Talk:German atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 19:17, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

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• ... that during WW2 Germans committed numerous atrocities against prisoners of war? Source: pretty much any source, but see for example: Hébert, Valerie Geneviève (2021-02-12). Hitler's Generals on Trial: The Last War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-3267-1. 150–153
  • ALT1: ... that after World War II, during the Nuremberg High Command Trial, almost all of the German high commanders tried were found guilty of crimes against POWs? Source: a bit less generic; same source as above
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/The Christmas Invasion

Created by Piotrus (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 534 past nominations.

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:58, 22 November 2024 (UTC).

• This is not a review, and given the topic this is far outside my comfort zone, I will leave the full review to another editor. However, the hook is kind of dull or at least obvious. Nazis doing atrocities to prisoners of war is kind of a "Well, duh" fact given their reputation. A completely different angle is probably needed here. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 06:07, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
  • @4meter4 and AirshipJungleman29: Maybe one of you would have an idea for a more interesting hook? I think I reached my limit for thinking about this topic area for a while (although I am still trying to finish reading one or two sources I have...). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:28, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
    • As an ALT1 has been proposed, this is probably ready for a full review. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:33, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

@Piotrus: I'm sorry, I also find ALT1 to be unintriguing. Do you have anything else? Also, {{cn}} needs rectifying.--Launchballer 16:07, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

@4meter4 and Launchballer: Cn issue fixed (problematic text removed, not sure how this ended up there at all...). As for the hook being not interesting, I am mostly at a loss. I mean, we are talking about war crimes and atrocities, and murder of millions - I am not sure how to get more of a 'shock' or 'wow' or whatever factor out of this topic; if everyone expects Nazis to have been bad guys, do you want me to say they were the good guys or such to pique readers interest? I will ping Chetsford who reviewed a related article of mine, and found the hook there interesting (it was not dissimilar in style to the ones here, IMHO). But you can try the following ALTs for a size, I guess. 3 and 5 focus on surprising details, 2 focuses on the total number, 4 is about a trivial but perhaps interesting detail. I hope someone will find at least one of these interesting... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:18, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

• ALT2 ... that during WW2 Germans murdered millions of prisoners of war? Source: see Eastern Front section, first paragraph
• ALT2a ... that the vast majority of the millions of prisoners of war murdered by the Germans during WWII died on the Eastern Front? Source: see Eastern Front section, first paragraph, as well as 'Mortality rate at POW camps' section; while I do not have hard numbers for most nations, nothing approaches the millions of Soviet POW deaths - Western Allies or others died in the range of tens of thousands at most, by nation
• ALT3 ... that among the millions of prisoners of war murdered by the Germans during WWII there were also tens of thousands of their former allies, the Italians? Source: see Italy (1943-) section
• ALT4 ... that Germans murdered millions of prisoners of war during WWII, starting from the very first day of the war? Source: see Invasion of Poland (1939-) section
• ALT5 ... that while Germans murdered millions of prisoners of war during WWII, the survival ratio of Jewish POWs was generally tied to the army or nation they served with, and not to their ethnicity? Source: see second para of 'Mortality rate at POW camps'.

• Comment I think alt3 and alt5 are both interesting and surprising to those more familiar with WWII. That's not to say that the other hooks aren't interesting, but that Alt3 and Alt5 place Nazi atrocities into a perspective many would not necessarily be familiar with.4meter4 (talk) 01:34, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree, under most circumstances 'millions dead' is shocking, but WP:DYKINT says hooks are required to be "intriguing or unusual" and I would argue that most reasonable people already know that the Nazis killed millions of Jews. ALT5 is the only one that makes me want to click, although I wonder if it's worth spelling out "prisoners of war", and you need an end-of-sentence citation in any case. This is long enough and new enough. I see no issues that demand a dispute template and the QPQ is done.--Launchballer 03:24, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

@Launchballer: Is this what you wanted? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:55, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly it. I'll leave a promoter to decide whether to spell out POW.--Launchballer 13:00, 4 January 2025 (UTC)