Why didn’t we just ban them from the War in the first place? 🙂

Ok, i’m a re-enactor.

No, i don’t do WWII, but Wars of the Roses. However i do know more than a few folk who do WWII on all sides (UK & Empire/Axis/US/Soviet).
The folk who do the German side of things are VERY, VERY strict on keeping the fellow-travellers of the BNP etc out of their ranks.
Most employers like English Heritage etc. will not allow overt Nazi symbolism in the displays or to be worn by the re-enactors. None of the umbrella groups i am aware of allow the SS police uniform (full black kit) to be worn nor do they allow the wearing of the Nazi armband.
There are groups out there portraying units from the Waffen SS but as these units wore regular (ish, often better quality) Wermacht uniform then this is seen as allowable. Only the regimental insignia gives it away and then only if you know what you are looking for.
Certain Waffen SS units will never be portrayed though as they were responsible for some horrific war crimes.
I know of one Soviet group who portray one of the punishment battalions – the story of these units is quite awful but needs to be told.

TBH, i’ve met more right-wing nutjobs in other period groups than i have from the WWII mob.

As for wanting to portray the Germans, why not?

You should take a look at the American Civil War mob, about 15 rebel soldiers to every 1 Federal soldier even though the Union kit is far superior.
Lots more people want to portray the soldiers of Imperial France than want to be one of Wellington’s redcoats*.

Personally i wouldn’t want to do WWII ‘cos i don’t like guns and TBH the combat is a pretty dull. At least in medieval you get to actually fight with each other and there is the whole fun of comparing bruises in the beer tent afterwards! (plus knocking all the dents out of your armour….)

*Bloody greenjackets. Since Sean Bean did Sharpe you can’t move for soddin’ grasshoppers, there’s more Riflemen now than there were then!

they all get their official Winston Churchill 21 inch double enders and have some fun.

So hang on,

The original story is actually “we’ve banned something that wouldn’t have happened anyway” then?

It was so susposed to have had a fly past of by a Lancaster from the WWII Bomber Command re-enactment society.
Unfortunatley the were unable to attend due to a miss-understanding while flying over Germany last weekend. It’s belived that the Wermacht Anti Aircraft re-enactment Society (Dresden Branch) were having a training day.

I’ve seen something similar!

Did a multi-period show at Old Sarum and the last display of the day were the WWII lot.
They had a Bofors gun drawn by a Bedford truck come on and set up, started panning the gun around the sky etc.

Thing is, there’s a private airfield just on the other side of the road from Old Sarum and there were a couple of little Cessna type planes stooging around. One, obviously wanting a closer look at all these bright coloured tents in the old castle came down for a closer look…..

….the way the pilot pulled a hard turn on seeing himself tracked with a 40mm Anti-Aircraft Gun made me think he was gonna bury himself in the next field! 😆

Cougar – pretty much.

The German WWII lot self regulate anyway and the only reason the German lot were at Bury was because they were doing a combat display, otherwise there’d have been no point.

I don’t like thought police, it means the other side won.

If someone is a Nazi sympathiser I’d sooner it was out on the open.

there’s a similar event at Haworth every year, we went to this year’s do.

Lots of people dressed up as period civvies, quite a few GIs, a handful of Red Army soldiers, quite a few British army types, especially LDV or Home Guard, and a few RAF officers.

One guy even came as this fella:

There were a few GMC trucks, halftracks, anti-aircraft guns and loads of jeeps. Most of the shops were decked out in period style too

And yes, there were some Germans, mostly generals, and I believe one or two in SS uniform. Seemed to make it that little bit more sinister, which I suppose you’d want to reproduce the feeling of the time

I belong to a French Army reenactment group.

In pursuit of authenticity, we’re staying at home.

The only genuine Nazi in Haworth is the clamp-happy ###t who owns the car park at the top of the hill.

indeedy, well known for it

we parked in a field for £5 about 10 minutes walk towards Oxnup

Shame the Spitfire never showed up

At least in medieval you get to actually fight with each other and there is the whole fun of comparing bruises in the beer tent afterwards! (plus knocking all the dents out of your armour….)

Sounds like the Viking re-enactors who do displays at a music festival i go to.

I’m Jewish, I don’t feel at all comfortable with the idea of people wearing German uniforms, SS,Heer or otherwise being allowed anywhere near steam trains or goods carriages.

“The folk who do the German side of things are VERY, VERY strict on keeping the fellow-travellers of the BNP etc out of their ranks.”

That simply isn’t true on the military vehicle restoration side, which I do a lot of and always have done(restorations that is, not the running about playing cowboys and indians),there are loads of sub groups within the German re-enactment community with very right wing views and strong ties to extremist groups in the UK and Germany, It’s something that re-enactors don’t like to admit to, but it’s very much alive it’s one of the reasons that German and axis force outnumber allied forces in these circles.

And I still think any bugger in a German uniform be it Bundesmarine, heer, wehrmacht luftwaffe is not getting me anywhere near a train.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEle_DLDg9Y[/video]

the jewish population is a red herring.. i lived and worked in prestwich at one point ran a large store where we traditionally played carols at christmas.. one year we didnt The local bbc radio rang me live on air as they were having a phone in debate about how it was wrong the jews had asked the store to turn the christmas carols off… the nice man was disbelieving when i said no one had asked us not to play and the reason for no carols was that the chaz and dave do christmas cd that we’d used before i’d kept in my car and had been sold in the car..

“I have always had a strong interest for the german side as my best friends father was in the hiltler youth in the mid 30’s and later a fallschirmjager in ww2 until his capture and detention in england in ’44, but i am certainly no nazi,racist,zionist or other,
I just simply find that kind of thing fascinating.”

Is your mates Dad the Pope?

I don’t know about the military vehicle side of things but all the German re enactors I have met are all strongly against the idiots. Admittedly I only tend to meet them in the beer tent though and I’ve not worked with them as such. I find medieval to be far more interesting politically anyway.

‘Anyone wearing a German or Axis officer uniform to the event will be asked to leave

The Germans now own Arriva trains and buses.

So if a bus driver turns up in his uniform, he’ll be told to leave?

Maybe fair enough wandering around in military costume, but wearing decorations for courage is a bit naff IMO.

On the vehicle side of things, we tend to get involved with re-enactors quite a lot (they need vehicles,we need an excuse to use them etc.) there’r lot of extremely right wing folk out there, I’ve two German vehicles that get used a lot, come across embarrasingly large amount of them.

this link took about ten seconds to find

this one about a minute

Unfortunately, whether you and I like it or not it’s true. 🙂

As the alpin are we th baddie slink suggest why would someoen want to be the baddies when the baddies are this bad and this recent?
I accept you need all sides to renact but WTF would anyone want to play the part of a nazi?

The SBG was set up in 1978 and describes itself as “Britain’s longest-serving Second World War living history and historical society”.

According to its website, the aim of the group is “not to glorify war or the Nazi regime but … to portray the fighting German Waffen SS soldier of WWII as accurately as possible.”

MMM I smell BS and nutters TBH.

epicyclo – Member
I don’t like thought police, it means the other side won.

If someone is a Nazi sympathiser I’d sooner it was out on the open.

I think the Nazi and the communist sympathisers should be classes as the same **** up group, i mean its not like Stalin didnt have death camps , murder jews, and comite a gonside that resulted in the deaths of many millions more than Hitler ever did, but **** me hes left wing so it ok…or Che also a mass murdering butcher, but hay yet agin hes left wing so lets put the mass murdering basterd on a T-shirt,

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1eO6q19BIo[/video]

Personally I’d be very suspicious of anyone who wanted to dress up as an SS officer.

the hole thing is about as historically accurate as a not very historically accurate thing 🙂

but people should be allowed to express them selves how ever they like, even if me/you/we/etc dont like it. I find regulating dress and expression more fighting than some guy that likes to pretend hes in the SS.

Surely they can dress however they like – but should they be able to turn up at mainstream public events and promote Nazism? I’m quite happy for these weird people to have their own Nazi parties – I’m not sure they are appropriate for a normal public event though.

and promote Nazism?

Is that even possible? Like promoting druidism. It’s dead.

OK then promoting extreme right-wing views. Watch that documentary I linked – there’s people at these fairs selling vile anti-semitic propaganda, Hitler/SS mugs, even a hand-truck from Belsen concentration camp.

Again, if people really want to do that I suppose they can – but it should be clearly advertised as an event for Nazi sympathisers.

and promote Nazism?

Is that even possible? Like promoting druidism. It’s dead.

Druidism is dead is it? 😆

Pretending to be a druid is as real as pretending to be a pixie.

grum – Member
Surely they can dress however they like – but should they be able to turn up at mainstream public events and promote Nazism? I’m quite happy for these weird people to have their own Nazi parties – I’m not sure they are appropriate for a normal public event though.

If some idiot students can promote a failed idioloigy (Communsum) a idioloigy responsibly for the deaths of about 100 million in the 20th century then some equal as stupid people who also support a failed idioloigy in the same way the lefty wing people do, i dont think people realise that both and left extremes are equally as **** up, and evil. Nether group should have more rights of expression than any other. To many from eastern Europe over a certain age the Russians and Stalin are seen as just as bad as Hitler if not worse.

The difference between Communism and Nazism is that it isn’t part of Communist ideology to dehumanise and murder certain groups of people – it’s just that the Communist leaders were brutal despots. There’s nothing inherently evil about Communism, just the way it was implemented.

edit: weren’t you defending China the other day, the only major remaining Communist (sort of) power. 😕

Many of the Germans wearing these uniforms in WW2 weren’t nazis, just soldiers…even Rommel didn’t consider himself a nazi.

Many of the Germans wearing these uniforms in WW2 weren’t nazis, just soldiers…even Rommel didn’t consider himself a nazi.

Just doing their job…

grum – Member
The difference between Communism and Nazism is that it isn’t part of Communist ideology to dehumanise and murder certain groups of people – it’s just that the Communist leaders were brutal despots. There’s nothing inherently evil about Communism, just the way it was implemented.

LOL have you ever read Marx, what does he say about the bourgeoisie or about Class struggl. Communism is Evil the same as Nazisum is , Comunism is BS based on a book by Peter Gaskell. Also Engles was a raciest have you read about what he though of the Slavs. Nope proably not, but why not find out about it. The anit-cosmopolitanism of post war russia also shows that comnisum is antisemetic, as many Jews were targets as an example of the foreign influence. . Marx is responsible for more deaths than any man in human history. Get over it 🙂

Go on then, find me the bit in Marx where he suggests a system of exterminating particular groups.

The anit-cosmopolitanism of post war russia also shows that comnisum is antisemetic, as many Jews were targets as an example of the foreign influence.

Marx was a Jew.

Most places were pretty antisemitic at that time.

HTH.

Go on then, find me the bit in Marx where he suggests a system of exterminating particular groups.

I imagine you’d find it hard to find in Nazi literature given that it was supposed to be a secret program.

grum never argue with an idiot they wil drag you down to their level and beat you with experience look at his posts FFS.
I may just be jealous of his ability to outdo me in a badly spelt inchoherent rant competition.

I imagine you’d find it hard to find in Nazi literature given that it was supposed to be a secret program

you are hair splitting to defend Nazis have a word wiuth yourself]Clearly Nazism is i inherently racist in ideology
Clearly communism was inherently inkind in imemantation but not in ideology.
if you cannot differentiate between Das Capital and Mein Kampf in outlook/philosphy then you are an idiot,

Just doing their job…

Mostly.

Soldiers are soldiers regardless of the side they’re on.

Although in Nazi Germany there were those military units (such as the 1st SS division) that did things that moved away from ‘just doing their job’, and then became war criminals.

Glorifying these groups shouldn’t be encouraged at public events, but I don’t see any harm in ‘re-enacters’ dressing up as them. As long as they don’t celebrate the atrocities that were commited.

edit: weren’t you defending China the other day, the only major remaining Communist (sort of) power.

I was defending the fastest progress by mankind in its history. It truly is Industrial revolution 2.0. There smart enough to know that Marx was BS and to develop things there own way, and very successfully so far.