Talk:Declaration of Facts

Defensive tone

I have tagged the article for cleanup and neutrality. It does a poor job of explaining the background and contents of the declaration and is also poorly sourced. The biggest problem is its defensive tone, in which it refers to critics, but names only one (James Penton) and then devotes the remainder of the article to rebuttals of his criticism. I am limited in what I can do: I have Penton's Apocalypse Delayed, which spends a couple of pages discussing the declaration, but I'm cautious about using him too much because of accusations made by a couple of other academics that Penton's observations in a later book are skewed against the Witnesses. He refers to a JW yearbook that discusses the declaration, and a couple of JW history books produced by the Watch Tower Society; both those sources, too, need to be treated with caution because of the WTS's propensity for historical revisionism. I have bought Detflef Garbe's book, Between Resistance and Martyrdom, but have yet to read it. If anyone has material from reliable sources that can be added, or see other ways to imrpove the article, it would be good ... otherwise it's on my "To do" list. BlackCab (talk) 02:04, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Dear BlackCab, what you call “defensive tone” are simply the real facts. The article names only James Penton because he’s the only one who claims that JW made a sort of compromise with Hitler, the entire scientific community has rejected this theory since a long time. That’s all. By the way, one could not even say that it is “his” theory because as historian Detlef Garbe says in his book Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime 1933-1945 Penton just copied it from an old libelous campaign promoted by the Stasi in the 60’s. Concerning the sources matter, until now there are 6 sources which correctly express the historians opinion so I don’t see all this lack of sources you talk about. If you want to consult further sources, you can take a look at the ones in the main article about the persecution of JW, which all confirm what I told you. Maybe you could quote some of those sources in this article. Anaheim 94.34.114.188 (talk) 11:54, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

In fact I've rewitten that section somewhat already to remove much of that defensive tone I referred to. I have put Penton's claims at the start and followed it with some contrary views of other authors. I'm nearing the end of Garbe's book now and will launch into Penton's next, so I'll be in a better position to address this section. It may require only minor modification, depending on what Penton says. Garbe addresses the Penton book only briefly, because it obviously arrived in his hands at the end of his own project. The historical assessment section has more balance now and I'll aim to keep it that way. BlackCab (talk) 12:37, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not aware that the "scientific community" has actually shown much interest in the issue.--Jeffro77 (talk) 12:58, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Italics

There is no need for the Declaration of Facts to be italicised, either in the text or article name. WP:ITALIC requires italics for works of art, books, periodicals etc. Nothing in that list pertains to the 1933 Declaration, which was in essence a letter or a statement; a written appeal to the government. Neither Garbe nor Penton italicise it. See also Magna Carta, Augsburg Confession, Apostles' Creed. BlackCab (talk) 21:58, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

An open letter of this type is more analogous to a periodical or other published work than would be a letter that was privately sent to government officials. Declaration of Facts is used as a title, and is not merely descriptive. The Declaration is hardly comparable to the Magna Carta or church creeds.--Jeffro77 (talk) 01:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Endorsing Hitler's Policies

The section on the historical analysis quotes a source saying that the document endorses Hitler's Policies by quoting point 24 of the 25-point Program of the NSDAP. However it misses out the rather important context that point 24 refers specifically to guaranteeing the religious freedoms of German Christians. The original quote is therefore at best misguided, or at worst intentionally misleading. One could easily read the quote as meaning that German Jehovah's Witnesses supported the policies of the NSDAP generally, including the persecution of the Jews, Rather than the contextual meaning of, 'You promised us this thing, can we have the thing.' Had the document supported by quotation another policy not related to the religious freedoms of the writers, for which this document was written, this could suggest more widespread support of NSDAP. Sir fact hall (talk) 14:47, 21 October 2021 (UTC)