Jump to content

Template:Did you know nominations/Free City of Danzig Government in Exile

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Free City of Danzig Government in Exile

[edit]
  • ... that the elected council of the Free City of Danzig Government in Exile was supposedly recognised in secret as the legal successor to the Danzig Senate by Danzig expatriates in 1951 and 1961? "An Inez denken". Der Spiegel (in German). Gdańsk, Poland. 4 April 1967. Retrieved 6 November 2016. Die achtköpfige Danzig-Vertretung ist aus dem 1947 konstituierten "Rat der Danziger" hervorgegangen; 1951 und 1961 wurde sie nach Angaben Homeiers in geheimer Briefwahl von den Ex-Danzigern als "Rechtsnachfolger des Senats der Freien Stadt Danzig" bestätigt.

Created by Indy beetle (talk). Self-nominated at 00:38, 7 November 2016 (UTC).

  • What an excellent and fascinating article, Indy beetle! Review: there's no copyvio, it's NPOV, and a QPQ has been done. The hook is interesting par excellence and is of appropriate length. Article is new enough and long enough. All other criteria met. Hook is cited to a German-language source; AGF. GTG on primary hook. (One minor note - "except" should be "accept" in the first paragraph. Also, my personal preference would be to add "self-declared" prior to the first use of the term "government-in-exile" or the phrase "an association describing itself as a government-in-exile", however, that is not so critical as to derail the NPOV determination.)
It would be ideal to include the perception or perspective of the FCDGIE among Germans generally, as it appears to be considered a bit of a Quixotic organization, however, this is not a GAN review and to do so is only a suggestion but not a necessity. The article, as written, is careful to avoid legitimizing phrases.
Note to subsequent reviewers: I had an initial concern the FCDGIE was a neo-Nazi fringe group and we were being non-NPOV by making it out to be more legitimate than it is, however, I have reviewed all of the sources in detail and also found an additional article from the Wall Street Journal [1] and there appears to be no evidence of this. The treatment presented in the nom is an accurate, if succinct, representation of the whole of published material on this subject, which passes our GNG. LavaBaron (talk) 03:26, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Comment - Thank you for the vote and analyses, @LavaBaron. I had nominated it for DYK in hopes an obscure topic would get some light and hopefully some more interested editors. As for it being a Neo-Nazi group, I must admit its website appears very nationalistic and seems to prefer a "pro-German" and "anti-Polish" perspective of 1919-1945 history. Like you said, I think there is enough to suggest it is a notable organization (regardless of the legitimacy of its claims). Furthermore, I don't want to make any allegations of Nazi-sympathies, and I haven't found any 3rd party sources that describe it as such, so I've refrained from doing so in the article. Right now I'm still compiling sources, and sifting through the ones on the corresponding German Wikipedia article, but I thought the fact I had was good enough and well sourced enough for the DYK. Thanks for the WSJ source as well. I will continue to work! -Indy beetle (talk) 05:18, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
I think you're correct, there's no evidence of any Neo-Nazi sympathies. While this is something to actively search-out anytime one is dealing with revisionist German political groups, you've obviously been careful to examine all the available sources and it's clear that - though a nationalist organization with a clearly revisionist perspective on WWII - the high threshold of describing it as proto- or neo-Nazi is not met, let alone described by any of the RS. Again, excellent work! LavaBaron (talk) 05:37, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Update - @LavaBaron and for all other DYK reviewers: I have in fact found a new source, a 2001 letter by then-Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Władysław Bartoszewski, in which it is expressed that the FCDGIE is seen in the eyes of the German public as revanchist and similar in ideology to the National Democratic Party of Germany (a far right organization often labeled as Neo-Nazi). Regardless of whether Bartoszewski's accusation is true, I still think that the FCDGIE is still generally notable. Seeing its persistence in attempting to gain recognition, I don't think we can quite dismiss it as simply an unnoteworthy "fringe group", even if its politics are radically conservative and generally unpopular. Thought you all should know. -Indy beetle (talk) 01:24, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Indy beetle - thanks for being so thorough. Just because it's a fringe group, or possibly radical, doesn't mean it should be excluded from WP if it passes notability, which I think you've established it does. Again, excellent job on this fascinating article! LavaBaron (talk) 01:33, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I don't see any coverage of this in Polish. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:51, 8 November 2016 (UTC)