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. After plowing through the walls of text, I believe that consensus favors deletion. On a side note (in case anyone actually bothers to read this summary) for the love of G--, be pithy. None of us are getting paid for this. Please confine your comments to what is germane to the discussion. Make your point, but be brief. Ad Orientem (talk) 03:58, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hando Ruus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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An unremarkable SS captain. Does not meet WP:SOLDIER & significant RS coverage not found: link.

Richard Landwehr's Estonian Vikings is a fringe publication. Some coverage from apparently non-RS The history of battalion "Narva": Stronger than steel from a small-time publisher, plus other passing mentions.

I don't believe that significant RS coverage for the subject, either in English or Estonian, exists, as is typical for low ranking Waffen-SS commanders. The article has been de-PRODed with the rationale that the subject was a recipient of the Iron Cross, 1st class. This does not meet SOLDIER #1, as Iron Cross was not the highest German award for valour during World War II. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:12, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Estonia-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:13, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:13, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:13, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, he received Iron Cross First and Second Classes, as well as other medals. I was not clear in my rationale for removing the ProD. This is the right place to discuss his notability-- or lack there of.Dlohcierekim (talk) 01:40, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete. There's nothing in the SOLDIER notability guidelines that he meets, although he was certainly present for a number of significant engagements. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 06:46, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep per sources cited by Nug below. It's possible to argue that the second link (which seems to be focused on the battalion, rather than the man) is more an "in passing" kind of mention, but I'm giving a fair bit of weight to the fact that there's a book specifically about the subject of this article. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 22:27, 29 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom. Even the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross doesn't guarantee notability, much less a First Class one. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:49, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom and previous comments.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 20:13, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per other comments. --Lineagegeek (talk) 23:29, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has deteriorated into one about who has to prove whether a source is reliable or not. I do not care to vote without being able to make an evaluation on this issue, although I strongly believe the burden of proof that a source is not reliable for the particular purpose it is used lies heavily on the challenger. --Lineagegeek (talk) 23:22, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• DElete -- Battalion commanders are generally NN, even if decorated. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:35, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete: Insufficient evidence of notability. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:35, 27 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, meets WP:GNG, topic of a number of secondary reliable secondary sources independent of the subject [1], [2] (the second link is the second edition of the source linked by the nominator above). Sources do not have to be written in English per WP:GNG, and while the publisher may be consided "small time" in the English language space, certainly more significant in Estonian particularly if a second edition is published. --Nug (talk) 09:41, 29 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• What is the evidence that that these are reliable sources? Please see WP:IRS. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:33, 30 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• It is easier to prove if a source is unreliable, per WP:QUESTIONED you need to show evidence of a poor reputation for reliability, like a negative book review or something. The fact that the second source (while focused on the battalion does have a chapter on Ruus), has gone to a second edition must indicate a reasonable reputation for the first edition. I don't think the sources are being used to make any WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims where a scholarly source is required to support those claims. --Nug (talk) 21:21, 30 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• No, that is not how it works. The fact that one source has been re-issued is immaterial. For example, Franz Kurowski’s works (such as Infantry Aces and Panzer Aces) have been issued by multiple publishers & in multiple editions, but it does not make them anything more than POV-driven historical fiction. There’s a lot of unreliable literature on WW2, and experience has shown that reliable literature on low-level Waffen-SS commanders is rare. If the claim is being made that these sources (including Hando Ruus: The Artist and Legendary "Narva" Battalion Officer) are reliable, this should be backed up by more than one editor’s opinion rather than suggesting that we take these publications at face value. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:20, 31 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Your "experience has shown that reliable literature on low-level Waffen-SS commanders is rare" is based primarily upon the english language space, you can't reliably extrapolate that to the Estonian language space. But you have ignored the main issue, you yourself have used WP:QUESTIONED in the past to successfully argue Franz Kurowski and others were unreliable based upon showing evidence of criticisms by Selmer and Davies and other historians. Now in this case you seem to ignore WP:QUESTIONED and its requirement for evidence of poor reputation and now expect us to provide evidence of good reputation.
• But this discussion is about notability, reliability of sources can be taken to WP:RSN. Out of the nearly 40,000 Estonians drafted into the military during WW2, only a handful individuals have had biographies written about them in Estonia seventy years later, which indicates the level of notability of these individuals. --Nug (talk) 20:28, 31 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Again, this is 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).

In addition, reliability of sources is very much pertinent in a notability discussion; please see WP:RS: "If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." K.e.coffman (talk) 00:24, 1 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• That is not the case, you indeed did use the opinions of Smelser & Davies and other historians on RSN to establish why Kurowski should be considered unreliable [3], implicitly acknowledging that the burden lays with the one who makes the assertion. The presumption is innocent until proven guilty because proof of innocence is more difficult to provide than proof of guilt. If you can show that the author Reino Hein, who has a number of published books[4], has a poor reputation for checking facts or expressing extreme viewpoints, then I concede, but otherwise there is no justification in policy to claim this published biography on Hando Ruus is unreliable. --Nug (talk) 11:31, 1 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• I disagree with such interpretation of WP:QS. The book titles such as My honor is loyalty: The history of battalion "Narva" and Hando Ruus: the artist and officer of legendary battalion "Narva" are not neutral and suggest a strong POV on the part of the authors. See: "legendary"; and who would have thought that putting the SS motto ("My honor is loyalty") in the title would be suitable? That's why I am questioning these sources. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:09, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Now you are being misleading about the context of the term legendary in the title of Hein's book, which according to google books is Hando Ruus: The Artist and Legendary Officer of the "Narva" Battalion. The term "Legendary" is referring to the person and not the Battalion, plenty of biographies that use the term "legendary" in their titles: [5],[6],[7],[8],[9], etc. In any case the physical book is in fact titled Hando Ruus: Artist and Officer --Nug (talk) 23:47, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment The works by Harry Tulp have been compiled for and published by the Klubi "Wiking-Narva", an organization of veterans and friends of the Estonian SS-Frewilligen-Panzergrenadier-Bataillon Narwa. That's not the kind of publication which I would presume independent of the subject. But why is it more difficult to prove a source to be reliable than to be unreliable? Basically this would mean that the least well known author is the most reliable for Wikipedia, because noone has anything to say about him. Maybe Nug can introduce the background and the credentials of Reino Hein, how his works were received and so forth. It's difficult to assess the kind of coverage and its reliability without knowing anything about the source. If the source has been used to write this article I find it strange that Ruus' service in the Schuma/Estonian Police Battalion 38 from September 1941 to October 1942 is left out.--Assayer (talk) 23:53, 1 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm sure there isn't any conspiracy behind why the article may have omitted Ruus' service in Estonian Police Battalion 38, as it is a start-class article after all. You are more than welcome to rectify that yourself. German Waffen-SS veteran organisations are obviously dubious given that their members are/were ardent Nazis, thus meeting WP:QUESTIONABLE's "extreme viewpoints" test for unreliability. The fact that Baltic Waffen SS Units were recognised after the war as not sharing Nazi ideology, purpose or activities (not withstanding SputnikNews propaganda of course), with former members even trusted to guard real Nazis[10], their veteran groups don't meet the "extreme viewpoints" test. Their reliability is more on par with that of US or British veteran groups. Since it was K.e.coffman who challenged the status quo with this AfD and made the claim of Reino Hein's unreliability, the burden of proof clearly lays with him to substantiate his claim. --Nug (talk) 09:48, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• First of all, you did not provide any information on Hein and his work. Don't you have any? There are several ways to identify reliable sources, some of them quite easy: Was the book published by academic and scholarly presses? Is the author a historian, i.e. does he have academic training in historiography? How was the work reviewed? There is no reason to reverse the burden of proof, quite the opposite. I was wondering, if the article skips over some facts, because it is based upon the short book by Reino Hein, which would prove its unreliabiity, or whether that publication may not have been not used at all. --Assayer (talk) 23:00, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is true that former members of the Waffen-SS became recognized as some sort of "freedom fighters" in the Baltic States after 1991, because the Soviet occupation was deemed worse. In particular the Estonian "war of monuments" has been noted by scholars. German newspapers (no, not Sputnik news) regularly report with bewilderment on the frequent parades of the veterans and the attitude of the Estonian government. Shortly after 1991 the Estonian veterans of the Waffen-SS "Narva" Battalion built close relations with German and Scandinavian veterans and their organizations, like the Kameradenwerk Korps Steiner and the Truppenkameradschaft Wiking. This is testimony that the veterans do indeed share an ideology, purpose and activities. After all the Battle of Narva 1944 was special for the SS. The Estonian narrative of WW II feeds very well into the revisionist European narratives. Thus the argument that German SS veterans were "real Nazis", whereas Baltic Waffen-SS veterans were only, I dunno, "fake Nazis" (?), is as biased as it can get. Publications by an Estonian SS-veterans' organization cannot be considered more reliable than publications by German Waffen-SS verterans' organizations. Since no evidence for reliability has been provided, I'd rather opt for delete.--Assayer (talk) 19:54, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• That is an ahistorical view. Most Estonian Waffen-SS veterans were conscripts, drafted into the occupying military forces of Nazi Germany. German Waffen-SS members were willing volunteers who subscribed to Nazi ideology. That is the difference. At the conclusion of WW2 the allies acknowledged the difference, Nuremburg rightly exempted conscripts in its judgement on the Waffen SS, Baltic Waffen SS veterans were permitted to emigrate to the USA whereas German Waffen SS veterans were forbidden, etc. It seems now that German Waffen-SS veteran groups are attempting to hijack the historical outcome for Baltic Waffen SS veterans for themselves by trying to associate themselves with these Estonian veteran groups. The argument for your !vote "Since no evidence for reliability has been provided" is a argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, in that the proposition that Reino Hein book is unreliable must be true because it has not yet been proven false.--Nug (talk) 02:06, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• On the joint Waffen-SS commemorations in Estonia, pls see: Werther, Steffen; Hurd, Madeleine (2014). "Go East Old Man: The Ritual Spaces of SS Veteran's Memory Work" (PDF). Culture Unbound. Journal of Current Cultural Research. 6: 327–359. doi:10.3384/cu.2000.1525.146327. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:26, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm sure dozens of foreign Waffen-SS veterans (all volunteers subscribing to Nazi ideology to a man) flock to Narva every year in an attempt hijack an event, which commemorates Estonian conscripts who died in that part of Estonia, for their own agenda. As your link sums it up succinctly: "The actual history of the Estonians’ involvement in the W-SS … is relatively irrelevant in this context". However no evidence of Reino Hein's association with German Waffen-SS verterans' organizations. --Nug (talk) 00:52, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete There's no reason that this person's article should not be required to meet WP:GNG. Exemplo347 (talk) 19:59, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Meets WP:GNG (which permits foreign language books) by being a topic of this book: Hando Ruus: Artist and Officer by Reino Hein. The nominator neglected to mention this source in the original nomination[11], despite it being clearly listed as a source in the article. This omission clearly influenced earlier !votes[12]. Despite the lengthy discussion above, no evidence has been presented that the author is in anyway associated with with either Richard Landwehr or Franz Kurowski, or any other dubious group. The case against Hein's reliability is based upon the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam, in that the proposition (that Reino Hein book is unreliable) must be true because it has not yet been proven false. --Nug (talk) 23:42, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• This Estonian online auction site lists the biography in question, with several spreads from inside the book: REINO HEIN -- HANDO RUUS. Notice the NS-inspired iconography: propaganda photographs, SS-runes, and swastika-adorned memorabilia. This looks like a questionable source to me. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:11, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Seriously? The book is about person in the German armed forces who was awarded an Iron Cross. Page 58 showing ss-runes is a reconstruction of the award notice in a contemporary war time propaganda news paper, the caption states this. Page 58 is a photo of the original German notication of the award, the caption states this. By your reasoning this book would also be unreliable because it displays Nazi propaganda on the front cover and it's pages are festooned with NS-inspired iconography such as propaganda photographs, SS-runes, and swastika-adorned memorabilia! --Nug (talk) 04:00, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment, Reino Hein's book: Hando Ruus: Artist and Officer isn't "my source", it is a source listed in the article's references, presumably added when the article was created. Somehow the AfD nominator forgot to mention it before a number of people !voted. After the existence of this biography was pointed out, the nominator then claimed it was "unreliable" without any evidence other than claiming it had the word "Legendary" in the title (it doesn't) and it had a handful of historical pictures that happen to incorporate Nazi state iconography (what book related to the Nazi German military history doesn't?). --Nug (talk) 04:47, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• For matters of convenience I'll put my rebuttal of your various assertions here. Mine is a view supported by historiography, whereas your arguments mimic the narrative of the Baltic and ultimately of the German Waffen-SS veterans: They also claimed that there were only few ardent Nazis among the Waffen-SS personnel. Most SS-Führer, i.e. officers, were rather military professionals who only happened to join the Waffen-SS, because the German army officers' corps was still dominated by nobles, their sense of status effectively blocking career opportunities for men of lower status, so they asserted. Some individuals commited crimes, the apologia continues, but on the whole the Waffen-SS was an effective elite military organization which gallantly fought against the Bolshewists, being the fourth constituent of the German armed forces, simple soldiers like any other. That's their story and it feeds excellently into the story told by the Baltic veterans. The Estonian Legion started as a volunteer force in 1942. Conscription began as late as February 1944. The decision of the DP Commission to allow former members of the Baltic Legions into the US, following the lead of the Nuremberg trial and the US High Commission in Germany, was highly controversial at the time, but politically wished for during the Cold War. As you may know, US military even gave Klaus Barbie a new identity and smuggled him into South America. Does that mean that Barbie had a clean record? Certainly not. See Eric Lichtblau: The Nazis Next Door (2014) on how the US dealt with former Nazis. And in 1980 the US Supreme Court ruled that if you applied for a visa to the US, it did not matter whether applicants voluntarily joined or whether they were involuntary inducted into a criminal Nazi organization.

Your argumentum ad ignorantiam works in both ways. You assert that Reino Hein's book is reliable, because you claim that this assertion has not yet been proven false. Likewise you did not provide a glimpse of evidence that his book is reliable. In fact, you only seem to know that it exists. However, that's not how Wikipedia works. Next time I may come up with a book on how aliens sparked life on earth, but I doubt that this thesis will gain much ground, although it has not yet been disproven.--Assayer (talk) 19:13, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Ironically, it is your argument that mimics the narrative of the German Waffen-SS, that all Baltic men were volunteers who willingly joined to fight the Bolsheviks, when in fact Baltic men were being coerced by the German occupiers. I find it somewhat surprising that you would buy into that narrative and perpetuate it here. Yes, the Germans attempted to recruit volunteers in August 1942, however already by 17 November 1942 Generalkommissar Litzmann was complaining about sluggish recruitment of volunteers to the Legion and the lack of Estonian officers. By the beginning of 1943 the occupation authorities had instituted increasingly coercive measures for recruitment. By July 1943 the authorities were threatening severe punishment under martial law to those who did not "volunteer". By that time thousands of Estonians had fled to Finland to escape being "volunteered" by the Germans. See Böhler and Gerwarth: The Waffen-SS: A European History(2016). As for the US DP Commission, there is a big difference between lawful admittance of former Baltic Waffen-SS veterans into the USA under government policy, and covertly smuggling people like Klaus Barbie under new identities to circumvent US law.

I'm not making an argumentum ad ignorantiam case, which is a false dichotomy, because reliability is a spectrum. Certainly the source isn't a website, it is a published book, and I doubt the book espouses any kind of extremist viewpoint as it has been on sale in mainstream Estonian bookshops. The author is independent of the subject as far as I can tell. The fact that mainstream bookshops in Estonia have sold Hein's books must indicate some level of quality, as opposed to people who can only sell books from their personal website for example. All that has been offered as evidence of unreliability are some pictures in the book and a mistaken belief that the word "legendary" appears in the title. As for books about aliens sparking life on earth, see the article Panspermia, it is actually a serious topic of scientific research. --Nug (talk) 10:47, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Let's stick to what is actually written in that volume edited by Böhler and Gerwarth, shall we? There were several reasons why there were less volunteers wanting to join the Estonian Legion than expected, and the letter by Litzmann to Gottlob Berger from 17 November 1942, which you are referring to, was not complaining about sluggish recruitment of volunteers to the Legion and the lack of Estonian officers, as you claim, but (quote) "explaining the sluggish recruitment to the Legion by the lack of Estonian officers. The latter did not like the staff policy of the Germans, according to which officers would be given the title and rank of an officer only after long-term training." (Kott/Bubnys/Kraft: The Baltic States: Auxiliaries and Waffen-SS soldiers, in: The Waffen-SS, ed. by Böhler/Gerwart, Oxford UP 2017, p. 145.) During most of 1943 it was Legion or Labor Service. Martial law was threatened for those who did not enlist for either. You might make a point that people living in an occupied country don't have options. But you not only choose to exonerate the members of the Baltic Legions in toto from Nazism, you also suggested that the Estonian veterans therefore do not share the agenda of other veterans' groups. That notion is not substantiated by any evidence, while in fact Estonian veterans' organizations, e.g. the ELSK, do not speak of any "coercion".

Books by Frank Kurowski are sold in "mainstream bookshops" in Germany. Sellers hardly ever take responsibility for the content of the books they are selling. Neither did the US DPC, for political reasons, investigate any further, whether there were by any chance Nazis or perpetrators of war crimes among Baltic "freedom fighters" (think of Karl Linnas, for example). Wikipedia's guidelines on reliable sources do not specify that a source has to be considered reliable until proven unreliable. Instead, Wikipedia requires sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, specifying in considerable detail, how to identify those. Obscure sources with no reputation at all do not qualify as reliable.--Assayer (talk) 17:33, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Now you are going too far in in accusing me of choosing "to exonerate the members of the Baltic Legions in toto from Nazism", so in addition to argumentum ad ignorantiam you now attempt ad hominem arguments. Given the volume written here about the alleged Nazi orientation of Baltic Waffen-SS units, the subtext seems to be an attempt to re-enforce a presumption that Hando Ruus must be a Nazi due to his membership of a Baltic Waffen-SS unit, so why should we keep an article on him. Lets not add argumentum ad passiones to the mix as well.

As Böhler and Gerwarth's book concludes "You can only make a choice if you have options. … Those who live in an occupied country have no options." This was understood in the immediate aftermath of WW2, Nuremburg framed its exemption in these terms "excluding, however, those who were drafted into membership by the State in such a way as to give them no choice in the matter, and who had committed no such crimes." The DP Commission understood this as well and the USA framed it immigration policies in that light. Karl Linnas however did personally commit war crimes and he lied about, he was a concentration camp commandant who was convicted in the Soviet Union for his role in the Holocaust. He was deported from the USA for hiding the fact of his war crimes on his immigration form. Even civilians are prohibited entry to the USA if they have committed war crimes, just like individual members of the Baltic Waffen SS who had also committed war crimes, unlike German Waffen SS members who are prohibited in toto because they were Nazis, regardless of their personal conduct.

I'm sure Franz Kurowski's works are very popular in Germany, but even his most ardent critics (See Smelser and Davies) acknowledge his "painful accuracy" for details on German military units, equipment and insignia, so certainly he is a reliable source for that kind of information. Foreign language sources are by definition obscure to English Wikipedia, but certainly not obscure in their respective country, and as far as I can tell, the author don't have a reputation for unreliability. --Nug (talk) 22:07, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Nug, I am referring to what you wrote, not what you are. The fact that Baltic Waffen SS Units were recognised after the war as not sharing Nazi ideology, purpose or activities (not withstanding SputnikNews propaganda of course), with former members even trusted to guard real Nazis, their veteran groups don't meet the "extreme viewpoints" test. That's a conclusion by analogy and based upon a premise, which needs to be differentiated. My argument is that we should not keep an article on Hando Ruus, as long as there is no significant coverage by reliable sources, regardless of Ruus' personal convictions or ideological outlook. This is also not about the language of your source. It's about reliability and verifiabity. As you yourself pointed out, it is even not "your source", i.e. you haven't used it, but simply a source listed in the artcle's references. You don't know anything about the author's reputation, nor can you provide any verifiable information about him. Apparently no one can. That's what I call obscure.--Assayer (talk) 11:19, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• So you are concerned that this biography cannot be trusted to get facts like his birth date correct and which units he served in? That's what reliability means. --Nug (talk) 11:42, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• If you only have his correct birth date, that's not significant coverage in reliable sources. --Assayer (talk) 14:03, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• This has gotten way outside of the scope of the AfD discussion, but I believe it's worth pointing out that the subject did indeed have some "options" -- at least according to the article, which states:

• "In 1941 Hando Ruus didn't follow the mobilization call of the Soviet Army. He decided to hide himself in the woods and became a Forest Brother. He became a group leader of Saku Omakaitse. In 1941 he volunteered for Wehrmacht where he was promoted to lieutenant..."

He volunteered for the German service, having successfully evaded the mobilisation into the Soviet army. I don't believe there was forced recruitment in Estonia under the Germans in 1941. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:21, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ruus joined the Wehrmacht in 1941 after his father, an Estonian police officer, was arrested by the Soviet NKVD in 1940 and shot. Most who joined in 1941 had a relative who was arrested and either deported or executed by the Soviet occupation authorities. At the beginning most Estonians saw the Germans as liberators from Soviet occupation until it became apparent that the Germans had no plans to restore the Estonian state. --Nug (talk) 11:42, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 14:57, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Historian Mart Laar uses Reino Hein's biography as a reference[13]. If a respected historian thinks Hein's book is reliable enough for his work, then it is definitely reliable for Wikipedia. --Nug (talk) 21:04, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Does Laar say that he thinks Hein's book is reliable for Wikipedia? Because generally speaking, if a historian uses a work simply as a reference, that does not automatically transform it into a reliable source for Wikipedia. Mart Laar quotes a lot of works of dubious quality like by Felix Steiner, Richard Landwehr and Mark Rikmenspoel. Does Laar therefore fail the "extreme viewpoints" test for unreliability, because Steiner fails it? Laar's POV as a historian is controversial. He is well known for his open heroization of those Estonians who fought against the Soviets, including members of the Waffen-SS. He called the Sinimäed Hills, where the Battle of Tannenberg Line took place the "Estonian Thermopyles" and repeatedly conveyed his greetings to the veterans' meetings while in office. --Assayer (talk) 00:37, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Dr. Laar has extensively researched and written on the topic of Estonia in World War II, and certainly wouldn't use a junk source. According to your criteria the Böhler/Gerwart work[14] would also fail the "extreme viewpoints" test as well, as they also reference works by Felix Steiner and Richard Landwehr. Again you are representing a false dichotomy, at issue is factual reliability not political reliability. Apart from junk, sources aren't either completely reliable or completely unreliable, sources fall within a spectrum. The reliability of a source depends on context. In the context of Estonia in World War II and Hando Ruus' place in it, Reino Hein's biography is a reliable source.

As for rest of your claims against Laar, that's just nonsense worthy of rt.com. I've been here on Wikipedia a long time, and given its penchant for adding controversies, the only ones listed in Laar's Wikipedia article are to do with his political career, unrelated to his activities as a historian. I don't think the European Association of History Educators would appoint controversial historians to its Honorary Board. --Nug (talk) 11:42, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Again you are misrepresenting my argument. Neither are the works by Steiner or Landwehr reliable, just because the contributors to the Böhler/Gerwath volume use them as sources, nor is Reino Hein's work reliable, because Laar uses it as a source. (Btw, is he the only one?) Historians use sources, both primary and secondary, in various ways Wikipedians can't. And keep your feet on the ground: You have presented a single footnote in a google books snippet, no comment whatsoever. Political bias affects factual reliabiity and the ways information is presented (or concealed, for that matter). If you plan on writing an article about the twisted historical memorialization of the Waffen-SS in Estonia, Laar's work is certainly a prime example. But that is not what this is about. About Reino Hein's biography of Hando Ruus we still know virtually nothing, so your claims are unsubstantiated.

As a sidenote, so far Wikipedia is completely silent on Laar's merits as a historian. The EUROCLIO Honorary Board also features Norman Davies, who is controversial. --Assayer (talk) 15:46, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• "Political bias affects factual reliability", so in other words you saying we must first check the political reliability of the author before we can assess the factual reliability. This isn't the Soviet Union, we don't have political commissars looking over our shoulders to tell us which source is politically reliable or not. Facts are facts. We look at the context of what the source is supplying to the artcle, not whether the source is in toto unreliable because of the alleged politics of the author.

It seem apparent you are bringing such a strong POV position on Laar that some may get the impression that view is informed by RT.com's parallel universe. Following the earlier discussion above, one would think Wernher von Braun's book The Mars Project is entirely unreliable given von Braun past membership of Nazi party and Allgemeine SS. --Nug (talk) 10:25, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• I am not sure if you are unable or unwilling to understand that political bias is not the same as "political reliability". The problem of bias is a basic thread of discussion in the theory of historiography. Curiously you yourself previously argued that: German Waffen-SS veteran organisations are obviously dubious given that their members are/were ardent Nazis, thus meeting WP:QUESTIONABLE's "extreme viewpoints" test for unreliability. The fact that Baltic Waffen SS Units were recognised after the war as not sharing Nazi ideology, purpose or activities ... their reliability is more on par with that of US or British veteran groups. In other words, you looked at the "alleged politics" to determine reliability, and to some degree rightly so, albeit naive in relation to the Baltic Waffen-SS veterans, because political bias affects reliability. But let's not forget that we still do not know anything about Reino Hein's credentials, let alone his politics.

Again as a sidenote, you should not consider the things that Wernher von Braun said about concentration camps and slave labor after the war to be factually reliable, although he was an eye witness. --Assayer (talk) 12:16, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Indeed, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, Von Braun is an unreliable source for concentration camps and slave labor, but a reliable source on the topic of rocketry. Mutatis mutandis, Franz Kurowski is an unreliable source on Waffen SS atrocities, but a reliable source on operational details, which Smelser and Davis characterise as "painfully accurate". I think Wikipedians are intelligent enough to evaluate such sources given a particular context. --Nug (talk) 08:51, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• operational details ? To be more precise, according Smelser/Davies "gurus" like Kurowski and others "combine a painfully accurate knowledge of the details of the Wehrmacht, ranging from vehicles to uniforms to medals, with a romantic heroicization of the German army fighting to save Europe from a rapacious Communism. There is little in the way of historical context in the writings of these men." (Smelser/Davies, The Myth of the Eastern Front, Cambridge UP, 2008, p. 5)--Assayer (talk) 17:34, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, Smelser & Davies says there is little historical context in terms of them not bothering "to tell us of the war of racial enslavement and annihilation these men pursued in the East", which is the same point you made regarding Von Braun and slave labour, but Von Braun remains a reliable source in rocketry. Wikipedians are intelligent enough to detect and filter out "romantic heroicization". That said, there is no suggestion of any link what so ever between authors like Kurowski and Reino Hein. The fact that Dr. Laar uses Hein as a source means that he sees Hein's book as reliable at least in that context in which he uses it. --Nug (talk) 22:01, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• weak Keep per the source in the article. It would be nice to have more sourcing.Dlohcierekim (talk) 11:50, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 05:11, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Only one source. Does not meet WP:SOLDIER. The only point of merit is that he was the only Estonian to receive the German Cross. This detail should remain in the German Cross article, but I do not think Ruus merits a full article.Roches (talk) 23:35, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep He has had a book published about him (which appears to be RS)...and possibly more material in Estonian. The Estonian language Wiki has a page on him as well.. not that I can read it!) Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:50, 15 June 2017 (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.