Talk:William Bemister

Notability

Notability was perceived by those reading the Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance) when this came up. It is strongly suggested by [1] among others. jnothman ^talk 15:21, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

The counterpoint is that signing a petition is not itself guarantee of notability, (although if the petition is limited in scope and limited to people who are notable on a topic that the petition speaks to, it does certainly suggest it) nor is testifying before Congress (or appearing in a congressional report) itself guarantee of notability. Ditto for several of the other things given. While the subject doesn't seem to have an IMDB entry (something one would expect from a filmmaker that is notable), which argues against notability, I would tend to say that the collection of things, taken as a whole, are sufficient, and were this to come up for AfD again, I'd argue in favor of keeping it, (but then I am an inclusionist!!!) although I think it's "just barely" notable, as it were. (I refer to my own example in counterpoint, I've been on local TV several times promoting something or another, I am very well known in an esoteric (LEGO) fan community, I sell my artistic creations, I have a website that's been around for ages (although it has no Alexa rank at all, so therefore not notable!) I've been cited in academic papers, interviewed and quoted in Wired articles, etc, etc... yet I do not think I am notable! I am firmly on the other side of the line, none of these individually is enough, nor is the collection of them taken as a whole, enough)... Hope that makes sense. ++Lar 20:18, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Checked material with files at British National Archives 20/07/2007 and made deletions accordingly.Bemister 21:42, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Question to Mr. Bemister

Dear Mr. Bemister,

I'm a German investigative journalist and I'm working on the story of the former SS-Colonel Walter Rauff. I´m very much interested in the interview you made with Rauff in 1979. So I would like to ask you if the film "The Hunter and the Hunted" is online anywhere (at least the part with the interview) or if you have any possibility to provide this interview for me. Also I would appreciate if there is only a transcript of the interview.

Thank you in Advance for your help.

Best regards

Dr. Sabine Kornhagen

SKoerrte[AT]gmx[DOT]de —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.2.121.202 (talk) 08:58, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

October 22th, 2007

OSI acknowledgement?

Written mostly by the subject himself, this article was much more in the enthusiastic, opinionated style which is common to promotional texts than in the neutral, factual style expected in an encyclopedia and especially Wikipedia (see WP:NPOV, WP:PEACOCK...). I have tried to improve it a little, but I still feel uneasy about it, especially about the fact that most of the text does not cite references, and the online references which were linked in the "External links" section (apart from the Guardian obituary) seem to be autobiographies, or at least based on such.

An exception seemed to be the following passage, added by Bemister:

In 1992, Bemister’s investigative work in the case of Auschwitz Doctor Josef Mengele was acknowledged in a published report from the Office of Special Investigations, United States Department of Justice to the Federal Attorney General of the United States.

For this, the following link (as presented in the same article version) seems to have been intended as a reference:

• In the Matter of Josef Mengele, a 1992 report from U.S. DOJ Office of Special Investigations to the Attorney General of the United States which refers to Bemister's investigative work

(Actually, the PDF on the DoJ's own web site might be preferable over Rotten.com's copy.)

However, in this 201 page document, Bemister is only mentioned once, in the following passage about a witness:

Dr. Otto-Hans Kahler's encounter with Mengele at the end of World War II might never have come to light were it not for research conducted by a German geneticist, Dr. Benno Mueller-Hill, about Nazi scientists.21' In the course of research for his 1984 book, Toedliche Wissenschaft (Lethal Science),2' Dr. Mueller-Hill interviewed Kahier because of his association with Dr. von Verschuer' at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute before the war. An unexpected result of the interview was the anecdote about Mengele joining Kahler's medical unit in the last days of the war. OSI subsequently learned of Kahler's existence from William Bemister, a documentary filmmaker.

From this, it appears that the main research which the OSI gave credit for this particular aspect is Mueller-Hill's, and that the contribution of Bemister was just to read this 1984 book attentively and mention it to someone at OSI. Surely a commendable act, but hardly "investigative work in the case of Auschwitz Doctor Josef Mengele" or research that merits mention in an encyclopedia article. Of course it is possible that more substantial praise for Bemister's Mengele research can be found elsewhere, but as it stands the claim is neither supported by this reference nor does the information in the reference seem important enough to be mentioned in an encyclopedic biography.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:08, 10 February 2010 (UTC)