Did Wikipedia remove the word "antisemitism" from the Richard Meinertzhagen article?

Yes. "antisemitism" appeared 2 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 6. We saved the article's opening paragraph at 6 moments between 2005 and 2025, and the counts come from those saved copies.

When did the Richard Meinertzhagen article stop using the word "antisemitism"?

The word appeared 2 times in the opening at its peak in 2005. It is absent from today's opening, the part search engines quote and AI systems train on, checked against the live article on 2026-08-02.

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What did Wikipedia remove from the Richard Meinertzhagen article?

The opening as it read in 2005

Richard Meinertzhagen ( March 3 , 1878 - June 17 , 1967 ) was a British soldier and intelligence officer with an interest in birds and Zionism . Meinertzhagen was born to a wealthy British family. He was a contemporary of T. Lawrence of Lawrence of Arabia fame and was positioned in various places in Africa , Arabia and India . He was Allenby ’s Chief Political Officer and was involved in the creation of the Palestine mandate , which led to the creation of the State of Israel . He was dismissed from service for insubordination. The bird watching interests apparently arose due to a family friend, the philosopher, Herbert Spencer , who is supposed to have coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest', and who like Darwin was an ardent empiricist who took the young Richard Meinertzhagen and his brother on long walks persuading them to look at the natural world around them, "Observe, record, explain!" He collected specimens of new species from various parts of the world, but recent research has indicated that he was stealing them from museums and resubmitting them after altering their labels. This was probably done to provide alibis. Much of his work in these areas is now believed to be falsified. During the Palestine campaign of World War I Meinertzhagen let a haversack containing false British battle plans fall into Turkish hands, thereby enabling the surprise attack that took Beersheba and all of Gaza . This incident is the basis for some events in the 1987 Australian movie "The Lighthorsemen" which features a 'Major Meinertzhagen', an odd, enigmatic, intelligence officer played by Anthony Andrews . The same incident was portrayed in an episode of "Young Indiana Jones." Meintertzhagen had an uncomromising hatred for anti-Semitism , which he called "Hebra-phobia," and anti-Semites. When he met Hitler , Meinertzhagen taunted the feurer with a 'Heil Meinertzhagen' and considered killing him on the spot. He was known to be a man of violence and had been well known for killing enemies. Lawrence's said of him "... a student of bird migration drifted into soldiering ... He was logical, an idealist of the deepest, and so possessed by his convictions that he was willing to harness evil to the chariot of good. He was a strategist, a geographer, and a silent laughing masterful man; who took as blithe a pleasure in deceiving his enemy (or his friend) by some unscrupulous jest, as in spattering the brains of a cornered mob of Germans one by one with his African knob-kerri. His instincts were abetted by an immensely powerful body and a savage brain, which chose the best way to its purpose, unhampered by doubt or habit." ref. As the author of numerous taxonomic and other works on birds Meinertzhagen was a respected ornithologist, yet his 'magnum opus' Birds of Arabia (1954), is believed to have been based on the unpublished manuscript of another naturalist, George Bates , who is not sufficiently credited in that book.¹

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 16475382.

The opening as it stood in 2010 19 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear

Richard Henry Meinertzhagen CBE DSO (3 March 1878 - 17 June 1967) was a British soldier , intelligence officer and ornithologist . Caption of the same image in Garfield, The Meinertzhagen Mystery , reads: "Richard Meinertzhagen in the Highlands, 1922"

Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 365571254.

The opening as it stood in 2015

Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen , CBE , DSO (3 March 1878 – 17 June 1967) was a British soldier , intelligence officer and ornithologist . He had a decorated military career spanning Africa where he was credited with the creating and executing the infamous Haversack Ruse. While early biographies lionized Meinertzhagen as a master of military strategy and espionage, later works such as The Meinertzhagen Mystery present him as a fraud for fabricating stories of his feats and speculated he was also a murderer. The discovery of stolen museum specimens of birds resubmitted as original discoveries have raised serious doubts on a number of ornithological records claimed by Meinertzhagen as well. Caption of the same image in Garfield, The Meinertzhagen Mystery , reads: "Richard Meinertzhagen in the Highlands, 1922" Foot, M.R. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.).

Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 668914955.

The opening as it stood in 2020 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear

Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen , CBE , DSO (3 March 1878 – 17 June 1967) was a British soldier , intelligence officer , and ornithologist . He had a decorated military career spanning Africa and the Middle East. He was credited with creating and executing the Haversack Ruse in October 1917, during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War, but his participation in this matter has since been thoroughly refuted. While early biographies lionized Meinertzhagen as a master of military strategy and espionage , later works such as The Meinertzhagen Mystery present him as a fraud for fabricating stories of his feats and speculated he was also a murderer. The discovery of stolen museum bird specimens resubmitted as original discoveries had raised serious doubts on a number of scores as to the veracity of ornithological records he claimed, as well. Caption of the same image in Garfield, The Meinertzhagen Mystery , reads: "Richard Meinertzhagen in the Highlands, 1922" Foot, M.R. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.).

Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 965360465.

The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 2 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear

British soldier, intelligence officer, fraudulent ornithologist (1878–1967) This article is about the British officer. Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen , CBE , DSO (3 March 1878 – 17 June 1967) was a British soldier , intelligence officer , and ornithologist . He had a decorated military career spanning Africa and the Middle East. He was credited with creating and executing the Haversack Ruse in October 1917, during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War, but his participation in this matter has since been refuted. While early biographies lionized Meinertzhagen as a master of military strategy and espionage , later works such as The Meinertzhagen Mystery present him as a fraud for fabricating stories of his feats and speculated he murdered his wife (in addition to extra-judicial killings while in the colonial service). The discovery of stolen museum bird specimens resubmitted as original discoveries has raised serious doubts on the veracity of many of his ornithological records. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.).

Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1173641431.

The opening as it stood in 2025

British soldier, intelligence officer, fraudulent ornithologist (1878–1967) This article is about the British officer. Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen , CBE , DSO (3 March 1878 – 17 June 1967) was a British soldier , intelligence officer , and ornithologist . He had a decorated military career spanning Africa and the Middle East. He was credited with creating and executing the Haversack Ruse in October 1917, during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War, but his participation in this matter has since been refuted. While early biographies lionized Meinertzhagen as a master of military strategy and espionage , later works such as The Meinertzhagen Mystery present him as a fraud for fabricating stories of his feats and speculated that he murdered his wife, in addition to mass extrajudicial killings while in the colonial service. The discovery of stolen museum bird specimens resubmitted as original discoveries has raised serious doubts on the veracity of many of his ornithological records. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.).

Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1297668500. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.

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