Talk:Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski

There is no significant evidence to show that this fellow and his family were anything other than wholly Germanised citizens of Prussia and that they spelt their names accordingly. The blatant Polish spellings in this article should all be changed to the correct ones. Also, someone who was, according to this article, so positively evil and responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and yet never charged for any of them seems too good to be true. I shall investigate some of the Western histories on this. Regards, David Lauder (talk) 20:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The 'Slavic origin' part of the article is based mostly on the Polish wiki art, which, in turn, was based on works of Von dem Bach's biographer - Marek Dzięcielski. He uses "Żelewski" were his sources (mostly Church documents) are using that form. And the name of von dem Bach's father - Otton Jan von Żelewski is spelled with a "Ż". It is highly probable that Erich von dem Bach knew both Polish and Kashubian, as he attended schools in Wejherowo, Chojnice and Brodnica and to most of his school mates Polish and Kashubian were their mother tongues. 87.206.96.114 (talk) 11:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC) (sorry, forgot to log myself in ;-) Barry Kent (talk) 11:31, 6 April 2008 (UTC))

Don´t get me wrong, but I don´t think that in an official Prussian registers around 1890 anybody would write a name like “Elżbieta Ewelina Szymańska”, as the letters “ż” or “ ń” are unknown in German and these registers are written in German. As well the name “Szymanska” is the Polish female version of Szymanski, while in German names aren´t declined. Most probably his mothers name in the official records is “Elisabeth Eveline Schimansky” or something like that. I´d really like to see the original register. And that´s just the same with “Otton” , isn´t it rather “Otto” (Ludwik / Ludwig)? This section seems to be a translation of Polish WP, declining the original names ( as usual in Polish ) as a proof that these people were Kashubians, but this “evidence” is just a soap bubble.

Don´t get me wrong, there were several noble families with kashubian or slavic ancestors in that region, but most of them wouldn´t define themselves as Kashubians as they where assimilated to German / Prussian culture long before, so the whole section gives a wrong impression.(HerkusMonte (talk) 13:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC))

As I have written earlier - most of the sources were CHURCH documents, written probably in Polish or Latin. Barry Kent (talk) 22:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Church documents in Prussia were´nt written in Polish or Latin.(HerkusMonte (talk) 05:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC))

And you know that from...? They were written in Latin FOR SURE. Plus: Most catholic priests in Prussia were Polish, so it is highly probable that they used their native tongue at least from time to time. Barry Kent (talk) 20:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

His mother (“Elżbieta Ewelina Szymańska”) was Lutheran, not catholic, and Lutheran church records were neither written in Latin nor in Polish.(HerkusMonte (talk) 07:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC))

An interesting article from 2006 on his biography in Polish by Tomasz Żuroch von Piechowski is available here. --Lysy^talk 23:10, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Can somebody please help me out? It says in this article "In July 1943, he became commander of the so-called "Bandenkampfverbande" ("Band-fighting Units"), responsible for the mass murder of 35,000 civilians in Riga...." But the Riga Ghetto page states "An account from the year 1943 lists 13.200 Jews in the ghetto" Xiare (talk) 17:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Change of name to "von dem Bach"

The article is not consistent with the timing of the addition of "von dem Bach" to his full name. First, it states the change was done in the late 30's then, later on, it says the change was made in 1925. Someone should determine which was correct and update the page accordingly.

AJ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.85.64.199 (talk) 22:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Ethnic Pole

The article should say it explicitly, he was pro-German, but an ethnic Pole. 173.169.90.98 (talk) 12:56, 20 June 2010 (UTC)