Wehrmacht on the Interstate

[beamjockey]

Coming home from Musecon Sunday night on Interstate 88, I was startled to find a large tractor-trailer in front of me, burdened with two sinister brown shapes.



It dawned on me that not only did I recognize those shapes-- a World War II German Army halftrack and a tank destroyer-- but that I had met them before.



Here I am, in 2008, standing in front of the Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer. It belongs to the Illinois re-enactment group known as the 2nd Panzer Division, which operates a number of German military vehicles.

Behind the Hetzer is the SdKfz (Sonderkraftfahrzeug but nobody spells it out) 251/1 halftrack. Actually this started life as a postwar model-- the Czech army continued to produce and operate this design as the OT 810-- but it has been modified to resemble its German ancestor.

I was surprised that both heavy vehicles (17 tons for the Hezer, 8 tons for the 251) are carried on a single transporter. I suppose their owner was bringing them home from some re-enactment outing.

Comments

[lonotter.livejournal.com]

I'm uncomfortable broad-brushing them all as Nazi reenactors. From my contact with some of them as a vendor at one of the early Reenactor Fests, most definitely did not agree with Nazi ideologies. However, they did have reasons that they wanted to portray Wermacht/Luftwaffe staff/soldiers.

For instance, Rommel was a brilliant tactician, so some people would want to portray a member of his Afrika Korps.

As jeffreyab kinda approached below, reenacting is more fun if there's somebody to play with/against.

My family likes to build 1/35-scale armor models, and most of the ones on our shelves are WWII-era German equipment. Does that mean I'm a Nazi modeller? Does the guy that thinks German equipment of that era is fascinating, collects it, and takes it to reenactments while dressing in a uniform to fit in with his equipment is a Nazi?

I hate Nazis and Neo-Nazis, but there's a difference between Nazis and the vast majority of these reenactors - yeah, there's probably a few suffering from cranial-rectal inversion, but I'd say the same for the guys playing the Allies.

[brooksmoses]

There are perspectives from which that is very similar to the distinction between being sexist and making sexist jokes -- is what matters the person's beliefs, or the end result? The end result is certainly that things closely tied to the Nazi ideology are being celebrated.

I think that how problematic this is depends on how close one considers that tie between the equipment and the ideology of its users to be, and I think that varies widely for different people with different backgrounds.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

As a boy I made a model Spitfire, Hurricane, Mosquito, Wellington... and Messerschmitt Bf 109 and 262. So, Nazi re-enactor.

Elsewhere I just saw someone make a joke about the extras in Gone With The Wind: "If we'd had that many soldiers in real life, we'd have won!" That's where I draw the line, referring to the Third Reich as "we".