Talk:Afrika Korps

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Contents

[edit] historical narrative

Probably needs a historical narrative, though that might actually belong elsewhere.

Check my facts and figures if you can.

-- B.Bryant

[edit] Afrika Korps Marching Song

Could a German speaker please translate the "Afrika Korps Marching Song" provided in this article? And, of course, retain the original German. --EmRick

Got help on initial translation from BigBen212 and others on #wikipedia EmRick 22:12, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The last two lines are missing from the English text of the first song.Grant65 (Talk) 00:21, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Afrika Korps Marching Song picture

Are the Tanks on the picture really PzIIIs? They look more like the PzIVD with the short-barreled 7.5cm gun. The IIIE as the most popular PanzerIII had a longer 5cm gun. I'm kind of confused, because the caption was edited again. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 164.133.154.130 (talk) 12:11, 16 January 2007 (UTC).Ritterkreuz44 20:57, 30 March 2007 (UTC)The tanks pictured are definately PzIII's since they have only 6 roller wheels in the wheel track. The PzIv's had 8 roller wheels. Go to the link for PzIv and you will readily see the 8 roller wheels.--ritterkreuz44

[edit] Unit names

The unit names in this article do not conform to the style used in most military history articles, e.g. superscript is not generally used in Wikipedia for military unit names. Is there are a reason why this article should be an exception? Grant65 (Talk) 04:00, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Lily Marlen

If songs are going to be mentioned then "Lily Marlen" ought to be. Philip Baird Shearer

Agree. In the "World at War" episode on the Afrika Korps (Deutsches Afrikakorps - DAK) Lawrence Olivier affirms for us that Lily Marlen was the number 1 favorite of both German and British troops.Ritterkreuz44 22:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article rename

I think this article needs renaming to its common English name. Philip Baird Shearer

[edit] Army Groups

From the List of German military units of World War II#Army Groups (Heeresgruppen) how do these army groups: Army Group Afrika (Heeresgruppe Afrika) and Army Group Tunis (Heeresgruppe Tunis); fit into the command structure? Philip Baird Shearer 14:51, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More on Army Groups

This article is clear that not all German units in Africa were part of DAK. The most notable of those other units were the Afrika zbV ("special purpose") Division, which was created as an infantry division and slowly upgraded to a fully motorized division, and then redesignated as the 90th Light Afrika Division; the 164th Light Afrika Division. The article on German Panzer Army Afrika however lists these units as subordinate. Anyone have the definitive answer, and can update both pages? Wendell 01:21, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Looks like someone cut-n-pasted the whole OB from http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=2057, and then added some indentation that wasn't in the original. At any rate, I have just now finished giving the German Panzer Army Afrika an almost complete re-write, so hopefully our articles are now in agreement. FWIW von Mellenthin's book says the 164th only started showing up at about the time of the El Alamein battles, and was used along the coast to stiffen the Italian infantry while the Panzer Army (including the subordinate Italian XX Motorized Corps) tried to make a swing around the other end of the line. His map also shows the 90th Light supporting the XX Corps rather than the Afrika Corps, and I gather from the rest of the OB that I dug up for the Panzer Army Afrika article that it was an army-level support unit throughout almost the entire campaign. — B.Bryant 05:03, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tropentauglichkeit

Hello, you should drop some words about "Tropentauglichkeit" ('fit for service in tropical areas'). As far as I know the DAK only received personnell fit for the tropics. But how was this defined ? And was later departed from that rule ? Thanks, WernerE (germanwiki), 28.10.2005

Nice compound word, perhaps typical of a past German military bureaucracy. In the U.S. Army you go where you are sent, Tropentauglichkeit or not.--Gamahler 00:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Deutsches Afrikakorps → Afrika Korps; Deutsches is not usually used in English texts. There is no need for German in the title as "Afrika Korps" has only one overwhelming meaning in English. -- Philip Baird Shearer 13:57, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
  • Support. I agree that 'Deutsches' is unnecessary and I'd like to vote on the same side as Philip for once. I'm slightly concerned that the German Wikipedia has 'Afrikakorps' in one word. This is clearly not common in English, though. I'll support Philip for now but if a pedant comes along and makes a good case for spelling it in one word I can probably be suckered into supporting that. I just hope this doesn't end up as another Spioenkop débâcle :) Haukur Þorgeirsson 15:00, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
    Just to nail that one down: google [Afrika Korps site:mod.uk] [Afrikakorps site:mod.uk] --Philip Baird Shearer 08:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
    Just did. One gets 13 hits, the other gets 0 hits. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 19:20, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. I more or less agree with the statement of Haukur. Stefán Ingi (talk) 15:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. (My second choice would be German Africa Corps as I believe most English speakers mispronounce Korps, i.e. it is correctly pronounced as a homonym of the English "corpse", and that is a bit unfortunate, really... ) Grant65 (Talk) 10:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. According to Felgrau.Com, the premier online research site for the German military, Deutsches Afrikakorps is the correct name. We could just anglicize it, but that doesn't seem to be in the spirit of Wikipedia. Palm_Dogg 18:55, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Afrika Korps is what this lot are called in English. We should use names that are familiar to English speakers. Marco79 16:20, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. I support this with respect to the title of the encyclopedia entry. In the body of the article the original German spellings for German institutions plus any acronym along with English translation should be shown at least once. Afrika Korps should never be represented by Africa Corps in any context.

See my comment in discussion below.Ritterkreuz44 22:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

16:46, 25 November 2005 Robchurch m (moved Deutsches Afrikakorps to Afrika Korps)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

Google information:

  • about 639 English pages for "Deutsches Afrikakorps" -wikipedia
  • about 23,700 English pages for "Afrikakorps" -wikipedia
  • about 13,000 English pages for "German Afrika Korps" -wikipedia
  • about 412,000 English pages for "Afrika Korps" -wikipedia

--Philip Baird Shearer 13:58, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

As usual I don't think very highly of the Google search. In this case there seem to be games and action figures with the name "Afrika Korps".

I get

12,400 English pages for Afrikakorps -game -games -demo -wikipedia -pc [1]
and
71,400 English pages for "Afrika korps" -game -games -demo -wikipedia -pc [2]
and to further illustrate how accurate these figures are the top page in both of these searches seems to be in German.
Anyway, I agree that "Deutsches" is pointless. Stefán Ingi (talk) 15:17, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
"Arika" and "Korps" are both German, not English. Separating them is a confused mix of German spelling and the English form of forming compounds; it should be either "Afrikakorps" or "Africa Corps". And I frankly don't care what the googling say about this one. It seems to be used primarily on sites that are about neo-Nazism and video games, both part of subcultures that are extremely over-represented on the internet, but of little relevance to an encyclopedic article about military history. It makes about as much sense as talking about the "kast of karakters" in an article about Mortal Kombat.
Peter Isotalo 09:28, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Ritterkreuz44 21:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)The spirit of an encyclopedia is to learn as much about a subject as possible. Once you've gotten an English only reader to the desired encyclopedia entry it is desirable to broaden the learning experience by at least once giving the original German spelling for a German name. Afrika Korps should never be represented by Africa Corps in any context. By maintaining original German spelling it facilitates understanding of German acronyms. For example OKW. Oberkommando der Wermacht. In English this usually translates as Armed Forces High Command. OKH -Oberkommando des Heeres. Army High Command. Obviously if you only read English translations you would never get an insight into the German acronyms, and as we all know military topics are resplendant in acronyms. --ritterkreuz44

A lot of German language websites do use "Afrika Korps" rather than "Afrikakorps".[3] Which I suppose is a little like Australian websites that refer to the "9th Division" rather than the "9th Australian Infantry Division", without fear of misunderstanding. Anyway, regardless of whether such terms are technically or formally correct, they are the common names in English, and that is what English Wikipedia policy prescribes.
Given that English speakers generally mispronounce the German korps, I can also see a case for Africa Corps (Germany), which would match the new naming policy for articles on military units, but I think that would be less popular(?) Grant | Talk 08:06, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My Vote Being Censored

Thanks Haukurth, but I understand. I get pretty annoyed when outsiders start meddling with pages that I've put a lot of work into. Anyways, I just uploaded a bunch of DAK images from World War II in Color. I was going to distribute them around the World War II pages, but I'll give you guys first crack as a peace offering. Palm_Dogg 20:15, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Wow, those are good. Thank you :) - Haukur Þorgeirsson 20:55, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Image:Panzer(Afrika).jpg
Image:PanzerIV(Afrika)2.jpg
19:41, 24 November 2005 Haukurth (Woh, woh, woh - since when do we strike out votes that arrive after five days have passed and before an admin gets around to checking the vote?

I can dig up examples for you if you like but it follows this from WP:RM:

Requested moves may be implemented if there is a Wikipedia community consensus (60% or more) supporting the moving of an article after five (5) days under discussion on the talk page of the article to be moved, or earlier at the discretion of an administrator.

--Philip Baird Shearer 22:18, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it can be moved after five days but this does not imply that the vote must close after five days and many do run much longer. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 22:24, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Only if there is not a clear consensus. The administrator discretion is only for shorter periods. The requested moves do not usually run much over 5 days, it is just that administrators have not been keeping on top of WP:RM as much as Vilot used to. I note that someone has been closing out lots of outstanding requests recently, but this one seemed to have got lost in the wash. I have rinstalled in on the WP:RM page so hopefully it will be closed out shortly. --Philip Baird Shearer 00:31, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Terminological Notes

What does "M.C. was here." mean? Should it be deleted? GrahamBould 09:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Color Photos

Are these colorized black and white photos or was color photography developed by 1941? --24.247.126.44 00:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Colour photography was in general use during WWII, for people who could afford it, & if it was available. Germany was a leader, as was the US. Almost impossible to get in the UK. GrahamBould 06:23, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DAK Symbol

Perhaps an inclusion of the Symbol of the Afrika Korps should be included? If a don't receive an objections i'll put one in.Dapi89 18:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Corp-level headquarters"

I am inclined to take this out as i reckon it is written by someone overly-concerned with military formation terminology.. perhaps those of USA. I have not read this claim anywhere before. --maxrspct ping me 15:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Significance to Mississippi

The second last edit summary for this page reads: "Added WP:WPMS class and importance, significant to Mississippi because many DAK POWs were held at Camp Clinton in Clinton, Mississippi)"

I have reverted this because Afrika Korps POWs were also sent in Australia, India, the UK and probably other places as well. Camp Clinton is the proper place for the project tag. Grant | Talk 06:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization of "AFRIKA"

Is there a reason behind the occasional total capitalization of AFRIKA and AFRIKAKORPS at various places in the article? I almost changed them to more standard capitalization, but I could imagine there being some military justification of which I am not aware. A quick glance at the German-language article doesn't show a parallel, however. --Xyzzyva (talk) 21:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Song suggestion

I suggest that the song section be moved to its own article, it is just clogging up the main article. I'm happy to do it if there is support and no objection. GrahamBould (talk) 13:20, 20 March 2008 (UTC)