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War breaks out in Europe; a pretext for a Soviet invasion

Since the section describes the pretext for German invasion, I added "On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets invaded Eastern Poland under a pretext that Polish state ostensibly ceased to exist." It is an important addition, because otherwise a reader may conclude there was a state of war between Poland and USSR, although, as far as I know, no formal war was declared.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:28, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

This is a controversial issue that I don't think we need to clarify here. Soviet invasion was clearly an act of war and the only reason Poland didn't declare it back is because it would do little good. See ex [1] (on why didn't the Allies declare war on USSR), or [in Polish] [2] (a Polish historian arguing Poland should've declared war on USSR). This is a fascinating topic that I may need to research later, but I don't believe we should clarify it here. Citing Soviets 'pretext' is opening the door to a wider debate - how did Poland and the allies reply to that? We don't have room for that. Sufficient to say, USSR invaded Poland. At most we could add a sentence that this did not lead to any state of war, since neither Poland nor USSR declared war on one another, but I don't believe this is needed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:28, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Paul's edit. I think it is important to clarify this briefly. Polish troops fought the Germans, but I don't believe they fought the Red Army. And no one at the time knew there was a deal between Germany and the USSR.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:34, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jack Upland: Your belief is incorrect: please see Template:Campaignbox Soviet invasion of Poland. Those were not friendly meetings. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:04, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, there were some fighting, but at mush smaller scale than with German army.--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:55, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

True. I was just pointing out that to say there was no fighting is incorrect. Just like the Phony War - it wasn't a major theater, but people died and a few battles and such did happen. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:02, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus, as you know, when Poles asked Britain why it hadn't declared a war on the USSR, they responded that the secret protocol of the Anglo-Polish treaty stipulate that this treaty took effect only in the event of German aggression. I agree that de facto Soviet invasion was a purely aggressive act. However, the development of historical events demonstrated that the formal pretext of Soviet actions absolutely satisfied Britain and France, who didn't know about a secret protocol at that time, and who believed the USSR is just returning the territory Poland conquered in 1920. As a result, they didn't see the USSR as an aggressor (in contrast to a situation with Finno-Soviet war). The text I am adding (which contains the word ostensibly) reflects those time views and explains why there were no state of war between the USSR and Anglo-Franco-Polish alliance. If we do not say that, a reader may start to look for the information about peace treaty signing between the USSR and Britain of Poland in 1941, when the USSR joined the Allies. However, that never happened, and the reason was: formally, the USSR had never been at war with Britain or Poland. I think that is important fact a reader needs to know.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:43, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

• Here is the edit. Saying "under a pretext that Polish state ostensibly ceased to exist" is the Soviet version of this, something that has been relentlessly promoted by the Soviet propaganda. We all know that USSR invaded the Poland because the invasion was agreed in advance with Nazi in the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. But this page tells surprisingly little about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which was actually one of the main reasons this war started. My very best wishes (talk) 17:07, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Soviet statement was that "Polish state ceased to exist". The article says: "Soviets said Polish state ceased to exist". Do you see a difference? The goal of this statement is to transmit the official Soviet position without endorsing it. That is what the article is doing with other official statements. Do you disagree with that way of presentation of information in general?

In addition, there is no agreement among historians on the role of MRP in Soviet invasion. It seems Stalin and Hitler interpreted the pact differently. Some sources argue Stalin's plans of invasion significantly depended on Hitler's successes, and the decision to invade was made after the rapid collapse of Polish army. --Paul Siebert (talk) 17:19, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

No, I do not think we should devote attention on this very general page to the Soviet position ("transmit the official Soviet position") on the question why they have attacked Poland. We should transmit positions by the modern day historians/RS on this question. My very best wishes (talk) 17:26, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Hmm...if the Polish state continued to exist, wouldn't that mean there were Polish death camps??GPRamirez5 (talk) 17:35, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

You might as well blame native Americans for anything related to the United States. Seriously, no straw man arguments, please. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:04, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think this is a totally correct comparison. American aborigens had no government in exile, no regular army (although under British or Soviet general command), I think Poland had more traits of a state under foreign military occupation, and, yes, Poland as a state had no responsibility for "Polish" death camps.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:50, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

No. Polish state never surrendered officially, the territory fell under foreign control, but state's continuity was not broken. We cannot speak about debellatio in this case, and the source I cite clearly says about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:49, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

As about "Stalin and Hitler interpreted the pact differently", yes sure, Hitler quite probably expected the USSR to attack Poland immediately and together with him, but Stalin waited a couple of weeks, until Hitler became involved in the war on multiple fronts, the war he was almost certain to loose (the future engagement of the USSR against Nazi Germany was inevitable and planned in advance by Stalin). That was the significance of this (missing on the page?), as described in books on the subject. My very best wishes (talk) 17:38, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Do you have an objection to presenting only Soviet position, or your objection is general (I mean, noone's positions should be presented)? If your objection is general, I think we need to discuss it. Let's remove all "Roosevelt declared...", "Hitler said...", etc. Of course, we can do that if there will be a general consensus about that. If you object to a description of the Soviet position only, there should be a serious reason for that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:40, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I find this highly unproductive. Please, remember that consensus does not mean you have a right of veto.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:02, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

One more argument why this explanation is needed is the mention of expulsion of the USSR from the League of Nations for its aggression against Finland. A reader may ask: "Why was it possible that the USSR was still in the League after a joint Germano-Soviet (some EE users even say "Soviet-German") invasion of Poland?" An answer is simple, the USSR provided a formal pretext that satisfied most states, and the current version of the article informs about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:12, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Telling about the official Soviet position is fine, just like "Hitler said...", however then one should also tell what contemporary historians/RS tell about it. Otherwise, the text will not be consistent with WP:NPOV. However, on an overview page, such as that one, we simply do not have space to describe such complex issues. This belongs to Causes of World War II. My very best wishes (talk) 12:05, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Modern views are taken into account by using the word "ostensibly", which implies that the article's text does not endorse this claim. Furthermore, subsequent text continues to speak about Poland, thereby confirming that Poland hadn't "ceased to exist". The source cited also concludes that the explanation was weak from a legal point of view, that it it was intended not for international lawyers, but for affecting a public opinion. I think, this information is quite sufficient for any reasonable reader to draw correct conclusions about an unpleasant role the USSR played in this story. Obviously, a EE reader who is obsessed with the idea that the USSR was the most evil monster of XX century, and the WWII article should tell that it was the USSR who started WWII, and who was the main aggressor, may find this text unsatisfactory. However, it is not our goal to please this tiny fraction of world population. Our goal is to tell truth..--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:39, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

So, you do admit that the explanation "was weak from a legal point of view". Speaking normal language, that was actually Soviet disinformation or propaganda. So why should we cite Soviet propaganda on WP pages, without even explicitly telling that it was propaganda and providing alternative views per WP:NPOV? "Ostensibly" does not make it.My very best wishes (talk) 15:55, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, if we were writing this article specifically for a stupid reader, as well as for some very specific fraction of EE readers, an explicit reservation should be added ("but that was just a propaganda of evil Soviets"). However, to any reasonable reader (i.e. to our main audience) the word "ostensibly" is quite sufficient. Other details can be found in the source provided (whose conclusion was: Soviet claims were shaky).--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:44, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Support Paul's change. I copy edited the amendment before it was taken out and summarily executed. I am not enthusiastic about the amendment, but it seems an improvement in that it succinctly adds useful, even necessary, information and is the least bad version I can think of. Well done Paul for spotting and tackling this. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:25, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I also support including this helpful explanatory material.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:27, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Support inclusion. I've always wondered what the Soviet Union's justification for invading Poland was. Now, I have a better understanding. To be honest, I'd rather have more. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:24, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

The added clarification, with the words pretext and ostensibly, is mostly fine. But this section should certainly mention the MRP. Interestingly, I see it is mentioned in lead: "Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states." Let's remember lead is supposed to be a summary of the article. I suggest amending the sentence "On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets invaded Eastern Poland under a pretext that the Polish state had ostensibly ceased to exist" to include a reference to MRP. Explaining why the Soviets invaded seems even more important then why there was no state of war etc. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:14, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus, MRP is already described in the "Occupations and agreement" section. By the way, the source I used does not mention MRP (despite the fact that its secret protocol was already known in the West), and even without taking into account MRP finds Soviet pretext very shaky. I sincerely do not understand what additional information will be added if we mention MRP every time the USSR is mentioned. MRP's role has been explained in the "Occupations ... " section: provide Hitler with freedom of manoeuvre in Poland (an open part) and define "spheres of influence" (a secret part). By the way, the degree of coordination between Germany and the USSR is still the subject of debates between historians. Moreover, Germans pretended the degree of coordination was much higher than it actually was, and, taking into account that only German archival documents were available to Western historians before the "archival revolution", coordination was frequently overstated.

Since the "spheres of influence" have already been explained in the "Occupations " section, and the secret protocol contained no obligation to invade Poland, I sincerely do not understand what concrete wording should be added to make a situation more clear and avoid pushing just some particular view.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:50, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

My only concern is that the article leaves the reader likely without a clear explanation why did the Soviets invade Poland. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:10, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

And what this explanation is? I am not sure it is simple. On one hand, there was a secret protocol that defined the part of Poland east of the Curzon line as a Soviet sphere of influence and raised a question about existence of Poland as an independent state (the matter the previous section discusses), but did not stipulate any Soviet actions against Poland. On another hand, there were Franco-British guaranties to Poland, and there were no indication Stalin knew about its secret protocol (which stipulated Britain and France had no obligation in the case of attack of Poland by any power except Germany), that means Stalin might believe there was a risk that Britain and France could declare a war on the USSR in the case of Soviet invasion of Poland. That means the most probable explanation of Soviet invasion is: because MPR allowed Stalin to do so, but left a freedom of manoeuvre, and the situation in Poland (de facto military defeat by Sept 17) allowed Stalin to invade Poland without a risk to be seen as a open German ally. And that is exactly what the article already says.

If we present Soviet actions by making too much stress on alliance-like relations with Germany (and that was exactly how German propaganda was trying to present them), then we need to add more explanations of another aspect: why didn't Britain and France declare a war on the USSR, and why hadn't the USSR been expelled from the League of Nations in September 1939?--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:23, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

"The Battle of Westerplatte is often described as the first European battle of World War II. "

This sentence seems to duplicate the caption. It carries no additional information and breaks the narrative. I think, it is quite clear from the caption that the Battle of Westerplatte was the first WWII battle. I suggest to remove it. If any editor who knows Polish history can propose a sentence about other battles of Polish campaign or Polish resistance, I will support that, because the space allows it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:06, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. This is also trivia. I'm sure that I could come up with some minor Australian battle which has an interesting fact attached and add it in, but that would also be a bad idea. Nick-D (talk) 03:27, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure Australia played a prominent role during this period of war. It would be better to add something to a story about later events.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I was referring to Australia in general, and am not proposing to add anything. Nick-D (talk) 03:52, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Maybe, you don't but I do. I see an opportunity for reduction of the text volume (in the same way we have already done with two sections), to devote more space for description of battles, so if you have some specific battles with Australian involvement during a 1941-45 period, it would be good if you proposed a couple of sentences.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:12, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

The Battle of Hel was much bigger and longer. However the main batlle was the Battle of the Bzura, about 1000 bigger than the Westerplatte one.Xx236 (talk) 09:32, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Bruza is already in the article. Do you propose to add Hel?--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:32, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Battle of the Bzura - I don't see it. Xx236 (talk) 12:44, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

"On 8 September, German troops reached suburbs of Warsaw. The Polish counter offensive to the west halted the German advance for several days, but it was outflanked and encircled by Wehrmacht."--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:46, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I am fine with Westerplatte being mentioned in caption. And I'd have thought we moved beyond called it trivia, we discussed numbers showing its popularity above. (Still, that reminds me we have some other, much more trivia-like content, to remove, I'll start a discussion about it shortly). On battle of Hel: while it was indeed longer and bigger, I am not sure if it is important enough for the mention. IIRC it was the lengthiest battle of the Polish campaign, but well, this is indeed kind of a trivia fact. Mentioning W. makes sense because it is often mentioned, in the context of 'the first battle' - a bit trivia, but mentioned so much that I think our mentioning it is totally justified. I don't feel Hel would pass that test, however. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:15, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I'd like point out that this discussion was about the text, but not the image which was changed out in the section, this was not raised. --E-960 (talk) 20:14, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Not exactly. We discussed different possibilities for mentioning Westerplatte, and agreed that the photo would be an optimal way.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:38, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Pace of recent changes

I'd like to raise one concern regarding the pace of the recent changes, it appears that in rapid succession many of the revisions were initiated by one of the editors (which is fine, since there is nothing wrong with opening up talk page discussions), however when some of the suggestions include changing out all the images in one section and altering drastically large portions of long standing text, which was built over time by many editors, it can come across a pushing a particular narrative (though I would not say it's blatant POV pushing in this case). Rarely, does a section need such dramatic overhauls (and more rare still when talking about several sections at once in a high visibility article such as this one) as some of the suggestions recommend, and this does raise a RED FLAG here. --E-960 (talk) 20:45, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

• Also, I'd like to point out (without generalizing too much) that many of these rapid succession discussions were between just two editors, with an occasional third editor joining in. In a high profile article, perhaps we should slow down with all the proposed changes, and allow for full discussion to take place not dialog between the same couple of editors. --E-960 (talk) 21:19, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

You probably noticed that after the discussion came to a logical end we take about one week break, and only after that the new version is added to the article. Is one week not sufficient? What time period is long enough in your opinion?

Regarding images, I am not sure a generic picture of tanks or solders is more informative that a photo of a battleship firing first WWII salvos. In my opinion, images in this article are supposed not to inform a reader, but complement the narrative, and Schleswig-Holstein photo and caption plays this role perfectly (in contrast to one more generic photo of tanks or riflemen).

By having say that, I cannot agree we changed too many images. We replaced an old and absolutely non-informative map with an animated one, the idea with Westerplatte was not mine (I was thinking about it, but it has been proposed by Piotrus). I think Mediterranean section should show victorious Germans (because the picture of captured Germans creates an absolutely wron impression about the course of events during that time period). So far, I don't remember if we changed much. Frankly, I don't think I understand the logic behind the image choice, but my primary concern is not the images but the text. I see you disagree with some changes, but I sincerely cannot understand what exactly you are objecting to. Can you please be more specific?

Re: "Rarely, does a section need such dramatic overhauls" It seems we achieved a talk page consensus that the "Course of the war" section is overloaded with trivial statements, whereas a little space is devoted to the description of real battles, as if the whole WWII was just a chess game played by few politicians. The war was fought by people who were fighting, suffering and dying, but the article devote the same space to some Hitler's statement or Mussolini's feelings as to some titanic battle where a million of solders were killed or wounded. Do you find it normal? --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:10, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion the problem is that the article consists of multiple different approaches that do not fit together very well. Traditionally encyclopedias handled the big war like a chess game, with maybe five or six key players (countries) represented by their key decision-makers –, Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, Tojo. In recent decades the new social history approach to military history focused on the experience of the soldiers and sailors, who they were, why they fought, their living conditions, their deaths. Home front, economics, and diplomacy are the focus of most modern research, and all those topics are drastically underplayed. And what is really underplayed is the cultural approach to history – the memory of the war, what it all meant to billions of people. This is how historians now handle the first world war, the American Civil War, the Napoleonic wars, 30 year war, and so on. As for individual battles – they take up too much space under any approach, and are very well covered in their own article. Rjensen (talk) 23:53, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure I completely understand your point (do you yourself prefer a "chess game" style or a more modern style), but there is another aspect of this problem: this article gives an absolutely distorted impression of the relative scale and strategic importance of the events in different theatres. To fix this balance, we need to clean some space, and, as far as I understand, we came to a consensus that slight restyling and removal of various "chess style" considerations can be helpful. By the way, do you yourself support this idea?--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:03, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

If we were starting the article from scratch, I would recommend the chess game model. We have two entirely different groups of readers, as I see it: starters who want a concise overview of a famous event, and people really interested in the war, who frequent The book stores that cater to their tastes. In terms of a repair job, the best that can be done I think is to use this as a skeleton that has a brief overall history, and mostly leads the readers to our dozens and hundreds of major articles on every aspect of the war. As for battles, they don't fit very well, and I suggest a list of the 25 most important ones, with a couple sentences to each. Wikipedia probably has 1000s of battle articles on World War II with maps etc. Rjensen (talk) 00:40, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually, what we are doing now is exactly what you say: using this article as a skeleton, we are trying fix it, and in my opinion it means to create a more balanced text. The main problem seems that the article focuses on the events and theatres that are more familiar to a Western reader. It actually follows Churchill's "Second World War". However, Churchill openly conceded his book was one-sided, and his explanation was quite clear: he was writing about the subject he knew, and other authors were welcome to write about other aspects of WWII. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:33, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to point out serious issues with some of the proposed changes (which display a lack of full context and understanding of the subject matter), and just how inconsistent they are. Here is an excellent example: In the War breaks out in Europe (1939–40) section, the image of the Wehrmacht tearing down the border crossing [3] and the German panzers in Poland [4] were suggested for removal and replacement with the battleship Schleswig Holstein [5] and the defenders of Warsaw [6]. So, here is the logic... the original images show to the reader that Nazi Germany invaded Poland going across the border, and moved quickly across the country with tanks. Yet, what message do the new set of images show? That Poland was invaded by an amphibious attack and air assault, since one image is of a naval bombardment (on the tiny Polish coast line of that time) and the other of a anit-aircraft gun in Warsaw. Seriously, I don't think that many of the changes were though through properly (and in this example, if we were talking about the invasion of Norway, I could see these new picture as valid representation of the events, but not for the invasion of Poland). --E-960 (talk) 04:15, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

E-960, images and the text are two separate things. I think it would be a good idea to discuss a common approach towards image choice for each article's section. However, that does not affect the work on the text improvement. Do you have any comments on the text?--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:39, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I tend to agree with E-960 here. It's been hard keeping up with the multiple proposals. Nick-D (talk) 10:10, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Whoa there, "image choice for EACH article's section"? We don't need to review every image in this article, the vast majority are well placed, and the collective input from many editors should be retained. There might be 2 or 3 images that need to be changed out, such as that of Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler, which are way too big and in your face. I'm not trying to belittle any one editor, but I would not want this article to be WWII according to Paul Siebert, but this is what happening when just one editor is driving so many of the suggested changes. --E-960 (talk) 15:06, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, do you see my signature in the article? I don't. The article is supposed to be not according to Paul Siebert or E-960, it is supposed neutrally represent what good reliable sources say, and be in accordance with a common sense. I propose arguments and sources is support of any change, and I provide rationale for any change. If people agree, we implement that. If people disagree, we do not make any changes. However the arguments are supposed to be logical. So far, I saw just three arguments from your side: (i) a story about invasion of Poland has to show German tanks/troops, and (ii) a caption under a German photo in the Mediterranean section is not good, and (iii) you generally don't like what is being done. The arguments (i) and (ii) is something that can and should be discussed, but the argument (iii) is hard to address, because it is too general.

As I already explained, images are not our primary concern, and I personally didn't plan to change them significantly (I believe you have no objections to the animated map? That was arguably a single images I changed unilaterally), although my impression is that their choice was random and not careful. I'll probably comment on that story in a separate section. In connection to that, leaving images beyond the scope, do you have any concrete objections to any other changes (except images) what we (not I) are making?--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:22, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

In regards to the text, I just looked over the Mediterranean (1940–41) suggestions, and right away I don't think that the new text is that much better, in fact the wording is a bit clumsy, for example the new text says "In early June 1940 the Italian Regia aeronautica attacked Malta" instead of saying "Italy began operations in the Mediterranean, initiating a siege of Malta". I think that the original statement is easier to grasp (especially if you're new to the topic). I really don't mean to be dismissive, but overall that's a lot of new changes, and most of them just look cosmetic in nature — change a few words here, reverse points there. --E-960 (talk) 16:44, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't understand your criticism: you say the changes are significant, and then you say they are cosmetic.

If you don't like some concrete wording, feel free to change it. Actually, the goal is to make text more clear and to remove trivial and redundant statements, such as "Italy started the Greco-Italian War because of Mussolini's jealousy of Hitler's success but within days was repulsed with few territorial gains and a stalemate soon occurred"(how cares about personal Mussolini's feelings?), or "Hitler decided that when the weather improved he would take action against Greece" (who cares about weather? We cannot devote space to explanations of when exactly Hitler decided to do this or that, unless it is really important.), or "The Yugoslav government had signed the Tripartite Pact on 25 March, only to be overthrown two days later by a British-encouraged coup. Hitler viewed the new regime as hostile and immediately decided to eliminate it. On 6 April Germany simultaneously invaded both Yugoslavia and Greece,... " (Obviously, Hitler would be an absolute idiot if he hadn't seen a threat in a pro-British coup), and so on. These absolutely redundant statements dilute a story about real events and create an impression that the artcile is written for kids. In addition, not only the article is written in British English, some sections create an impression that it was written by British users for a British reader.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:49, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

In addition, I deliberately remove too much, if somebody thinks something should be re-added, we just do that.

• I would much welcome if for example the focus was turned to more glaring problem sections such as Casualties and war crimes, which really is in need of a solid clean up as it cites random figures, which clash with the numbers provided in Genocide, concentration camps, and slave labour section. However, though not perfect most of the sections describing the campaigns are reasonably accurate. --E-960 (talk) 16:53, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

We already modified this section recently, and now it is more readable than it was before. I agree it needs in additional improvement, but I am not ready to do it right now.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:49, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

"Changes are significant", meaning that there are so many of them. I can't even address all of them with out writing a book, and I'm sure other editors would have trouble addressing all of them as well. --E-960 (talk) 18:22, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

If you disagree with all of them, just say that, and let's start to discuss it. If you disagree with some particular changes, propose your version, or re-add a part of the old wording, or do something else. It is our job to explain to others our point of view, and you cannot say old version is good because it is old. To me, the current ("old") version is a new one, because I remember the time when this article was significantly different, I find some changes good, but others are definitely not an improvement. --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:33, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Hirohito

I've been asked on my talk page why I removed the note about Hirohito's name. As I said in my edit summary, it is unnecessary. The use of "Hirohito" is covered by the common names policy. A discussion of his various names belongs on his page, not here. We do not have any note about Stalin's real name or Molotov's real name. Nor do we say that Germany is an English name for Deutschland or that the Kuomintang is also called the Guomindang or the Nationalist Party. These notes are unnecessary in a general article and a fussy distraction. Also, Wikipedia isn't censored. We don't call Hirohito Emperor Showa to appease Japanese sensitivities, and we don't apologise for not doing so.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:20, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Have you considered the possibility that this may be the only article of those you mention that is changed to the point where on balance this note saves us some work? Britmax (talk) 22:45, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

What do you mean "changed to the point"?--Jack Upland (talk) 15:40, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

War breaks out in Europe

First of all, I am not sure the description of the start of the war is fully accurate. As far as I know, it was not just "the false pretext that the Poles had carried out a series of sabotage operations", it was a German staged incident (Gleiwitz incident). In other words, Germany didn't use some event as a false pretext, it deliberately created the pretext.

Furthermore, the current version makes a redundant emphasis on the independence of British dominions. I don't see why should we discuss it here. If they were fully independent, that means we should describe them as such, without separate reservations. Below I propose the version that is much shorter and, in my opinion, more accurate. Instead of the current version:

"On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland under the false pretext that the Poles had carried out a series of sabotage operations against German targets near the border. Two days later, on 3 September, after a British ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations was ignored, Britain and France, followed by the fully independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth—Australia (3 September), Canada (10 September), New Zealand (3 September), and South Africa (6 September)—declared war on Germany. However, initially the alliance provided limited direct military support to Poland, consisting of a cautious, half-hearted French probe into the Saarland. The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany, which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort. Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which was to later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic."

I propose: File:Schleswig Holstein ostrzeliwuje Westerplatte 39 09 01 b.jpg The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein firing at Westerplatte

"On 1 September 1939, upon having staged several border incidents, Germany invaded Poland. Britain responded with an ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations, and on 3 September, after the ultimatum was ignored, France, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand declared a war on Germany. This alliance was joined by South Africa (6 September) and Canada (10 September). The alliance provided only a limited direct military support to Poland, consisting of a cautious French probe into the Saarland. The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany, which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort. Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which would later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic.

I also see some problems with other parts of the text.

First, the two sentences "On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets invaded Poland from the east. The Polish army was defeated, and Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 ..." imply a strong causal linkage, in other words, it look like the USSR invaded Poland, defeated it, and Warsaw surrendered ... to Germany. Obviously, it is incorrect: Germany played a key role in this war, and the USSR played just auxiliary role.

Second. I don't see we need to mention Chamberlain's name and give a long quote from him. He was not the most influential politician by that time. I propose to remove it.

Third, I am not sure significant casual linkage existed between the German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation and the "mutual assistance" pacts the USSR forcefully signed with the Baltic states. These pacts were a consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (its secret protocol). Furthermore, it should be noted that Finland refused to sign a similar pact, and after that the USSR demanded territorial concessions and then attacked Finland.

Fourth, I don't think a photo where two military officers are shaking their hands needs an explanation that they are shaking hands. In addition, the photo is more specific, it was taken in Poland, not just Eastern Europe. Poland was the only country were the USSR and Germany coordinated their activity. I suggest to make the caption more brief and more accurate.

Fifth, the expulsion of the USSR from the League of Nation is described incorrectly. That happened simply because Finland complained, and the USSR refused to stop aggression. In other words, the USSR was expelled from the League simply because it was an aggressor. I also do not understand why the motives of France and Britain need to be explained: their votes had the same weight as the weight of other states. Source: Carl van Dyke. The Soviet Invasion of Finland. Frank Cass Publishers, Lindon, Portland, OR. ISBN 0-7146-4753-5, p. 71. In my opinion, this source, which tells about the subject specifically, is more trustworthy than a more general source the article uses currently.

Sixth, it is incorrect to put the last paragraph here, because the annexation of the Baltic states happened later, and it was directly connected to the start of Barbarossa planning. The casual linkage is broken there, and I propose to restore the chronological sequence of the events: these annexations cannot be described separately from the Battle of France.

Below, I show the modifications I propose:

"The Polish army was defeated, Polish capital of Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September, and the last operational unit of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October. Poland's territory was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union, which invaded Eastern Poland on 17 September 1939 after signing a cease-fire with Japan. Smaller parts of Polish territory were also transferred to Lithuania and Slovakia. After the defeat of Poland's armed forces, the Polish resistance established an Underground State and a partisan Home Army. About 100,000 Polish military personnel were evacuated to Romania and the Baltic countries; many of these soldiers later fought against the Germans in other theatres of the war.

On 6 October, Hitler made a public peace overture to Britain and France, but said that the future of Poland was to be determined exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union. The proposal was rejected, " and Hitler ordered an immediate offensive against France, which was postponed until the spring of 1940 due to bad weather.

German and Soviet army officers in the occupied Poland, 1939

The Soviet Union forced the Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the states that were in a Soviet sphere of influence"—to sign "mutual assistance pacts" that stipulated stationing Soviet troops in these countries. Soon after that, significant Soviet military contingent was moved there.. Finland refused to sign a similar pact and rejected to cede part of its territory to the USSR, which prompted a Soviet invasion in November 1939, followed by expulsion of the USSR from the League of Nations The resulting Winter War ended in March 1940 with Finnish concessions. "

The last paragraph ("In June 1940, the Soviet Union forcibly annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and the disputed Romanian regions of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and Hertza. Meanwhile, Nazi-Soviet political rapprochement and economic co-operation gradually stalled, and both states began preparations for war.") should be moved to the section that tells about the Battle of France.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:21, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Since we discuss this section, I don't think this phrase is correct: "limited direct military support to Poland". It was not 'limited direct support'. There was no direct support at all. Or indirect. The Saar small offensive did not make Germans divert a single military unit or otherwise do anything that would interfere with their invasion of Poland. while the Phoney War deserves a link, the Saar Offensive is too insignificant to warrant any sort of mention here. Also, the word 'initially' misleads by implying some sort of support was provided. The sentence "Initially, the alliance provided limited direct military support to Poland, consisting of a cautious French probe into the Saarland." should read "The alliance provided no military support to Poland."

I am unclear what changes you are proposing to the latter paragraphs, but I'll point out further problems: The sentence "The Polish army was defeated, and Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September with final pockets of resistance surrendering on 6 October." implies that the pockets of resistance were in Warsaw. Further, pockets of resistance is imprecise - one could argue that pockets never surrendered, after all Poland had big resistance movement, and some small units simply transitioned into partisans. I'd suggest the following rewrite: "The Polish army was defeated, Polish capital of Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September, and the last operational unit of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October." Finally, I don't think that the sentence about " Poland's Enigma codebreakers were also evacuated to France" is relevant, the codebreakers evacuation and even subsequent work is not that important. Since the BS is also mentioned later in the more relevant section about Enigma (under the English name Polish Cipher Bureau), the mention here can be safely removed. Instead, we could add a short sentence about the first battle of WWII, one that is iconic in Poland (most Poles know its name), the Battle of Westerplatte. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:38, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Piotrus, I agree it would be correct to say that no military support was provided, However, I think Saar offensive still should be mentioned. Do you have any idea how can it be done?

Re:, "The Polish army was defeated, and Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September with final pockets of resistance surrendering on 6 October", I think you are right. I added the version proposed by you to the text.

I also agree about Enigma (I remove it from the text), but I think it should not be removed from the article completely. The "Technology" already tells that Enigma was made by Germans, and I think it would be correct to specify that the system that broke Enigma code was made by a Polish-British team. That deserves a separate mention, because the code breaking system was a greater technological advance than the Enigma itself. Can you please think about this modification of the "Technology" section?

Re: Westerplatte, I think, in general, the present article's version devotes too much attention to political statements of various historical figures, and all WWII battles serve just as a background. We must devote more space and attention to the description of the course of the war. Can you please add Westerplatte to the first sentence of the paragraph? Feel free to add it directly to the text.

In general, if you see some minor defects in this text, please, feel free to correct them directly.

Regards, --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:38, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

One more question. I think we need a consistent policy about usage of figures in the article. It does not mention the figures in other sections, but it says about 100,000 Polish military. I do think providing figures is quite relevant, because it gives a reader an impression of the real scale of the events. That is why I am not removing this figure. Do you think we need to discuss this problem on the talk page in a separate section?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:46, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

A problem with the 100,000 figure is that the wording of this sentence implies that these were all the Poles who fought with the western Allies in the free Polish Army. As I understand it, substantial numbers also joined after being released from imprisonment in the USSR (eg, II Corps (Poland)) and from other sources. Large numbers of Poles also fought in the pro-Communist Polish Army which was attached to the Red Army. The current wording on western Allied military support for Poland seems fine to me: it was 'limited', as France and the UK had not mobilised and were unable to do so in time and the geography made it pretty much impossible to provide any support at all to the fighting within Poland (even by the end of the war British and American strategic bombers could only barely reach Polish territory and air lift was nothing like it is now). Nick-D (talk) 23:16, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Nick, my question was more general: we need to decide do we include figures of troops or not? If we decide we do, this figure may stay (probably, it needs a correction, as you noted), but other figures should be added too. That may be a general improvement, because the article gives no impression of a relative scale of events. If we decide we do not show figures, the number of Poles should be removed too. I am more inclined to include figures for major military operations, however, I will support any consensus. If some decision will be made, it should be applied consistently to all parts of the article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:27, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Nick, the reasons why the Western Allies didn't aid Poland are not relevant, the fact is they didn't. The Saar Offensive does discuss this, and while it is not in great shape, suggests they they were mobilized sufficiently to push harder, and that it might have ended the war early - instead, they decided to sit it out. Not something that is that relevant here, but limited support implies doing something. As the Saar article makes it clear, the Saar offensive did not result in any change of German deployments. Nothing that the Western Allies did resulted in any change in Polish situation. Hence, it was not limited support. It was zero support. Limited support was, for example, land lease to Soviets and stuff that the WA did before the Normandy. So, no support. (Also, I keep repeating this, I don't believe Saar offensive is important enough to warrant a mention, we currently describe it as half-hearted, ineffective, etc. - why would such a small scale failure of a mil op deserve a mention in this article at all?). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:08, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert: I didn't mean to remove the mentions of Engima (and I think the fact that it was the Poles who spearheaded the breaking of it is relevant and should be left in the article, and indeed the Technology section is relevant; for now I'll ping User:Nihil novi and User:TedColes who did a lot of work on that topic, and got the BS article to GA). I will review the Technology paragraph shortly.

I'll also try to work out a nice, short way of mentioning the Battle of W. Tentatively, I am thinking about adding the following sentence after the first sentence (Germany invaded Poland): "The Battle of Westerplatte, a Polish military depot shelled by the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, shortly before 05:00 on that day, is often described as the first European battle of World War II". (The text in italics is optional with more details, including time, which yes, I note many editors didn't thought is that relevant above, but I think it flows well with the text). I added the 'often described', because of course it at the same time the many smaller battles of the Battle of the Border begun. Refs (is one sufficient? which one is preferable?): Jürgen Prommersberger (29 January 2017). Battles at Sea in World War I - Jutland. Jürgen Prommersberger. p. 233. ISBN 978-88-260-0919-3., Philip D. Grove; Mark J. Grove; Robert John O'Neill (2010). World War II: The War at Sea. The Rosen Publishing Group. pp. 23–. ISBN 978-1-4358-9131-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help), Michael R. Fitzgerald; Allen Packwood (10 October 2013). Out of the Cold: The Cold War and Its Legacy. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 141–. ISBN 978-1-62356-330-1., Spencer C. Tucker (6 September 2016). World War II: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection [5 volumes]: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection. ABC-CLIO. pp. 2434–. ISBN 978-1-85109-969-6., Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof (2011). 1939 - the War that Had Many Fathers. Lulu.com. pp. 343–. ISBN 978-1-4466-8623-2..

You and User:Nick-D raise a good point about the 100,000 number being potentially misleading. I'd suggest we split of the discussion about figures into a new section, as it is an issue that is relevant beyond the short 'war starts in Europe'/Poland topic. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:11, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

If Westerplatte was one of several simultaneous battles, I see no reason to mention it. It was a pretty small affair, and this is a high level article. The article currently mentions the Polish enigma codebreakers twice. Nick-D (talk) 05:29, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Please reread the discussion above. First, we are suggesting to remove some content, including the indeed unnecessary double mention of Polish codebreakers. Second, as can be seen in numerous sources, including some cited, the battle of Westerplatte is a famous one. In addition to being a famous, practically a household name in Poland, it is commonly mentioned in encyclopedias and histories of WWII. Some further sources: David T. Zabecki (1 May 2015). World War II in Europe: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. pp. 1736–. ISBN 978-1-135-81249-2., Steven Carol (19 August 2009). Encyclopedia of Days: Start the Day with History. iUniverse. pp. 356–. ISBN 978-0-595-60328-2., etc. It is common for sources to mention, like Schultze-Rhonhof in one of the sources above does, that "World War II begun with a German attack on the Polish garrison of Westerplatte". Any overview of this subject should mention this battle, it is one of the iconic battle of WWII, famous for being the first battle of the war (yeah, yeah, there is a vocal minority who argues that WWII started before '39, but well, that's a minority; for the majority of historians who define WWII as 39-45, this is THE FIRST BATTLE). The only question is, how many details, if any, we want to give regarding it. Just saying it was the first may be sufficient.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:00, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Too much detail IMO, and we don't need to add minor battles which are "household names" in various countries but little-known elsewhere. This needs to be a high level article. Nick-D (talk) 12:06, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I think a compromise solution may be to replace the photo of German solders on Polish border (quite generic one) with the photograph of the battleship Schleswig-Holstein with a caption informing that the attack of Westerplatte by this battleship was the first WWII battle. I myself was wondering why this photo is not here.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:06, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

What is too much detail is debatable; IMO there is too much detail in the article already, for example with the 2nd unnecessary mention of Enigma breakers (their evacuation), or with the Saar campaign (a conflict of no importance to the war, outside being a subject of some jokes and ironic commentary). We can also do a GBook count, WWII+Westerplatte net 2,900 hits. This is more than the GBooks mention of the events like the Battle of Yenangyaung (2300 hits) or Battle of the Kerch Peninsula (2300 hits), not too mention stuff like the Battle of Mount Song (1300 hits) or the Panther–Wotan line (400 hits) and about as much as Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign (3100 hits), Defense of Hengyang (3300 hits) or Operation Longcloth (2800 hits). So there's plenty of events here of debatable importance, or what some would call, trivia. Westerplatte, as I've shown, is commonly mentioned in descriptions of the war as the place the first shots were fired. On that note, I'll also make one more point: we mention where did the Japanese surrendered ("On 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed at Tokyo Bay on the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war."), but not where did the Germans surrender ("Total and unconditional surrender was signed on 7 May, to be effective by the end of 8 May.") - that happened in Karlshorst, Berlin, and mention of that would hardly be more trivial than of the Missouri. And if we mention USS Missouri as the token symbolic place the war ended, Weterplatte holds the same, equivalent weight as the place the war started. (Of course, this is not surprising, given the usual US bias in the English 'pedia - American battleship gets a mention, but a German city and Polish fort do not, since they are not American...?)/ Anyway, if we remove some stuff, like the second mention of Enigma breakers, we open room to add something else. It stands to reason that if we remove a Polish-related mention from Polish section, we can add something else there, and as I've shown with numerous sources, this is a high profile battle mentioned by numerous works. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:24, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I think we need to develop some general criteria for inclusion of battles in the article. IMO, the criteria should be:

- strategic importance;

- scale (number of troops involved);

- symbolic importance (that can be measured as a number of gbooks/gscholar hits.

If we agree about this criteria, and agree that each of them separately is sufficient, Westerplatte should be included. However, we probably need to reexamine the article, because many events that meet one of these criteria are missing, whereas some less important events are present. We can save space by copy-editing and removal unneeded and and long considerations (as I did in the above text with Chamberlain's words), so the space is not a big problem.

By the way, why don't you like the idea with the photo? That will be even a greater emphasis on this event that just addition of one sentence. I myself was going to propose that even before you raised the question about Westerplatte.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:48, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

I am fine with the photo switch, through I note that there are some other events that are currently represented (mentioned) both in the photo and in the text, and I don't see why W. shouldn't be one of those. I agree with you that we need to re-examine this article, fact by fact; I like your criteria too. I did a bit of this already, as I was purposefully looking for events of low popularity (and relatively unknown). Of course, some events may be known under multiple names, and that means a simple GBook count is not always sufficient, but the list of events I listed above is not a bad one to start - I am not saying all of those should be removed, but they all deserve a discussion equivalent to what we have here about W. I very much doubt all of them (if any) where subject to discussion before. On a final note, I think we should consider a sentence about battle of Bzura, 2300 Ghits, " the major Polish counterattack of the campaign" and "the bloodiest and most bitter battle of the entire Polish campaign" and "the biggest batle in Europe until the German invasion of Soviet Russia in 1941". Seems to me it would pass all of your criteria. Scale-wise, in involved over 0.6m soldiers; for comparison, Operation Longcloth we mention involved several thousand, and Battle of Mount Song, a bit over 20,000 and neither of those (I am focusing on just two examples due to lack of time) seems to suggest anything about them being either strategically significant, nor symbollically so. Before some suggests I am trying to expand the Polish section unduly, do remember I suggested some cuts to it, so the overall length should stay the same, and I also think that this is the last well known keyword (battle, blue-link) missing form that paragraph. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:08, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Piotrus, whereas I agree with the notion which I found somewhere that Polish military contribution was comparable to that of France (if not bigger), I am not sure I understand what was the importance of the battle of Westerplatte except its symbolic nature. If we use the sentence that you proposed as a caption (I created a stub, pleas add few words there directly), in my opinion, that would be everything a reader needs to know about this event. With regard to other battles of Polish campaign, let's use the Battle of France as an example. I believe, by removing some redundant details and re-wording, I was able to save some space which we can use for description of Polish campaign. If you prepare a paragraph of the same size as the para describing the battle of France, it would be good. The only thing I would like you to avoid is a common stereotype that there was a cooperative invasion of Poland by USSR and Germany, because some sources say there were no coordination until German victory became imminent. Only after that Stalin decided to invade.

In general, I don't think this article is supposed to reflect popular WWII stereotypes everybody can find in popular books or articles. In contrast, it should say what scholarly sources say, the sources many readers have no access to.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:08, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't think the M-R pact needs any deeper discussion than what is already present, and indeed, the level of cooperation between NG and USSR is debatable. I am not sure where you want to work on a draft (or in the main space)? This hampers me a bit, I am used to editing the article's directly, but I am not sure if the gatekeepers of this article would not revert me outright again... (You also mention a stub? What stub? Where is it?). Anyway, I'll try to be bold and I'll edit the article directly based on what we have discussed here so far; even if I am reverted it will at least show a wikified direction we can consider. PS. I see now, you refer to your stub above. I'll propose my v2 below shortly.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:13, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

---

File:Schleswig Holstein ostrzeliwuje Westerplatte 39 09 01 b.jpg The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein firing at Westerplatte

On 1 September 1939, upon having staged several (NOTE: ADDED LINK TO OH) border incidents, Germany invaded Poland. Britain responded with an ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations, and on 3 September, after the ultimatum was ignored, France, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand declared a war on Germany. This alliance was joined by South Africa (6 September) and Canada (10 September). The alliance provided no direct military support to Poland, outside of a cautious French probe into the Saarland. The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany, which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort. Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which would later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic.

German tanks near the city of Bydgoszcz, during the Invasion of Poland, September 1939

On 17 September 1939, after signing a cease-fire with Japan, the Soviets invaded Poland from the east. The Polish army was defeated in numerous engagements, including in the Battle of Bzura, the major Polish counterattack and the largest European battle of the early war.(HERE CITE Taylor [7]) Polish capital of Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on 27 September, and the last large operational unit of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October.(THIS CLAIM WAS MISSING A CITE IN THE CURRENT ARTICLE, HERE IS A RS: [8]}} Poland's territory was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union, with Lithuania and Slovakia also receiving small shares. Tens of thousands of (SOURCES VARY) Polish military personnel were evacuated to Romania and the Baltic countries; many of these soldiers later fought against the Germans in other theatres of the war. After the defeat of Poland's armed forces, the Polish government in exile(LINK CHANGED) established an Underground State and a partisan Home Army, {{one of the three largest partisan forces in existence (FOR SOURCES OF THIS CLAIM, SEE FOOTNOTE AT Polish_contribution_to_World_War_II#endnote_bnone}}.

I think that only Operation Himmler should be linked to (having two links to what was ultimately the same thing in neighbouring words is confusing). I'd also suggest omitting the "the largest European battle of the early war" as this is unclear (what's the "early war"? - surely this includes the Battle of France, which involved larger scale fighting). Other than that, the changes look OK. Nick-D (talk) 11:11, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

@Nick-D: Actually, Taylor specifically refers to biggest until Invasion of Russia. I was a bit surprised too, but he is reliable. Can you think of any larger battle from France? I am not very familiar with that conflict. Still, unless we can find numbers to the contrary, I'd modify the sentence "Polish counter offensive to the west halted " to "Polish counter offensive to the west, resulting in the largest European land battle until 1941, halted ". Since this is of course a controversial (or at least, surprising) claim, I won't add it to the article until we have consensus here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:21, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Piotrus, I think this your version contains just one flaw, but this flaw is important. It mixes military contributions of the USSR and Germany. Correct me if I am wrong, but Polish army was defeated primarily by Germans, and Red Army was not involved in any major battle, just petty skirmishes. In contrast, when a reader sees that "USSR invaded, and Polish army was defeated", it looks like the USSR made a final and decisive blow that ended the campaign. In my opinion, the text proposed by me explains more clearly that USSR, like a vulture, just picked up what remained from Poland after German invasion. Can we combine your version and mine to make that clear?--

The northern front (Belgium and northern France) was enormous, involving the bulk of the German, French and British armies as well as the largish Belgian Army. Nick-D (talk) 08:49, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Nick, the mention of "largest battle" was not added. However, we still need to develop some way (a general way which will be applied to the whole article) to give a reader an impression of a real scale of the events.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:58, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

And yes, I agree with Nick, because we need some general approach how we can give an impression of a scale of WWII battles. We do need that, but we need to use this approach consistently, to all events the article is telling about. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:24, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

I took a liberty to implement the changes that caused no objections from you. Since that saved a considerable space (without a loss of any important facts), I also took a liberty to expand the story about the battle of Poland. I also added few words about Finland, because the fact that overwhelming superiority of the Red Army hadn't lead to a total military defeat of Finland deserves mention.

Piotrus, if I made some mistakes in description of the battle of Poland, please, correct me. I was not able to include Westerplatte, because the Scheswig-Holstein 's image was not in a public domain. Can you please think if it is another way to add a few words about Westerplatte (if you still believe it makes sense)?

Two other comments. I wrote "Germany occupied western Poland, and Soviet Union annexed its eastern part" for two reasons. First, different sources use either "occupation" or "annexation" to describe this event, and these territories became parts of Ukraine and Belorussia later. Second, a legal meaning of "annexation" and "occupation" is different: "annexation" is a full legal incorporation of some territory into another state, which means the territory and population get the same status as other parts of the annexing state. That is what happened to Eastern Poland: its citizens became Soviet citizens, although many of them against their will. In contrast, the status of a German occupied Poland was, by and large, different from that of Germans themselves, which more fit the term "occupation".

I propose to move the last sentence to another section, just after the Battle of France, because those events were partially caused by the latter, and these occupations triggered Hitler's decision to start Barbarossa. If you agree, we have a space for adding two more lines about 1939-40 events. Can anybody think about that, please?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:52, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

I am fine with the text, except I'll add links to Westerplatte and Kock, since they seem to fall under 'no objections'. I'll also note that some Polish areas were annexed by Nazi Germany, and some were occupied and administered under General Government. Please see my main article changes for how I attempted to resolve this. Regarding Westerplatte, you are right, we need better pictures. Fortunately, public domain in Germany is moving forward, consider this 1940 image of the SH battleship: File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MN-1002-07A, Linienschiff "Schleswig-Holstein".jpg on Commons. Looking at commons:Category:Schleswig-Holstein (ship, 1906) I see A camera crew of the propaganda ministry filming the Bombardment of the Westerplatte by training battleship "Schleswig-Holstein", German battleship Schleswig-Holstein during a shellfire of Polish garrison Westerplatte in Gdańsk on 1 September 1939, German battleship Schleswig-Holstein firing at the Polish Military Transit Depot during the siege of Westerplatte.. And there may be more images on the web that are eligible for upload.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:21, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Piotrus, instead of "Germany annexed the western and occupied the central part of Poland", I suggest "Germany annexed the western part of Poland to the German Reich and occupied its central part, ...".

Regarding the picture, this picture German battleship Schleswig-Holstein during a shellfire of Polish garrison Westerplatte in Gdańsk on 1 September 1939 is exactly what I was thinking about, I simply didn't find it.

I think we need to add a reference to the statement that Poland didn't sign surrender to Germany. Can you do that, please?

I also have a feeling that the sentence "After the defeat of Poland's armed forces, the Polish government in exile established an Underground State and a partisan Home Army" "wants" some continuation, because it is stylistically non-perfect. Something like: ".....established an Underground State and a partisan Home Army, which would be conducting numerous sabotage actions against German military targets and infrastructure during later stages of the war." What do you think about that? We also have a space for a couple of words about "London Poles". Do they deserve mention, in your opinion?--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:08, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

References

I am fine with the annexed change. Can you add the picture? TBH, I think we are going light on the references, we've added some facts to the article that I provied refs for above, but I couldn't add the refs (sorry, I never understood that Harvard template). Here's a ref for Poland did not surrender: [9]. Regarding the Home Army continuation, I'd like to add something about AK being one of the worlds biggest resistance movements (I think I cited refs above). Finally, re London Poles, I don't think we need to mention the existence of the gov-in-exile (I presume this is what you refer to) beyond the current single mention. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:49, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, my first concern is that you basically proposed in one burst of disscusions to change out all the images in this section, and significantly alter the text, which was built over time by many editors. This can come across a pushing a particular narrative, though I would not say it's (POV pushing), rarely does a section need such a dramatic overhaul as you propose, and this does raise a red flag here. --E-960 (talk) 20:25, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, usually no major rewrite is needed. But I have noticed that the article has become inflated and overloaded with marginally relevant details, whereas many really important events are mentioned just briefly, as if they were happening by themselves. That is why the article requires a more or less significant revision, and other users seem to agree. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:55, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

• Paul Siebert, also I do not agree with this proposed narrative because it highlights trivial events such as the Schleswig-Holstein bombardment, the Invasion of Poland was on land, not island hopping like in Asia-Pac, just to show how detached this image for the full context of the event, it's like talking about the German Blitzkrieg (tanks) going into Poland, and including this iamge of the German cavalry. --E-960 (talk) 21:58, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Frankly, this photo is very informative, because, believe you or not, German army was primarily (more than 50%) horse powered (I myself was really surprised to learn how many horses did Germans use). The picture of Germans on tanks is one of the most common stereotypes (similar to German solders with machine guns), so I think a photo of German cavalry would be a good complement to the text telling about German tank divisions. We have not enough space to afford a luxury to use images just as illustrations.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:55, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Interesting, yes... perhaps in an article such as the Invasion of Poland, but not in a broad overview article such as this one. That's the issue, many of the changes were being made because some fact or image was new and interesting, but not because it captured the broad context of a particular event. --E-960 (talk) 03:54, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

partisan Home Army and other subjects

• The phrase partisan Home Army is unprecize. The HA was formed only in 1942 as the third subsequent underground organization, which annected a number of other organizations. The goal of the HA was to prepare Operation Tempest, so I'm not sure if it was partisan. It was dominated by Polish army officers, without any guerilla experience. National Military Organization and a number of smaller organisations existed outside the Service for Poland's Victory/Union of Armed Struggle/Home Army. Xx236 (talk) 08:38, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

What concrete change do you propose?--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I think I have an idea how to make this a bit better, also per your request on my talk. See [10]. I think that despite adding a new fact and a few links, the new version is even slimmer (shorter) than what we had.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

• The war was prepared before the September. Poland mobilized secretely part of its army (August 24) and fully (August 30). Poland evacuated also the main part of its navy - three destroyers - to the UK. Xx236 (talk) 08:51, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure three destroyers are too important to discuss. I think we don't need to specifically mention that Polish army was mobilised.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

• According to some Polish historians the first conference of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council decided to not fight. [11] This Wikipedia ignores the subject. Xx236 (talk) 09:40, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Peking Plan is cool (I wrote about it) but IMHO too trivial indeed to be mentioned here. Ditto for Plan Worek. Damn, 10 years later and I still remember those codenames... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Do you have any concrete wording in mind? If not, I'll try to do that myself.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

• The German army was accompanied by the Einsatzgruppen, which murdered civilians. The WWII wasn't a military war only, it was an extermination war in the East, the number of civilian victims being higher than military ones.Xx236 (talk) 10:54, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I'll try to add that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

• Bombing of Guernica is mentioned (before the war), later Battle of Britain and bombing of Hamburg 1943. The Luftwaffe destroied Wieluń, Sulejów and parts of Warsaw killing thousands of civilians. It was the intermediate step between Guernica and London.Xx236 (talk) 09:59, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

If we mention all bombing (Belgrade, Stalingrad, Dresden, Tokyo, etc) the article will become too inflated. IMO, Guernica, BoB and Hamburg, as well as Hiroshima, are mentioned not because of a large number of victims, but because they were important from other points of view.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

• "The attack [on France] is to be launched this Autumn if conditions are at all possible." - the German army wasn't able to attack anyone in 1939, it needed months to recreate ammo and fuel and to renovate tanks and cars. Even Adolf Hitler wasn't able to change it so the weather was unimportant.Xx236 (talk) 09:51, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

This is just a quote from a historical document, it is not a part of the article.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd like to propose replacing File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1976-071-36, Polen, an der Brahe, deutsche Panzer.jpg. It doesn't look that well in a thumb, plus for balance I think we should show Polish troops: right now the three pics are all showing Germans (well, half of one is showing Soviets). Some options: File:Defenders of Warsaw (1939).jpg or File:WBK -battle of Bzura 1939.jpg (looks good as a thumb, despite crappy quality otherwise)? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:17, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Piotrus, I prefer Defenders of Warsaw (1939).jpg. The second photo present Polish army as a technologically backward. We don't want to support a stereotype that this conflict was a battle between Polish horsemen and German tanks.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:57, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not too sure this is the best image change, we must see the big picture here. In the Battle of Britain we see images of German bombers, in the Invasion of Poland we see German tanks. This is a rather logical set up (original images), the new propositions, just show interesting pictures, but do not show the context of the events. --E-960 (talk) 04:20, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I am not opposed to the image if we cannot find something better, but again, I'll note we should have at least one picture of Polish soldiers. Also, I've reverted your changes - you've removed links to events like Operation Himmler or Battle of Westerplatte that were agreed to be added in the preceding discussions. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:26, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Prokonsul Piotrus, I have to say, this is a bit ridiculous, you basically have 4 random images in the section, they don't actually tell a story, they are just "interesting" pictures (also that's way too much for one section). If you are going to have only two images to tell the story of the Invasion of Poland it would probably be the German soldiers (sure as heck not a naval bombardment which was SYMBOLIC in nature, the September campaign was not island hopping in the Pacific), and if you want to add Polish troop ok, but I'm sure that an AA-gun is not the best image, which illustrates the bigger picture. Also, I'm concerned about what really comes across as having two editors barn storming through the article, this being a high profile page I think that the pace should be scaled back and more thought put into the selections. Btw, I not sure why the text was watered down about the invasion of Poland, making it more ambiguous. --E-960 (talk) 18:00, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

@E-960: Symbolic is exactly the point. We should mention and illustrate symbolic events even more so then mundane. I am not sure what you mean by watered down. I simply object to your undiscussed removal of key links mentioned above. We spend weeks discussing them before we reached consensus to include them, I am sorry, you don't get a free pass at removing them without getting consensus first. If you want to change stuff, that's fine - but please discuss it here first. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:24, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Mediterranean section

Here is a shortened version of Mediterranean 40-41 section. Major changes:

1. Trivial remarks (like "Hitler viewed the new regime as hostile " etc) removed: it is obvious that any pro-British coup would be viewed by Hitler as hostile. Several other statements of that kind removed.
2. More German images are needed. I added Rommel, who is deservedly considered a main hero of this theatre in 40-41
3. I am not sure if we need this sentence: "Commonwealth counteroffensives in May and June 1941 were unsuccessful." Too small and unimportant. If we list all battles of this scale and importance, the sections below would grow 50 times.

What do you think?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:20, 9 June 2018 (UTC) PS. The remark after the ref to Weinberg (2005, p=229 says: -- REFERENCE SEEMS VERY NARROW FOR RANGE OF EVENTS COVERED --. Can anybody check what does this book say?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:36, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that two photos for this short section is plenty (the article probably already has too many photos). As the article avoids photos of generals, I don't think that Rommel should be included. While prominent in this theatre, he was only a corps commander. Nick-D (talk) 03:46, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I like your proposed amendments below. I have copy edited. A query: I do not feel that "with British air support" was significant enough to warrant a mention at this level. I would propose replacing it with 'with heavy Italian losses'. (Or simply deleting it.)

Regarding your points above. We need more German images - but not in this section which is arguably already over-imaged. Yes, support scrapping Brevity and Battleaxe per your reasoning. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:49, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Nick-D&Gog the Mild, please, feel free to change/add/remove whatever you want. I think we can put this text into the article in one week (if there will be no serious objections from others)--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:01, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

OK. I have tweaked your draft. I think that it reads a little better now. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting.

Re Weinberg; can't we scrap it and use other sources? It is not as if there is a lack of them! Gog the Mild (talk) 20:13, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Please, do that if you can. I still think we need a picture showing victorious Germans, not "captured solders".--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:23, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, I have reservations about the text and image changes you propose, they all come across as watering down the main points. And this appears to be a recent trend in this article, to just blur the context. Just one example of this is the changing of longstanding images, such as that of the 'Wehrmacht at the border-crossing' with that of 'Schleswig-Holstein'. Seriously, Poland did not get invaded by sea, so just cause one boat fired-off a few rounds symbolically, does not make this an image that represents the full picture. Same can be said for the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre section changes they simply are vague. --E-960 (talk) 19:42, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

There was a long discussion about that image, and decision was to use the Westerplatte picture. First, it was the fist place where Poland was attacked, so there is nothing misleading in that. Second, the text makes clear that the major invasion was a land invasion, but Westerplatte is an iconic place and an iconic battle, and yes, this land invasion started from the naval attack. I think your revert was premature, I recommend you to restore this image, because not only I, but other users will object.

Regarding this particular section, we removed mostly general statement, such as "Hitler decided that..." "Mussolini was jealious about ...." or something like that; some other unclear or unimportant stuff was also removed. What concretely do you consider vague? Let's talk.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:13, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

• By the way some of your proposed image captions sound a bit silly and misplaced, for example the image showing vehicles moving across the desert has this as the caption "Part of the Afrika Korp on the march"... on the march? --E-960 (talk) 19:53, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

If you find the caption silly, change it. If it is misplaced, put to the appropriate place. However, I think the picture should show victorious Germans, not "captured German solders", as the article is doing now, because Germany was victorious in 1940-41.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:13, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, this is why I raised an issue with this series of changes, this is a specific narrative that you are presenting, for example when you say "Germany was victorious in 1940-41", Germany was never "victorious", they were just winning for a while, it's like saying Germany was "victories" in the first half of the match (no one says that, you say Germany is leading the first half). --E-960 (talk) 21:11, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, may be "victorious" is not absolutely correct word, however, that is just a talk page discussion, it is not a part of the proposed text. I can agree this text is not optimal, and that is why I would be happy if everybody comment on it or change it. However, I think it is better than the current version. Do you agree with that, or you believe something important has been removed? --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:15, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

_______________________________________

Main article: Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II

Soldiers of the British Commonwealth forces from the Australian Army's 9th Division during the Siege of Tobruk; North African Campaign, August 1941

In early June 1940 the Italian Regia aeronautica attacked Malta, and a siege of this British possession started. In late summer – early autumn, Italy conquered British Somaliland and made an incursion into British-held Egypt. In October Italy attacked Greece, but the attack was repulsed with heavy Italian casualties; the campaign ended within days with minor territorial changes. Germany started preparation for an invasion of the Balkans to assist Italy, to prevent the British from gaining a foothold in the Balkans, which would be a potential threat for Romanian oil fields, and to strike against the British dominance of the Mediterranean.

In December 1940 British Commonwealth forces began counter-offensives against Italian forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa. The offensives were highly successful; by early February 1941 Italy had lost control of eastern Libya, and large numbers of Italian troops had been taken prisoner. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission by a carrier attack at Taranto and neutralising several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan.

Part of the Afrika Korps on the march

Italian defeats prompted Germany to deploy an expeditionary force to North Africa, and at the end of March 1941 Rommel's Afrika Korps launched an offensive which drove back the Commonwealth forces. In under a month, Axis forces advanced to western Egypt and besieged the port of Tobruk.

By late March 1941 Bulgaria and Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact. However, the Yugoslav government was overthrown two days later by pro-British nationalists. Germany responded with simultaneous invasions of both Yugoslavia and Greece, commencing on 6 April, 1941; both nations were forced to surrender within the month. The airborne invasion of the Greek island of Crete at the end of May completed the German conquest of the Balkans. Although the Axis victory was swift, bitter and large-scale partisan warfare subsequently broke out against the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, which continued until the end of the war.

In the Middle East, in May Commonwealth forces quashed an uprising in Iraq which had been supported by German aircraft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria. In June–July they invaded and occupied the French possessions Syria and Lebanon, with the assistance of the Free French.

References

Taking into account that there are no fresh comments or edits, I propose to move this text to the article. Does anybody object to that?--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:12, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

• Paul Siebert, I would perhaps suggest this image [12] of the Afrika Korps because it's from 1941, which is the time frame covered by the text, the image above is 1942. --E-960 (talk) 20:16, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it is better. Please, put it into the article if there will be no objections in next 24 hours.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:52, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

@E-960 and Paul Siebert: I would support this change. It is not, IMO, such a good image; but it is, as E-960 notes, more relevant. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:14, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Images

It was not my first goal to speak about images, but, since we started to talk about that, here are my comments on article's images. Europe

Hitler - Correct.

The league of nations. - Did it play any significant role? The section only says it was created. Whenever the League is mentioned in the article, it is being mentioned in a context of its absolute inefficiency. In connection to that, do we really need this absolutely non-informative image? If someone replaced this photo with a photo of a Reichstag session, 99% of readers will see no difference.

Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935)

Mussolini - Correct.

Spanish Civil War (1936–39)

Guernica - Perfect

Japanese invasion of China (1937)

Japanese soldiers - Ok

Soviet–Japanese border conflicts

Red Army artillery unit - Not an improvement, definitely. I recall, there was another picture, Soviet BT-7 tanks. This change was definitely not an improvement, because Soviet tank superiority was one of the main factors that lead to Japanese defeat, and eventually caused a shift in Japanese grand strategy (towards South Asia - Pacific).

European occupations and agreements

Munich and MRP - looks absolutely logical. Good.

War breaks out in Europe (1939–40)

Too many Germans. The discussion is in progress.

Western Europe (1940–41)

Ok. This is a recently modified section, and there everything looks logical.

Mediterranean (1940–41)

Commonwealth solders - ok

Captured German solders - ???? Germans were winning during this time period. The photo directly contradicts to the text.

Axis attack on the USSR (1941)

German solders - ok.

Map - it is in German, resolution is low, and it covers the whole Europe, including the West, so I don't understand why it is here. I am working on another animated map, hopefully it will be ready soon.

Soviet civilians - well does it means that EF was a theatre where Germans were facing just civilians? Actually, this section tells about the first major strategic defeat of the Axis (I mean the Battle of Moscow). I don't think civilians photo is appropriate here, probably in "Occupation and war crimes"

War breaks out in the Pacific (1941)

Both photos are absolutely relevant.

Axis advance stalls (1942–43)

Casablanca - a totally obscure conference where two western leaders said something, but even failed to come to an agreement with each other. I don't think it is relevant.

Pacific (1942–43)

A map is good, although I would make animation if someone has an idea where other original maps could be found.

Guadalcanal - Good.

Eastern Front (1942–43)

This section covers the most bloody and the most important battles that pre-determined a global Axis defeat. It deserves expansion and an additional image. German Tigers could be good, but other proposals are also welcome.

Western Europe/Atlantic and Mediterranean (1942–43)

US bombing is Ok, the section tells about a start of the Allied bombing campaign.

Allies gain momentum (1943–44)

US carrier - good.

Red Army troops, in a counter-offensive - ??? First, it does not look like an offensive. Second, Kursk was the series of the most intense tank battles in the world history. Does this image reflect that? Absolutely not.

The Allied leaders of the Asian and Pacific Theatre. - I see no reason to show this Cairo photo. The meeting discussed just Chinese issues, importance of Kai-shek was exaggerated by Americans (Churchill was wondering why Americans regard him so high). I sincerely do not understand its relevance. Tehran conference was much more important, although I do not think we need Stalin's photo in this article.

Monte-Cassino - quite relevant.

Allies close in (1944)

Normandy landing - yes, quite iconic and relevant

Poles - actually, this uprising had no strategic consequences. Meanwhile, the battle that was the most calamitous German defeat during the whole WWII, I mean, Bagration, is not reflected at all. I find that ridiculous.

General Douglas MacArthur - Nick-D told me there is an agreement not to show photos of generals. In addition, two landing pictures is too much for the section that describes the period when the Axis sustained the most devastating land defeats.

Axis collapse, Allied victory (1944–45)

Yalta photo - maybe. Yalta, in contrast to Casablanca and Cairo, had a tremendous effect on the whole XX century world history.

Reichstag - not bad, although it is not the best photo. Reichstag had a symbolic meaning only for the Red Army, which selected it as a final goal whose capture marked German defeat. The Germans did not consider this abandoned building too important. In addition, it does not show people, and the traces of devastation are not intense enough to give an impression of a real scale of the battle of Berlin. I'll try to find a better photo.

Japanese surrender - we have Keitel in the infobox, so this photo is a good complement.

Aftermath

No objections.

Casualties and war crimes

I would say one European photo should be added, because Asian photo only creates an impression of some disbalance.

Genocide, concentration camps, and slave labour

Schutzstaffel (SS) female camp guards - ok.

Girls photo - I don't think it is the best choice. If an example is needed, Witold Pilecki's photo can be added, which will provide a link to a totally unbelievable story of a man who voluntarily went to Auschwitz as a prisoner to provide an evidence of mass killing of Jews there, and who escaped it and joined underground resistance back.

[[:File:Pilecki ausch f.jpg|thumb|250px|Auschwitz concentration camp photos of Pilecki (1941).]]

Occupation

No objections or comments.

Home fronts and production

This plot looks strange, taking into account that we show no other statistics. I recall there was a photo of T-34. I propose to return this photo, a photo of the tank and the "Superforterss" photo, as a demonstration of industrial capabilities of US and Soviet military industry. I don't think B-29 was too advanced, it was more a demonstration of US industrial power. I suggest to move it to this section.

Advances in technology and warfare

V-2 is ok.

Nuclear Gadget - it is not the most spectacular photo, I think it is more appropriate for some special article. I don't understand why the Hiroshima photo was removed, because the WWII article without atomic bombing picture looks strange. If B-29 goes to the previous section, there is a space here for one more photo. The first programmable electromechanical computer seems to be a good candidate. I think, two German photos are quite justified, because Germany was more advanced (although industrially less powerful), so both USA and USSR built their scientific progress generally based on German legacy.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:54, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

• Please can you give it a rest, NO NEED to review in bulk all the images and DEMAND an up or down verdict, it really comes across like you are just pushing cosmetic changes based on the Wikipedia:JUSTDONTLIKEIT criteria, I mean what what kind of an assessment is this... in the War breaks out in Europe (1939–40) you wrote "Too many Germans.", seriously, Nazi Germany by 1942 controlled almost all of Europe, they were the main antagonist in this European theater. I'm not the only editor, who raised concerns that there are too many changes being proposed for any of the other editors to follow and reasonably discuss all of it. --E-960 (talk) 18:16, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

(ec)E-960, I wrote that in responce to your: "We don't need to review every image in this article, the vast majority are well placed, and the collective input from many editors should be retained." This is not an argument, because Wikipedia is not working like that. "Don't touch it, because I think it is good" is not working: if it is good, you can provide arguments in support of that. If no arguments are provided, then it cannot be considered good.

As you can see, the arguments demonstrate that only part (a significant part) of images are correctly selected and well placed. If you disagree, provide your counter arguments.

Having said that, I don't mean we need to take some immediate actions. It is a good practice to review an article or some its aspects, and that allows people to look at it at a different angle. I just propose people to take a look at that and think. We have more importatnt things to do.

Re JUSTDONTLIKEIT, I think this is hardly relevant to this case, because it refer to a situation when some person is expressing a like or dislike for the issue in question is not a helpful or useful argument in a discussion.. Actually, I can even say physician, heal thyself, because everything what I write is supported by logical arguments, but many your statements are not.

If you don't like something, provide your arguments, please. If you cannot do it right now, just let me know, no problem, I can wait. However, to accuse me of JUSTDONTLIKEIT without providing any arguments is a kind of oxymoron.

Let me reiterate, I don't think revision of images is the most important thing. We can do that step by step (or leave some of them as they are). However, I disagree with you claim that the wast majority of them are well placed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:58, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Wow, the more I think about what just happened... what kind of behavior is this, user Paul Siebert, can I go ahead and write my MEGA LIST of the things that I don't like about this article and want to change? --E-960 (talk) 18:47, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Not only you can, you should. We have a special peer review procedure. In addition, this article, being a good article, is supposed to be reassessed periodically, so, if we don't wanht this article to lose a good article status, we need to take a fresh look at it periodically and fix the flaws anticipating possible criticism. However, keep in mind that I never write "I don't like it", I write: "I find this illogical (incorrect, irrelevant), because ..." and then I explain why. Don't you see a difference? --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:58, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure if Pilecki went to Auschwitz to study crimes on Jews specifically. Xx236 (talk) 06:55, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Poles - actually, this uprising had no strategic consequences - There are different opinions. BTW - the uprising had less consequences beacuse the Nazis were too dumb to cause them. Xx236 (talk) 07:07, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I believe you agree that it had much less strategic consequences than "Bagration". During the period of time this section describes there were several major strategic offenses in the East, each of which was much more important strategically. I think you cannot disagree with that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:03, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I support the switch to Pilecki's image. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:10, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't agree, the lower sections of the article relate more to civilian issues, and the focus on that should remain — I think that the two images in that section are just fine and should stay as they are (focusing on civilians, women and children). Pilecki was a Home Army officer sent to the concentration camp on a mission (that would shift focus more to military related issues, though I agree it was a very heroic thing to undertake). --E-960 (talk) 16:12, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Whereas Pilecki was send with the mission, it pretended to be an ordinary civilian, which means his photo is quite representative, and it gives a good impression of an average photo of an average camp prisoner. It also serves as a link to a very interesting story about a first discovery of the fact of mass killing of Jews and other civilians in Auschwitz. That means this photo serves a dual goal, it presents information in a highly concentrated manner, which is especially important for such a high profile article.

BTW, can you please change a caption of the Afrika Korps photo (you expressed some concern). I am going to put the draft in teh article soon.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:42, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that the current images in that section don't need changing, again focus on women/children. However, if you think that the the Africa Corps image should be changed I think that it does need to depict early German advances, but I suggest that we look for a more compelling image, there is a lot of Africa Corps images that presents better subject matter. --E-960 (talk) 17:02, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

If you think women/children should be shown, then less switch to the most typical case: a Jewish girl photo.

Re Afrika, don't you find it ridiculous that the section describing overwhelming Rommel's successes shows captured German solders?--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:15, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

The fact that you are really focused on "Poland" related images is not lost on me, so we jump all the way down the article just to change this picture — btw, I think the other image in that section relates to the Holocaust. So, again no need to change images in that section. --E-960 (talk) 17:56, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I find this your comment both unfriendly and incorrect. I don't think I provided any ground for a conclusion that I am biased. I proposed Pilecki (a Pole) - you objected because the image should show a typical civilian, desirably a girl. I responded that in that case a typical girl should be a Jewish girl - you accuse me of an anti-Polish bias. That is hardly a good way to collaborate.

Your assertion that "the other image in that section relates to the Holocaust" is may be correct or it may be wrong, but there is no reason to conclude the second image shows the bodies of Jews, which means no Jews are explicitly covered by these photos. I am neutral about the photo choice, it can be Pilecki (a very specific specific person, whose photo tells a fascinating story) or a Jewish girl (as a typical Holocaust victim).--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:05, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I find your approach rather arbitrary, if you are going to just argue if the image should be a Jewish girl not a Polish girl it does come across as a bit dismissive towards Polish civilians, after all Auschwitz was first created to house Poles. If you would like to also include an image of Jewish women and children, I would suggest this one [13] or [14] to replace the mass grave which is a somewhat graphic. --E-960 (talk) 18:22, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I disagree, my logic is quite clear: I proposed the image that (i) shows a typical photo of Auschwitz prisoner and (ii) provides a link to a fascinating story about the men who discovered the fact of mass killings in Auschwitz. You argued that this image is not typical enough, and that outweighs the consideration (ii). I accepted your logic, and proposed to take the most typical photo (because I don't think why the photo of one Pole (a Polish girl) is much more typical than the photo of another Pole (Pilecki)). You responded that my attitude is anti-Polish, and that there is no logic in what I am saying. That is something I cannot understand.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:41, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I did not say anit-Polish, however you do focus on Polish related images for some odd reason, we go from sections 'War breaks out' and 'Mediterranean' all the way to the bottom of the article just to debate this image, yet I would really consider revising images way before that such as adding Battle of Midway image (decisive naval battle of the Pacific), or having a tank image for the Battle of Kursk (larges tank battle ever), kind of obvious fixes — those are very factual changes not more subjective suggestion such as the Polish girl image. --E-960 (talk) 18:56, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

• In any case I don't see a real need to replace the current images in that section. --E-960 (talk) 19:44, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I am focused on Poland related images for a very concrete reason: we are discussing Poland related events. I provided a long list of comments on all photos, but you ignored all comments besides Poland related ones. Obviously, I responded, and as a result of this discussion, you accuse me of obsession with the Polish topic. Don't you find it would be correct to direct this accusation at you yourself? Look: I expressed criticism about 12 photos, two of them are Poland related. I proposed to replace one Poland related photo for a very concrete reason: Warsaw uprising was not even in the top 5 most important events during the period this section describes. I believe you should agree with that.

With regard to the Auschwits photo, I proposed to replace one Poland related photo with another Poland related photo, which is much more informative. By the way, you still provided no rational objection to that.

In summary, I find your arguments totally illogical.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:49, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Ok, you need to stop with making inaccurate statements every time I provide you a reason to my objection, and you respond back with this "you still provided no rational objection". I did... you just go right past them: regarding your first suggestion of the Pilecki image I said "...the lower sections of the article relate more to civilian issues, and the focus on that should remain — I think that the two images in that section are just fine and should stay as they are focusing on civilians, women and children.". Then you responded by saying that in that case there should be an image of a Jewish girl, and to that I responded: "Auschwitz was first created to house Poles. If you would like to also include an image of Jewish women and children, I would suggest this one [1] or [2] to replace the mass grave which is a somewhat graphic." Those are clear rationales, pls consider them as valid.

Also, I do admit it's a bit strange that once I provided you with a legitimate rational for keeping the image and not replacing it with that of Pilecki, you then just switched your approach and suggested a completely different image, just to replace the current one. So, in short it all comes across as an issue of WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. The current images in the section are fine, related to the text and don't really need changing. You are demanding that every item you don't like in the article is changed. However, many of the images you listed above are just fine, and don't need to be removed just because you say they need to go. --E-960 (talk) 06:57, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

War breaks out in Europe images

Just wanted to raise one point that having 4 images in the section as recently edited by user Piotrus is just too much — having an image at each corner of the text [15]. Also, with the various discussions held earlier regarding 3 of the images, we ended up with the most random (poorly considered) pictures that all relate to the invasion of Poland; naval bombardment by Schleswig-Holstein, Polish Army AA-gun, German tanks, Soviet and German offices shaking hands. I think that having only three images in the section is enough. Also, one of the images should be related to either Winter War or the annexation of the Baltic States, and the other two showing German Wehrmacht during the September campaign and the Polish Army (as suggested by user Piotrus, and incorporated into the current set up). But, anything more then three images is too much for a small section like this one. --E-960 (talk) 18:48, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Earlier, I proposed to move the annexation story to the 1941 section, because this event was a key point that convinced Hitler to order a start planning Barbarossa, and, in my opinion, it should be discussed in the context of German invasion of the USSR. In connection to that, I think either the "shaking hands" picture or this file [:File:A Finnish Maxim M-09-21 machine gun nest during the Winter War.jpg] should be used. My own vote is the Finns.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:09, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I would be ok with Finnish soldiers image, but the first image needs to be of the German Wehermacht, Piotrus changed it back to naval bombardment and that's an image not representative of the September campaign - an image of rather trivial nature/interesting side fact, not the place for it in a general overview artice such a this one (Invasion of Poland article, yes), it gives the impression the campaign was like island hopping in the Pacific or invasion of Norway. Just a bad choice when you remove the image of German tanks to limit section to 3 images. --E-960 (talk) 09:50, 21 June 2018 (UTC)-

We discussed this above. I am ok with removing the image IF we mention battle of Westerplatte in text. Paul moved the mention of the battle to the image. If we remove the image, the mention of the battle should be restored to the text. I don't care how it is done, but Westerplatte is the symbolic first battle of the war and has to be mentioned in this article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:19, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm fine with adding the text, that the first battle was at Westerplatte in Free City of Danzig (that topic could be expanded since this was a free city, and include a note about the attack on Polish Post office) with a naval bombardment and infanty assult on Polish garrison stationed there at Westerplatte. --E-960 (talk) 10:54, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Piotrus, we need to think how can the mention of Westerplatte be added. I think it can be done as follows. Currently, the text says"

"On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents, which served as a pretext for Hitler to initiate hostilities against the country. Britain responded with an ultimatum to Germany to cease military operations, and on 3 September, after the ultimatum was ignored, France, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand declared a war on Germany."

First, I think the words "which served as a pretext for Hitler to initiate hostilities against the country" are trivial and redundant, because, obviously, the only reason for staging border incidents is justification of hostilities, and any reader can add 2+2 and make this logical conclusion by themselves.

In connection to that, I propose:

"On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents. The German attack began in Danzig, with a naval bombardment of Polish positions at Westerplatte, which was followed by a full scale land invasion from the west and from East Prussia. Britain responded with an ultimatum to Germany..."

This would add an information about a semi-autonomous state of Danzig and about the geography of the invasion (a simultaneous invasion from the west and from the north).--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:06, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest this text: On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents as a pretext to initiate the attack. The German offensive began in Danzig, with a naval bombardment of a Polish Army garrison stationed on the Westerplatte peninsula, and an assault on the Polish Post Office in the free city. --E-960 (talk) 17:23, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Do you find it correct when an assault of a post-office is described in the article that does not tell about, for example, a Battle of Voronezh (where around 1 million troops participated and which caused quarter million casualties)?--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:38, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

We can cut out the last part. --E-960 (talk) 18:22, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Look, if a reader sees this: "On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents as a pretext to initiate the attack. The German offensive began in Danzig, with a naval bombardment of a Polish Army garrison stationed on the Westerplatte peninsula." they may conclude that Danzig was the only "entry point" of this invasion, whereas the actual story was totally different, because Wehrmacht invaded through the whole Polish-German border, from Silesia to East Prussia. In that sense, my version is much more informative and less misleading.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:59, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

We also have to avoid propagating the incorrect myth that Westerplatte was the first act of war or battle. It is important, but as a symbolic first battle (see battle of the border). Also, it was not just a naval bombardment, there was land and air offensive too. Here's my proposed version for the second sentence. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents. The Battle of Westerplatte is often described as the first battle of the war.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:35, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

I would add "as a pretext to initiate the attack" just to close out the thought, the text begs the question 'why' was this done — as a strategic diversion or a deliberate provocation. --E-960 (talk) 16:17, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I have no objections to this, through I don't think it is that necessary. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:35, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Changed collage to a more extensive one.

Does anyone disagree with this? Roddy the roadkill (talk) 04:32, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• Yes. Drmies (talk) 05:30, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Why? Roddy the roadkill (talk) 05:40, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

For one thing, your image greatly enlarged the infobox and made the accompanying text harder to read (see MOS:SANDWICHING), as well as the infobox not vertically aligning as well with boxes below it. Then there's the matter of more images do not make for a better collage, as it, and the accompanying caption, becomes too complex, unfocused, and distracting. Dhtwiki (talk) 21:49, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Well someone already reduced the size, so there’s that. The second part...hmmm. I don’t think the difference is that appreciable. Roddy the roadkill (talk) 22:21, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Reducing the size, without reducing the number of images, just makes the images harder to see. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:08, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• Not an improvement: there are too many images & they seem fairly repetitive / present a limited picture of the conflict. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:11, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• Not an improvement at all. Actually, many other WWII related articles have the same style collage, so it would be good to maintain a common style. In addition, it is a significant change, and page rule require to discuss it first on the talk page. --Paul Siebert (talk) 05:03, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose – That's really overkill for the infobox, and net effect of combining so many pictures into one is that none of them is large enough to have a visual impact. Better place individual images from the collage in the relevant sections of the article. Same remark at Talk:World War I. — JFG ^talk 15:38, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

 Reverted due to unanimous opposition so far. Feel free to restore if you later obtain consensus. — JFG ^talk 15:42, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I’ve redone both WW1 and WW2 collages and saved the previews, I want to know your thoughts File:WW2preview.png File:WW2montageredux.jpeg I’ve reduced the number of images for both and changed the style a bit. Also, I changed the captions to commas in-between to reduce space. The images at the bottom are obviously smaller, but not the others. I’ve posted the WWI collage in it’s respective talkpage. My issues with the old collage 1.) No depiction of the Western European theatre, but one for the North African theatre, arguably the least significant of the major theatres of the war 2.) Though the Infobox goes with the premise of WWII staring with the invasion of Poland in 1939, it includes the Battle of Wanjialing from 1938 3.) Both collages are too Allied centric, they may have won, but that’s just half the perspective 4.) Though even I think now that 12 images was overkill, surely an increase to 9 is a reasonable number. Roddy the roadkill (talk) 20:46, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

• Still not an improvement: the current collage (2X3) is not great, but this new one takes the drawbacks of the existing one and augments them because there are more of the images :-). WW2 was a total war but all we see is military hardware and a few soldiers, nothing about socio-political issues, the home front, genocide, etc. Even the signing of Germany's surrender was removed. That's a rather myopic view, sorry. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:02, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

You make a really good point about it being myopic. In fairness to myself I primarily wanted to show how the number of pictures could be larger without taking up a bunch of room or looking bad. Are you open to the idea of it being changed at all? Roddy the roadkill (talk) 23:26, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

If I remember correct, main criteria for the current collage were (approximately) as follows:

• Europe vs Asia-Pacific: 2:1.
• Europe East vs Europe West: 3:1 - 2:3

That reflects an overall importance and scale of the events. Two photos from the Eastern Front are quite adequate, taking into account that > 50% of total combat deaths (for both the Axis and the Allies) occurred in the East, and about 50% of all Axis troops were fighting there during 4 years. Given that one Eastern photo depicts the Allies and another one the Axis, the balance is observed. Keitel relates to both the Axis and the Allies. Regarding Mediterranean, yes, that a kind of British bias (I am not telling that is good or bad).

Actually, although the current collage was made by me (and slightly modified later), I do not think it is ideal. I see no problem with its replacement, provided that the new one will be a real improvement. The one that you propose does not fit the above criteria, although I personally like your concept.

I suggest you to think more about that. If other people agree the number of photos and the overall design should be changed, I propose to discuss how many photos should we include, and how should be different theatres represented.

I also propose to think strategically, and to create the collage that will be used as a template for the Eastern Front (World War II), Western Front (World War II), and other articles in the same way as we have now (the EF and WWII collages are the example of what I propose: they are designed based on the same scheme, and they share some photos). I think such a connection is a good thing we should preserve. --Paul Siebert (talk) 23:22, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

As a possible improvement of the existing collage, we can use this:

It fixes the major omission in the current collage, because WWII, in contrast to majority of previous conflicts, was the war where many categories of civilians were being killed deliberately and systematically. I think, this collage emphasizes that fact.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:41, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

This does not look good at all, staying with the traditional 3x2 frames is optimal. --E-960 (talk) 21:37, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm also really uncomfortable with including a graphic image such as that proposed here in the collage - it lacks context. Nick-D (talk) 09:35, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

more images at the top?

I feel as if the image montage so to say at the top of the page does not include that many images of the war. At the least, I was surprised that the mushroom cloud image of the atomic bombings is not included. What do you guys think, should more images be added and if so which ones? Personally, I think the mushroom cloud image should be included along with the image at the top of the Battle of Stalingrad page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fluffy89502 (talk • contribs) 16:30, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Fluffy89502, we already discussed these two images a couple of weeks ago. Instead of starting a new section on the same subject, please read the previous discussion and join it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:12, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Images in the infobox collage

To continue on the discussion earlier on the page ([16]), here are some proposals for possible replacements. My rationale is to present a wider story of this global conflict:

1. WW2 victory was driven by the "Grand Alliance"; I think it's worth including:

The "Big Three" at the Tehran Conference. Left to right: Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

2. Stark; powerful. I think it would look fine in a collage:

The memorial (Menorah) at the site of the 1941 massacre at Drobytsky Yar.

3. This is a fascinating image; the entire might of Anglo-American indusrial and military capacity landing on continental Europe:

LCT with barrage balloons afloat, unloading supplies at Omaha Beach for the break-out from Normandy.

The above three images could replace the entire right-hand section of the collage; the images currently there are kind of meh.

4. This next one could be a replacement for a fairly non-descript Stalingrad image currently in the collage (2nd from top left):

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-W0506-316, Russland, Kampf um Stalingrad, Siegesflagge.jpg

A Soviet soldier waving the Red Banner at the conclusion of the Battle of Stalingrad, 1943.

I would appreciate hearing comments or feedback. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:29, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Re 1. The war was fought by people, not by leaders. Don't think the leaders should be added to the collage. If we add them, they should be paired with Hitler+Mussolini, and it will take too much space. However, it would be absolutely correct to add this photo to the article to replace the Kaishek photo (he was just a regional leader, and his role was not comparable with the role of Stalin).

Re 2. A real Hollocaust image is much more relevant, because this article is about the war, not commemoration of the war.

Re 3. It is really good, although not for a collage (too many small details). Very good for the article itself.

Re 4. I am not sure. It does not show the actual street fight and the degree of devastation of the city. Just a solder waving a flag is hardly informative. The buildings look pretty intact, which is not typical for Stalingrad,, which was demolished almost completely. --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:33, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

It sounds good, but I would like to see it together. And should we have something on the Pacific War?--Jack Upland (talk) 09:22, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with Paul on all points, especially no. 2. I was even unsure re 2. (Thank you Paul for writing it all out and saving me the trouble.) Gog the Mild (talk) 09:30, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

If someone wants Holocaust (or some other atrocity) included, then I would say that obvious choice would be putting it in place of Keitel image. I think right side of collage is quite solid. WW II was fought extensively not only on land but also on sea and in air, which those images help to depict relatively well. That said, I am not a huge fan of top right artillery image, it is a bit poor visibility in my opinion. Also I would consider replacing top left Chinese image with Japanese image if something suitable is found, as war in Asia could be basically summed up as "Japan vs everyone else".--Staberinde (talk) 17:14, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Paul Siebert a real image of the holocaust should be used mayby this one on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944 (Auschwitz Album) 1b.jpg, also out of the other images the d-day landings is the only one that perhaps should be added to the new collage, the other images are not particularly compelling. --E-960 (talk) 08:43, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Agree to replace lower-left picture of Keitel surrender by Holocaust triage. — JFG ^talk 01:33, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

A

B

How about one of those two images (on the right) to replace the current top right one? One offers relatively good image of artillery firing, while other displays armoured warfare. Both are better visibility than the current one. They are somewhat different shape but can be easily cut into collage proportions without loosing any vital parts--Staberinde (talk) 17:15, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree that either of these images would be an improvement on the current top right one. Personally I would prefer B. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:44, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Agree to replace top-right picture with B. — JFG ^talk 01:31, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Atomic bomb

"Mushroom cloud" from the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, August 1945

I would suggest replacing the lower-right picture of naval warfare by a picture of an atomic bomb detonation, which remains a more impactful memory of the war to this day. Suggesting the Nagasaki mushroom cloud. — JFG ^talk 01:37, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion, the collage should present not only the most spectacular photos, but also the most crucial events of WWII. It must present the key theatres of the war, and, taking into account that this war, in contrast to, for example, WWI, caused more civilian deaths than military deaths, we need an image or images that show that it was an immense humanitarian catastrophe.

I propose to take the Eastern Front (World War II) collage as a starting point, and to replace three photos from it with the photos from other theaters of war. The photo that definitely must stay is the Holocaust photo, because it adequately represents the humanitarian catastrophe in Europe as whole: it symbolises not only the Eastern Front, and not only the tragedy of Jews, because civilians were massacred everywhere, from Oradur in the West to Khatyn in the East. Moreover, the amount of civilians (not only Jews) who were massacred as shown on this photo was probably greater than the number of people killed in death camp. That means this photo should stay.

The Keitel's photo should go (I propose to move it to the 1945 section). In my opinion, two photos on the top should stay too: the Soviet Il-2 was the most numerous and one of the most efficient planes of the WWII, and the Tiger tank was the most formidable WWII tank (I am not speaking about the tanks produced by the very end of the war: their role was minimal). In addition, this photo was taken during the Battle of Kursk, which was the greatest tank battle in human history, and one of the two pivotal WWII events. These three photos seem to be essential, because they show two major opponents of the conflict (USSR and Germany) and they represent the theatre where 50% of all WWII battles had occurred. The third image symbolises the humanitarian catastrophe.

I think by adding three more images, we can give a summary of the WWII. These images should be:

1. One photo from the Western front. I think Africa should not be in the collage, because it would be too Britano-centric. It was the major theatre of war for Churchill, but its importance definitely cannot be compared with the Second front. I think Normandy landing should be one of three photos.
2. The second photo should be from Pacific. We need at least one photo that shows naval battles. The current photo is not good (actually, it is more like a photo from a navy parade).
3. Maybe, it is not a bad idea to put a photo of a nuclear explosion.

In summary, I think the collage can be like that:

--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:00, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Hungarian Jews being selected for work or death at Auschwitz-Birkenau, May/June 1944.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau triage picture suggested earlier better represents the Holocaust because it shows mass extermination, whereas the one you picked shows only one person and their child being shot. Your rationale about massacres is commendable, but the picture does not tell that story. — JFG ^talk 03:15, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Allied ships delivering cargo and troops at Omaha Beach, June 1944

Agree that the landing in Normandy makes sense to add, however the overview picture suggested by K.e.coffman looks more impressive. — JFG ^talk 03:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Your proposed collage lacks urban warfare; I would keep the picture of Stalingrad which is currently at middle left. The ship being sunk at Pearl Harbor is unclear and could go, if we show ships at Omaha Beach as suggested above. — JFG ^talk 03:25, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I find the image of German soldiers in the ruins of Stalingrad more visually compelling than the one we have in the current collage. what do you think? — JFG ^talk 03:28, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

German soldiers during the battle of Stalingrad, October 1942

Proposed collage

Here is the overall collage I would suggest:

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R85077, Sowjetisches Schlachtflugzeug über Berlin.jpg Russian aircraft Ilyushin Il-2 bombing Berlin, April 1945	British and German tanks in North Africa, June 1942
German soldiers during the battle of Stalingrad, October 1942	Allied ships delivering cargo and troops at Omaha Beach, June 1944
Hungarian Jews being selected for work or death at Auschwitz-Birkenau, May/June 1944.	"Mushroom cloud" from the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, August 1945

With appropriate cropping of the vertical pictures, it would look pretty compelling, and cover all bases (Western Front, Eastern Front, Africa, Japan, urban warfare, tanks, aircraft, navy, Holocaust, atomic bomb). — JFG ^talk 03:41, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Il-2 - no objections.

North Africa - I already explained why we cannot afford a luxury to use the space for this theatre. In my opinion, the naval warfare should be shown instead.

German solders in Stalingrad - it is just a staged photo that shows German solders near the city's ruins. The solders are relaxed, and the atmosphere of the battle where the rifleman's life expectancy was just one hour is not shown. The (staged) photos that depict Soviet solders (the one that is currently in the collage and the one in the article) describe the battle much more adequately. In addition, this photo shows not Stalingrad proper, but Stalingrad's suburbs; this area was captured pretty quickly during late summer (as you can see from the solders' uniform).

I already explained (see above) why this photo is not good for a collage: too many small details; a good collage photo should have several big details which immediately give an impression of what event does the photos depict. This concrete photo is very good for the article (where it is clickable), but not for the collage (where the resolution of each separate image is low, so the major part of the information will be lost from this picture).

The Auschwitz photo is absolutely unclear: it shows just a crowd standing on some square, and there is almost zero emotional load in this photo. What happens on the photo is absolutely unclear without reading a description. In addition, in contrast to a common stereotype, more people (not only Jews) were killed by shooting and similar type execution than perished in gas chambers.

Nuclear explosion - already agreed.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I suggest a bit more thought (images need to show the scale of the conflate), still need a bit of brain-storming to pick the best and most representative (not just interesting images). So far I would these 4 suggest:

• 
• 
• 
• 

--E-960 (talk) 17:19, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't think these photos are better for the collage, but let's see how it look. Compare this and the previous version.

• 
• 

--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:09, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

While we should aim to have generally sensible geographic balance, I don't think collage is the place where we should heavily focus on the most famous battles. Collage is really more about "at a glance" information about different aspects of war, so it is perfectly reasonable to use image from somewhat less famous battles if those images themselves have higher quality for part we want to illustrate. I would say that major question is the optimal thematic distribution, for me it would be with six images: 1. infantry 2. tanks 3. aerial warfare 4. naval warfare 5. nuclear cloud 6. civilian atrocity/holocaust. That would reasonably cover everything, from a simple soldier with his rifle, all the way up to weapons of mass destruction.--Staberinde (talk) 17:53, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

In all honesty, I actually like the current collage, I would just replace the upper right side (artilery) image with that of the tiger tank. That original collage has many of the points that user Staberinde suggested. Btw, for A-bomb I would use this image instead as the last image of the collage replacing Keitel signing surrender, but move it to the end. --E-960 (talk) 18:32, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

If we have to choose between atomic bombing and the Holocaust, I would prefer the Holocaust picture (the one where a solder is killing a mother with a child). And I think the Pearl Harbor photo represents naval warfare conditions better than the current one. --Paul Siebert (talk) 18:47, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I am not really a huge fan of that Pearl Harbor image in collage, for an uninformed reader it is not very clear that it is even a ship burning there without reading the caption text, which is in my opinion quite bad for a collage image. Also that image is currently already in article and we pretty definitely should not duplicate images. Now I did some digging for actual naval combat images, will throw whole bunch of them here, note that some of these would require quite extensive cutting to get pictured ship (and planes) into somewhat adequate size in collage:

USS South Dakota + Japanese bomber

USS Yorktown + Japanese bomber

Yamato under air attack

HMS Ark Royal under air attack

USS Intrepid kamikaze attack

--Staberinde (talk) 19:29, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I would agree that some naval combat picture would make sense; and that the raid on Pearl is not a true naval combat. However, considering the WWII basically showed that the era of surface ships battling it out for dominance of the seas had passed, I suggest we would shortlist only air-to-ship or U-boat campaigns. In that light, the picture do cover that but are generally a bit vague on the type of attack - the intrepid attack being most clear there. But other picture with planes engaging into battle with a major surface ship may be even more suited. Arnoutf (talk) 19:21, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposed collage by the OP

World War II

Allied forces unloading supplies during the Operation Overlord, June 1944*The "Big Three" at the Tehran Conference, 1943. Left to right: Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill*Wehrmacht soldier during the Battle of Stalingrad, 1942*Adolf Hitler announces the declaration of war against the United States to the Reichstag, December 1941*Selection ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, May/June 1944*Atomic bombings of Nagasaki, August 1945

Here's my proposal for discussion. My rationale is that WW2 was a total war and the photo collage conveys socio-political issues, the home front, genocide, etc - to the extent possible. This was a global war; 60 to 65 million people died and ~80 per cent of those killed were non-combatants. The history of the war is geopolitical, not only battlefield action. Borders were redrawn; empires lost; two new super-powers emerged; there were tremendous advances in military technology, culminating in the atomic bomb, etc.

The top row represents the Allies; the middle row covers the Axis war effort; and the last row focuses on civilians. Note that the collage is composed of individual images; I believe that this is preferred so that the readers can enlarge each image to see more detail. The captions may not be in the right order, as I was moving the images around.

K.e.coffman (talk) 02:50, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Frankly, there are almost no photos I can agree with.

Tehran & Hitler - WWII was the most devastating and most deadly conflict, it was not fought via negotiations or official announcements. The main actors of the war were people, not politicians.

Atomic cloud - it is absolutely unclear from this photo if this is a volcano eruption or just a thunderstorm.

Stalingrad - no real battle is shown: just a staged photo near a remnants of some destroyed building. Does not show a real atmosphere of this the most deadly battle in human history.

D-day: due to small size, it is absolutely unclear what is going on on the photo: clickable and non-clickable photos must meet different criteria. A good collage photo must catch a reader's eye immediately.

Auschwitz: does not transmit the horror of the Holocaust. I see just a crowd that is standing calmly and waiting for something. In my opinion, killing of a (Jewish) mother with a child by a single solder tells about war crimes in general more than that Auschwitz photo.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:02, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Not sure I agree. The war was fought with alliances and official proclamations. If it weren't for the "strange alliance" of Britain, US, and Soviet Union, there may not have been a victory. And what about "We will fight on the beaches..."? Germany declaring war on the US was a political action, that turned the war into a truly "World" war. Etc. Reducing the imagery to battlefield action and military hardware actually diminishes the impact of the war, I feel. Or at least it only was a portion of what occurred.

I'm not wedded to particular images; for example, the Stalingrad image is what was suggested on this page. Same for Birkenau. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:12, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Actually, although I don't like the implementation, the very concept looks interesting. The core idea (to abandon the old approach that consisted in presenting photos from the most important theatres of war) looks productive. I need to think about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:20, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

More options

World War II

Allied landing during the Operation Overlord, June 1944*Atomic bombings of Nagasaki, August 1945*The "Big Three" at the Tehran Conference, 1943. Left to right: Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill*The memorial (Jewish menorah) at the site of the 1941 massacre at Drobytsky Yar.*Barricades on city street during the Battle of Moscow, October 1941*Adolf Hitler announces the declaration of war against the United States to the Reichstag, December 1941

Here's another sample proposal. I think the images can be swapped out; my main thrust is to present the war as a global conflict, the likes of which the world had not seen before.

Caption order has not been updated. The mushroom cloud image can be easily replaced. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:28, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I think Yalta was more important than Tehran. A mushroom cloud should definitely be replaced. No real fighting are shown. D-day was definitely not the most crucial battle. The most important objection is the war crime presentation: all images proposed so far have a tendency to anonymize the victims, whereas they were real people, like you or me. This photo File:The last Jew in Vinnitsa, 1941.jpg

demonstrates my point: it is actually a picture of the human (just look at his face) who is being killed by subhumans. There is a technical problem with this particular picture that does not allow us to put it in the collage, but the picture of that kind would be the best one.--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:44, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm a little weary about putting atrocity images into a collage; it seems disrespectful somehow. That's why I originally picked the memorial photo. And it was not just individual crimes; 30,000 people were killed at Drobytsky Yar, for example. It's the massive scale - of the fighting, of genocide, of military production - that was mind-boggling about this conflict.

Again, I'm not set on any particular image, but I do think the three Allied leaders and the Dec 1941 declaration of war are important to include in some form. I look forward to additional feedback / options. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:52, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Putting explicit atrocity images into a collage is a bad idea in my view. Such an image would violate MOS:LEADIMAGE as it would shock readers - the example used at MOS:LEADIMAGE actually warns against the use of explicit Holocaust images. The lack of context for such an image also seems a poor way to remember the victims of the war. Nick-D (talk) 10:27, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Agree with Nick-D, we don't need to include image of atrocities, also as noted earlier I agree with Paul Siebert when he mentioned that we include a real image from the Holocaust (though not graphic) but not an image of a post war monument, which is not an image from WWII. Last note, this new collage is not much better then the current one, it misses the mark, bit of a focus on diplomatic/government items instead of soldiers and hardware. Also, pay attention to the order, this collage that was propose is all over the place and the images look random and their order not very logical. --E-960 (talk) 14:32, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Nick-D, with due respect, I don't understand why we should avoid shocking images. The WWII story is really shocking story, and suffering of millions and millions of people are not comparable with a shock a modern reader may experience upon having seen such a photo. In my opinion, by caring too much about emotional comfort of a modern reader, we show a deep disrespect to the sufferings of millions and millions of people. A modern reader must be shocked upon having read this article, and thin is the only way we can show respect to the WWII victims.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:51, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

This is going nowhere fast, we are all over the place with the image suggestion, instead of trying to debate the entire collage, can we just change two of the images which are a bit lack luster, in my opinion we should just change the TWO of the images, of Keitel for N-bomb and the artillery gun for Tiger tank (for now) — change out the most uninteresting images instead of debating all six images at once. --E-960 (talk) 19:24, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I can try to do that if this idea is supported by others. I prefer the Tigers photos taken from the Battle of Kursk film (two black tank silhouettes), which shows the battle conditions better.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:05, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Agree to swap Keitel for atomic bomb, there are no objections in the discussion so we can proceed. However we don't seem to have consensus on which tank illustration is best. Perhaps do a quick survey? — JFG ^talk 13:00, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I can agree with removal of Keitel only if several conditions are met. First, its replacement with atomic bomb shifts a balance between Europe and Asia/Pacific: we agreed many years ago that 4 photos should be devoted to Europe, which was the major theatre of war, and two to Asia/Pacific. That means if we replace Keitel, one of two photos (Chinese solders or US fleet) should be replaced with some photo from Europe.

Second, it is highly desirable that this collage shared three photos with the Eastern Front collage (that symbolises the fact that EF was, by scale, amount of troops involved, casualties and strategic importance, was about 50% of WWII). In connection to that, the Tiger tank photo must be the one from Kursk (the same photo as in the EF collage).

One more argument in favor of this photo is that is not just a Tiger photo, but the photo taken during the greatest andn the most decisive tank battle in human history.

If Keitel is removed, it must be moved to the Victory section to replace the Japanese surrender picture.

Chinese solders are hardly good in that case, because it will look like they are either being chased by Tiger tanks of are German co-belligerents. The Allied troops should look to the right to symbolise opposition.

In summary, removal of Keitel shifts the brittle equilibrium, and we will need to think about the whole design of the collage again.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:06, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

If that's the case, perhaps we just keep the collage as is, if we start moving around images in the text because of the collage (Japanese sounder) it's just a bit much confusion. --E-960 (talk) 17:40, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Although I participated in the work on the current collage, I am do not think it cannot be improved. My only point is that its improvement requires a serious discussion and significant efforts. --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:37, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Did the war start in 1939 or in 1941?

The problem with the current proposals is that none of them cover the period from 1939 to 1941, when Nazi Germany and Soviet Union were Non-Aggression Pact partners, which was a third of the entire period of WW2. So I propose at least two images from that period should go into a six image montage. With a war that spans six years we should pick the picture that best represents each year of the war. Perhaps one of these for the year 1939:

• 
• 
• 
• 

--Nug (talk) 09:48, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Besides the fact that this is raising the discussion when the war exactly started, it remains clear that the war (assuming you mean the september 1 starting date) did not last 6 full calendar year but rather 5 (it ended september 2 1945) with both 1939 and 1945 being broken years. So I think your suggestion is less obvious than suggested.

Nevertheless some kind of timeline might be interesting as 1939-1940 was the moment where German armies were victorious on the Western fronts. 1941 brought the USA, USSR and Japan into the war with Barbarossa and Pearl Harbour. 1942-1943 were the years in which the war started to turn against the axis with major losses (e.g Midway / Stalingrad) after which the allies started their offensive in 1943 onwards. Arnoutf (talk) 16:50, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the Nig's proposal is really good. If we give 5 pictures for each year plus one general picture, which is, obviously, should be the Holocaust/war crimes photo, that may give a good overview of the war. Although the photos proposed by Nug do not work for obvious reasons, the very concept definitely deserves attention. Besides the Holocaust picture, I suggest.

- 1939-1940 Wehrmacht in Poland or Paris;

- 1940-1941 Pearl Harbor;

- 1941-1942 Stalingrad;

- 1942-1943 Kursk;

- 1944-1945 D-day;

- Holocaust;

--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:44, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Lets not open a new sub-section for every new suggestion about the collage, this is starting to get confusing. --E-960 (talk) 19:27, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

While the Holocaust was a terribly heinous crime unprecedented in scale and horror in all history, I'm not sure we should include an image in the montage for a number of reasons. The montage should include key milestones that had the most impact on the course of the war, for example Barbarossa, Stalingrad, etc. As terrible as the Holocaust was, I don't think it had any impact upon the course of the war (apart from depriving Germany of pool of talented people like Einstein). Even though the Allies became aware of the Holocaust it didn't really impact their operational planning to a significant degree. Also many sources contend that the Holocaust actually began in 1933. So my list would be:

- 1939: Soviet-Nazi Non-Aggression Pact. The key enabler to Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939, and subsequent impact upon the post-war order with formerly independent nations absorbed into the Soviet Union.

- 1940: Blitzkrieg. France, Holland and Belgium become overwhelmed by Germany's tactically innovative Blitzkrieg.

- 1941: Operation Barbarossa. Hitler began Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, breaking the terms of Soviet-Nazi Non-Aggression Pact. (Pearl Harbour also happened but the USA was already a de facto participant with its navy fighting German U-boats)

- 1942: Battle of Midway. A crucial and decisive naval battle in the Pacific, which turned the tide to an eventual American victory.

- 1943: Surrender at Stalingrad. German defeat at Stalingrad was a turning point in WW2 and is regarded as one of the bloodiest battles in modern history.

- 1944: D-Day. The Allied invasion of France began on 6th June 1944. It led to the eventual liberation of France from the Nazis and contributed to the Allies victory in the war.

- 1945: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The final stage of WW2 saw American forces drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagaski in August 1945, killing at least 129,000 people, and ushering the beginning of the Atomic age.

--Nug (talk) 10:53, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

There is no consensus among historians (besides a narrow group of EE nationalistic historians) on the role of MRP in the WWII outbreak. Taking into account that Nazi-Soviet negotiations started only in August, and there were no guaranty that they would be successful, it is hard to believe Germany managed to prepare for a full scale war in just a couple of weeks. In addition, Hitler did not believe invasion of Poland would provoke a global conflict: he expected British reaction would be of the same type as her reaction on the invasion of Czechoslovakia. In any event, MRP was an important prerequisite for the WWII start, but not an absolutely necessary one. Re "formerly independent nations absorbed into the Soviet Union", annexation of the three Baltic states by the USSR was not a consequence of MRP, it was one of the key factors that lead to deterioration of Nazi-Soviet relations. This act was seen by Hitler as hostile, and it gave a start to Barbarossa planning.

One way or the another, if the photos of Stalin and Ribbentrop are shown in the collage, the Big Three photo must be shown too, because that alliance was much more important. That breaks the whole structure. If the photo of hostilities in Poland is shown, that should be a photo of Germans, because Soviet-Polish hostilities were minimal. Joint Soviet-German photos are just staged photos that were produced by Nazi propaganda, which tried to emphasize Nazi-Soviet friendship (they even made a montage of two different films made in Brest during two different days to make an impression of a joint Nazi-Soviet parade). Do we really want to reproduce Nazi propaganda cliches in this collage?--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:00, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

It seems a bit dishonest to misrepresent John Hiden, David J. Smith, Roger Moorhouse, Richard J Evans and others as a "narrow group of EE nationalistic historians". As Richard Evans states, the MRP was "a crucial feature of the run up to the outbreak of the war". Arguing that "annexation of the three Baltic states by the USSR was not a consequence of MRP" is just repeating Soviet era propaganda, it was only in the 1980's that the Soviets finally admitted the existence of the MRP's secret protocols which explicitly consigned the Baltic states into the Soviet sphere. Your argument that the annexation led to deterioration of Nazi-Soviet relations that gave a start to Barbarossa planning is irrelevant since WW2 had already started in 1939. With 20,000 Polish officers are slaughtered in the forests of Katyn, the claim that "Soviet-Polish hostilities were minimal" rings somewhat hollow. And given that the images above were originally publishes by the soviet TASS news agency, it is nonsense to claim they were "staged photos that were produced by Nazi propaganda". --Nug (talk) 22:58, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Do Hiden, Smith, Moorhouse, and Evans reflect a scholarly consensus? I wouldn't say so. If you read my post carefully, you probably noticed that I wrote that "there is no consensus among historians (besides a narrow group of EE nationalistic historians) on the role of MRP", which literally means that there is no agreement among Western historians on that subject (some, like Hoden, believe MRP was a key component, others, like Roberts, see its role differently). I didn't write that only EE nationalists share this view, I wrote only EE nationalists achieved a consensus about the role of MRP. I believe, you see a difference, which means, we can speak not about someone's dishonesty, but about someone else's tendency to make far reaching conclusions based on a superficially read text.

Throwing accusations of "repeating Soviet era propaganda" is also not the best way to conduct a discussion. Discussion started in that way usually ends at AE, and I believe neither you nor I want that.

Being an intellectual person, you must agree that something happened during the period from late 1939 to early 1941, and these events were a sharp transition between de facto alliance (in October 1939, not September 1939) to a full scale preparations of a massive military invasion. Which events triggered it? There is a broad consensus among historians that annexation of the three Baltic states and North Bukovina was seen by Germany as a hostile act. Hitler openly said that the carte blanche the Soviet Union got in the Baltics according to the secret protocol did not stipulate full annexation of these states. According to Hitler, the USSR had a right to impose "mutual assistance" pacts on those states, to station military troops there, to create military bases, but annexation was not stipulated by the protocol. Many authors, including those this article already cites, agree that serious preparations for Barbarossa started as a result of the annexation. Later, Ribbentrop made a last attempt to fix the relationships, but November negotiations failed because positions of both parties were very different.

To summarize: "mutual assistance" pacts and Soviet military bases in Baltic states were a direct consequence of MRP, but their annexation was seen as a deeply unfriendly act by Germans. Some authors, such as Roberts, believe that the annexation was a result of Stalin's panic when he saw how quickly Germany defeated France.

Many authors think too teleologically, and they believe Stalin had some diabolic plan by the moment Ribbentrop arrived to Moscow in August 1939. These authors believe "mutual assistance" pacts were just a first step of general Stalin's plan to fully occupy these states, and they conclude that, since "mutual assistance" pacts were a direct consequence of MRP, the annexations were the result too. In contrast, other authors, such as Haslam or Roberts, believe Stalin was acting opportunistically, and each his step was more an improvisation.

In any event, I believe you will abandon your battleground tactics, and we will continue our conversation in a peaceful and respectful way. To accuse someone in repeating Soviet propaganda claims is something that any good faith user should avoid (unless this accusations have a very solid ground), because outstanding claims require outstanding evidences.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:28, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Re "With 20,000 Polish officers are slaughtered in the forests of Katyn..." Murdering of POWs was a war crime, it was not a part of any than hostilities. The fact that Stalinist repressions continued during 1939-41 does not add anything to this story.

Re the images, yes, there were significant attempts to make a sharp propagandistic U-turn after August 1939. However, Nazi propaganda made much more efforts in that direction. If you look at the Krivoshein photo, you may see he is surrounded by German officers, and no other Soviet military was there. He got an order to prevent any situation when Soviet and Nazi troops could be pictured together. Actually, what happened was the following: Krivoshein was standing with German officers during the Wehrmacht parade. Next day, after German troops left the city, Soviet troops organized their own parade. Later, Germans combined these two events in one film, thereby creating an impression of a joint parade.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:52, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Seriously? It is a complete fiction to suggest the Germans combined film from two separate parades of give the impression of a single joint parade. There are other photos showing Soviet armour and personnel participating in the same parade. There are eye witness accounts of the joint parade, and Krivoshein himself admitting that a battalion of Soviet troops participated, see The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941 by Roger Moorhouse. --Nug (talk) 08:48, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

The problem with Moorhouse is that the prologue to his book (where the "joint parade" is described) is based on very odd sources. It cites a local modern newspaper Вечерний Брест, some its articles that he cites are currently unabvailable, others do not cite any primary sources. If I went to RSN and ask if Вечерний Брест is a reliable source for Wikipedia history articles, the answer would be, probably, negative. It also cites some obscure blog [17], youtube video, etc. By writing that, I do not imply the book is not good: other chapters seem to be based on quite reliable primary sources (although I haven't finished reading it yet; thank you for the reference anyway). My point is that the description of the "joint parade" provides no fresh information in addition to what I already know. By the way, the prologue cites Krivoshein's memoirs, but it cites it selectively: Krivoshein writes that Guderian was insisting on the parade, but Krivoshein was trying to avoid it, and finally they agreed on the procedure when German troops march first and leave the city, and then the Soviet troops enter. He also recall that his comrades were very worry about Krivoshein's visit to Guderian, because they were very concerned about his safety (they thought Nazi could kill him). That is hardly an indication of friendly relationship between Soviet and Nazi troops.

Anyway, I am glad to see that the parade story is the only point seems to be the only point of disagreement. That is good.

Let me just reiterate one point: by signing a secret protocol, Ribbentrop gave Stalin free hand in Baltic, but it seems Nazi did not interpret it as a Soviet right to fully annex the Baltic states. That was in agreement with Nazi's own approach to its satellites: they didn't occupy Chroatisa, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, they even didn't occupy France completely. Their standard approach was to convert the states in their sphere of influence in puppet states, and it seems they expected Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would become just semi-independent Soviet puppets (which happened in late 1939), but full annexation was not they agreed with. That is why I say annexation became the event that Germans saw as a violation of the pact, and it gave a start to a rapid deterioration of Nazi-Soviet relationship. --Paul Siebert (talk) 12:48, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Just because I don't respond to every point in your wall of text does not imply agreement. Claiming a "broad consensus among historians" support your view that annexation of three Baltic states was the reason Germany attacked the Soviet Union is just another misrepresentation of the sources. Baltic Germans were evacuated precisely because the Nazis understood what "Stalin's free hand in Baltics" really meant. Of course Nazi propaganda may have affected outrage at the annexation (after all they also claimed to be the defenders of Europe against Judeo-Bolshevism), but Hitler had long spoken of conquering Lebensraum to the east, the only thing stopping them was the then perceived might of the Soviet Union, until perception was shattered by the Red Army's poor performance in the Winter War. --Nug (talk) 10:39, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Whereas it is a big question if I misinterpreted anything, you definitely misinterpreted my own words: I said "a broad consensus among historians does not support your claim", which is not the same as "a broad consensus among historians does support my claim". The first statement is much easier to prove: I need just to provide a couple of good sources that say the opposite to what you say, and what is exactly what I do. Thus, a review article devoted specifically to the origin of Barbarossa says:

"... the beginning of military planning was not a matter of anticipating Hitler's wishes, but a deliberate reaction and initiative by the OKH and OKW in view of Russia's activities in the Baltic countries and Rumania." (The Historical Journal, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Jun., 1988), pp. 377-390)

Although that was written in 1988, I doubt new arguments have been brought in last decades: I am not aware of any recent sources that reconsider this subject.

Regarding alleged Hitler's fears of the USSR, that is also a very questionable thesis. In 1939, the USSR's military capabilities were not considered as significant by Western politicians (for example, Foreign Office analytics estimated military power of the USSR was comparable to that of Poland).

Re "Of course Nazi propaganda may have affected outrage at the annexation" - that is exactly opposite to what happened in reality: official reaction of German leadership on the annexation was minimal. Anti-Judeo-Bolshevist propaganda was essentially stopped during that time. In addition, you just contradict to yourself: from one hand, you emphasize the allied relations between Nazi and Soviets, from another hand, you speak about anti-Communist propaganda. Don't you see a logical flaw in that?

Here is a direct quote that says the same what I wrote in the previous post:

"Hitler, and Ribbentrop for that matter, had interpreted 'spheres of interest' rather literally, neither of them expecting the total destruction of the sovereignty of the states concerned" (the author means the Baltic states) The source (The Historical Journal, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Dec., 1983), pp. 891-920) is relatively old, but I saw not fresh sources that question this idea.

In reality, in 1940, Hitler's concern was not a crusade against Judeo-Bolshevism (that rhetoric became predominant later), but the desire to deprive Britain of the last sword in the continent (taking into account some signs of rapprochement between Britain and the USSR).--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:15, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Holy cow, do you really need to cherry-pick passages from obscure journal articles written in the 1980's (when the Soviets still denied the existence of the MRP secret protocols) to support your POV that the Soviet annexation of the Baltics was unexpected and ultimately triggered Germany's attack? Seriously? The scholarly consensus is that conquest of Lebensraum was the primary motive and dealing with Bolshevism the secondary motive:

"To summarise: amid the 'tangle' of motives involved in German decision-making, the primary one was to eliminate a growing Soviet political and strategic threat. Removal of the British 'continental sword' in her rear would give Germany the freedom to create Lebensraum by conquest, and to construct an impregnable continental empire, the all-important consideration of which was economic self-sufficiency. This fully concurs with Hitler's statement made several months after the highly successful beginning of the campaign: 'The struggle for the hegemony in the world will be decided for Europe by the possession of the Russian space. It makes Europe the one place in the world that is most impregnable to blockage.'

In this sense, the campaign in the east was a war of aggression and conquest, designed to destroy the enemy state and exploit the conquered territory. At the same time it would pave the way ideologically for a 'final accounting' with Bolshevism." - source: Heinz Magenheimer, Hitler's War: Germany's Key Strategic Decisions 1940-45. 2015.

--Nug (talk) 00:32, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Nug, by writing "do you really need to cherry-pick passages", you again accused me of disruptive editing. I suggest you to avoid that without providing a really serious evidence. To demonstrate that I "cherry-picked" anything, you have at least to read this article in full and prove that its general idea contradicts to the idea I am trying to convey using this particular quote. If you have any doubt about a reliability of this source, go to RSN, and people will explain you that it is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University Press, and, therefore, is the top quality secondary source. And, last, but not least, it is not clear what period of time does the extended quote provided by you describe. Of course, the Lebensraum idea became predominant at some point, and the article I quoted is devoted exactly to that question: when exactly did Hitler start to prepare for the conquest of the USSR? The answer was: no practical steps were taken until late 1940, and initial planning started only after annexation of the Baltic states.

Again, occupation of Eastern Poland was not seen by Hitler as a hostile act, moreover, during the first half of september 1939, Ribbentrop repeatedly asked Stalin to invade Poland citing the Moscow agreement. In contrast, both Hitler and Ribbentrop were very irritated when they learned about annexation of the Baltic states. Your problem is that you think that occupation and annexation of Eastern Poland, Bessarabia and Baltic states were similar events, which is absolutely not the case: all these cases were totally different, and their relationship to the MRP was totally different.

Finally, I provided you a with direct quote that almost literally coincide with what I say. In responce, you gave me a long quote that does not support your idea and does not contradict to what I say (my point is that that quote correctly describes the state of things starting from mid 1940).--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:15, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

• • • objection***, not single photo of Second Sino-Japanese War. This is a GLOBAL war, not a Europe war. Eurocentrism is non-neutral.Rwat128 (talk) 21:04, 26 July 2018 (UTC)