It’s called having a nuanced view of history.
Really you’re uneducated about German history and politics, and prefer to seek refuge in your manichean view of history to make you sleep better at night. Sad if you ask me.
By the way…I mentioned again most re-enactors do not allow wearing of NSDAP uniforms. Most people due to manichean version of history propagatated by Wheatcat think:
NSDAP & Wehrmacht = Same thing.
I personally think that re-enacting for movies is fine. Re-enacting for social reasons to me is weird…But then again many weird things out there that I think a democracy should tolerate!
I think the real issue is whether those groups do anything illegal.
For example, here on the main page of a major re-enactor group (scroll down to disclaimer):http://www.dererstezug.com/impressions.htm
Or disclaimer on this page: http://5sswiking.com/
By the way…Waffen SS were normal soldiers part of German military and I see nothing with portraying them aswell!
Only problem is portraying NSDAP members IMO
Really nuanced view you’ve got there.
And I didn’t say it was. But it wasn’t Nazi-only like the SS was.
Boy such a party strikes me as bad taste and asking for trouble. There are some countries, including Vietnam, where I am pretty sure the police would soon arrive and disperse it.
They are clearly deluding themselves. The 6th SS Gebirgsjager Division Nord, which they portray, had the personnel of Totenkopfstandarten K folded into it, as they readily acknowledge on theirhistory page :
Totenkopfstandarten , the SS-TV, ran the concentration and extermination camps. At least they acknowledge that the 6th SS Gebirgsjager Division Nord humiliated itself and routed in their first battle with the Soviets:
Although the invasion of Russia was launched on 22 June, operations in Finland did not. NORD’S attack on Salla did not commence until 1 July. This battle was a disaster for NORD, and for Himmler. Battalions got lost, and missed rally points. The preparatory artillery and air bombardment started fires that filled the area with dense smoke. Russian emplacements and defensive positions, previously undetected, held up advances. At one point, a rumor flew that Soviet tanks had broken through SS-I.R. 7’s lines. This led to literally a rout, with almost the entire regiment leaving the line in retreat. Salla finally fell on 8 July. After this disastrous first engagement, NORD became the only SS unit ever to be commanded by non-German personnel. The division was split up, and the elements sent to various Finnish units.
You keep telling yourself that. Every single one of the elite SS divisions committed massacres.
1st SS Panzer Division Liebstandarte SS Adolf Hitler :
Members of the LSSAH participated in numerous atrocities. They murdered at least an estimated 5,000 prisoners of war in the period 1940–1945, mostly on the Eastern Front.
Throughout the campaign [in Poland], the unit was notorious for burning villages.
After the attack [in France, 1940], soldiers of LSSAH’s II.Batallion, under the command of SS-Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Mohnke, were mistakenly informed that their divisional commander, Sepp Dietrich, had been killed in the fighting. In what is known as the Wormhoudt massacre, about 80 British POWs of 2nd Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment were murdered in retaliation for the supposed death of Dietrich.
Malmedy massacre
2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich :
The division is infamous for the massacre of 642 French civilians in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane on 10 June 1944 in the Limousin region. SS-Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann, commander of the I Battalion, 4th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment (Der Führer) that committed the massacre, claimed that it was a just retaliation due to partisan activity in nearby Tulle and the kidnapping of Helmut Kämpfe, although the German authorities had already executed ninety-nine people in the Tulle murders, following the killing and maiming of some forty German soldiers in Tulle by the Maquis resistance movement.
On 10 June, Diekmann’s battalion sealed off Oradour-sur-Glane, having confused it with nearby Oradour-sur-Vayres, and ordered all the townspeople – and anyone who happened to be in or near the town – to assemble in the village square, ostensibly, to have their identity papers examined. In addition to the residents of the village, the SS also apprehended six people who did not live there but had the misfortune to be riding their bikes through the village when the Germans arrived. All the women and children were locked in the church while the village was looted. Meanwhile, the men were led to six barns and sheds where machine guns were already in place.
According to the account of a survivor, the soldiers began shooting at them, aiming for their legs so that they would die more slowly. Once the victims were no longer able to move, the soldiers covered their bodies with fuel and set the barns on fire. Only six men escaped; one of them was later seen walking down a road heading for the cemetery and was shot dead. In all, 190 men perished. The soldiers proceeded to the church and placed an incendiary device there. After it was ignited, women and children tried to escape through the doors and windows of the church, but they were met with machine-gun fire. A total of 247 women and 205 children died in the carnage.
3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf :For starters, it was formed from Totenkopfstandarten, the SS-TV, concentration camp guards.
:Theodor Eicke, who was the commandant of the Dachau concentration camp, inspector of the camps and murderer of Ernst Röhm, later became the commander of the 3 SS Totenkopf Division. With the invasion of Poland, the Totenkopfverbände troops were called on to carry out “police and security measures” in rear areas. What these measures involved is demonstrated by the record of SS Totenkopf Standarte “Brandenburg”. It arrived in Włocławek on 22 September 1939 and embarked on a four day “Jewish action” that included the burning of synagogues and the execution en-masse of the leaders of the Jewish community. On 29 September the Standarte travelled to Bydgoszcz to conduct an “intelligentsia action”. Approximately 800 Polish civilians and what the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) termed “potential resistance leaders” were killed. The Totenkopfverbände was to become one of the elite SS divisions, but from the start they were among the first executors of a policy of systematic extermination.
The Le Paradis massacre was a war crime committed by members of the 14th Company, SS Division Totenkopf, under the command of Hauptsturmführer Fritz Knöchlein. It took place on 27 May 1940, during the Battle of France, at a time when the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was attempting to retreat through the Pas-de-Calais region during the Battle of Dunkirk.
Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Norfolk Regiment, had become isolated from their regiment. They occupied and defended a farmhouse against an attack by Waffen-SS forces in the village of Le Paradis. After running out of ammunition, the defenders surrendered to the German troops. The Germans led them across the road to a wall, and machine-gunned them. Ninety-seven British troops died. Two survived, with injuries, and hid until they were captured by German forces several days later.
5th SS Panzer Division Wiking :
Members of the division’s bakery column, led by Obersturmführer Braunnagel and Untersturmführer Kochalty, assisted Einsatzgruppe A in rounding up Ukrainian Jews.[when?] Witnesses report that the Jewish victims were forced to run a gauntlet formed by soldiers who would beat them as they passed, and when they reached the end of the gauntlet, Einsatzgruppen officers murdered them and their bodies were pushed into a bomb crater. The German 1st Mountain Division is also suspected of being involved. Between 50 and 60 Jews were killed in this manner, as a part of the larger Einsatzgruppe operation which resulted in over 700 murders.[8]
In addition historian Eleonore Lappin from the Institute for the History of Jews in Austria, has documented several cases of war crimes committed by members of the 5 SS Division “Wiking” in her work The Death Marches of Hungarian Jews Through Austria in the Spring of 1945.[9]
On 28 March 1945, 80 Jews from an evacuation column, although fit for the journey, were shot by three members of the Waffen SS division “Wiking” and five military policemen. On 4 April, 20 members of another column that left Graz tried to escape near Eggenfeld, not far from Gratkorn. Soldiers from the 5 SS Division “Wiking” that were temporarily stationed there apprehended them in the forest near Mt. Eggenfeld and then herded them into a gully, where they were shot. On 7–11 April 1945, members of the division executed another eighteen escaped prisoners.[9]
12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend :
War crimes were committed by the men of the Hitlerjugend division—they executed around 156 Canadian soldiers after capturing them. These murders and the consequent search for justice are well documented.[31] Two British soldiers from the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division were also murdered during the killing of Canadian prisoners.[32]
On 2 April 1944 the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend executed 86 people in the North French town of Ascq.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
Kobal2
March 20, 2014, 11:46am
207
Um… so ? The salient point isn’t whether or not the individuals belonged to the Nazi party but whether they acted like savages, isn’t it ?
Besides, the SS wasn’t Nazi-only. They drafted plenty of folks from occupied territories and its bar for recruitment kept lowering throughout the war. The only people who never were allowed in were Jews (duh) and Poles.
Do you know who else arrived and dispersed parties?
I know but Fascism has earned itself the right to not be tolerated.
Evidence for these men being fascists: portraying the German side in World War Two re-enactments, wearing their costumes to a dinner put on by re-enactment groups.
Evidence against these men being fascists: their organization specifically excludes neo-Nazis, repudiates Nazism, bars saluting or flying the Nazi flag. Their events being either entirely private, or historical re-enactments (ie, no rallies or marches through the streets).
Verdict: On these facts, not fascists.
Here’s a documentary from British TV that was shown a few years ago. It covers the peculiarity of reenactors that play Nazis and, as it goes on, starts to question why they are doing it. Towards the end it gets a bit eye opening.
Part 1 Part 2
astorian:
Dressing up as Nazis in a WW2 battle re-enactment sounds silly but harmless.
Having some beer and brats at a German themed party sounds like fun.
But dressing as Nazis at a restaurant for no particular reason sounds just a bit creepy.There are all kinds of traditional German costumes one could dress in if one just wanted to celebrate German heritage. Wear lederhosen, or dress as Beethoven, for crying out loud!
Heck, check out the home movies up at the Eagle’s Nest. Even Hitler wasn’t in uniform 24/7.
amanset:
Here’s a documentary from British TV that was shown a few years ago. It covers the peculiarity of reenactors that play Nazis and, as it goes on, starts to question why they are doing it. Towards the end it gets a bit eye opening.
Part 1 Part 2
Thanks for that, amanset .
If I’m not mistaken, this features the very same group of re-enanctors as noted in the OP.
So are they fascists after all, or are they’re simply following orders in their spare time?
QuickSilver:
Thanks for that, amanset .
If I’m not mistaken, this features the very same group of re-enanctors as noted in the OP.
No, it’s not. The documentary Nazi players are British, not Americans. They still had the exact same disclaimer in their official description that they are definitely not Nazi sympathizers.
QuickSilver:
Thanks for that, amanset .
If I’m not mistaken, this features the very same group of re-enanctors as noted in the OP.
It’s doesn’t, the show is about British re-enactors, the groups in the OP are from the heavily American WW2HRS. The re-enactment in the show also features things that are prohibited by the WW2HRS, such as Nazi flags on poles, and Hitler Youth uniforms.
Also, note that people in that show complain about a 10-to-1 disparity of German to British portrayals. Check out the units of the WW2HRS , it breaks down as follows:
American: 52
Note that they deny being political or Nazi sympathizers but are white supremacists. Sometimes one can be so open minded their brains fall out. Just sayin’.
Yeah, I’m not saying that the organizer is a neo-Nazi at all. Nor would I be inferring, implying, or anything of the sort. Of course not. Scott Steben, the organizer of this event, just happens to have an SS tattoo on his arm. As most re-enactors who aren’t neo-Nazis do. It just makes it more authenticky.
Sooo,
Evidence for these men being fascists: like to play dress as Nazis. Have Nazi tattoos.
Evidence against these men being fascists: they deny it.
Verdict: On these facts, not fascists.
Case closed!
No, I’d say this guy is probably a neo-Nazi, a weird fetishist, or a trolling asshole looking to shock people.
CarnalK:
Sooo,
Evidence for these men being fascists: like to play dress as Nazis. Have Nazi tattoos.
Evidence against these men being fascists: they deny it.
Verdict: On these facts, not fascists.
Case closed!
I didn’t realize Scott Steben was “men”. Jamie Madrox, sure, but not Scott Steben.
Human_Action:
No, I’d say this guy is probably a neo-Nazi, a weird fetishist, or a trolling asshole looking to shock people.
Like I said, he cannot be a neo-Nazi. Because the club does background checks against that. He’s just a re-enactor/actor who has a tattoo pretty much only neo-Nazis would have.