World War II reenactment is the historical reenactment of the various combatants involved in World War II.
World War II reenactment is the historical reenactment of the various combatants involved in World War II.
The types of events include living history, which emphasises the garrison life of the average serviceman or servicewoman, and tactical events, involving simulated combat operations. The hobby has expanded significantly since the 1970s and is now practiced around the world. [1]
Some reenactment includes Waffen-SS units, the paramilitary force of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Although banned in Germany and Austria, SS reenacting groups exist elsewhere, including in Europe and North America. By the end of the 1990s there were 20 Waffen-SS reenactment groups in the United States. [2] Within the UK, a number of events only allow the portrayal of Allied service personnel and ban the wearing of any German uniform featuring symbols of the Third Reich. In some cases, events permit only Heer, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe, whilst specifically refusing any SS uniforms. [3] [4]
In 2007, BBC investigative reporter John Sweeney produced a documentary entitled Weekend Nazis that delved into the reenactment scene in the UK. Members of German units, especially the Second Battle Group (SBG), were interviewed and investigated about their hobby. Two SBG members were covertly filmed expressing racist views. The documentary was broadcast on 27 August 2007; in the ensuing controversy, the SBG issued a statement through their lawyers: "The views alleged to have been made by members of the SBG are, in the opinion of the SBG, fascist, racist and utterly reprehensible and as such are views we strongly oppose." [5]
In 2010, Rich Iott, a Republican candidate for US Congress, came under intense scrutiny after images were released showing him wearing an SS uniform. [6] Iott defended his interest in historical reenactment. [7]
Polish groups reenact German crimes, eg. death march of Stutthof concentration camp prisoners and execution of 22 Polish workers in Słupsk. [11] In September 2010 Będzin Ghetto deportation of 1942 was reenacted. [12]
Also crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists were reenacted, including burning of reconstructed village. [13]
The Waffen-SS was the military branch of the Nazi Party's SS organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and unoccupied lands.
Historical reenactment is an educational or entertainment activity in which mainly amateur hobbyists and history enthusiasts put on uniforms and follow a plan to recreate aspects of a historical event or period. This may be as narrow as a specific moment from a battle, such as the reenactment of Pickett's Charge presented during the Great Reunion of 1913, or as broad as an entire period, such as Regency reenactment.
Joachim Peiper was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and a Nazi war criminal convicted for the Malmedy massacre of U.S. Army prisoners of war (PoW). During the Second World War in Europe Peiper served as personal adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, and as a tank commander in the Waffen-SS.
The uniforms and insignia of the Schutzstaffel were paramilitary ranks and uniforms used by the Schutzstaffel (SS) between 1925 and 1945 to differentiate that organization from the regular German armed forces, the German state, and the Nazi Party.
American Civil War reenactment is an effort to recreate the appearance of a particular battle or other event associated with the American Civil War by hobbyists known as Civil War reenactors, or living historians.
In historical reenactment, authenticity is a measure of how close an item, prop, action, weapon, tactic, or custom is to what would actually have been used or done in the time period being depicted. For example, in most northern European medieval reenactment cotton is an inauthentic material—as opposed to wool or linen—though it would be authentic in more modern periods and events, such as American Civil War reenactment or World War II reenactment. Likewise, pop culture references and talking about modern events or objects is inauthentic.
The Goralenvolk was a geopolitical term invented by the German Nazis in World War II in reference to the Goral highlander population of Podhale region in the south of Poland near the Slovak border. The Germans postulated a separate nationality for people of that region in an effort to extract them from the Polish citizenry during their occupation of Poland's highlands. The term Goralenvolk was a neologism derived from the Polish word Górale commonly referring to the people living in the mountains. In order to attempt to make Gorals collaborate with the SS, the Nazis proclaimed that this group were part of the Greater Germanic Race and worthy of separate treatment from the Poles.
The Latvian Legion was a formation of the German Waffen-SS during World War II. Created in 1943, it consisted primarily of ethnic Latvian personnel. The legion consisted of two divisions of the Waffen-SS: the 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, and the 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. The 15th Division was administratively subordinated to the VI SS Corps, but operationally it was in reserve or at the disposal of the XXXXIII Army Corps, 16th Army, Army Group North. The 19th Division held out in the Courland Pocket until May 1945, the close of World War II, when it was among the last of Nazi Germany's forces to surrender.
HIAG was a lobby group and a denialist veterans' organisation founded by former high-ranking Waffen-SS personnel in West Germany in 1951. Its main objective was to achieve legal, economic and historical rehabilitation of the Waffen-SS.
An illicit broadcast from the radio studio in Prague helped spark the Prague uprising during the final days of World War II, but German counterattacks led to a pitched battle breaking out. The conflict became known as the Battle for Czech Radio. By controlling the radio, the Czech resistance was able to inform and inspire the people of Prague to effective action during the Prague uprising. German forces were unable to prevent the Czechs from broadcasting. However, the attempts to appeal to Russians and Americans for aid were unsuccessful.
Richard Ruoff was a general in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. He commanded the 4th Panzer Army and the 17th Army on the Eastern Front.
Kazimierz Piechowski was a Polish engineer, a Boy Scout during the Second Polish Republic, a political prisoner of the German Nazis at Auschwitz concentration camp, a soldier of the Polish Home Army then a prisoner for seven years of the post war communist government of Poland.
Richard Bradley "Rich" Iott is a President at Braeburn Entertainment, Ltd and was the 2010 Republican nominee for United States Representative for Ohio's 9th District. A lifelong resident of Ohio, he is a former grocery executive, and is now a film producer and an active investor in a number of small businesses.
Jungdeutsche Partei in Polen (JDP), or the Young German Party in Poland, was a Nazi German extreme right-wing political party founded in 1931 by members of the ethnic German minority residing in the Second Polish Republic.
Ronald Smelser is an American historian, author, and former professor of history at the University of Utah. He specializes in modern European history, including the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, and has written several books on these topics. Smelser is the author, together with fellow historian Edward J. Davies, of the 2008 book The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture.
Franz Kurowski was a German author of fiction and non-fiction who specialised in World War II topics. He is best known for producing apologist, revisionist and semi-fictional works on the history of the war, including the popular English-language series Panzer Aces and Infantry Aces.
The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi–Soviet War in American Popular Culture (2008) by Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies, is a historical analysis of the post-war myth of the "Clean Wehrmacht", the negative impact of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS mythologies in popular culture, and the effects of historical negationism upon cultural perceptions of the Eastern Front of the Second World War.
The Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the paramilitary SS organisation of Nazi Germany, is often portrayed uncritically or admiringly in popular culture.
J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing is a Canadian publishing house that specialises in literature on the German armed forces of the World War II era. Its authors are both popular history writers such as Paul Carell and Franz Kurowski, along with the war-time veterans, including Kurt Meyer of the SS Division Hitlerjugend and Otto Weidinger of the SS Division Das Reich.
Mark C. Yerger was an American author of books about the Schutzstaffel and Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany. He had close contacts to SS veterans, through whom he was able to access private archives, and wrote biographies of commanders and award recipients of the SS and of SS units. Historians of World War II have described Yerger's work as uncritical, hagiographic and whitewashing towards the SS.
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