Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Operation Bernhard/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 17:08, 9 April 2017 [1].

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Operation Bernhard

Nominator(s): The Bounder (talk) 11:53, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Operation Bernhard is a fascinating tale of what could have been the Nazi's most powerful weapon of the Second World War, utterly wasted because of poor management in the confused and conflicting bureaucratic infighting in the German high command. A plan to counterfeit British currency to bring about the collapse of the strongest economy in the world was changed into a way to pay for intelligence operations (which it did), although it made some Germans extremely rich in the process. In and among the greed and mismanagement, the plan ensured the survival of around 150 concentration camp prisoners who were the ones forced to make print the money. A badly worded German order to kill them, and an engine failure of a truck, led to a last minute survival of the group, of whom one is still alive, I believe. This article has undergone a complete re-write recently and reached the standards of a MILHIST A class (passing this morning). All the best, The Bounder (talk) 11:53, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support Per my detailed comments at the A-Class review here. I gave my comments then and the article a quick look-in this morning before supporting.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:03, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Wehwalt, Thank you very much for your extremely useful comments at A-class and your further time and effort here. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 09:57, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

• All good, except this one: Operation Bernhard only ever printed money - other people used it. - The Bounder (talk) 09:50, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

• "Due to a poorly worded German order, the prisoners were not executed on their arrival": As much as I'd like to think that the lack of a copyeditor saved their lives, the article text doesn't seem to support that the problem was poor wording.
  • Teutonic precision in interpretation was the real problem, and I've tweaked accordingly. - The Bounder (talk) 09:50, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. These are my edits. One of the better concentration camp stories I've read, on or off Wikipedia. - Dank (push to talk) 02:47, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Dank, thank you very much for your tweaks and comment. I've slightly reshaped the "poorly-worded order" to make it more precise. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 09:50, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Support Comments from Syek88

I found this interesting, it reads well, and it appears to be a comprehensive history of the operation based on reputable references. Unfortunately I haven't been able to look at any of the references, so my review necessarily excludes Criterion 1c.

Some fairly minor points and questions:

• The second sentence of the article is "The plan was to drop the notes over Britain to bring about a collapse of the British economy." Is this not too broad in that it is only correct insofar as it describes the plan for the first of the operation's two phases, a point that doesn't come through until the next paragraph? Perhaps "initial plan" or "original plan"?
• The lead refers to the "overly precise" interpretation of the imprisonment order, but none of that is explained in the relevant section of the article. In other words, I didn't see anything in the second paragraph of "Final stages of the war" as explaining how the order was interpreted in an overly precise manner and how that helped the prisoners. I make the point below that the second paragraph of "Final stages of the way" is perhaps short of clarity. Maybe that is the issue. I'm guessing the over-precision arises from the guards at the receiving camp waiting too long for the third group to arrive, but that seems to be exactly what the order required them do, in which case "overly" might be too critical of them.
• "Prior to the release of any notes by the Bank of England, all serial numbers were recorded in ledgers so the bank could verify their liabilities" - Whom or what is the pronoun "their" covering? I thought it should be the bank, but the plural pronoun leads me to wonder whether it is the notes. If it is the bank, "its" would put it beyond doubt.
• "A watermark appeared across the middle of every note; it differed depending on the value of the currency and the alphanumeric combinations used." - are the "alphanumeric combinations" the same thing as the "alphanumeric serial designation" to which the previous paragraph refers? The difference in wording made me wonder.
• "The Jewish prisoners working on the operation at the time complained to Krüger at having to work with a criminal and he was given his own room to sleep in." - Is the "and" intended to denote causation: that he was given his own room because the other prisoners complained? If so, I'd use a different word. If not, it isn't clear why the two clauses of the sentence go together.
• "They were divided into three groups, and the truck was to make trips to and from the camp. An order had been issued the prisoners were to be killed, once they were together at Ebensee. The truck delivered the first two groups—the men were housed separately from the general camp population—but the vehicle broke down on the third journey; the men in the last group were marched to the camp, which took two days." These three sentences are a bit strange. This is the first mention of a singular truck, so maybe "a truck" would be better. And is there a missing word or two in the second sentence? In the third sentence it is not clear how the parenthetical clause explains any of the sentence's content. It seems to relate more to the sentence that follows. Finally, as above, this is the paragraph where I think there needs to be a clear explanation of how the order was interpreted imprecisely and how this helped the prisoners.

Thanks again. Syek88 (talk) 21:34, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

• Thank you Syek88. I've worked on them all, but I'll have a proper look in the morning at the final point, just to see how it looks now when I'm much less tired! Thank you for all your comments, and the copy edits too. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 22:46, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
• After a further read-through this morning of the clarifications, I'm happier with the new text. Does it read well to you? All the best, The Bounder (talk) 06:26, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks - I think that paragraph steps it through very clearly now. Marking as support. Syek88 (talk) 19:38, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Syek88 - that's very kind of you. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 19:56, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done

• Publisher for Boeykens?
• Be consistent in whether you include publisher and/or location for periodicals. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:43, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Thank you very much Nikkimaria, both points now addressed. You passed the images in your review for A-Class, so does that mean they pass for FA too? (For,the sake of completeness I have added one since the review, File:Toplitzsee.jpg, which appears to be ok. Thanks again and all the best, The Bounder (talk) 06:23, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
    • Hi The Bounder, it looks like my final comment there regarding File:Forgednote.jpg may have been overlooked (?), while your edit to File:Labers_Castle_-_South_Tyrol.jpg has been reverted. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:01, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
      • Hi Nikkimaria, I have no idea how I missed your File:Forgednote.jpg comment: my apologies, and this has now been done. I've put back the tag at File:Labers_Castle_-_South_Tyrol.jpg and left an explanatory note on the editor's page. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 13:21, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Support by Nick-D

This is a very interesting and well-developed article. I have the following comments:

• The first para of the lead should say when this project commenced
• "On receipt of Hitler's go-ahead Heydrich opened a counterfeiting unit " - can you be specific about when this occurred? (was it literally as soon as Hitler's approval was gained, or shortly afterwards?)
• "Counterfeit notes worth £15–20 million were in general circulation at the end of the war.[14] With such a volume in general circulation, in April 1943 the Bank of England stopped releasing all notes of £10 and above" - the chronology here is a bit unclear. Also, how did the British detect this large scale counterfitting? Nick-D (talk) 11:17, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Good afternoon Nick-D, and many thanks for your comments. I have altered the text according to your first two comments. The British were not aware of the huge scale of the operation until much later, but they knew there was something going on (which we cover in the Origins of the plan section). All the best, The Bounder (talk) 12:01, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the response. Based on the edits, I'm pleased to now support this nomination. Nick-D (talk) 10:28, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
      • Thank you very much for your comments. All the best, The Bounder (talk) 14:15, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Coordinator comment: Can I just clarify with Nikkimaria that the image added after the A-Class review is OK? If so, I think we are clear on images. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:50, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:55, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Closing comment: I think between this review, and that at A-Class, this has a consensus to promote. Sarastro1 (talk) 17:08, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro1 (talk) 17:08, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.