War Nostalgia Gone Wrong?

[Teaboy1]

Not sure if ADMIN will allow this but is this simply wrong to allow a celebration event to be used in this manner?? I know Aunty BBC likes to present both sides of a debate but I feel oranisers were correct to kick these guys out! Damaging to the NNR IMHO.

SS uniform-wearing group ordered to leave Sheringham 1940s festival

Their dress was inappropriate, offensive and disrespectful, the event's organiser says.

www.bbc.co.uk

A group of men wearing Nazi military uniforms had to be escorted from a 1940s celebration "for their own safety", organisers said.

They were wearing German SS outfits and were asked to leave the event in Sheringham, Norfolk, after complaints.

Marshals escorted the men out of the town and police said they were investigating a reported assault.

One member of the group, who did not want to be named, said they had not intended to cause offence.

Graham Deans, organiser of the annual Sheringham 1940s Weekend, said: "Their mannerisms and the dress was inappropriate for the event."

The uniforms worn by the men, aged between 30 and 50, bore swastikas and death's head symbols, as first revealed by the Eastern Daily Press.

"This regalia is extremely inappropriate, offensive and disrespectful," said Mr Deans.

"There were some very, very upset people in the town. There's a very small Jewish community in the town, and basically, it was inappropriate for them to be in the town."

 

[Gloster]

I thought that a few years ago Heritage Rail, or whatever the umbrella group for the railway preservation movement, put out a code of practice saying that German or Nazi uniforms were inappropriate at World War II re-enactments. The never got to Britain, The Eagle has Landed notwithstanding, so are inappropriate and, SS uniforms in particular, are in bad taste. (And if I find something in bad taste it must be really bad.)

Anyway, it always struck me that people who dress up as Obergruppenschnitzelfuhrers and march around their bedroom heiling until their mum tells them their spaghetti hoops on toast are getting cold are not people I want to be around me. Nor should any serious railway enthusiasts.

 

[uglymonkey]

Bad taste for nazi uniforms in general , but authentic SS uniforms, that's beyond the pale.

They did get to the channel islands!

 

[Iskra]

It seems a bit odd that they were allowed to attend in the first place, as this is not the first time this has made the news regarding such events. Unless they turned up uninvited of course? It is good to see that swift and decisive action was taken.

And yes, it’s entirely inappropriate to wear such uniforms.

 

[Gloster]

Bad taste for nazi uniforms in general , but authentic SS uniforms, that's beyond the pale.

They did get to the channel islands!

Somehow I think that doing a wartime reenactment in the Channel Islands, even without German uniforms, would be opening a massive can of worms.

 

[uglymonkey]

Indeed I had a cousin there for the whole occupation, nearly starved to death.

 

[DarloRich]

It seems a bit odd that they were allowed to attend in the first place, as this is not the first time this has made the news regarding such events. Unless they turned up uninvited of course? It is good to see that swift and decisive action was taken.

And yes, it’s entirely inappropriate to wear such uniforms.

there has been quite a discussion about this on twitter - there is some suggestion they turned up unannounced. The historian Guy Walters is quite cutting on this sort of thing. Doesn't stand for it at all.

Why you would want to dress up as a Nazi is beyond me but a member of the SS. ffs. Hard drive check in progress.......................

 

[Mag_seven]

Quite clearly a massive error of judgment by those in that uniform. Reminds me of that incident when Prince Harry none the less turned up at a fancy dress party dressed as a Nazi.

 

[GatwickDepress]

Quite of these events have a no Axis policy, as they're trying to re-enact the spirit of the Home Front with swing bands and homemade Victoria sponge cakes. The only authentic Nazi representation would be a downed Luftwaffe pilot being escorted by local labourers with pitchforks, or perhaps Rudolf Hess? Is the chap on the left actually dressed up as Herr Hitler or is it just a very unfortunate (or fortunate for this group?) resemblance.

I've yet to meet a British SS re-enactment group that isn't full of closet or open Nazis - plenty who wear concentration camp guard badges for the edginess factor and espouse some truly horrific views.

One of the 15 members of the party - who would not reveal his name - told the BBC the men were from a history group.
"There was no offence intended... and we left, when asked to do so," he said.
He said they had been dressed as fighters against Communist Russia, denied they were being deliberately provocative and said some people were appreciative of their presence.

Exactly what a Nazi would say.

 

[Ashley Hill]

We used to have German reinactors at our war weekends years ago including a Gestapo officer. The persons concerned took time to explain to their history, did not goose step around the site and did not glamourise nazi-ism. In some ways they were more like Allo Allo characters especially the Gestapo officer who portrayed himself like Herr Flick.
Then people’s attitudes changed and they were no longer invited.

 

[Titfield]

I was absolutely horrified to read this story of this totally offensive behaviour.

Yet meanwhile Bovington Tank Museum quite happily operates "Tiger Tank Days" and you can even buy a black shirt with the Tiger tank printed on it.

https://tankmuseum.org/events/tiger-day-spring

For the avoidance of doubt I find the SS and similar organisations, the persecution, victimisation and maltreatment of any individual or group, totally abhorrent. I am somewhat surprised that the UK does not have legislation restricting the use of Nazi Symbols.

 

[MP33]

I saw a programme about reenactment groups and their views. It was stated that you get 10 Himmlers to one Captain Mainwaring.

 

[Cowley]

Anyone who even owns one of these uniforms (let alone wears it out in public) has some pretty dubious thought processes going on.

As mentioned up thread - there was an outcry a few years ago about people doing this and it was thankfully nipped in the bud. This really does seem like a deliberately provocative move to me too.

 

[Vespa]

So what happens if allied troops wants to reenact battles or skirmishes for the public but have no Germans to fight ?

There's a place for them as many German troops were drafted without a say in the matter including Austrians, Studetens, Slieswig-Holstien and other nationalities that are considered "Deutches Volk"

Only SS recruited other nationalities including Britons into the Britishers Frei Korps admittedly their numbers weren't very high.

 

[Iskra]

So what happens if allied troops wants to reenact battles or skirmishes for the public but have no Germans to fight ?

There's a place for them as many German troops were drafted without a say in the matter including Austrians, Studetens, Slieswig-Holstien and other nationalities that are considered "Deutches Volk"

Only SS recruited other nationalities including Britons into the Britishers Frei Korps admittedly their numbers weren't very high.

I think there’s a huge difference between factually and non-politically depicting ordinary Wehrmarcht soldiers who could well have been ‘conscripted unwilling ordinary German blokes’ or be Ostruppen etc, and therefore weren’t necessarily ideologically fanatical nazi’s. Compared to the SS who were clearly fanatical, committed racists who committed some of the worst acts in history, in recent times.

 

[Gloster]

Although there are plenty of reenactment groups, I don’t know if any of them give large scale World War II demonstrations. However, this was, as are most such events nowadays (railway or local village) a ‘how it was in the War in our village/on our railway in England’ event and the Germans didn’t get here (Channel Islands, the odd shot down airman and Michael Caine excepted). And as far as the Britisches Freikorps are concerned, there were well under a hundred of them and their like. Do really want to celebrate those b*st*rds?

 

[Titfield]

I think there’s a huge difference between factually and non-politically depicting ordinary Wehrmarcht soldiers who could well have been ‘conscripted unwilling ordinary German blokes’ or be Ostruppen etc, and therefore weren’t necessarily ideologically fanatical nazi’s. Compared to the SS who were clearly fanatical, committed racists who committed some of the worst acts in history, in recent times.

Well that is how it is often portrayed. Very sadly it seems to be at variance to "the reality".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht

A very uncomfortable read indeed.

 

[Trackman]

.... This really does seem like a deliberately provocative move to me too.

Same here.

On a side note: There's a scene in Peep Show when Mark and Jez realize there's something wrong when they speak to the 'German' re-enactors.

 

[Iskra]

Well that is how it is often portrayed. Very sadly it seems to be at variance to "the reality".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht

A very uncomfortable read indeed.

…I nearly postscripted my post with - ‘I’m not saying the Wehrmacht were clean/angels.’

I’m well aware they aren’t ‘clean,’ the entire war in the East was racial in nature. Equally, no nation in the war fought it morally, it’s quite a hard thing to if we’re being honest and realistic.

I think my point stands however, that it’s much more convincing for the ordinary Wehrmacht to be ‘played’ factually and without racial politics, than the SS!

 

[Ianigsy]

The uniforms are slightly more appropriate for a 1940s weekend than a Class 20 hauling Mark 1s!

There seems to be something more to this than meets the eye- they weren’t just asked to leave the railway, they were basically run out of Sheringham. It’s interesting that attitudes seem to have hardened just as the generation that experienced the war are leaving us for good- you would probably need to be over 80 to have any meaningful memory of the wartime experience and nearly 95 to have seen active service.

Incidentally, one of the reasons for the Epoch/Era system in railway modelling was that the 1930s in Germany is an interesting era with the likes of the Flying Hamburger and streamlined pacifics alongside 19th century designs, but it was difficult for modellers to say that they modelled that era without the wrong conclusions being drawn.

 

[Titfield]

…I nearly postscripted my post with - ‘I’m not saying the Wehrmacht were clean/angels.’

I’m well aware they aren’t ‘clean,’ the entire war in the East was racial in nature. Equally, no nation in the war fought it morally, it’s quite a hard thing to if we’re being honest and realistic.

I think my point stands however, that it’s much more convincing for the ordinary Wehrmacht to be ‘played’ factually and without racial politics, than the SS!

Yes agreed.

It is an incredibly difficult and emotive subject to discuss and therefore perhaps best not discussed.

 

[Gloster]

As far as Sheringham is concerned, I think that I read somewhere that it is not just a railway event, but seems to involve a lot of the town as well.

I have a feeling that changing attitudes are because those who were alive in the war generally wanted to put it behind them once it was over. Even those who had a ‘good war’ knew that for just about everybody it was a period of disruption, separation, discomfort, fear, pain and misery. The weren’t interested in reviving it. However, with World War II having got onto the curriculum and the thousands of books, films, magazines, comics, etc. that have appeared, it becomes a subject of easily accessible interest to people who were too young to have had that experience. However, there are those who just do not understand the nature of evil and that for most people there are some things that just go too far.

 

[Calthrop]

Incidentally, one of the reasons for the Epoch/Era system in railway modelling was that the 1930s in Germany is an interesting era with the likes of the Flying Hamburger and streamlined pacifics alongside 19th century designs, but it was difficult for modellers to say that they modelled that era without the wrong conclusions being drawn.

I recall seeing at a model railway exhibition long ago, what struck me as an exquisite "cameo" or much-in-little, modelled scene -- essentially of a narrow-gauge station in Germany, many decades back from that date: if I remember rightly, loco on featured train was a double Fairlie, as in fact existed on one metre-gauge line in the Saxony region -- one such loco, I believe, still extant (static museum situation). The model featured as a "period" touch re, presumably, circa 1930: an election poster, I think, extolling the claims of the Nazi party. I was torn between feeling, "an authentic touch which we could maybe do without"; and "why not? A delectable scene in its own right -- it's not compulsory to set it in an alternative-history scenario in which all is sweetness and light".

 

[Flying Phil]

As Gloster has said, the Sherringham event was actually more the whole town rather than the NNR. However the point is well made that many HRs have staged such events over the years and included German Army re enactors. I think it is the current events in Ukraine which now highlights the ambiguity of celebrating/remembering the 1939 - 45 war years. In the recent past, many believed that war in Europe was in the past (Accepting the Cold War/MAD but kept well to the back of the mind) but now we have another war in Europe and it is in the news daily.
It may well be that HR's will be having 50's and 60's revivals rather than 40's.

 

[LJA]

He said they had been dressed as fighters against Communist Russia

says it all that they think this is some kind of justification - did they forget Russia was on our side?

Or is it ok because they were dressing as the eastern front soldiers who exterminated millions rather than those on the western front who may have faced the grandparents of the residents of Sheringham on the battlefield.

These events aren’t battle re-enactments, there’s no need for nazi dress up

 

[uglymonkey]

This is crazy, the adverts on this page ate now advertising nazi uniforms!!!!

 

[yoyothehobo]

It staggers me this.

Its not like you trip going out of your house one morning and accidentally find yourself dressed as the SS.

There are many decisions to be made and do you think they ever thought, "is this appropriate".

A WW2 "nostalgia" weekend (not really nostalgia as fewer and fewer people who lived through WW2 are there to remember it). If you are going to recreate the WW2 atmosphere of the UK, you dont need SS uniformed people walking about and anyone who gets a kick out of wearing the SS uniform seriously needs to give their head a wobble.

 

[Ashley Hill]

I find the report in the OP very bizarre. That they were escorted away for their own safety and yet does not mention what danger they were in. They were then escorted out of town by marshals,sounds very spaghetti Western. Excellent reporting.
Some people like dressing up,whether it’s Trekkies dressed as Klingons or American civil war re-enactors or staff at heritage railways. Just because someone chooses to dress as German soldiers doesn’t mean they are right wing sympathisers,perhaps they just wish to portray the opposite side. Perhaps it’s a “what if “ scenario they wish to portray.
As I said above the railway I volunteer on used to have them during war weekends. We had no trouble,indeed the banter between them and the British was at times quite humorous as most of them knew each other anyway.

 

[SargeNpton]

Er, well...

Leader of 'Sheringham SS' pictured performing Nazi salute at Hitler's Alpine retreat

The leader of a group who caused outrage at Sheringham's 1940s weekend by dressing up as the SS has been photographed performing a Nazi salute near…

www.greatyarmouthmercury.co.uk

The leader of a group who caused outrage at Sheringham's 1940s weekend by dressing up as the SS has been photographed performing a Nazi salute near Adolf Hitler's summer retreat in the Bavarian Alps.

Jim Keeling, 53, shared the images, as well as anti-Semitic tropes, on a now-deleted social media account.

He told this newspaper that he had been mocking the Nazi dictator by saluting and does not share his views.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Well clearly they didn’t help themselves in this case .