Talk:Adolf Hitler

"the" dictator?

I'm sorry that I have to bring this up again, but @Mechanical Keyboarder:, you just put a "the" back into the lead, changing "was dictator of Germany" to "was the dictator of Germany". As a reason you gave MOS:JOBTITLES. I've looked at the MOS and can't find any rule saying it should be the dictator. I don't think it should be "the dictator" in this instance, so please explain your change. Thank you. Regards --Yhdwww (talk) 13:34, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Has Germany had any others?Slatersteven (talk) 13:36, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Surely this isn't a job title, partly because it isn't a defined job. It describes a vague function, much as 'leader' or 'ruler' might, as such it can either take or not take 'the', but omission marginally avoids the suggestion that this is a title IMO. Pincrete (talk) 18:23, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree that "the" is probably optional here. Now I'm just wondering what Mechanical Keyboarder saw in MOS:JOBTITLES that applied to this. --Yhdwww (talk) 10:33, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Anti-Catholic?

Wasn't he also anti-Catholic as well? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:554E:7801:51DB:9A18:681A:740E (talk) 11:55, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Was he, RS please?Slatersteven (talk) 12:07, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

He was - at times - anti-christian rather than specifically anti-catholic. See summary of his religious views here + fuller account. Pincrete (talk) 14:16, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by RS? Do you think I'm a Retarded Shit? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:554e:7801:707a:4450:c4ff:76e8 (talk) 05:53, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

How the hell do you get that? Read wp:agf, by the way RS means reliable sources, read wp:rs).Slatersteven (talk) 11:00, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

The entire question of Hitler's personal views about religion is a complex one, as it needs to be carefully separated from his political actions, especially in regard to the Catholic Church, as well as the views and actions of other Nazis such as Rosenberg. I haven't explored Hitler's table talk thoroughly enough to know what he might have said about the Church in that relaxed context, but after reading numerous biographies and histories, I'd say that religion just wasn't very important to him except in how it could be used to influence people (i.e. his frequent references to "Providence" having protected him so he could do his great work) or how the religious institutions could be manipulated or'suppressed to further his cause. In any case, I don;t believe that there's sufficient evidence to support calling him "anti-Catholic" in this article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:10, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

DNA Research

I recently made an edit to Hitler's ancestry adding information from DNA research on his family in 2010, which has been removed and I'm not sure why. I specified "39 supposed relatives" because the study keeps most of them anonymous and can't be checked by the public, but one of them is Hitler's half-brother's son, which is sufficient enough to provide their shared Y-DNA haplogroup, E1b1b. Since Hitler's father was born to an unknown man and Hitler's half brother was born illegitimate at the time (because their father could not remarry until the death of his wife), questions are naturally raised so a second paternal relative was compared to be sure, called Norbert H., whose identity is kept private (but might be a paternal descendant from one of Hitler's father's affairs). This triangulation of results backs up the likeliness that Hitler's haplogroup was E1b1b. Haplogroups do not determine one's ethnic makeup, but E1b1b is uncommon among Germans and today happens to be most prevalent among Moroccan Berbers and about a 5th of Ashkenazi and a 3rd of Sephardic Jews (the exact estimates were in my edit). This foreign ancestor could have entered Hitler's paternal line anywhere within the last few hundred years and does not necessarily prove the ethnicity of his grandfather, but is simply a factual curiosity for his ancestry. Jonnychiwa (talk) 13 February 2021 (UTC)

One reason for not including the DNA information is that the article is already very long, and adding information on a "factual curiosity" is not a good reason for expanding it.

But there are more fundamental problems. (1) The source you've used for the information about Hitler's DNA is the Daily Mail, which is no longer an acceptable reliable source for Wikipedia, having made up stuff in the past. Any inclusion of DNA material would need to be sourced to a better RS, preferably the research paper itself. (2) You're citing a 2010 report, that's 10-11 years ago. Has there been a reproduction of the study in the years since then? Have other RS academic papers reinforced its conclusions? Certainly by now someone should have looked into it and made a determination of its legitimacy. (3) Your material is essentially what we call a WP:SYNTHESIS, in that you take the results as reported by the Daily Mail and then you've interpreted them using another study. We don't allow that. To add information about Hitler's ancestry resulting from DNA tests, the conclusions about Hitler's ancestry must come from the study itself, not from your interpretation of the results of the study using another study. Such original research is simply not allowed to be included on Wikipedia. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:23, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

The DM itself says "Journalist Jean-Paul Mulders and historian Marc Vermeeren used DNA to track down 39 of the Fuhrer's relatives earlier this year". So this scientific research was done by a journalist and a little known 'historian'. There are so many ifs and buts along the path (apart from the SYNTH argument made by BMK above) that even if better sourced, this would at best be a curiosity, a speculative possibility. Pincrete (talk) 07:35, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

If it was "scientific research" it would have been done by a geneticist and published in a reputable peer-reviewed scientific journal, not the DM.Slatersteven (talk) 09:57, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

This has been discussed in the past and there’s no reason to change the conclusion that was reached then. Falls into the category of speculation, conjecture and surmise. It should not be included as under WP:Fringe, WP:Synthesis and WP:OR. Kierzek (talk) 11:52, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Reichstag fire

Our job is to report the consensus of modern scholarship. Shirer finished his book in 1959 before the new work by Tobias appeared--he never revised it and while popular his book is no longer current with modern scholarship of the last 60 years. Bullock originally held to the old ideas but now leans in favor of the Tobias interpretation. Bullock have one sentence that it's an "open question" --with no explanation and he is the only scholar who says that so he is either pro-consensus or perhaps "fringe" on this issue.
Historian Benjamin Carter Hett stated in 2014:

Today the overwhelming consensus among historians who specialize in Nazi Germany remains that Marinus van der Lubbe burned the Reichstag all by himself.

Richard J. Evans in 2014 summarized the consensus of academic historians that, "the bulk of the historical profession [agrees] that Tobias was right, and that the sole author of the Reichstag fire was Marinus van der Lubbe". Rjensen (talk) 06:24, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Evil replaced by Gravely immoral?

I would like to ask under what absurd initiative "universally regarded as evil" was replaced with the watered-down "universally regarded as gravely immoral," which casts a strikingly different and far less stark tone. 108.29.97.109 (talk) 05:37, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Because it isn't verifiable, There is also a verifiable and attributed quote "Never in history has such ruination – physical and moral – been associated with the name of one man." - which is a bit less 'watery'. Pincrete (talk) 08:43, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

'Gravely immoral' sounds odd in context. Kershaw also says: "His place in history has certainly been secured – though in a way he had not anticipated: as the embodiment of modern political evil. However, evil is a theological or philosophical, rather than a historical, concept. To call Hitler evil may well be both true and morally satisfying." Although he goes on to say that this is a barrier to understanding Hitler, I think replacing the 'universally regarded as gravely immoral' with 'the embodiment of modern political evil' (quoting Kershaw) would be more appropriate. DeCausa (talk) 13:13, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I tend to agree with the IP that 'gravely immoral' is wishy-washy, but another editor some time ago objected to "universally regarded as evil" as unverifiable and for reasons similar to those given by DeCausa, that to some, the concept of evil is vague/undefinable/unhistorical. Pincrete (talk) 13:53, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Here's a sample discussion from archive 62: Talk:Adolf Hitler/Archive 62#Hitler's evil in first paragraph? I think that is the most recent discussion on this phrase.— Diannaa (talk) 14:24, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

That was a quite a shambles, by the looks of it! DeCausa (talk) 14:37, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with the IP and DeCausa. The current phrase is awkward and weaselly, and should be replaced with some version of "evil". I'm certain that we can come up with additional citations for it from very reliable sources. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:02, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Using the direct quote from Kershaw would be fine, since there's hardly a more reliable source. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:03, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

We can verify that he's considered gravely immoral but we can't verify that he's considered evil? I'm sorry but with all due respect that's just ridiculous. This is the single most verifiably evil figure in history, literally the archetypal example of it. If Hitler can't be verified as evil, then the very meaning and purpose of verification must be called into question. 108.29.97.109 (talk) 07:27, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and change the wording here, according to my understanding of MOS:INTRO, MOS:JARGON, and WP:BOLD. I'll also add a citation more directly mentioning Hitler as being almost universally considered evil as well, just in case, and out of respect for the more pedantically minded among us. Yitz (talk) 05:23, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

I suggest we just remove it altogether. It is an opinion. This is an encyclopedia not an inverted popularity contest. What about Genghis Khan, or Joe Stalin or..., etc., etc? Plus the word ’evil’ is a religious concept that I suggest should have no place in an article about a historical personage. Mystichumwipe (talk) 07:59, 1 March 2021 (UTC)