"SS re-enactors at Salute" Topic

Those that stated they didn't punch people in the nose because that is what seperates them from the sort of people these folks portray….congrats you just blew my mind!

I for one are rather ing glad that people in the 30's and 40's thought being labled violent or thuggish was a small price to pay to fully the nazis gameplan.

Sometimes a touch of applied violence is just the right thing to do.

Oh and for the record its not the uniforms the silly sods were wearing but the coffee mugs and the nazis greatist hits CD's that crossed the line from dressing up to fetishistic love of all things stupid in my book.

Sometimes a touch of applied violence is just the right thing to do.

Might makes right? Isn't that the philosophical core of fascism?

I collect SS units for my WWII games in 20mm, to say I am against them being there would be hypocritical on my part, I don't want to tell someone how to run their hobby. If I were at Salute I would be noting their uniforms, gear and weaponry and asking questions. If they were there spreading hate then I would have a problem.
So go ahead and contact the news media and your local politicians, the most dangerous thing a person can do in any situation is give a politician an idea. That way they can ban all WWII German militaria, it won't stop with the re-enactors. If you have a problem with their merchandising then don't buy it, I
certainly will not.

When a person urinated on my country's flag at a public art display and it was protected as a work of art I was upset and outraged. I expect that the same people defending the artist's right will have the biggest problem with the re-enactors. So I offer the advice that I was given ….lighten up.

A Peter Merritt contacted Bill and asked that his comments be forwarded (see end of page 2 of this thread).

A Peter Merritt is listed as the Public Relations and Marketing Officer of the Warlords:

salute.co.uk/saluteframe.htm

Did someone somewhere say something about standing up and being counted?

Allen

More directly:

link

Allen

the core tennent of fascism is strength through unity Bill. In itself not exactly a bad thing until you combine it with racisim and rampant nationalism.

anyways when have I ever said I was anything but a wicked fellow. :)

Arteis: Thank you! The issue really comes down to tact, which is a skill that seems to be sorely missing in many of the respondents here. I think most people know that I'm hardly a slave to "political correctness," but this is a sensitive topic and it does deserve to be treated with respect. Those of you who profess an inability to recognize this puzzle me… and concern me.

Mexican Jack: Very well put! VERY well put!

Scurvellian Scurvellious, you just don't get do you ?

We are not in the 30s and these were reenactors which I found to be offensive and in poor taste but AFAIK they are just sorry sods who get a kick out of wearing SS uniforms and wearing NSDAP armbands. While I have very strong reservations about the group's motives, reservations that are only increased by the fact that their website says absolutely nothing about the war crimes committed by LSSAH against unarmed British and American prisoners of war, they didn't do anything illegal, just tasteless and repulsive.

The real neo-nazis are a different thing altogether. They openly spout racist crap and use violence to further their political ends. These I met in the past. And these I did "punch in the face" as you say although to be honest I received more than I gave out and it cost me a few teeths because they were far more used to violence than I was and their political arguments included leaded gloves.

So I'm afraid your "whinging nancy pants" comments just fall flat.

First – I was not at Salute. If I had known Featherstone was going to be there, I'd have bought the ticket for the plane and the show!

Second – I have collected various WWII German and Allied uniforms and weapons for quite a few years. I can't say that I have any great desire to wander around town in a stahlhelm, but if that floats your boat, I'm not going to use my Garand to stop you. As a war gamer, I think there is a real benefit in seeing how the equipment is worn and looks first hand. Nothing like looking at an actual uniform to determine a color or camo pattern. Could it have been done in a more responsible or "sensitive" way? Absolutely! One or two guys in uniform, static displays with weapons and vehicles, a few friendly folks wandering around in regular clothes and pointing out interesting information about the equipment or the period would have been fine, IMO. Not quite sure what the women or children in Nazi regalia added to the overall mix. Yes it is historical, but it is not relevant to 99.9% of the war gaming community.

The argument that it makes people think about the history doesn't hold much water either. Is it a convention to promote war gaming or 'performance art'? The folks that will actually think about it and look into the history probably already have a historical perspective on the era and don't need somebody in a "SS on tour" t-shirt to motivate their interest. You will have a majority of the regular folks take a look in, see the SS re-enactors, Fraus and Hitler Youth, and question the motivations of the whole group. Selling Hitler mugs and CDs moves the whole thing way over the line of anything close to appropriate. The buck stops with the organizers of the show. If somebody didn't sit down with the re-enactor group prior to the show and walk through who, what, when and where, I imagine the same mistake won't happen in the future. Mistakes happen, the key is not to let them happen twice.

Curt

As I am from Germany I can only say on a convention in Germany
it wouldn`t have been possible! As many of my relatives died during the war it felt a bit strange!

I have held off from saying anything on this, but I think I'll add my 2p's worth

So to put my post into context:-
1) I was at Salute, and saw and spoke to the re-enactors
2) I have been a wargamer for over 20 years and have WWII German armies in my collection
3) I have been a re-enactor in the UK for over 7 years (Napoleonic British)

As a re-enactor I will defend the right for any adult to re-enact what they want, at the end of the day when you take part in a living history event, a great part of your day is taken up talking to the public about the uniforms the regiment the time period you choose to enact and so it is up to you to justify why you wear the uniform you have on to them.
Also re-enactment is known to be a family hobby and we have loads of women and children that take part in our living history camp, so I can see why the ladies and the kids dress up.

However there are rules of re-enactment (some unofficial some official) and this group in my view broke them.

Children in uniforms,
we had a rule that no child under the age of 13 was allowed to wear a uniform or run around a camp with a toy gun, all children wore civilian clothes, when they got to 13 they could dress as a drummer boy but they where not allowed to enter the battle field, we also gave them info on the uniform so they could answer any questions on it.
In my view the children should not have been in the HJ uniforms at a public event, if this group wanted to show a static display of HJ then they should have used dummies dressed up.

Wandering around and drinking in full uniforms,
The rule we used was simple, if you are in full uniform at an event you are "on duty" and therefore should not be seen in a modern context, e.g. walking around taking a call on your mobile or drinking from a can of coke, there was no way we would be allowed to go into a public bar in uniform and sit there drinking, if we wanted to go "off duty" then we had to remove our jackets and cross belts. Also and more importantly all firearms (either real or dummy guns) were not allowed to leave the camp site.
I was amazed to see these guys blatantly walking around in full kit with machine guns over their shoulders hanging out at the hot dog stall, and also when I walked into the pub for a lunchtime pint to see them sat there drinking, I could not believe my eyes.

Living history
When my group appear at a living history event we always do our best to engage the public, we put on drill displays, we show off the uniforms, the weapons we do cooking displays, etc. all these SS guys did was sit around talking and now and again one of them would stand on the armoured car. At one stage I walked passed and one was asleep in the side car of the motorbike.
This is not re-enactment; this is taking the money and having an easy event

So at the end of the day the salute organisers paid good money, for a professional re-enactment group, and personally I think they didn't get this. And I would like to know how much they were paid to appear at the event. Because as a ticket holder I paid for it.

"Brett1815: You appear to have joined TMP specifically to defend the S.S. event at Salute?"

I know Brett and he has been here before – I think he's never felt the need to post before, so hadn't registered. SS sock puppet he ain't… although we're just going to chalk up the Nazi Salute as another issue we disagree stongly on!

I don't think he's that concerned about it as most of his emails today have been about VSF troops… :-)

Great. Wargamers already are suspected by outsiders as glorifying war. Now thanks to unsensible convention organizers we also become linked to Nazis.

If it had been a group of WW2 reenactors in different type of uniforms and one of them having a weapon SS uniform that would have been tolerable. But having a whole group on prominent display who gets kicks out of dressing up as Nazis and is selling Nazi propaganda products like the CDs is an outrage and is insulting to victims and the family of victims.

What will be next? Will we have shows in ten years which have groups dressed up as Al Queda giving out Bin Laden CDs?

Thanks for that. I read lots of interesting opinions from both sides.

One of the best threads on this subject.

You can't see any reason for discriminating specifically against the S.S.?

No. If its on grounds that these troops committed massacres historically, then that would apply to other nations/troops.

If it was that they represented an offensive ideology, likewise.

If it was that they offended people, likewise.

We offend some people just because we are wargamers, if we choose not to offend others, then we had better start looking for something else with our time.

Personally I am not happy to wargame anything past 1950 but I am not going to require that everyone else follows my example.

Justin Taylor

''You can't see any reason for discriminating specifically against the S.S.? No. If its on grounds that these troops committed massacres historically, then that would apply to other nations/troops.

''If it was that they represented an offensive ideology, likewise. If it was that they offended people, likewise''.

Bunkum. Where caqn you be from? Moral equivalence, is part of the great post war germanic excuse (together with the 'victors justice' line that gets swallowed by so many). There was no other ideology that had such a systematic and carefully worked out plan for genocide (involving not only politicians and soldiers but scientists, engineers, doctors, architects etc etc – and no other military outfit that ran death camps. Himmler's SS was it.

It took decades for German society in general to accept responsibility for the horrors they perpetuated… other SS-feeder nations (like Austria) have barely confronted their past.

So (deep breath), I think that Justin Taylor has just made the case for banning SS re-enactors, if seeing good old boys slouching in the uniforms produces these crazy moral-equivalence reactions.

Ignoring Mr Taylor for a moment, one could make a case for re-enacting the SS. If it's done with a sence of humour then it could even be seen as a joke. Mel Brook's film 'The Entertainers' springs to mind. So the context in which they were placed is important. I have seen neo-Nazis – I've had fights with them twice. I'm not saying they were Neo-Nazis at Salute, but the stupid are seducted by them. After the first fight (in a pub), me and my mate actually sat down with them and asked them why they admired the Nazis. They were just young kids. Their answers showed no knowledge of history – they were stupid in that sence. They admired the tanks, the rhetoric, the organisation, the ubermensh idea of the superman and……….. the uniforms.

You can't underestimate the seductive power of the uniforms, the insignia, the disipline to young people.

However, after all of that, should they have been at Salute?

My answer is that Salute had a responsibility to put them in context (as others have said) – at least by distancing themselves somehow from the ideology: but I can trust that that will be dealt with by the Warlords gamers themselves – they are no different from you and I after all. Bottom line is if the publicity the SS attracted was positive or negative, and I'd suppose it was the latter. The conference centre might refuse a booking next year too, in our PC climate.

Children in SS uniform? I think that's too close to the very reasons why Nazi uniforms seduce neo-Nazis, for anyone to feel confortable with that.

Only as a factual note, (and I say this aware that I appear to contradict myself) the greatest number of deaths involving concetration camps, by far, and the greatest number of regions affected by them, were in the Soviet Union. The Gulag, and the civilian deaths caused by them (not just the massacres) is the great unacknowleged war crime of the 20th centuary. But NKVD uniforms just don't have the same cashet!

I would just like to respond to the EDITOR's comments that I joined TMP to defend the SS. That is not the case and as somebody who has served in the British Army, I could find that 'offensive' couldn't I? I was just trying to point out that to some of us they were just re-enactors (tactless and misguided possibly) and not Nazis. Clearly the Editor thinks I am a Nazi, so I will be leaving the TMP group shortly, as clearly any opinion that does not agree with the majority anti-SS re-enactors view is unacceptable. Now there was me thinking that WW2 was fought to uphold the freedom of speech etc that some of you don't want to hear! Clearly I was wrong……

Clearly you need to take a chill pill, dude, and stop throwing a temper tantrum.

Bunkum. Where caqn you be from? Moral equivalence, is part of the great post war germanic excuse (together with the 'victors justice' line that gets swallowed by so many). There was no other ideology that had such a systematic and carefully worked out plan for genocide (involving not only politicians and soldiers but scientists, engineers, doctors, architects etc etc – and no other military outfit that ran death camps. Himmler's SS was it.

Bunkum back at you. Assyrians, Romans, Mongols all had the same idea – either you are useful or you are dead.

I think the Rawandans and Serbs recently followed the same path.

Mans inhumanity to man did not begin or end with the Nazis. So off the high horse please and less of the insults. Argue your case with intelligence or leave the floor for someone who can.

Children in SS uniform? I think that's too close to the very reasons why Nazi uniforms seduce neo-Nazis, for anyone to feel confortable with that.

The point has already been made. Parents do a lot of stuff with their children that I don't agree with. However I suppose it is the nature of parents to raise children within their views.

Brett1815. Speaking in defence of Bill (the editor), you did only join 48 hours ago… You may indeed state that they were reenactors (that being clear). If some of them might have sympathies towards the Hitler department, you cannot be sure of, right?

If Bill would have taken one side or the other here, he has means at his disposal, but (to my opinion) he clearly didn't. BTW, I fail to see your point about "freedom of speech" concerning this topic (or having been part of the Armed Forces…): everybody has had a chance to have their say and (like it or not) some were not overly pleased with what happened at Salute 07, so don't blame it on Bill. Have a good look in the mirror instead.

I'm not throwing a temper tantrum actually Marquis, just pointing out the claringly obvious really. I would rather be talking about French Indian War figure ranges and Victorian Sci-fi at the moment, which is the reason I joined in the first place. I just happened to notice this debate, as I was at Salute, unlike a lot of people it would appear.

"Might makes right? Isn't that the philosophical core of fascism?"

Perhaps. But it currently works for the US so it must be ok to use.

Brett… just so you know mate, you can click on a member name to see some basic stats about them. Click on you and it says you signed up on the 23rd – just in time to make your first posts defending the SS lads. That's how it looks to people who don't know you… :)

See you at the club.

Justin Taylor of VVV,
''Bunkum back at you. Assyrians, Romans, Mongols all had the same idea – either you are useful or you are dead

So Assyrians, Romans and Mongols have present-day racist philisophies which seduce contemporary youths? I see. Please tell us something about their ideas and recruitment.

''I think the Rawandans and Serbs recently followed the same path.''

There are Rawandan gangs and Serbian militia re-enactors going to shows? Really? Where?

''Mans inhumanity to man did not begin or end with the Nazis''.

And the relavance is……?

''Argue your case with intelligence or leave the floor for someone who can.''

Intelligent in the Mr Taylor sense?

Excellent!

Re: Children as SS
''Parents do a lot of stuff with their children that I don't agree with. However I suppose it is the nature of parents to raise children within their views''.

Population liquidation is just a dandy 'view' for others children' to share. Well, that's OK then.

A fine post, and I genuinely look forward to some more gems.

Correction
PS: Mel Brook's comedy film and play about the Nazis was 'The Producers'. From the song:

'Sunshine, for Hitler and Germany
Winter for Poland and France… etc'

Classic!

I'm just irritated that I wasn't able to put in my two cents.

I would just like to respond to the EDITOR's comments that I joined TMP to defend the SS.

Well, I think I just raised the question (which no doubt others were wondering, given your member profile at TMP), giving you the opportunity to respond.

That is not the case and as somebody who has served in the British Army, I could find that 'offensive' couldn't I?

Not sure what the British Army has to do with this…

I was just trying to point out that to some of us they were just re-enactors (tactless and misguided possibly) and not Nazis. Clearly the Editor thinks I am a Nazi…

Come now, all I did was ask a question…

…so I will be leaving the TMP group shortly, as clearly any opinion that does not agree with the majority anti-SS re-enactors view is unacceptable.

I don't see that anyone's viewpoint is being discriminated against in this discussion.

Now there was me thinking that WW2 was fought to uphold the freedom of speech etc that some of you don't want to hear! Clearly I was wrong……

Not trying to stifle you at all, just curious that of all the topics that get discussed at TMP, this particular one was the one to motivate you to join TMP. But your friend vouches for you, so…

PS: Mel Brook's comedy film and play about the Nazis was 'The Producers'. From the song:"

At the end of history of the world, I recall Brooks showing previews for "Hitler on Ice".

There is no way these re-enactors belong at any wargaming convention.

We have a holocust denier at my local game store wargaming club. He is a dope. He was born in the US, and speaks with a very thick German accent. Dope. Jerk. I can't stand him. I guess he believes that they were making pizzas in those ovens. He should be kicked out, but I am sure everyone would be afraid he'd come back with a gun. These people really do exist. This sorta stuff just feeds their weirdness.

These people who have this sick facination with the Third Reich are losers. Selling Hitler mugs and CDs with german music from that era-in my opinion, crosses the line. Also, I can't believe people here are actually defending the SS. I guess they were just misunderstood?! LOL. Ok. Ya, I am sure most were honorable men-who just innocently got caught up w/ the Nazi Party. The poor saps.

Who the heck would actually WANT to be SS re-enactors? That is my gut reaction.

Social inadequates and Neo-Nazis?

FOR THE EDITOR.

I now know from JDE Streetline why you linked my joining TMP with the defence of the SS re-enactors at Salute, so I apologise to you for my previous comments. I actually joined TMP as James has been on about it and, after buying a load of French Indian War stuff at the show, I thought I might find some other gamers of that period out there to obtain information from. When I joined TMP, I saw the link to this debate and had a look out of interest. Being slightly annoyed at the (in my view) narrow minded comments being made, I had my say! Anyway, no doubt there will be some people out there that will find even this post as neo-Nazi. Shame really, as most wargamers I meet at various clubs and shows, are nothing like some the gamers using this site.

When I joined TMP, I saw the link to this debate and had a look out of interest. Being slightly annoyed at the (in my view) narrow minded comments being made, I had my say!

So you're not a neo-Nazi, just a gamer with bad timing!

(Welcome to TMP, by the way…)