Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Axis plans for invasion of the United States during WWII

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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. Although article was stripped down to a single statement, the remnant still fell short of verifiability. --Aarktica 14:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Axis plans for invasion of the United States during WWII

Axis plans for invasion of the United States during WWII (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

The page has existed since 18 November 2005, in that time not one reference has been cited despite the use of template:Fact some of which have been on the article for more than six months. If in the future new information from a reliable source is found, then the article can be recreated citing the new sources. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The talk page Talk:Axis plans for invasion of the United States during WWII and specifically these sections: Rename? (May 2006 ) This article is actually a disaster (Jul- Aug 2007) explain why others two think it should be deleted.

Note also there is already a much better article called Attacks on North America during World War II which covers similar ground to this article but is a better name for what actually happened. As one contributor to the talk page says "The topic is fascinating along the lines of a "what-if". Undoubtedly, there were small teams inside Japan, Germany and (perhaps) Italy brain-storming further plans had things gone extremely well for them, most of which were likely impractical & would never have been actually presented for consideration, let alone implemented". If someone comes up with one of more reliable sources to cover these contingency plans then the article can always be recreated relying on those sources. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I know this has been written about and there are sources, and if I can tomorrow I'll go look for some. The framing of the article is problematic, as there is a world of difference between "plan" and "intent" and "capability". The saying goes that the Pentagon has a plan for invading Canada somewhere in a desk drawer, and of course there were dozens of plans for invading Iraq over the years using different means. Germany's military certainly had "plans" for attacking and/or invading the US and there were "plans" for creating Roman-style colonies across Eastern Europe (the areas needing "Germanization") and there were "plans" for divvying up South America into occupation zones (Ian Fleming, I think, obtained a map). But intent was never quite there and capability in logistical terms not even close. On the other hand some of Germany's technology, such as the V-2, obviously had eventual uses in mind, and there was the Amerika Bomber project (mainly on paper). Finally, we have the angle the article doesn't even touch on, which is exaggerated American fears of a Nazi invasion. For now-quotidian reasons (production capacity, etc.) it was never a serious consideration; after a certain date sometime between June 1940 and December 1941 the tipping point was already reached and Germany could only have won in the long run if they'd settled for some sort of temporary European hegemony and bided their time. So the fears were never justified. (Some would argue they were just as unjustified during the Cold War; see Red Dawn et al.) But the fears were real and continue to be part of the lore and mythos of the war, that we had to "stop" Hitler before that happened. Anyway, I'm more confident than you that there's available citable material and that there's notability (i.e. not just wargeek wankery). I'd like to see this article reflect that. And yes, this is separate from the actual attacks article, which is "real" history as opposed to "what-if". There's a relationship but not so close that this belongs in that article. --Dhartung | Talk 11:38, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep if sourced. I gave a superficial try online without much success., but it needs a more thorough searchDGG (talk) 13:32, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If cited sources had been provided this would be an obvious keep, but non have been provided in 2 years of the articles existence despite {{fact}} requests. To give example of the problems with this article: At the moment paragraphs like this "(Fall Felix) and Operation Sealion, planned the occupation of Ireland and Operation Ikarus, would have provided some support bases for installing the Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine infantry seaborne or Luftwaffe Airborne forces for the invasion." fall foul of WP:NOR, first there are no sources for the facts "Operation Ikarus" and the assertion that they would have been bases for an invasion of the USA. As I said above if it is deleted and someone comes along with new references that can be used for an article with citations then it can be recreated. But as it stands at the moment if the uncited material was deleted it would be a blank article. --Philip Baird Shearer 16:05, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep', but a complete overall. I mean there's no sources for this? I've seen like two different History Channel docs on it. This is a total disaster of a page, but it shouldn't be deleted entirely Doc Strange 16:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • But there is not one paragraph that carries a citation. There is nothing to keep. As I said above if in the future someone writes an article that is properly sourced on this subject then it can always be recreated, but currently it does not meet the criteria of a notable article -- if it did there would be third party sources available to include as citations. --Philip Baird Shearer 18:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
When an editor has such a book and wants to write the article then good luck to them, but if by the end of this AfD process no cited references have been provided this article should be deleted because a blank page is not desirable. Or are you suggesting that we should keep text in Wikipedia that has no references because in the words of Jimbo Wales quoted on WP:V:
"I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."
--Philip Baird Shearer 18:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I did "hear it somewhere", but I also wrote a Pol.Sci. primary course paper on the frequent assertion that Japan was not a "clear and present danger" to the U.S. in the run-up to Pearl Harbor. (Uh, my position was neutral to skeptical. Many of my sources differed.) I am not against pruning the article, but a good portion of it can be sourced, as I wrote above. --Dhartung | Talk 19:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sink to the bottom of the ocean, like any axis invasion without help from UFOs would have been, as anybody with the slightest inkling of military logistics understands (which one would presume includes the Axis general staffs). Attacks on North America during World War II are one thing (and the the nominated article is nothing but a sub-par duplicate of it), invasions another. Weapons like the Amerika Bomber or the Maiale midget submarines are not an invasion plan in themselves. Or did the US invade Japan in 1942 through the Doolittle raid? Those visions of fallschirmsjägers paradropping in Vermont or kamikazes smuggled through the Mexican railroad network via Clipperton are nothing but unhinged hallucinations.--Victor falk 12:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above if someone comes up with a reliable source and can create an entry something like this "From December 1941 until June 1943 when the German high command shelved it, Major Maier and his staff worked on a contingency plan to invade the US via Siberia and Alaska" (J. Smith (1995) "Nazi contingency planning and all that", academic press, ISBN ...), then there would be a case for keeping it. But at the moment there is nothing like that in the article so it can be deleted until such time as that sort of information becomes available. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:23, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep Somewhere in my political science notes from decades ago is where the professor discussing the Nazis dealt with what would have followed a victory over Britain and Russia. He said that no immediate invasion of the U.S. was likely or necessary. Instead, the Axis would economically dominate the U.S. in trade with the rest of the unconquered world,during a cold war of some duration, while exploiting the colonies of the conquered European powers in Africa, Central America and the Carribbean towards eventual preparation of bases in the Americas for attacking or dominating the U.S. Perhaps the Reich had a file drawer full of plans for which railroad bridges the German paratroopers would seize to allow troops to cross the Mississippi from Mexican bases, or where the amphibious landings would be from their eventual bases in the British Carribean possessions. The U.S certainly had 20th century plans for attacking Mexico and Canada, and for defending against combinations of Mexican-Canadian-Japanese-German-British forces. The one book and the History Channel seem to appeal to the popular imagination with improbable long-range high-tech direct assault from Europe, rather than a cross-Atlantic convoy like the one which went East from the U.S to invade North Africa in 1942. In other words, Axis invasion prospects for invading the Americas and ultimately the U.S. were a concern of WW2 U.S. leaders. General Leslie Groves was reportedly recruited to the Manhattan Project with the promise that even if the Japanese and Germans conquered the rest of the world including Canada and Mexico, that the U.S. could still win if he succeeded in building atomic bombs. So keep this, prune it of unsourced speculation, reference it to at least the book , and find more historical documents. There had to at least be Axis propaganda books and films showing their ultimate conquest of the U.S. for public consumption. Edison 16:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If we prune out all the unsourced information as it stands at the moment we will end up with one factual sentence about WWII: "Although Hitler declared war on the United States of America on 11 December 1941". Better to delete it and when an editor comes along with a reliable source the article can be re-created --Philip Baird Shearer 16:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't mean to be flippant, but the article's title (and topic) is "...in WWII", not "...in a contra-factual post-WWII scenario". I could vote "weak keep" to that myself too.--Victor falk 16:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cleanup or Delete The article seems to have only minor sourcing, so I'd suggest a major cleanup, removing unsourced information. If that leaves the article without sufficient relevant information, or if the cleanup is not performed in a timely manner, I'd suggest deletion CharonX/talk 17:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename to concepts for attacks as precise plans for a full scale invasion (as the cancelled Operation Sealion) is the wrong word, dreams might fit better in that regard. The whole matter is notable as such, so we should keep as overview article that should link to the weapons or persons involved, then cleanup by moving details into these articles, in order to be discussed and referenced there, or dismissed as hoax. I'm not sure about merging such an overview into Attacks on North America during World War II as we want to keep done deeds apart from failed attempts, abandoned preparations and pure proposals. -- Matthead discuß!     O       18:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, merge some content to... the article about actual attacks as a blurb on plans for more. I stand by what I said before, the article is a disaster:
Japanese plans should be cut entirely, I can probably find sources to back me up that they had planned on a quick strike at Pearl Harbor concurrent with a land grab betting on America to sue for peace right away. They were so sure we wouldn't fight that they went a bit beyond their initial plan. IF Midway had turned out differently, they MIGHT have targeted Hawaii.
Then there's the assertion that Japan would have attacked America around the end of WWI to help Germany. Japan and Germany weren't to chummy at the time, Japan having relieved Germany of all territory in the Pacific, for example Truk.
Italian plans section has 1 ref to Nazi Uboat attacks on the East Coast, but none about Italian plans discussed in the rest of the section. Anynobody 23:05, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep. Has a few sources, and the topic is notable. Unless it is shown to be full of hoax info or some terrible bias, just tag it with 'refs needed' and similar templates.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:59, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as there is just too much unverified material in this article. Once that has been deleted, its non-viable. --Gavin Collins 08:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It is now 2 days since this AfD was made. Several editors have said that they can/will add citations, but so far the only one we have for a fact is that Hitler declared war on the USA. We also have one from a book entitled "What If? The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been". There are two others. One for a First World War plan and the second (from a non reliable source) covers attacks by a U-Boats (not an invasion) on New York harbour. This subject is already covered in Attacks on North America during World War II#U-Boat operations. If this is a notable subject there should be several books and scholarly articles (reliable sources) and Wikipedia editor who know enough about the subject to put in some more reliable sources. At the moment if all of the unsourced material is removed there is not enough left for this to be even a stub of an article: see User:Philip Baird Shearer/Sand box. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:24, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - heavily edit down the article to the referenced parts even if this leaves the article as a stub. Perhaps some edittors from [[WP:MILHIST] can keep an eye on the article to prevent a rebloom of unreferenced additions. -- Whpq 16:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is less than a stub because the introduction assertion is not referenced, nor is the introduction a summary of the rest of the article, so what do you suggest we do in this case? --Philip Baird Shearer 19:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - unless there this a major rework, with getting all the speculations out, and adding reliable sources. But I really doubt that there will be much left afterwards, so just delete it. Cheers, MikeZ 13:29, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep with reservation -- certain articles, such as this one, are interesting SPECULATIONS and should be labeled as such to facilitate discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.205.55.219 (talk) 08:47, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep, per Piotrus above. It is not unlikely that there were plans -- & to say otherwise would fall into the logical trap of attempting to prove a negative. However, there has been lots of speculation over exactly what these plans were, far more than whatever evidence of them exists; this is a subject that has fascinated Americans since the 1940s. Deletion would seem, in effect, to send the message that this topic is not notable; perhaps stubbifying the article -- or reducing it to a paragraph (I could furnish a couple examples of "Axis plans for the invasion ofthe US in Popular Culture") -- would be a better choice. -- llywrch 17:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
to date not one reliable source about any Axis invasion plans of the USA has been included in the article. I have now removed all the paragraphs and sections that did not have citations. I have not yet removed the lead but it does not have a source to support it. As I said above if there were contingency plans for the invasion of the US (and most major armed forces have contingency plans for every eventuality) then when someone comes up with a reliable source that documents them we can recreate this article. But at the moment there are NO RELIABLE SOURCES at all in this article to justify keeping it. --Philip Baird Shearer 18:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete but allow for recreation. Even if no sources of the actual plans exist, even if no plans to invade were ever made, the newspapers at the time and various media to the present day have commented on the idea of the planned invasions. Citations can be found for the speculation. SolidPlaid 02:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please read WP:PROVEIT, part of Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Among other things it says "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." what you are suggesting is against Wikipedia policy. In the 7 days that this AfD, has been open -- and as you can see above it has been very widely advertised -- not one reliable source that could be used to write a summary introduction for an article stub has been presented. Wikipedia policies are quite clear that if no sources can be found there should not be a Wikipedia article about it. Of course if someone comes up with verifiable reliable sources then article can always be recreated. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:32, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. SolidPlaid 22:37, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. WP:V is non-negotiable. If there are sources, and someone has the initiative to get them, they can recreate the article. As it stands right now, the article is less than a stub. The section about Germany is one line, and only states that Germany declared war on the US on 11 Dec. We don't need another article to tell us this. The section on Japan deals with pre-WWI plans, not WWII, and a vague statement that Hawaii could be used to stage attacks on the west coast of the US. Parsecboy 11:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. (I was requested to state my opinion here). Today, 9 Oct 2007, I see no text contents whatsoever on the subject. I remember reading somewhere about the note on the offer to Mexico, but it's from WW1. Info seems to have been merged into Attacks on North America during World War II, and this is IMO a good decision. Maybe (if applicable) this can become a stub section in Attacks on North America during World War II, and the "References" could be moved from here to there? I've read a lot on the Axis - particularly Nazi Germany. I can't remember ever having stumbled upon anything significant regarding an invasion of US. From what I gather this was way, way, way down on the Nazi agenda (an interesting note - not a debunk though - is that Hitler in "Mein Kampf" implies that he does not seek war with UK or US - he considers the British to be dangerously stubborn fighters - and goes on with painting a picture of US as an ideal state, ranting on how wise they were to "take care" of the "Native American Question"). Nope - no firm German invasion plan comes to my mind - only a stub in another article :) . Last, but not least, the weak contribution over the years seems to say something about this issue, right? "Find it, then show it." My regards, --Dna-Dennis 11:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The topic is, without question, notable. Undoubtedly, there are sources which could document plans for the invasion of the continental United States (and Canada?) during WWII. However, the existing article consists of the date on which Germany declared war (Covered already in multiple articles), and a mention of the Zimmermann Telegram, which is already covered in depth in its own article. There is no remaining material for this article, so it should be deleted. As noted, I would have no objection to a properly sourced article on this topic - but the existing text is unsalvageable. ZZ Claims ~ Evidence 14:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the Zimmerman Telegram was WWI - which is my point, it has no bearing on WWII in this context. Its existance does not prove or disprove the existance of similar plans during WWII - it just fudges up the issue, and should be removed. ZZ Claims ~ Evidence 14:37, 9 October 2007 (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.
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