Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Operation Brand

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:25, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Operation Brand

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This is a difficult topic. The article concerns an alleged Nazi murder program that killed hospitalized people. However, when I examined and tried to improve the sources I found that all the information presented is one primary source, in various edited forms: a single brief mention in a 1976 interview with a Nazi named Franz Suchomel–and he apparently did not take part in it or speak to anyone who did, but only claimed to have learned of it from reading a confiscated letter.

That would not in itself be a barrier to this being a notable subject for an article, of course, but I cannot find a single piece of secondary scholarship on the topic. I initially wondered what professional historians have written in secondary sources about this claim: do they believe it, have corroborating evidence, reject it, consider it plausible but unsubstantiated? But aside from transcripts of the interview and the source of Mattila (which does assume that the event happened, but is really not focused on WWII but on the contemporary far-right, and only mentions it in passing) I cannot find evidence of any scholarship on the topic whatsoever.

I initially PRODdded the article; the author contested it and puts a rationale on the article talk page. The author makes a comparison to recently discovered sources on the second world war like the Höfle Telegram and Höcker Album, but both of these have been extensively discussed and assessed in secondary sources as this apparently hasn't been.

I would also be open to considering redirecting this to Franz Suchomel, possibly. Blythwood (talk) 13:09, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. MT Train^Talk 13:31, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. MT Train^Talk 13:31, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. MT Train^Talk 13:31, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Franz Suchomel (for lack of better landing spot). When I saw the original PROD I searched for any mention of this, and like the nominator I found nothing. Part of the problem is the common English words "operation" and "brand", the latter finding hits in the areas of marketing and commerce. However, searching under the German name reveals nothing, even in the German Wikipedia. This may be a case of something real that has never been investigated, researched or written about. If real, there may be archival materials but that's not for Wikipedia. We need reliable secondary and tertiary sources and the interview and single mention in Mattila are not enough to even verify that there ever was an Operation Brand. Perhaps Suchomel had the name wrong? Perhaps he was thinking of Aktion T4 or conflating a number of other situations. If Operation Brand was real (and on a personal level I have no reason to doubt this) clearly no scholarship has happened around whatever archival material may be out there. Until that happens, this falls under too soon (academically speaking) and failing WP:V and WP:RS. No prejudice whatsoever for recreating once new sources appear. Merge to Suchomel as it could be mentioned in passing in that article (if it's not already there). freshacconci (✉) 14:06, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

STRONG KEEP (says the article creator, me). here's a paste of my original UNPROD comments on article's Talk: UNPROD notice

per WP published directions, i will "remove the proposed deletion/dated tag from the article or the proposed deletion/dated files tag from the file." in the same WP page with those directions, it says, "You are strongly encouraged, but not required, to also: 1. Explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page...." It also says, "If anyone, including the creator, removes a proposed deletion tag from a page, do not replace it." so, i'm removing the quick delete tag. thanks all for not-replacing it.

as a courtesy, i add these comments:

the quick-deletion proposer, user Blythwood, said this (not on Talk, but on a delete box): "While my search is hampered by the range of possible translations, I simply can't find any secondary-source scholarship about this topic at all. Every cited source is an extract from the same primary-source interview with a single eyewitness (who himself apparently says he only heard about it secondhand) apart from 2) which mentions it only in passing. Wikipedia doesn't seem to already have coverage of it either anywhere (I've searched now for "Einsatz Brand", "Einsatzbrand", "Einsatz-Brand", "Operation Brand" and "Operation Burning".) Given the huge volume of Holocaust scholarship, I'm inclined to believe that either this is just an urban legend or an event that did happen but had a different official name to this one. Either way it doesn't meet notability criteria."

my replies:

re "it doesn't meet notability criteria," i say any ww2 mass-killing progam is notable --res ipsa. further, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is a national institution which strongly vets its publications and considers the historical significance of what resources it presents. i say if the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is considering the item worthy of acquisition and translation and publication and ongoing web-hosting (thus, de facto, vouching for it), their endorsement of the material outranks a good faith but arbitrary assessment of one wikipedian that the item is not notable.

re "my search is hampered by the range of possible translations," i say the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum conveniently provided an english-language summary as well as an english full translation, both of which are among the references. the original german transcript, also from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, is also in the refs.

re "Every cited source is an extract from the same primary-source interview" i say there's a secondary source: Markku Mattila (2002), "Old Arguments, New Thruths: The Picture of the Eugenics Movement Today (in CROSS-CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS: Perspectives on Multicultural Europe, pg. 178)", Retrieved March 1, 2018. The source's source is not listed in the source text, so concluding that it is a direct extract of the primary ssource is an unsupported assumption. further, i would say that the primary source is the 1976 interview itself secretly preserved on recording media. the french-and-german transcript is circa 1976. the info was further processed and edited and included in the epic documentary shoah, released in 1981 --secondary perhaps by then and after such filtering. the material passed to the Steven Spielberg (notable!) film archive. from there, it went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (notable! except among Holocaust denial kooks) special collection. by the time the (notable and reliable!) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum vetted, accepted, and digitized the material, their digital archive of it could well be considered secondary. the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum-sponsored official english translation document was created 36 years after the primary source interview. it is secondary by the time of its 2012 creation. the USHMM web page hosting a digital copy is a further iteration created a couple of years later. the "primary source" that ~i~ cite is not so primary. plus, in certain historical cases, the words of those who were on the scene are indeed used --as we do for certain incidents which, say, eisenhower or Albert Speer refer to.

re "Wikipedia doesn't seem to already have coverage of it either anywhere (I've searched now for "Einsatz Brand", "Einsatzbrand", "Einsatz-Brand", "Operation Brand" and "Operation Burning".)" i say well *YEAH* it is a new article. that's why you don't find it on wikipedia. i meant to create "Einsatz Brand," "Einsatzbrand," "Einsatz-Brand," and "Operation Burning" sorts of redirects to "Operation Brand" after a while. i hoped to see, perhaps, a REF bot come along and replace my repeating REFs with the shortened forms. i hoped to see a few editors come in and tweak it with positive changes. (certainly, an "i've never heard of it so i'm going to delete it" sort of response was not what i was expecting.) i'm a specialist of sorts of forgotten but still important ww2 subjects and i've written articles before on such topics.

re references, two concessions: i blundered and while copy-pasting i got the 2012 english link where the 1976 original german link was supposed to go, giving an inflated impression of reliance on one source. also, the USHMM summary is circa 2014 and is itself a vettted secondary source of a sort. my phrasing of that summary REF did not reflect this and i've adjusted that.

re "Given the huge volume of Holocaust scholarship, I'm inclined to believe that either this is just an urban legend or an event that did happen but had a different official name to this one," i say now that is WP:OR. Further, the SS-Unterscharführer speaking in 1976 (Franz Suchomel) called it a top-level state secret. he wasn't just some private guarding aa warehouse; he was convicted in the Treblinka trials for war crimes. the translator said he called it "the secret state-secret" and the translator added in parenthesis, "he uses the word secret twice." After this, the translator said "Operation Burning." Maybe you're better at German than the state-museum's translator; here's Suchomel's exact phrase (at least as transcribed in 1976): "das geheime Reichsgehimnis über den Einsatz Brand." naturally, there would be little published about it. there is a lot of holocaust research in the form of rehashing and reinterpreting the same old well-worn stories; highly-secret items by nature tended to remain hidden and to appear sometimes only much later when dug out. the important Höfle Telegram was not found until 2000 and articles did not appear until some time afterward. the Höcker Album was not made public until after 2007. some secret things whose perpetrators actively tried to cover up of course left few tracks, but we don't then delete the articles about them when they first appear because we haven't heard of them yet.

i hope others will add to the new article. aborting it straight away of course kills-off that opportunity and, frankly, corrodes the incentive to dig up material for new WP articles.

Cramyourspam (talk) 15:04, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

While I strongly believe that "any ww2 mass-killing progam is notable", per Wikipedia policy we need WP:V and WP:RS. That the mention of Operation Brand has moved from the original interview to a number of archives is interesting but I'd suggest that it's the whole of the material, all the archival material, all the interviews within the Shoah project, not specifically the Suchomel interview alone. The only apparent secondary source is the brief mention in Mattila, and I'm assuming that is based on the same interview. As the nominator stated, Suchomel's information was second-hand, so it's a mention of something by someone who wasn't there, with no further confirmation. If Operation Brande existed (and I do believe it probably did), there is no verification beyond Suchomel's memory. That's extremely weak by Wikipedia standards. In the end, we don't know if it's real, an urban legend, a mistake on Suchomel's part, or something he made up out of whole cloth. In the Suchomel article it can be mentioned as something he claims, with the appropriate redirects if someone is looking for the topic. If newly discovered material confirms the existence of Operation Brand, the article can easily and uncontroversially be recreated once secondary sources are written based on the primary material. Other than that, I can't see how this could survive as an article on its own. There's just not enough there to verify Operation Brand's existence. I understand the desire to keep something you created, and if it can be confirmed, it would be an important article to include, once the sources are there. freshacconci (✉) 15:25, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(Delete) ~~Keep~~ wall of text but I can't see why a comparative lack of sources for a top-secret Nazi death program is a massive issue. Prince of Thieves (talk) 15:49, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You can't see why "a comparative lack of sources" is a "massive issue"? You are familiar with WP:RS and WP:V I'm assuming? We can't even verify if this "top-secret Nazi death program" even existed. If it existed and it was top-secret and no one had done the archival work and published the results, there's not much we can do per WP:OR, WP:RS, WP:V and possibly WP:HOAX (and for the record, I don't believe it's a hoax per se but an article on something that didn't exist falls under that guideline). I don't really understand your rationale for keep. freshacconci (✉) 17:00, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So are you saying the existing sources in the article do not prove it's existence despite the fact the death-program was mentioned. Prince of Thieves (talk) 17:36, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are only two sources. One is an interview from someone (a Nazi) with second-hand knowledge. The second is a single mention, based on that interview. That's it. So no, the existing sources clearly do not prove the existence of this particular death program. There are absolutely no other mentions anywhere, in English or German. Merely mentioning something does not prove its existence. One interview with an unreliable witness and one brief mention elsewhere by definition fail WP:RS. freshacconci (✉) 17:40, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And to be clear: I'd be more than happy for this article to be kept if the information could be verified and reliable sources could be found. I wouldn't be surprised if such a program existed and if it did, an article would be wholly appropriate. Until those sources can be found, there's nothing within Wikipedia policy and guidelines that could justify it being kept at this time. freshacconci (✉) 17:44, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is somewhat assuming that Franz Suchomel is reliable and although his say so does not prove its existence, it may have been real - perhaps draftify. I don't think it should be merged with the Nazi that mentioned it, I don't even see how that would work. I am against permanent outright deletion but Freshacconci makes a convincing argument, notably that there is only one source for the article, which is inconsistent with the requirement for multiple sources. Prince of Thieves (talk) 18:06, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The only reason I suggest merging it into the Suchomel article is for lack of any better location and given that this program is mentioned in two places, it's not unreasonable to believe that people will come here to find out more. However, I'm not opposed to draftifying and if more sources are found I am very much in favour of the article existing. freshacconci (✉) 18:11, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep -- This is of course an extremely unpleasant subject, but that is neither a reason for keeping nor deletion. The problem is that it is all ultimately based on the testimony of a single witness, or almost so. However, the allegation is of the same nature was other Nazi policies that are well attested. Jews were the most numerous victims of the holocaust, but they were not the only ones. It also applied to Gypsies, imbeciles, and (I think) certain others. I therefore do not regard the allegation as one that is impossibly incredible. If true, it is certainly notable. Furthermore, even the possibility that is might be true means that it should be kept. If there are doubts about its credibility, that can be expressed in the article. I do not regard redirecting to Franz Suchomel as an acceptable solution, as the bio does not cover this. Even merging there (which would be better) is inappropriate. Something like this needs a substantive article. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:13, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Peterkingiron: Absolutely no one here has stated that the article should be deleted because it's "an extremely unpleasant subject". We can only decide on keep or delete based on policy and guidelines, not on whether or not something is believable. Yes, it would not be surprising if this was true. The horrors I have read about the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities ensures that. However, if there are "doubts about [the article's] credibility" this most certainly cannot simply be expressed in the article. We have one primary source, an interview with an unreliable witness, and one secondary source that mentions Operation Brand in passing. Per WP:RS and WP:V -- which are policy -- this is unacceptable. We don't keep articles based on hunches or "the possibility that [it] might be true". We also don't keep articles based on what we think we "need" on Wikipedia, per WP:WHATWIKIPEDIAISNOT, also policy. If sources are found, this would be a great article. If Operation Brand could be verified with reliable sources, it would be a notable topic. What we have now is not acceptable by Wikipedia policy specifically, and the research by a number of editors has confirmed that at this time there are no reliable sources that even confirm that Operation Brand existed. freshacconci (✉) 16:31, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, all that we know about this is "Franz Suchomel claimed that Operation Brand was a Nazi mass murder operation". We have one primary source and zero secondary sources about this topic. We would have more sources if this was a topic sufficiently discussed in the historical literature. At the present level of sourcing, all we can do is mention in Franz Suchomel that he claimed the existence of this operation years later, but there is no proof of its existence whatsoever. —Kusma (t·c) 15:34, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Delete - I agree that this article does not have the type of sourcuing to clearly pass WP:V. Given the nature of the subject, I'd certainly change/strike my !vote if there were scholarly discussion of the operation, even if that sourcing were only discussing it as a claim or possible event. Smmurphy^(Talk) 21:04, 6 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I want to endorse this view–uncertainty about whether the event happened is not the issue. Wikipedia has articles on things that probably happened, probably didn't, debunked hoaxes and everything in between, as long as there's reliable sourcing. The problem for me is the lack of secondary source analysis and commentary by credentialed experts. Blythwood (talk) 23:32, 8 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I also endorse this, any reliable secondary sourcing would in be enough in my view, but I don't have the access or expertise to conduct a thorough research into the topic, and the existing sourcing is simply not enough to verify the topic as required by WP:V. Prince of Thieves (talk) 00:34, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE (from article author) Sorry for the "wall of text" above --I copied a formatted detailed reply from the article's Talk but couldn't replicate the line breaks. My formatting-knowledge-gap bad. I've tweaked the wording a bit to reflect the speculation here on the AfD page that it might have been a rumor. Feel free to undo that it it is a dis-improvement. Hey does anyone have access to his Treblinka trials testimony where he might have spoken of Einsatz Brand with judicial oversight there? I doubt the books are online, but there could be actual hardcopy books in a library university someplace. Cramyourspam (talk) 00:40, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I re-pasted from what you wrote, preserving the formatting of the original comments on article talk page. Prince of Thieves (talk) 00:43, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. We can't write an article without independent, secondary sources. Mackensen (talk) 20:06, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.