Talk:Martin Luther (diplomat)

War criminal or not?

To the anon editor who keeps changing the article: there's a reason why the current version is preferred. The main addition you are making is calling him a war criminal. However, this is not precise. ML was a bad man, yes, but a war criminal? He never stood trial, as a reminder. If there was overwhelming evidence that he was one and merely escaped by his death, then that'd be one thing, but a lot of what he was up to is unknown. Furthermore, as a matter of precision, what Luther participated in would be more correctly called a crime against humanity. Check out the article and note that it's prescribed differently than a war crime, as it usually happens behind the lines and to civilians. And even as to that... how much ML participated in the Final Solution is still hazy. It's enough to give him a giant black mark in the historical record, but calling him a criminal outright seems a bit much; better just to make it clear that he was a scummy Nazi.

Furthermore, I think the fact that he's a Nazi is already well-established. Check out the "what links here" option for the page: Special:Whatlinkshere/Martin Luther (diplomat). Anybody clicking a link from any of these sources (especially the disambig page) will know exactly what they're finding; nobody is going to type in Martin Luther (diplomat) into the little search box (they might have done that with (nazi), but that redirects here and implies they already know his claim to fame). The only exception might be Dr. Martin Luther, but that should really go to the ML disambig page.

As for the note on top, it's unnecessary to link to Protestant Martin Luther for two reasons: One, again, someone trying to find him would almost surely not stumble across this page by accident, but rather the real ML page. If they did, they could still find him right on top of the list of people named ML. Second, it's a comparison of apples and apples up there: Protestant ML is a person named ML. That style link is more appropriate for unrelated items such as "For the Waterski nicknamed Martin Luther, see Kawasaki SL20. For people named ML, see ML (disambig)." SnowFire 13:50, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

His crimes are the reason why anyone would bother to look him up. Also, not all war criminals stand trial. Describing him as a "diplomat" is frankly a smear on the profession, like describing Mengele as a doctor before mentioning that he was a criminal.

Portrayals in fiction

The nazi Martin Luther is also used in Daniel Silva's book The confessor 81.57.6.181 18:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Of no interest to wiki would be the "Luther Memo". This, and some other memos, confirm that Hitler had no plan to exterminate anyone - at least until the war was over. See you didn't want to know that did you ( or more likely you already did know it).

Eponym

What's the kinship between Martin Luther the famous 16th-century religious reformer and Martin Luther the 20th-century diplomat? Yes, there is one, and the article should specify it irrespective of ideology. Rammer (talk) 20:23, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

None. HammerFilmFan (talk) 23:42, 19 September 2014 (UTC)