will be easier here where people can find it. Is Amsterdam in the article? If we're taking it out of the Poland section, which I am not necessarily against, we need to discuss more than just the Warsaw ghetto, on the other hand. Mmmyeah go ahead and move it in, I think. I am planning to move more stuff about volunteers into my sandbox, and try for some organization there. Anyone have any objection to any of that, feel free to comment. I would like to do a copy edit to that draft, but preoccupied right now. Still needing volunteers for Italy, Balkans, Greece, Japanese occupation, Finland etc. Unsure if anyone is doing Soviet Union. And as noted above the references need work. Please discuss which one we should standardize on if anyone chooses that task. Sorry for the brain dump.

Would dearly love to discuss architectural changes also. Probably gone for the next twelve hours at least if somebody wants to avoid edit conflicts. Elinruby (talk) 10:47, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Are we still trying to avoid a focus on individuals? Methinks it depends on whether we are spinning the section off as an article and how soon. On the Judenrāte, the going along to protect the group isn't all that different that what Vichy did. we should discuss this but my primary concern is that we avoid oversimplification. Personally. Elinruby (talk) 10:53, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby I wrote this section with the idea that it is a summary of an article that is not yet written. For this reason, I purposely did not focus on specific individuals. Except for Gancwajach and Stern, whom Bauer clearly identifies as leaders of the collaborationist organizations. Therefore, I would not add Perechodnik at this point. I believe that the article should include many more cases and a comparison between them (for example, the leaders of the Judenrats and the different stances they took).

I'll add a section with an addition proposed by @Gitz6666 Marcelus (talk) 11:12, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

summary of an article not yet written sounds like we are on the same page. Elinruby (talk) 11:16, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Syria and the Lebanon

The first paragraph of Collaboration with the Axis powers#Syria and the Lebanon (League of Nations mandates) has an exhaustive list of the Vichy French forces without indicating if and how they collaborated with Germany and Italy.

The Vichy government's Armée du Levant (Army of the Levant) under General Henri Dentz had regular metropolitan colonial troops and troupes spéciales (special troops, indigenous Syrian and Lebanese soldiers). He had seven infantry battalions of regular French troops at his disposal, and eleven infantry battalions of "special troops", including at least 5,000 cavalry in horsed and motorized units, two artillery groups and supporting units. The French had 90 tanks (according to British estimates), the Armée de l'air had 90 aircraft (increasing to 289 aircraft after reinforcement) and the Marine nationale (French Navy) had two destroyers,a sloop and three submarines}.

Some context for the subsequent attack on Palmyra is probably necessary, but (as Elinruby often says) this is not an article about military history. (If it were, then enumerating the ground, air and naval forces available for combat or defence would likely become rather more relevant.)

Can this paragraph be shortened, summarised or even deleted without making the following paragraphs less understandable? Or could it be recast with an eye to showing the collaborationist (or for that matter anti-collaboration) implications? —— Shakescene (talk) 07:01, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, let's see. It's Vichy. Vichy is collaborationist. But a lot of my recent mumbling is to the effect that we should be focusing more on the Darlans of the world than the schmucks who joined a unit, unless maybe they did it on purpose. My answer, with respect to this content, which I put there because this is the Vichy Army, is hmmm. I think there may an untold story here. On the other hand I don't think we are going to tell it anytime soon. So I think we should treat it like Brittany, which would be higher priority anyway, because the militia we aren't talking about there was at least a volunteer ideological Nazi unit.

TL;DR: imo copy all that milhist to the talk page and let it archive. I would like to make sure it's covered *somewhere* and various JStor rabbit holes make me think there's a history there, but since we're discussing a split, I think North Africa and/or the French Protectorates might be a separate topic that is currently beyond my ken and yours, like the Mufti. Elinruby (talk) 22:42, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

@Shakescene @Elinruby I think we should remove the milhist to an article where it's more relevant. IMO the milhist of certain states, even if collaborationist, is not what this article about collaboration was aiming for, because I don't see any milhist of the Italian Social Republic, Government of National Unity (Hungary), etc. Actually, neither of these two puppet states is mentioned on this article, although the Independent State of Croatia is...

I fully agree that we should be focusing more on the Darlans of the world than the schmucks who joined a unit, unless maybe they did it on purpose, with the purpose obviously being unambiguously Nazi, fascist, etc. Cukrakalnis (talk) 15:51, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Right. Go for it Elinruby (talk) 21:00, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

¶ Although I haven't absorbed them fully, these Wikipedia articles might provide more context about whether the Syrian and Lebanese mandates were under collaborationist (rather than, say, neutral) control: First Syrian Republic#World War II and independence and Greater Lebanon#World War II and Later history —— Shakescene (talk) 01:47, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Scope, splitting etc.

Looking from sidelines at repeat inconclusive discussions about what is collaboration and how article could be split, I feel like it may be worth considering having a RfC or two, to figure out major questions about what the article should contain and how whole thing should be structured. Collaboration can be defined in varied ways, with most limited definition including only voluntary cooperation with foreign invader by occupied population, while widest definition would include any cooperation by any party. Not to mention corner cases, like minor but still independent Axis members (Romania, Bulgaria etc.), and Vichy colonies attacked by Allies. I have also seen some comments along the lines "whatever sources say", but this is also extremely vague. Is single use of word "collaboration" in any RS sufficient for including something? Or should only RS of certain quality be used? Maybe term "collaboration" should appear in significant portion of sources describing something to qualify? Or even only include stuff described as "collaboration" by major best quality sources dealing with WW II history and collaboration in general scale? Lots of options.

Similarly about splitting, should the topic be split geographically (Asia, Africa, maybe even individual country articles), or maybe by ways of collaboration (puppet civilian administrations, military volunteers, trade and business relations)? What should happen with this article? I see the Pacific area was completely removed from here, but is this the way? Will Collaboration with the Axis powers end up as a disambiguation page after several splits? Or should it aim to be a general summary of all collaboration with Axis everywhere, with splitting only meaning shortening and summarizing, while excess detail moves to subarticles? I feel that without overall vision how the topic should be structured, any improvements to the article will remain very uneven, and overall it will remain a mess illustrated by curious sights of Ustaše Croatia and Channel Islands sections being almost equal in size and whatnot.--Staberinde (talk) 16:05, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

WP:RFC's are useful for situations where there are long discussions that are deadlocked, and have failed to show progress over a long period, due to editors who are unable to resolve content disagreements. Nothing similar to that is happening here, discussions on multiple topics are making good progress, and I see no call for an Rfc, here. What you might be hinting at, is that you'd like to see additional feedback from more editors, and that's fine, but there are other methods for that. The fact that discussions so far haven't answered every questions that has been raised, is not a reason to have an Rfc about it, and in fact, would fail WP:RFCBEFORE. If you can point to an irresolvably deadlocked point of disagreement which has made no progress toward resolution after long attempts to do so, then perhaps it could be addressed in an Rfc; but I see nothing like that here, just multiple editors discussing, making progress, and updating the article accordingly. In other words, exactly the way it's supposed to work at Wikipedia.

Also, the three questions you pose at the end of the first paragraph, are not really up for discussion here, as they are already decided by policy on WP:DUEWEIGHT, WP:Reliable sources, and others. Nothing "decided" here about sourcing can overturn existing policy and guidelines about it. In theory, you could try to alter them at the talk page of the policy in question, but here, we just apply those policies as written. Mathglot (talk) 16:51, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I got a bit more pessimistic impression but maybe I was mistaken. If "good progress" is being made when feel free to ignore my comment. Also, I would note that while policies indeed need to be followed, what is the most correct way to apply policy in specific situation may not be always universally obvious.--Staberinde (talk) 20:11, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I have seen an RFC enshrine horrors on another page and I would dearly love to avoid one here. I would also dearly love somebody working on Croatia so if you know the topic, please feel free to dig in. I tried a little in the section and as I recall managed to do some referencing, but I don't know enough to expand it and Shakescene has specifically said (somewhere} that he doesn't either.

I agree about the Channel Islands (and have already considerably trimmed the section, believe it or not) but I am not sure how to fix it the balance issue it represents beyond asking questions and making suggestions. One of the problems with that section is that it isn't clear *who* informed, but somebody was edit-warring over that section so methinks there may be something notable there.

Zooming out, the following are relevant to your larger concern

1. Everyone agrees that the article is AWFUL, especially as to weight. (Central Asia is currently also in Europe because Russia, as someone else pointed out. This is why geography is the wrong approach)
2. The set of people currently working on the article does not overlap with the set of people who originally posted this stuff. At all, except for Piotrus and Poland. And it looks like his input was only in specific sections
3. The overall problem with the article in fact is that everyone who contributed prior to February only contributed to one or at most two sections (I should note that I have not read the history prior to January 2018)
4. Discussion since February has so far has been remarkably fact-based.
5. The average RFC participant doesn't want to read and the genre is ill-suited to broad questions of balance imo, and that is what we have here.

That said, more input would be a very nice thing and I repeat my invitation to help. Elinruby (talk) 23:27, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

@Staberinde: who is mostly to whom this is addressed. Elinruby (talk) 01:54, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Possibly a theory of everything?

it looks like an important member of my extended family is dying and while her kids are adults, my help may be useful with all of the everything. I've been quiet for a couple of days because I put in some long hours on this and was starting to make silly typos from fatigue. I answered a couple of threads here this morning then got the family news. So as I wait to hear about that, let me try to tie up some loose ends and focus several discussions

1. Collaboration with the Axis powers was always too broad a topic.
2. Wartime collaboration exists and should probably be beefed up. It's not a bad article but it could use some more references
3. One rationale for spinning off Collaboration with Imperial Japan was, as I understand it, that the time scope is somewhat different and so are the issues, although the theme of using nationalist movements is still common.
4. We really have to lose the geography-based approach in my opinion, for many reasons but the fact that national boundaries were different then is enough.
5. We really lack coverage of Italy. I am not going to argue with what I saw in the article history; I think there's a significant bit of political history that applies to the period between Italy's surrender and Germany's.
6. once we eliminate pure geography as the basis for a split, which I think we have, other suggestions that have surfaced.
7. Discussions by Nazi administrative district might be somewhat useful in pointing out commonalities. A compare and contrast of Belgium vs France or vs the Netherlands would be illuminating, I think. But this is not intuitive for English speakers and I personally would have to look up what those units were to even begin.
8. I think a good suggestion was made above and it would result in:
   • Collaboration with Nazi Germany (needs work)
   • Collaboration with Fascist Italy (to be written)
   • Collaboration with Imperial Japan (needs work)

Possibly

• Collaboration with the Soviet Union (to be written?)

Possibly

• A very high-level discussion of why fascism happened then (to be written?)

Would this approach clear up some of the problems about collaborating with whom, and why, that we are having? The other suggestion I had about dividing by colonial empire would require a lot of repetition, I think Elinruby (talk) 02:36, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Elinruby You're very active here and you're not under any obligation to put in numerous hours daily into this, and I think that other Wikipedians will be understanding if you can't contribute for some time for any reason. I highly appreciate your efforts here!

As for geographical division by continents - I was the one who introduced it for the reason so its more sub-divided and thus easier to navigate. Before, it was just all countries in a row and it felt totally disorganized. Any categorization that does the job better is obviously preferable. I think there's really only one other option if we drop geographical divisions, which is ethnicities. Personally, I'm not sure that dropping geography entirely is the best option, because it makes more sense to compare within a regional context (I would suggest using EuroVoc's classification for how to define Western, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe). I think it's more logical to compare the Flemish with the Dutch than with the Latvians, just as an example. The proposal to divide by colonial empires only makes sense in areas that are outside Europe.

I agree on there being three articles for each major Axis power. I'm also in favour of the article Collaboration with the Soviet Union being created, but it should only be created after we fix this article, because I don't want the same mistakes that were made in this article to be repeated there. Regarding a very high-level discussion of why fascism happened then, I would avoid taking a new bite after not having finished the previous one (metaphorically-speaking). Cukrakalnis (talk) 16:16, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

point taken and yep I am just saying don't wait on me. It's a proposal. Talk about it, refine it, whatever. We do have at least identified two absurdities in the current system. I've been as active as I am because I TNTed the thing and feel a.certain responsibility. But at least for the next couple of days, I am going to be very preoccupied. I am not familiar with that classification system but if it's something like Balkans vs Iberia vs Baltic vs Scandinavia I'm probably on board for that.

But this question is as I see it the bottleneck and therefore must be resolved. That, and what is collaboration, as I keep asking, but that is probably for the high-level article, and +1 on there being plenty else to do first. But we have to get the goal straight to avoid working at cross-purposes.

Peace out. I do feel fairly confident that there are people who know stuff working on stuff that I can't do, so yay us. Fuzzy kittens all around. Elinruby (talk) 19:56, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

The Dialectic and Semiotics Reappear: Can we usefully treat Collaboration separately from Resistance, Invasion, Occupation, German policies, and Liberation?

(or Everything, Everywhere, All at Once)

I haven't fully absorbed all the points above, but I realised that much of our difficulty arises from treating Collaboration as a distinct topic (and article) separate from its opposite, Resistance, or from the Occupation powers' demands, (although less dramatic, Attentisme was, by the necessities of carrying on daily life, the attitude of most of the occupied most of the time, but that's hard to define, let alone quantify, and is so far an empty article on Wikipedia).

Collaboration means nothing without a counterpart (Axis occupiers) or an opposite (the Resistance, or co-operation with anti-Axis "liberators").

I know that this implies a truly massive task of merging with and reorganising many, many other articles — something I wouldn't attempt even to begin approaching alone — but (since there's a dialectic), this also applies to, say, Resistance (against what?) —— Shakescene (talk) 02:29, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any advantage to what you propose, as it would imply that the topic of "Collaboration with the Axis powers" was either not notable, or else had borderline notability but insufficient secondary sourcing about it to justify a stand-alone page about it. However, neither is the case, as there are dozens of books that discuss the subject and many in which it is the central topic, making it a highly notable topic. So rather than merge it, it should probably be greatly expanded, and then split into a series of articles, perhaps along the lines discussed above of which this one would remain the parent article in WP:Summary style.

The idea that you can't discuss "Collaboration as a distinct topic (and article) separate from its opposite" seems odd to me, the kind of thing that might come up in philosophy class, but isn't practical here as far as how to improve this article. Unless I've totally missed your point.

As to any inclusion of material about the French Resistance, or about resistance to other Axis powers (neither of which is the topic of the article), I think it would be fine, as long as it is in due proportion to the amount of material in secondary sources about resistance to the Axis, in articles whose topic is collaboration with the Axis. It's not for us, as editors, to decide we have to consider collaboration and resistance equally in the article, or in some proportion that we consider philosophically or logically justified, because that would be original research. If the sources about collaboration talk about resistance, then so should we; if the sources about collaboration don't talk very much about resistance, then we shouldn't, either. Pretty much simple as that. P.S. I've taken the liberty of removing the pilcrow from the section title. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 03:43, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@Mathglot and Shakescene: scope continues to be a boggle. I think that we need some context, and this article should be about more than "he's a collaborator! And he's a collaborator! All these people are collaborators!" (Oprah reference intentional)

Attentisme should not be a blank article.

My thread above about a grand theory of everything may be relevant, if it didn't make your radar. With respect, it isn't really helpful to say that we go with what the sources say. Of course. We have all been around long enough, and spent enough time at WP:RSN, to know that this is the correct answer. Which sources though? Eichmann in Israel would seem like an excellent source, for example, except that apparently she is now considered mistaken as to the Judenräte. And there is still that lingering problem about page numbers in the online edition.

I added some discussion of antisemitism in the Third Republic as an attempt to explain why France was such fertile ground for fascism, and this got removed as not collaboration and not Vichy. Which is true, in the narrow sense. It is also true that historically I always include too much background, and have to be trimmed. At least you both do so thoughtfully. Elinruby (talk) 11:05, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

To be honest, this page should really be just a disambig page pointing to the relevant sections on collaboration in articles like Netherlands_in_World_War_II#Collaboration, German_occupation_of_Norway#Acceptance_and_collaboration and Collaboration_in_German-occupied_Poland, etc. As Mathglot points out, there are many sources available, but most of them are country specific, so it is a bit WP:SYNTHy, or at least a bit WP:CONTENTFORKish, to combine it all into one article here when we already have multiple articles that cover it in adequate detail. This article should be structured more like France_during_World_War_II in my opinion. --Nug (talk) 10:24, 24 March 2023 (UTC)