Helmut Wick has been listed as one of the Warfare good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones Date Process Result November 3, 2011 Peer review Reviewed December 3, 2011 Good article nominee Listed January 19, 2012 WikiProject A-class review Approved
Current status: Good article

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Please do NOT correct this article without using credible sources!! HerBert - what is your source on the year of birth of Wick's son? By the way, I have some old correspondence of Wick's and his friends did call him Sigfried!!

Walters year of birth: Walter Wick himself. What's your main sources? Could I have a look at one of these correspondences? Greetings HerBert

At this diff I have, I hope, clarified the rather confusing sentences describing the mistake in Wick's intended assignment to JG 1, and his resulting choice. I have tried to keep the meaning completely unchanged since I don't have access to the reference. If I've got it wrong, it may be a sign that the previous version was too confusing for me to understand - please correct me, but please also write what actually happened in simpler language. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:29, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have questions/comments about this edit: Restore reviewed verson. In my understanding, the fact that the article has been reviewed does not preclude further improvements to it, or taking note that the acceptable practices may have changed in the interim.

• This is WP:SEAOFBLUE: "German Luftwaffe ace" (reverted version was: "was a German ace in the Luftwaffe")
• The Third Reich is currently considered to be a Nazi propaganda term; Nazi Germany is more neutral. Please see Nazi_Germany#Name.
• Translations: what purpose do they serve in the context of the article?

K.e.coffman (talk) 23:10, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I removed this work not used for citations:

• Frey, Gerhard; Herrmann, Hajo: Helden der Wehrmacht — Unsterbliche deutsche Soldaten (in German). München, Germany: FZ-Verlag GmbH, 2004. ISBN 3-924309-53-1.

Pls also see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Coordinators/Archive_44#Helden_der_Wehrmacht.

Pls let me know of any concerns. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:11, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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The article's prose is largely single-sourced to:

• Ringlstetter, Herbert (2005). Helmut Wick, An Illustrated Biography of the Luftwaffe Ace and Commander of Jagdgeschwader 2 During the Battle of Britain. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7643-2217-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

The source comes from Schiffer Publishing known for producing POV driven materials on the German armed forces during World War II. Given the WP:QS nature of the source, the level of detail in the currently is WP:UNDUE. I tagged the article accordingly.

Here's the related diff; pls see edit summary for rationale behind the reductions. K.e.coffman (talk) 07:12, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi K.e.coffman (talk · contribs), would you please hold off on your detail and pov changes until we resolve this issue, currently under discussion on the Werner Mölders page? Thank you! auntieruth (talk) 13:49, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If the only way you can discredit a source is by attacking the publisher, you need to try again. There's nothing inherently wrong with Schiffer - they've published a number of works by Siegfried Breyer, who is a well-respected naval historian, for example. Find a negative review of Ringlstetter's book, and then we can talk about it. Parsecboy (talk) 14:24, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's not how WP:QS works. This reminds me of a discussion I had with another editor who demanded that I provide sources "specifically criticising the factual information provided by Kurowski specifically about Otto Kittel" (emphasis in the original). To quote another editor from that discussion: "The onus to show reliability is on whoever proposes the source" and "You don't get to shift the burden of proof. On Wikipedia, sources are not by default assumed to be reliable". (More at: Talk:Otto_Kittel#Further_discussion). Please also see identifying reliable sources. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:54, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, but you do have a responsibility to do due diligence if you're going to denigrate a source. Ringlstetter has written numerous books (1 2, for example) through GeraMond Verlag, which seems to be a reputable publisher. The book in question appears to have been originally published here through Motorbuch Verlag, which it seems is the German equivalent of the Osprey series, though unlike the Ospreys it covers topics beyond military history – while not the highest quality source, I don't see anything particularly offensive about it. Parsecboy (talk) 16:02, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Parsecboy regarding this source, you have to be able to put something up to make it questionable. Detagging. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:28, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Propaganda origins

Here's additional information via de.wiki (Helmuth Wick#Nachleben als NS-Idol):

• From 1941 several biographies Wick appeared in the form of Heftroman [pulp booklets] and a book based on Propagandakompanie material. These representations were designed according to the Nazi war-time propaganda, with Wick and his exploits hagiographically exaggerated. These include the 1941 16-page propaganda edition Major Wick - the model of the German fighter pilot and a 1943 48-page biographical description written by the author Franz Ludwig Neher [de], which appeared in the propaganda series Our Fighter Pilots [de]. (...)
• 1943 also saw the publication of the book Helmut Wick: The life of an aviation hero, written by Josef Grabler [de], a member of a propaganda company. The book was based on propaganda war reports and appeared in the series Eagle Library [de], published by the Luftwaffe propaganda service. (...)
• A book by the amateur historian Herbert Ringlstetter, published in the Motorbuch Verlag in 2000, paraphrases Nazi propaganda anecdotes without a clear source of their origin. Ringlstetter states that his publication is largely based on a photo album and two diaries by Franz Fiby, a fighter pilot who flew joint engagements with Wick. This diary had already been used by the Nazi propaganda texts. Wick himself did not keep a diary against those dates. Battle descriptions, which are published in the Grabler's 1943 publication as quotes from Wick's diary, can be found in Ringlstetter as statements by Wicks supposedly provided by him to a member of a propaganda company.

Given the connection to war-time propaganda of the Ringlstetter's source, I believe the onus is on the editors who wish to remove the tag to demonstrate that the source meets WP:RS and WP:MILMOS#SOURCES guidelines. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:48, 9 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]