Talk:Charles Louis Fleischmann

Misclassification as Czech-American

I seriously doubt that Mr. Fleischmann would have identified himself as a Czech. He originated from an overwhelmingly German-speaking area of what was then called Oesterreichisches Ostschlesien (Austrian East Silesia), from the town of Jaegerndorf. Prior to the WWII, ethnic Czechs constituted only a small minority in the region. It was only after the ethnic cleansing of the Sudentenland by the Communists following the defeat of Germany in WWII, with its attendant wholesale expulsion of the German residents from this region, that it became a Czech-speaking region.

I believe that the fact that this area was incorporated into Czechoslovakia during the post-1918 breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire has lead to the mis-classification of Mr. Fleischmann, who died in 1897, as a Czech, a designation that I believe he would have found quite inexplicable and artificial. Austrian? Yes. Czech? No. I have therefore removed links designating Mr. Fleischmann a Czech, as they tend more to reflect an artificial, modern-biased perspective of the history of this region.

Additionally, I see no evidence of Jewish ancestry mentioned in the article. Perhaps he was, as Jaegerndorf had a thriving Jewish community at that time. However one should be cautious in jumping to conclusions based purely on a name: Fleischmann is a name of Germanic origin held both Jews and non-Jews alike. Certainly his given names of Charles Louis (presumably anglicized: originally Karl Ludwig?) offers no support for the contention that Mr. Fleishmann is Jewish. This point should be better clarified if someone has more information. Nor do I see any evidence that Mr. Fleischmann was of Hungarian descent. I have therefore removed these links from the main article as well, in the interest of accuracy.

Certainly, if anyone has evidence to support any of these assertions, the article should be edited thusly and these links they should be re-inserted, but until such time as supporting evidence is added to the article I have removed them.

NDM (talk) 06:53, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

My family my grandfather and uncle knew him in Santa Barbara and he was Jewish, Reformed I believe.RichardBond (talk) 08:06, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Max Fleischmann

I think this is confusing and combining two generations of Max FleischmannRichardBond (talk) 08:02, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Patents

In the 'biography' section, mention is made of "numerous mechanical patents". No reference is cited. LorenzoB (talk) 01:54, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Religion

The article states that the subject is Jewish, however there are no supporting sources to corroborate this claim. Looking at the edit history, in 2017 an anon user simply inserted the word "Jewish" to the article without citations. Since then Jewish categories have been added and it seems to have gained traction in related pages too, all with no underlying basis in fact to support it. It should be noted that the name Fleischmann, which means "butcher" in German, whilst indeed being a fairly common Jewish name, obviously is by no means exclusively so. Furthermore, looking at the subject's page on Find a Grave, as well as those of his relatives, the only hints of this family's religion seems to point to the Christian faith. If no supporting evidence is forthcoming soon therefore, I propose to remove all mention of his alleged religion in the next few days. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:8A09:F000:1539:576B:E3CC:EBF3 (talk) 03:08, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I removed it before I saw this, as it amounted to yet another example of Jew-tagging, which has been on the increase recently. It was just added in the last day. Thanks for looking out for it. Acroterion (talk) 03:33, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Legacy inappropriately stained by a great-great-great-granddaughter's misdeed

This legacy section is two paragraphs long. Isn't it inappropriate to devote half of it to a misdeed by a great-great-great-granddaughter? 100.2.225.144 (talk) 02:02, 13 March 2022 (UTC)