Talk:Heinz Geggel

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GA review

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Heinz Geggel/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Maxwhollymoralground (talk · contribs) 14:06, 17 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 18:07, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I will review this in partial fulfilment of the review pledge I made to help one of my own articles get reviewed faster. —Kusma (talk) 18:07, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Content and prose review

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I will comment on anything I notice, but not all of my comments will be strictly related to the GA criteria, so not everything needs to be actioned. Feel free to push back if you think I am asking too much, and please tell me when I am wrong.

  • Infobox: Lots of unreferenced content here, including the dates of birth and death. Should be easy to fix though.
  • Lead: Quite short, perhaps incomplete. I am not sure that "Holocaust survivor" is the best short way to describe the story of his emigration to Cuba.
  • Early life: "Born to a merchant" so his mother was a merchant and his father is unknown? (We actually know the parents' names [1])
  • "Due to his Jewish heritage, he had to emigrate from Germany" well, it was the smart choice, but how was he forced? Also, he was member of a Jewish congregation until 1938.
  • "When Belgium was invaded by Nazi Germany in May 1940, Geggel's German citizenship was revoked and he was interned and forced into labor until June 1941" source has "nach Einmarsch der Wehrmacht Flucht nach Brüssel, dort interniert u. nach Frankreich abgeschoben; Mai 1940 – Aug. 1941 Internierung in St. Cyprien, Gurs u. Les Milles, Entlassung durch Freikauf" and "1940 Aberkennung der dt. Staatsbürgerschaft". A few issues with this:
    • "forced labor" not in the source, which says he was interned until August 1941. Where does June 1941 come from?
    • Source doesn't say when the German citizenship was revoked, could have been before May 1940
    • Would be useful to say he was interned in France; he probably didn't take a ship from Belgium to Casablanca? Source says he was in La Ciotat on the Mediterranean coast
  • Geggel already started journalism in Cuba.
  • Journalist in SBZ and GDR: consider linking to Funkhaus Grünau [de]
  • What is the "Deutschlandsender"?
  • SED Central Committee: "head of the SPD Working Group of the West Commission at the Politburo of the SED Central Committee" what is the "SPD Working Group"? What did they do? Also, could be clearer that he was not a Politburo member.
  • [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany#The 4th Congress|VI. Party Congress]] is this deliberate? Similarly [[Socialist Unity Party of Germany#The 6th Congress|VIII. Party Congress]]
  • What is the connection of the KPD/DKP to Geggel?
  • "As head of the Agitation Department, Geggel's task was to align the East German press with the political line of the SED.[5][8][9][10][11][12][13]" Why does this statement need more than one citation? This many citations usually indicate that something is wrong with a statement or that there has been edit warring. Same with the following two sentences.
  • Do we know nothing about what he did between 1989 and his death?
  • Quote box: "exploititive" looks like a typo

First read through done. Interesting person, but the article is quite close to just listing stations of his life from source 1 without making the man really come alive. Do we know nothing about his personal life at all? —Kusma (talk) 21:18, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Source spotchecks

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Numbering from Special:PermanentLink/1291078234.

  • Random numbers 2 3 10 15 17
  • Random letters for 1: cdgmp
  • 1c: yes
  • 1d: yes
  • 1g: yes
  • 1m: not totally clear that the stepping down ("Nov. 1989 auf eigenen Wunsch von seiner Funktion entbunden") is related to this position, as he had several. Probably ok, but a more detailed source would be nice
  • 1p: yes
  • 2a: not really all that helpful in addition to 1
  • 3: would be nice to say at what timestamp this occurs
  • 10: it does say all these things, but I wonder whether you could use this source with attribution to put a little more life into the article
  • 15: not sure you need this citation; the author is reliable, but the article is self-published and really about something else
  • 17: yes

The article relies very heavily on [2]. Some paragraphs are just a translation of lists of facts from there, making me a bit uncomfortable about the amount of similarity.

  • You could try to add some more sources for variety, for example [3] [4]
  • Obviously something is wrong here: [5] (Geggel in California??) but have you found any other source claiming he was ever married?
  • Apparently Geggel was involved in the propaganda surrounding the 1974 football match East Germany - West Germany [6]

General comments and GA criteria

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  • A few prose issues, see above.
  • Lead is too short, there is more to say about his life before 1960 and his many decorations, for example.
  • Ref formatting is mostly OK
  • Sources are reliable, but the main source is tertiary, which is not ideal.
  • Lots of uncited material, mostly in the infobox
  • Perhaps overly close to the first source.
  • Feels a bit incomplete and bare bones in places. Personal life seems to be missing.
  • Reads neutral enough for a bio of a propagandist
  • No stability issues.
  • Acceptable fair use rationale for useful pic.

Some things to do, will put on hold and await your comments. —Kusma (talk) 21:31, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your review. I addressed the points you raised. As for the Early life section, most of the information came from the Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte source (including the forced labor one) that you mention as additional source [3]. I generally use the Roman numerals in the SED's party congress mentions ("VI. Party Congress" and so on) because the party only ever referred to the congresses by the Roman numerals and these numerals were stylized in their propaganda. I thought about the "Holocaust survivor" mention in the lead as well; maybe "German resistance fighter against National Socialism" would be more fitting, but he was mentioned as a Holocaust survivor by the USC Shoah Foundation and I think he does qualify due to him being interred by the Nazis for his Jewish heritage. Maxwhollymoralground (talk) 15:49, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Maxwhollymoralground, I will check in a moment what you have done about the things where you have not replied explicitly. My issue with the Roman numerals is that VI is 6, not 4, and VIII is 8, not 6. I am happy with Roman or Arabic numerals for these, but they should be consistent. As to "Holocaust survivor": I do not doubt at all that it is correct to describe him as a Holocaust survivor, but I do not think this is the number one most important fact about him, as the lead section currently implies. I would suggest to mention this not in the first sentence, but a little later so the weight is on Geggel's notable career as a party functionary more than on his youth. (I am not claiming that they are perfect, but my own Holocaust survivor articles, Robert Ludwig Kahn and Emil Utitz, do something like that). —Kusma (talk) 18:09, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, you're right, I'm going to cut out the Holocaust survivor thing in the lead. As for the numeral thing, thanks for bringing that to my attention, I think that happened on another article as well. Maxwhollymoralground (talk) 22:32, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, it generally looks much improved. I think there are just a few things left: lead needs expanding and a little TLC, infobox is full of unreferenced material and the Roman numerals seem off by II. —Kusma (talk) 20:32, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And you have not done or said anything about the WP:OVERCITE issue. —Kusma (talk) 20:33, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did, specifically about the "As head of the Agitation Department, Geggel's task was to align the East German press with the political line of the SED.[5][8][9][10][11][12][13]" example you mentioned. Maxwhollymoralground (talk) 22:31, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think infobox information is supposed to be cited in the infobox itself but in the article. Maxwhollymoralground (talk) 22:32, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Maxwhollymoralground: I can live with the remaining overciting (maximum 4) but the lead really needs at least a sentence about each section (currently we only have "Agitation Department" covered). Also, the party congresses seem not to be in the source you are giving, only the date. (It is not WP:SKYBLUE obvious that membership changes only happened at the party congresses).
So to do: expand the lead and cite or remove the party congresses, everything else passes. —Kusma (talk) 16:55, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Almost forgot: information in the infobox needs to be cited unless it is cited in the article. "Eberhard Fensch, Günter Pötschke, Klaus Raddatz, Dieter Langguth" is unreferenced, for example, as is "Medal for Fighters Against Fascism". —Kusma (talk) 16:58, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good Article review progress box
Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV ()
3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant ()
Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed