Talk:Rolf Steiner

What kind of article is this?

Has Steiner written it himself or has someone copy-and-pasted his biography? I want to draw your attention to sentences as:

"Steiner used a skull and crossbones as his regimental symbol, which he thought would constantly remind his troops of the risks inherent to war, rather than any reference to the pirate Jolly Roger or the Nazi SS." - Is that so? It sounds like a mere predication.

"He spent three years in prison, being tortured in the most savage ways imaginable..." - says who? Sounds like an excerpt from a novel, not an encyclopedia.

"Unfortunately, following several confrontations with his Biafran colleagues, Steiner resigned from service..." - I cannot see why this schould be "unfortunately".

This article is far away from NPOV and should be re-edited by someone who reads other stuff then adventure novels. I can't do this because my english isn't good enough. Greetz, 78.48.117.229 (talk) 16:34, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

You are right. This article is a mess. About the alleged raid that on Enugu on 25 May 1968 that six Soviet-built aircraft destroyed on the ground, I cannot find any evidence that the raid happened beyond a website that I cannot link to because it is a banned site around here. But the website follows this article so closely that it is evident that somebody back in 2012 did a cut and paste job, which makes it unreliable as a source. But what I did find is reference to an air raid on the air base at Enugu that happened on 25 May 1969 that saw six Soviet-built Egyptian Air Force planes destroyed on the ground led by the Swedish Count Carl Gustaf von Rosen, the commander of the Biafran Air Force. It seems rather odd that the same number of planes should be destroyed on raids a year apart on the same air base and on the same day, 25th of May. I think somebody decided to credit a feat that done by Rosen in 1969 to Steiner to 1968. I don't think this raid happened. The number of aircraft in Nigeria was very small, and Rosen's raids temporarily won command of the air for Biafra in the spring of 1969 as even knocking 6 aircraft was a major loss to Nigeria. If Steiner had knocked 6 aircraft in a raid in 1968, it should be mentioned somewhere and I cannot find a single book that mentions it. I am deleting that sentence-if somebody can find a RS, let them put it back in.--A.S. Brown (talk) 01:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Declined speedy

This is in bad need of copyediting, at least, but the subject may be notable. He is a published author, although that's barely touched on in the article. I suggest Afd rather than speedy if editors here feel the subject is not notable enough for an article. KillerChihuahua 16:05, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

He is notable enough to keep this article. Steiner was a famous mercenary leader fighting in various wars in Africa in the 1960s-1970s, so he meets the notability requirement-this article should not be deleted. But you are right, this article is a mess. It talks about Steiner's  French colleagues in the Foreign Legion. Frenchmen are not allowed to serve in the Foreign Legion-that's why its called the Foreign Legion! That may be a reference to other French Army units that fought alongside the Foreign Legion in Algeria, but at present the article makes it sound like there were Frenchmen serving in the Foreign Legion, which is definitely wrong. What the article needs, and I'm only stating the obvious here is a good strong dose of reliable sources. I would suggest The Military Effectiveness of Post-Colonial States by Pradeep Barua, which talks a bit about Steiner's time fighting for Biafra. Contrary to the impression given here, Barua portrays him as an inept commander. It would be a start. --A.S. Brown (talk) 06:53, 10 April 2020 (UTC)    

By all accounts, Steiner was an effective soldier during his time in the French Foreign Legion, which is one of the world's elite fighting forces. Contrary to this stupid "cheese-eating surrender monkey" stereotype that is so popular in the English-speaking world, the French are brave and effective soldiers. People use the fact that it took the Wehrmacht six weeks in the spring of 1940 as proof of the French are poor fighters-by way of comparison, at the Battles of Jena and Auerstedt fought on 14 October 1806, the French annihilated the Prussians, destroying 75% of the Prussian Army. That not 75% of the Prussians facing the French, that's 75% of the entire Prussian Army in existence. These two battles effectively won the war for France-so in other words, what Hitler took 6 weeks to do in 1940, Napoleon did in a single day in 1806. So enough of this "cheese-eating surrender monkey" nonsense and this very popular if stupid canard that Prussian-German forces are always so superior to the French. Max Boot, a respected military historian has described the French Army as "synonymous with military excellence". The French Foreign Legion attracts misfits, criminals, adventurers, and just plain weirdos from all over the world, but the French are effective in molding this miscellaneous collection in what is regarded as the world's most elite fighting units. The Foreign Legion always gets all the really dirty, nasty jobs for the simple reason that their're foreigners. If the French government commits French soldiers to an operation and a number of them get killed, French public opinion might react adversely, but if a bunch of foreigners get killed fighting for France, who in France is going to care? The lives of the Legionaries are expendable, which is why they always get the really tough jobs. But at the least the French knew if you are going to give the Foreign Legion all the really nasty jobs, they should be trained for it. The training for the Foreign Legion is significantly more tougher than the training for the regular French Army.  

That Steiner did well in the Legion shows he was a good soldier, but the qualities that make for a good solider do not necessarily make for a good commander. A recurring theme of British military history is that some young officer distinguishes himself in battle, wins the Victoria Cross, gets promoted up, and then notably fails as a general. Bernard Freyberg of New Zealand was all accounts a brave soldier who was justly awarded the Victoria Cross in 1916, but as a general in World War Two, some of his decisions were to put it mildly bad. He lost the hard-fought Battle of Crete, which he could won if only he had listened to intelligence reports saying the Germans were to land on Crete via the air, not the sea. Steiner seems to be another example of the Peter Principle under which people promoted up to their level of incompetence. However brave and effective he was as a soldier in the French Foreign Legion, he was not a particularly good leader while fighting in Africa for whoever was paying him.

The Nigerian Army was not exactly the most formidable opponent. The Nigerian Army was an internal security force that not trained to fight a war. Nigerian officers before the Civil War were far more concerned about maintaining social status than in training for war. Nigerian spent a disproportionate amount of their time keeping their uniforms immaculate, partying and buying expensive German automobiles-all meant to show off their high status in a society obsessed with status. Studying and preparing for war was not a priority for them. Even that was not the case (which it was), the Nigerian Army went from having 7, 000 men in 1967 to having 200, 000 men in 1969-such a rapid expansion in size over so short a period of time meant giving officers' commissions to men who in many cases should not have being given them. All of this was happening while the Nigerian Army was having to learn "on-the-job" about how to conduct operations. The Nigerian Army did not exactly cover itself with glory during the Civil War of 1967-70, and be unable to beat the Biafrans in battle simply staved them into submission. The Nigerian Army is still a shabby rabble that is pretty useless for fighting-earlier this decade the Nigerians were defeated with monotonous regularity by the fanatical Islamist guerrillas of Boko Haram, and only started to win when they hired European mercenaries in 2015 to do the fighting for them. Even today, the majority of Nigerian officers are far more interested in getting rich than in fighting, and in the time-honored Nigerian way, they get rich via corruption and stealing from their own men. The Nigerian Army is also politicised and given to factionalism, which means promotion within the officer corps does not have anything to do with military merit. If the Nigerians could ever get their act together, an oil-rich nation like theirs would have a reasonably good army, but that does not seem likely-the anti-corruption group Transparency International ranks Nigeria as the world's most corrupt nation. Nigeria's vast oil wealth has proved to be a curse as Nigeria has especially venal elite whose sole interest in life is to vacuum up as much of the oil money as possible for themselves. It's a shame that the majority of Nigerians live in abject poverty while its utterly amoral elite live such spoiled, sybaritic lives. The fact that Steiner had trouble against such an unqualified opponent such as the shabby rabble that is the Nigerian Federal Army suggests that was contrary to his own claims not suitable to be an officer. --A.S. Brown (talk) 01:09, 11 April 2020 (UTC)    

One more point. This claim that Frederick Forsyth got Steiner expelled from Biafra seems to be based entirely Forsyth's own word. Forsyth is a bestselling novelist who did serve as a journalist during the Nigerian Civil War and who by own admission was fanatically attached to the cause of Biafra. Forsyth's success as a novelist means the media gives more attention to his own claims than perhaps they deserve. I've been trying to improve this article and made it less of a mess by giving it a strong dose of reliable sources. Two of the RS I have found state that Steiner was expelled because he refused to take orders and he was a failure as a commander. Steiner was a very good sergeant in the French Foreign Legion, but he was promoted well beyond his level of competence when he was appointed the commander of a Biafran brigade. The sort of a man who makes for a good sergeant does not necessarily make for a good colonel. I cannot find anything by a third-party RS that says Forsyth had Steiner expelled. I rather suspect that Forysth is exaggerating his power in Biafra and making himself sound more important than what he really was. I suppose we can call this the Macro Polo symptom. Marco Polo almost certainly did go to China, but some of the claims made in The Book of Marvels such as he was a close friend and adviser to Kublai Khan and was a governor of the city of Yangzhou are fabrications. If Polo was really was such a close friend and confidante of Kublai Khan, it seems rather odd that no Chinese or Mongol source mentions him at all, nor there is any reference for an European being the governor of Yangzhou or any other Chinese city in the 13th century. Polo claims to have saved Kublai Khan's life and to have foiled a coup attempt, neither of which are mentioned in any Chinese or Mongol sources. In the 13th century, it is not like anybody in Europe to going to go all the way to China to check out the claims made in The Book of Marvels, meaning Polo could embellish the truth as much as he wanted without fear of being caught out. There seems to be some deep psychological need for Europeans when they go abroad to always present themselves as more powerful than what they're really were. Forysth because of the very pronounced pro-Biafra bias in his journalism did interview the Biafran president Odumegwu Ojukwu a couple of times, but the only sources I can find supporting Forysth's claims to be Ojukwu's close friend is material written by Forysth himself. I find that sentence that Forsyth had Steiner expelled should be deleted. Along the same way, this article seems to be suffering from the Macro Polo symptom as the 4th Commando Brigade got much more attention than it probably deserved in the West because it was commanded by European mercenaries. Notably, Western journalists in 1968 were always drawn to a brigade commanded by white men who speak their languages rather than some Biafran brigade by Igbo officers. --A.S. Brown (talk) 01:43, 12 April 2020 (UTC)            

His father was a decorated fighter ace in WW1 with the Red Baron

That's the claim. According to www.theaerodrome.com, no German fighter ace in WW1 was nicknamed Steiner. There's a Helmut Steinbrecher in Jasta 46 with 5 kills and a Werner Steinhäuser in Jasta 11 (Manfred von Richthofen's squadron) with 10 kills. Unless Rolf Steiner's original surname is Steinhäuser... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.99.90.6 (talk) 13:06, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

P.S._ And W.Steinhäuser was killed in 1918. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.99.90.6 (talk) 13:11, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

You are right. I have looked over a number of reliable sources and cannot find a single one says anything about Steiner's father being of Baron Manfred von Richthofen's famous Flying Circus. You would think at least of them would mention that and none does. Anyhow, Steiner is from Bavaria. In World War I, there was no German air force, only flying arms of the Army and Navy. Technically, a German Army did not exist until 1919 as theoretically the armies of Prussia, Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony maintained separate existences, through the requirement that the other German armies were all under the operational control of the Prussian General Staff effectively meant the four armies were in fact one. Richthofen was a Prussian nobleman from Silesia, born on his family's estate just outside of what was then the German city of Breslau and is today the Polish city of Wrocław. As such, he served in the Prussian Army. A Bavarian would not be serving in the Prussian Army, making it very unlikely that Steiner's father was a member of the Richthofen's Flying Circus. Of course, it is possible that Steiner's father was a Prussian and settled in Munich later on, but everything I have read suggests that Steiner's family was rooted in Bavaria.

A lot of this article shows evidence of being the work of a fan. Steiner's own image is that of a knight errant, an idealistic mercenary who stands up for the weak and oppressed in Africa, A more uncharitable interpretation is that Steiner is a typical of the disreputable and grubby mercenary sub-culture. There is a distinctive subculture made of former military men who specialized in fighting as mercenaries in Africa. Steiner together with Britain's "Mad Mike" Hoare and France's Robert "Bob" Denard are the best known members of this subculture. What is notable about this subculture is the incompetence of those involved in it. By incompetence, I don't mind incompetence at their chosen profession of soldiers (through that is often the case), but rather these guys are absolute screw-ups in life. Literally, fighting and killing are the only things these men know to do well, and the reason why they work as mercenaries is that they are failures at everything else. And that is not even considering the general brutality, greed, and selfishness that pervades the mercenary subculture in Africa. Some of these guys are braggarts and a number of them are con-men, but even with those who do fight, one is struck by the moral squalor and desperation that is the norm of men who find war and killing the only things they can do well. Most of them come across as both pathetic and repulsive at one and the same time as their lives tend to be tales of broken relationships, betrayals, suffering and violence. There's not a lot of love in their lives as it is striking that almost all of their relationships these men had failed. Steiner's professions of idealism do not convince, and one gets the feeling as a number of commentators have stated that he was a mercenary because it was the only thing he could did well.

For reasons that outside of the scope of this article, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the famous "Red Baron" of World War One, is taken as a symbol of allegedly noble and chivalrous aspects of war which in turn is said to be the special preserve of Prussian-German militarism. Richthofen was a cold, shy man, a loner who had major difficulties in making friendships who may very well had died a virgin in 1918 (there is no evidence that he had romantic relationships with anybody), but who by all accounts was an excellent shot who was very good at hunting. Richthofen regarded fighting in the air as merely a continuation of hunting, hence passages in his 1917 autobiography such as: "When I have shot down an Englishman, my hunting passion is satisfied for a quarter of a hour". However, there is some evidence that all killings was getting Richthofen down towards the end of his life as he complained in his autobiography about being "wretched" as his life was devoted to killing and seeing others being killed. One suspects that somewhere under his cold exterior there was a warm-hearted human being struggling to express himself. But the popular image of Richthofen is that of a noble, gallant, chivalrous and romantic "knight of the air". I suspect that saying Steiner's father was a member of the Flying Circus is an attempt to link this self-proclaimed "knight errant" out of the disreputable mercenary subculture and to link him with the popular image of the Red Baron as a "knight of the air. I cannot find any evidence to support these claims and I think it should be deleted until someone can find a RS saying otherwise.--A.S. Brown (talk) 02:20, 13 April 2020 (UTC)    

Just a quick follow-up. Steiner was interviewed by the Hamburg newspaper Der Welt on 11 October 2013. The interview transcript can be accessed here: [1] In the interview, he says his father was a member of the Luftwaffe, but he says nothing about his father being a member of Richthofen's Flying Circus or being a fighter ace, which you think he might had mentioned if either were true. He also says his mother abandoned him when he was 8 and he never saw her again, which brings into his question the tale this article presents about his devoutly Catholic mother being heartbroken in Munich about her son's decision to join the French Foreign Legion. Perhaps more importantly, he says his autobiography was the work of his ghost-writer and is a mere "fable" not to be trusted. According to him, his father committed suicide in 1937 when he failed a "racial hygiene" test and was discovered to have had a Jewish ancestor in the 18th century. Under Nazi racial laws that would had made Steiner a mischling ("half-breed") and he describes a miserable, unhappy childhood, being ostracized as Mischlinge tended to be under the Third Reich. Assuming that Steiner is telling the truth here that would mean he would not had been a member of the Jungvolk and would had made him ineligible to join Hitler Youth. This of course begs the question why his 1976 memoirs failed to mention any of this. Generally speaking, a ghost writer interviews the subject, records what is being said and then turn it all into prose. Presumably, his ghost writer Yves-Guy Berges did the same. Berges let his imagination run wild, then why did it Steiner so long to complain? The book was published in 1976 and yet was not until 2013 that Steiner called it a "fable". All very curious. The 2013 interview has some interesting information, but I would like more confirmation than an interview with the subject. --A.S. Brown (talk) 04:09, 14 April 2020 (UTC)