"National newspaper calls paint sets 'Nazi memorabilia'" Topic

I can't put a link on to the article unfortunately because it is a Premium page available only to Daily Telegraph subscribers. The gist of it goes like this. Whilst searching Amazon's website for Nazi memorabilia for sale the newspaper found a reproduction medal for sale for £45.00 GBP This got them going and they then came across a page of AK Interactive paint sets for Waffen SS camouflage. They weren't bothered about the £86.00 GBP price for the most expensive set, but rather they branded it as 'Nazi memorabilia', which I'm sure most would agree is a worrying development for a hobby which relies on historical accuracy in everything it does, particularly when it comes to painting figures.
The DT for those of you abroad is a very popular broadsheet in the UK which isn't noted for it's liberal point of view normally.

Link to the offending page. link

The only thing offensive about the paint is the price. I have a couple of AK sets for aircraft and they were nowhere near what some of those sellers are asking.

I would hope reason would come into play before any witch hunts begin.

They'll be coming for your rules, models, and miniatures soon. Then of course you, to be sent to the re-education camps, since if you are a wargamer, you are obviously a warmonger.

It is only a matter of time.

Phew. I'm glad my Vallejo German WWII paint sets aren't 'Nazi memorabilia'! What will "they" do when they discover my Confederate paint sets and all my CSA miniatures? I hope college SJW students don't tear down my gaming room in the middle of the night!

Thank goodness I use craft paints like Americana and Delta Ceramcoat.

In a way I'm surprised at this 'paper. To use a car analogy it tends to drive down the middle of the road with one wheel on the 'American' side if you like. There is another 'paper which drives firmly on the 'British' side of the road which would be more typical in classing paints as Nazi simply because of what it says on the box, so I dread to think what they'll say and do if they see what the Telegraph has done. The DT got all steamed up over someone selling memorabilia at a village 1940s weekend last week because the stallholder was on National Trust property. The offending item was allegedly a totenkopf badge, however no one provided conclusive evidence.Likewise the complaint about two re-enactors wearing 'Nazi' uniform, which again nno one can remember seeing and no photos surfaced on facebook, there only appeared to be the two used in the article itself which were of two elderly gentlemen, one wearing Wehrmacht uniform and apparently invading England on a bicycle, and a rather overweight and elderly gentleman dressed as Feldpolizei with a BMW sidecar.Neither sported any 'Nazi' regalia.
Unfortunately those who go out of their way to be offended appear to have been so, and those who wrote the article didn't edit and alter their obvious errors.

They'll be coming for your rules, models, and miniatures soon. Then of course you, to be sent to the re-education camps, since if you are a wargamer, you are obviously a warmonger.

It is only a matter of time.

Unfortunately what you've written (hopefully) in jest could one day become true.

Immigrate to the United States. We have Nazi re-enactors wearing SS uniforms, firing blanks through German machine guns, and we call it, "Entertainment". I watched a scripted battle between US Army Soldiers, and SS Soldiers, with the US Army losing!… They got mowed down by MG fire, and cannons, and SP's. The set charges, used to simulate live arty fire, even dropped small bits of dirt on my head as the dirt clumps fragmented from the explosions, dropping on spectators on either side of the "battlefield".

They fought multiple battles over a couple of days, trading sides as to who won/lost. I just happened to see a battle where the Allies lost. To be honest, it was quite real, and a bit frightening, really, to be that close, to see and hear both sides firing their guns freely, and often, like a real fire-fight, to feel dirt raining down after an explosion went off 30 feet away. I will never forget that experience, or the chill I got from seeing men dressed as SS soldiers, walking around with rifles on their shoulders. It was surreal.

To be honest, the SS troops gave me the creeps, even though they were nice, and friendly. They were RE-ENACTORS, not real Nazis. It was a scheduled event, and the organizers invited them to attend, and to put on a spectacular show. Cheers!

You probably should stop watching those Hogan's Heroes re-runs, too.

We have a huge show called War & peace every year down in Kent. It lasts 4 days and draws re-enactors from all over Europe with thousands of vehicles and living history groups putting on displays from The Great War through WW2 and Vietnam up to modern day. You can buy just about anything there, and there are people who take things in my view just a bit too far with children dressed up as Hitler Youth and some adults wearing full SS uniform, indeed the SS seem to be most popular if only because their camouflage gear is deemed to be so 'cool' looking. Heaven help the DT if they wandered into this show and saw the re-enactors at play. Of course everyone who attends shows like this knows what to expect, and if you don't you can always check up on social media before you go so you aren't accidentally offended by anything.
Unfortunately these days if you blatantly look for offence you're bound to find it if you look hard enough.And having found it social media gives you instant access to thousands of similar ilk who will rapidly join you in hounding the innocent, or those who should know better but are in reality pretty harmless.

In the summertime, we have re-enactment events all across the USA. The re-enactors portray different periods: the fur-trading era, the American Civil War, and WW II, are the most popular periods put on display by re-enactors. They are open to the public, to educate people about the past, as well as to sell wares. They're a lot of fun to visit, a lot of fun to learn about the past, and how the people of that time cooked, hunted, and lived. Not all education takes place in a classroom, or on a computer screen.

The SS is hugely popular in the US, also. I saw Hitler Youth at the mentioned event, as well. I understand it, to a point, but I wish they would portray the WW II regular German Army. People are drawn to the black uniforms, and the allure of the SS. Not me. Toured Dachau. Not interested in portraying the SS, or even the regular German Army. Cheers!

Everyone is at risk of being called a Nazi these days, and for the most ridiculous things. It's a lazy way to terrorize people into caving in to someone else's wishes. If it isn't stopped it can only get worse.

Mátyás Rákosi called it "salami tactics":

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Dan

LOL! Too true! Unfortunately, people ignore the true meaning of what that name represents.

Yes. When people are allowed to label everyone that they don't like as a Nazi (or fascist, supremacist, etc.), just to intimidate them, then it trivializes what the Nazis really were. The Nazis would be proud of such tactics.

Dan

Well said Caique. I find all the SS stuff distasteful beyond belief. I gave up FoW because some events are wall to wall SS armies and I won't 'game' with or against them.

I'm just waiting for a convention venue to not allow any ACW gaming because Confederate units would have the "Confederate flag".
It's coming.

How soon, I wonder, until Confederate States memorabilia will begin to draw the same reactions. First the statues, and next the paint, then the games?

Like I said, once you humor them, there's no end to the ridiculousness.

Dan

Sgt Slag, we have loads of re-enactment events all over Britain as well. Sound very similar to yours mostly!

The main difference is the most popular periods. We have a lot of Vikings/Anglo-Saxons/Early Medieval, Wars of the Roses, English Civil War, and of course, WW2.

The events don't normally attract attention from journalists looking to denounce people as nazis.

Going back to the original event that kicked this off. The reports I read said that 1 person took offence at at display which included the star of David armband that German Jews were forced to wear and people in "Nazi" uniform. The offending arm band had been given to a militaria collector by a Jewish lady who knew he was interested in items about the war and the "Nazi" uniforms were standard Wehrmacht kit, as shown in a number of pictures on MSN from the event, which has been running for 7 years without any problems as an experience of the property during wartime. Saddly the newspapers prefer sensationalism over telling the complainant to learn something about history. I am astounded that the "Torygraph" should get its knickers in a knot over this.

Just another covert dig at those nasty European types the UK is abandoning next year?

Nazi Cosplayers aren't real Nazis, they're just cosplayers. Real Nazis wouldn't want to come across as losers playing lets pretend.

I experienced a classic example of someone desperately looking for something to be offended about a year or so ago at Salute. I was trading and during a particular busy time, my assistance said a lady wanted to speak to "whoever is in charge" and was refusing to move until she did. So, apologising to all those customers who were trying to buy things, I approached her.

She told me she was very offended by one of the items we sold. I asked which one and she pointed to one of the paints on our paint rack. It was the black paint and as Vallejo is a Spanish company, it was labelled in Spanish like all the other colours, in this case Negro. This woman was such a self-righteous, smug, bleeding-heart but also a crass ignoramus. Although I was fuming at this nonsensical interlude in a frantic day, I remained calm but told her that I was deeply offended by her racist attitude to the Spanish nation and their language. She was manoeuvred away by her highly embarrassed and timid partner although she still obviously didn't "get it".

It must be tiring spending all your time looking for reasons to be offended.

As for the article, next week, something else (possibly something important) will have taken its place. Remember all the outcry about satanism etc against D&D in the seventies? Didn't change much, did it?

DBDD

Agreed Vigilant. It almost read as though the Torygraph went round and asked everyone present what their faith was until they managed to find someone Jewish who could be offended, after all only two people were offended by what the paper had found at Lacock out of the hundreds who attended.
What is very worrying is them linking a set of ordinary paints with Nazism.I fear it only takes a short leap of the imagination for a reporter to turn up at a UK convention with a photographer in tow and begin twisting things to suit their agenda.Show organisers would be advised to have their defence ready and rehearsed in advance, and it probably wouldn't hurt for traders and the rest of us to follow the same line just in case.That might sound over dramatic, but better safe than sorry.

We've had all this before. It flares up from time to time. I seem to remember Warfare being picketed by "activists" of some sort when it was at its previous location. Eventually, they move on to something else.

DBDD

It sounds like the Indiana pizza parlor.
Indiana had recently approved same sex marriages. So a tv station sent a reporter all over the state in desperate search for a restaurant that would refuse to cater such a wedding reception.
So they finally found a pizza parlor (pizza parlor to cater a wedding???) and found the teenage daughter of the Christian family who owned it.
She was completely surprised and gave a "probably not" answer.
Outrage! At last! Now we have the 11:00 lead!

Winston's story reminds me of a thing a few years back.

A group of naturists/nudists wanted to walk a section of public right-of-way coastal path in Devon (I think it was).

Now, you can arrested for "offending public decency" if you are naked in public. But there has to be someone who is offended. So the walkers were accompanied by several police officers asking everyone who they met if they were offended. Unfortunately for plod, nobody was! So no arrests, a load of police time wasted, and the Constabulary looking foolish. Good work chaps!

Sorry it's a bit off-topic but people being offended, or not, throws up some funny results…

Everyone is at risk of being called a Nazi these days, and for the most ridiculous things.

Like, say, dressing up as actual Nazis or lovingly fetishizing their Waffen SS models as they insist they were just soldiers and not real Nazis…

Happy Nazi dress-up types are free to do so (at least in the US), but they are venerating the most detestable regime in a thousand years:

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But hey! You can't be offended by your close association with the atrocities above unless "you blatantly look for offence" or are "someone desperately looking for something to be offended about," right?

A thousand years? Genghis Khan's Mongol invasion ranks up there with the Nazis for atrocities.

Hey, if you were nice to Genghis and surrendered as soon as his envoys showed up, he would be nice to you too.
Just don't even think about rebelling. That's were the atrocities came in.

"Nazi Cosplayers aren't real Nazis, they're just cosplayers. Real Nazis wouldn't want to come across as losers playing lets pretend."

Except that these days, "real Nazis" are losers playing let's pretend. Reinactors are, at least generally, interested in the actual history they protray.

I wish that ALL paint manufacturers would categorize their military paints with proper FS, BS, or other standard designations-- that would certainly make my life easier when trying to match colors (and I'm sure that any uninformed reporters would never catch the connection with the SS or any other military organization).

" People are drawn to the black uniforms, and the allure of the SS."

Well, probably because they are Hugo Boss brand.
(Wondering how many overweight cosplayers show up dressed as Hermann Goering… ;-)

Considering the Khmer Rouge, Stalin, Mao, etc. the field is pretty crowded as to being detestable.

Can't see dressing kids up as Hitler Jugend, but as can be seen, there is a slippery slope as the focus shifts to the next villain.

Can't see dressing kids up as Hitler Jugend,

Like I said earlier, I have. To complete the wholesome family scene their mothers dressed the part too as typical German frau of the period. There's Living History, and living history I guess. If you are going to class the labelling of paint sets as Nazi memorabilia then we have to be careful where this all leads though.

The Hugo Boss reference above reminds me of how I used to imagine an advert based on the sponsorship link they had with the Mercedes Formula 1 team a few years ago. I imagined a side by side picture of the F1 car with a 1930s Mercedes staff car and black uniformed Germans with the tag line "Mercedes/Hugo Boss – partnership for over 80 years". Then again I have a twisted sense of humour. As to re-enactors claiming that the Waffen SS were just soldiers, I've just finished reading Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's book on Dunkirk where he details the massacres of British troops by SS units during the retreat. Not ordinary soldiers in my opinion.

Darrell BDD: "It must be tiring spending all your time looking for reasons to be offended."

When other people give in to their stupidity, their efforts are given new fuel for more.

I'm glad you didn't cave in.

Dan

Of course this is actually just the next level down the slope.

How many members of TMP would find fault with a swastika on a miniature regardless of context?

A major percentage of the world's population sees it as a religious symbol (indeed a good luck symbol for many). Put one on a Medieval shield or Indian or Chinese equipment and post a picture and guess what the reaction would be…

That was the creepiest part of the "Nazi Reenactors at Salute" fiasco a few years ago – as well as the women and children in Nazi kit (including a baby in a 1940-vintage pram), they'd recreated a child's bedroom in Germany c. 1940 and it quickly became clear, when speaking to an 8-year old lad there, that this was how HIS bedroom looked, and some of the props on display had come from it.

Living History indeed.

The newspaper article also found offence at some decals which were on sale on Amazon. These were decals by someone called Alexander the Great from Greece (naturally)
auction
I've taken a link from eBay to show the exact same item as the newspaper is subscription only. Since the correspondent found these to be 'nazi memorabilia' as well I wonder what they would have made of lines of model Wehrmacht tanks on one game at The Other Partizan last weekend winding their way across a table to attack the Russians whilst bedecked in swastika air recognition flags exactly the same as the ones on this decal sheet? Now we would say it was historically accurate and being used to portray an historic event and all in context, but to the casual observer with a low 'offence' level this might appear gratuitous and they would want to know why they were required at all and whether it added anything to the game in itself, apart from satisfying the rivet counters? (sorry to all the rivet counters out there)