Talk:John Wheeler-Bennett

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More information about this article... The following comments have been left for this page: F. Simply dreadful. For the most part, an unsourced, highly biased character assassination --A.S. Brown 21:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC) I suggest A.S. Brown does not summarise here personal opinion they have already shared (on 8 June 2007) in the discussion on this article's neutrality. From the talk page guidelines: "Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views." WikiUser9957 10:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC) (edit)

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Through most of the information here is accurate, it is presented in a strongly moralistic tone that condemns Wheeler-Bennett for his views about the German opposition. Moreover, I strongly doubt that Wheeler-Bennett took “pleasure” as this page puts over Strauffenberg's execution in 1944, let alone in 1964 when he wrote the revised edition of The Nemesis of Power. Moreover, some of the charges here, such as that Wheeler-Bennett sought to falsify the historical record are rather slanderous at best, and require endnotes. Moroever, the charge that more people died in the period between July 1944-May 1945, and if only the July 20 Plot had succceded, these deaths would not have occured, is besides containing some dubious counter-factual assumpations (e.g the German Army was fanatically anti-Nazi, and the only reason why the July 20 putsch failed was because of lack of British support), implys that the deaths of millions of people were single-handly caused by Wheeler-Bennett's negative views towards the German opposition-quite an indictment! This page needs to present a summary of Wheeler-Bennett's views, not a condemnation. --A.S. Brown 19:29, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed.--Mcattell 17:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

- "Pleasure" does appear to be an accurate description of Wheeler-Bennett's written reaction in his 25 July 1944 Foreign Office memo, but "satisfaction" may be a less emotional way of describing his emotions.

- Casualty figures in the Second World War are notoriously difficult to accurately estimate. I, at least, cannot quickly find on Google a source that either confirms or refutes the article's statement that "more people were killed in the Second World War in the months after the failure of the July 20 Plot than had been killed in the years beforehand." But Emeritus Professor Gordon A. Craig of Stanford University, for example, states here http://www.iht.com/articles/1994/07/20/edgord.php that most deaths in concentration camps took place after September 1944. He suggests that the July 20 Plot offered the possibility that the conspirators "could have stopped the killing in the camps and saved millions of lives," whilst noting that this may not have happened. Like Professor Craig, the article does imply that the July 20 Plot might have saved lives. That does seem a reasonable comment to set Wheeler-Bennett's views in their historical context. (However, the article does not state - unlike A.S. Brown's presentation of it - that these deaths "would not" have happened.) But it should be noted that, whether or not the article's implication is correct, Wheeler-Bennett would not have known this when he wrote the memo described by his colleague as "a vitriolic little paper."

- The article - very properly as it is not about the July 20 Plot - does not speculate further about what might have been and does not assume that "the German Army was fanatically anti-Nazi, and the only reason why the July 20 putsch failed was because of lack of British support)." Nor does the article state or imply "that the deaths of millions of people were single-handly [sic] caused by Wheeler-Bennett's negative views towards the German opposition." It is hard to see why A.S. Brown criticises the article for statements and assumptions it does not make.

- Perhaps A.S. Brown should re-read the article and consider once again whether the criticisms made of it are justified? The article does contain sources which do reveal Wheeler-Bennett as open to valid criticism, whilst also noting that he was in his time influential. WikiUser9957 11:25, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

- The respected German historian Joachim Fest states in his 1994 book "Staatsstreich. Der lange Weg zum 20. Juli" that about 2.8 million Germans were killed from 1 September 1939 to 20 July 1944, and that about 4.8 million Germans were killed in the 10 months from 21 July 1944 until the beginning of May 1944. To put it another way, Fest notes that an average of 1,588 German people were every day killed before the July 20 Plot, and an average of 16,641 German people were every day killed after the plot. As Fest underlines, these figures do not take into account the millions of non-Germans killed in the Second World War. Given this and Professor Gordon A. Craig's statement that most concentration camp victims were killed after the July 20 Plot, criticism of the article on Wheeler-Bennett for points it does not make about the increased numbers of deaths after 20 July 1944 is unjustified. A successful plot might indeed have have led to those killings not taking place, even if this is, as Professor Craig points out, not certain. So it is reasonable for the article to note the greater number of deaths after 20 July 1944, within the historical context of Wheeler-Bennett's support of murders by the Gestapo and the SS of those who took part in the July 20 Plot. As the article notes, his views on this were not shared by everyone within the British Foreign Office of the time. WikiUser9957 09:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)