Elite Reenacting Units

[DennyB]

Forgive me if this subject has already been covered but a long time pet peeve of mine has been the amount of elite units portrayed in reenacting. Waffen SS and fallshirmjager units outnumber the amount of regular generic German Army units perhaps 5 to 1. I don't think thatGrossDeutschland could be considered a generic unit. On the American side it is airborne and Rangers, with British they seem a bit heavy on SAS and other more elite units.
I started reenacting in 1983 with American Civil War and then it was always lop-sided with everyone wanting to do Confederate. I have been to reenactments on the original battlefields where it was a Union victory in 1863 but due to the vast amount of Confederates vs very few Union, they actually changed the outcome so the Confederates would win! Talk about revisionist history.
I began doing WW2 in 1986 and at that time there were no Heer units near where I was living, to do German I had to join one of the 3 Waffen SS units available within driving distance. I haven't done much reenacting in the past few years due to work and getting too old but I have always kept an eye on things and I see that things really haven't changed that much in the last 20 years as far as this subject goes. Several other improvements have been made, the availability of uniforms and equipment, websites, forums, etc but the elite units still are disproportionate.
I recently attended a D-Day memorial reenactment where all of the Germans opposing the beach landing were Waffen-SS, fallshirmjagers and a few gebirgsjagers, no generic Heer troops. Again, revisionist history?
In my opinion, a trully elite unit would be the one that had all of it's members completely outfitted very similarly, as is everything issued from the same depot, everyone in good physical condition, everyone being able to drill with German commands, portraying plain German infantrymen, and be uniformed and equiped to match the time frame of the battle being portrayed.
Am I wrong in my thinking here?
Denny

[Fallschirmjaeger]

Mountain troops?

I did not know that there where any german mountain troops in normandy at all?,on the FJ and waffen ss must just interest them more,but there are heer units out there too from pictures i have seen on sites on the net.I think the the FJ look the best and where elite units at those times but im biased and like them so much anyway.

[DennyB]

D-Day German troops

That was my point, from what I have read on D-Day, I haven't seen where there were any SS, fallshirmjager or mountain troops opposing the initial landings which was being depicted in the reenactment. I agree that FJ troops do look good but I thought the idea of living history was to do an historically correct impression, not a fashion show so there should have been basic German infantry at this event.
Denny

[Viktor]

Genosse,
This is that problem over here in the UK , stlll each to their own, as Red Army there is no problem, we are all Heroes.....

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Denny, what you describe has always been a problem. I have been re-enacting since 1977. I felt a lot like you and in many ways still do. I always used to moan about people doing airborne units etc, then I found out my Jeep was ex British Airborne so then I started doing that impression In my "career" I have done three units; until 1989 I did US 1st and 3rd Inf Div; then since then British A/B and since 2001 RKKA.

Cheers, Ade.

[Paul McKee]

Thanks Denny, for raising this topic. It is a big pet peeve of mine as well. I've been reenacting since 1969 (I know...old fart ) doing ACW, Span-Am, IW, WW1 and WW2. Although mainstream Civil War reenacting has changed little over the years with a plethora of Berdan's Sharpshooters, Zouaves, Iron Brigade, CS Navy, Marines, 20th Maine, etc. impressions...I am pleased that as the hobby has matured, the "progressives" and more hardcore in that area of reenacting have focused on the common soldier...almost making the portrayal of the common and mundane somewhat elite. How Zen.

I get the feeling that the elite impressions are more prevalent in WW2 reenacting nowadays...perhaps due to BOB and SPR etc. Perhaps WW2 reenacting hasn't yet matured the same as ACW reenacting with a lot of folks starting out doing that era, still full of that Hollywood glamour and Rambo attitudes?

Paul

[Huntzman]

Let me chime in as a real "newbie" to re-enacting.

Not to take away from any re-enacting units, but when I was searching for one to join here my criteria was: an established unit with structured membership and a committment to being historically accurate. I found this in a WSS Unit. Personally I want to get as much as I can out of re-enacting as I can.

My search consisted of visiting numerous unit websites, speaking / emailing re-enactors, and I also posted a thread here. Unfortunately what I found on many sites was a sense of confusion or just plain "dead links". I'm sorry, but if your website hasn't been updated since 2002 I'm not convinced your serious about your committment. Worse still is trying to "figure out where you are from" on the website. If after 15 minutes I don't know what part of the country / world you are from I'm gone. Nothing like searching through page after page to find out your in another country.

There were many days I questioned whether it was even a smart idea to get involved. My particular pet peeve: You have a unit that consists of 5 members (including yourself) and your a Generalmajor and RTK winner.....

So in the end the best fit for me was a WSS unit. Elite ? Yeah I guess so, but to me it was the unit that was the most response to my inquiries, presented a very professional appearence and was in my locality. Had a comparable Heer unit been discovered I probably would have joined them.

However I do agree with your positions thought about elite units fighting on battle fields they never originally fought on. It is problematic historically. I'm not sure how you fix that. Unless for major historical re-enactments: D-Day as an example. The organizers themselves specify what units they require. The flip-side of that is you might not get too many re-enactors for the event.

Just my .02 cents.

Andrew

[Ardennes]

The elite units have more draw - true on both sides of the conflict - perhaps its the camoflage? ...but I do think things are getting better.

Here in the great plains/midwest area we still have a renegade 11th SS unit showing up at Western Front events, but for the most part, the units have tried to be true to a time period and location. We have more Heer units developing too, including GD, 352 ID, and 2nd Panzer. The FJ impression remains a limited, smaller unit, but our guys are getting more uniform in equipment and truer in weapon use.

Allied wise, we have our share of Bandwagon O Brothers units (101AB) but we also have the 3rd ID, 2nd ID, and 4th Armored...all regular GI units.

The major problem (IMO) facing reenacting today is that there is a division developing....your are starting to see more multiple impression, lone-wolf reenactors, with so many impressions that they can't do one correctly...and the other side is the elitist reenactor that is using all the new info and reproductions to improve his impression. I believe we will start seeing new types of events with ultra strict standards - granted they'll be smaller events, but more realistic...we'll also see the "East Meets West" , "come one come all" type events become more popular for ze weekend FarbMarshall with even more lax authenticity and safety guidelines...

just my thoughts - I'll step down from the soapbox now.

Mike

[deiter]

i dont think that ss or fj units outnumber heer units.........being in IL. two major events would prove my point........lowell IN. in may and rockford IL. in sept each year...........ideally every reenactor would look the part perfectly..........but how many young men are fiorst of all interested in WWII and would be willing to shell out 1000.00 to 1500.00 for a good impression?......if the d-day event you are referring to was in evansville in..........the event was farbtastic........i will never attend the event again.........i did show up a with 2 other heer soldaten manning a flak gun..............my $.02

[DennyB]

SS and FJ vs Heer

Not being really active anymore I don't go to many events, haven't in quite a spell, I am gauging by the numbers of units I see listed for example on the At The Front list of units and etc. But in any case, didn't the Heer outnumber the Waffen SS about 8 to 1? Evansville was the first event of any kind that I had attended in years and I nearly vomited. I hoped that was the exception and not the rule. The only Heer troops I saw were gebirgsjagers there but I must admit I missed the flak gun although I did see the gun crew in East German camo on the hill.
I have been to Lowell a few years ago and it was well attended by Heer troops but I wondered about that since both it and Rockford are hosted by a Heer unit. Over the years it seemed like the majority of the WW2 events I have attended seemed very top-heavy with SS, even the 50th D-Day commemorative at New Orleans La in 1994 was swamped with SS.
I guess the point I am trying to make is that if someone is really committed to portraying an actual historical event, lay the vanity aside and do it correctly. To have a 300lb paratrooper or farby equipment is not doing it right and neither is having so many SS troops especially at battles where there weren't any SS. I realize that some people are fasinated with the bad boy image of the SS but from what I have seen in reenacting, most doing SS wouldn't make a pimple on a real SS man's rear.
The fact remains that the usual engagements in WW2 when Americans encountered Germans were Dog-face G.I.s vs regular German Landsers, battles such as Airborne vs Waffen SS were not all that common yet those are what seems to be mostly portrayed in reenacting. I simply don't think that this is doing history justice. Maybe I am just getting old and hard-headed.
Denny

[CWP]

I've been reenacting since 2000. I portray a regular Heer infantryman in Grenadier-Regiment (mot) 8, white piping, no camo, no cuff title... I've come to the conclusion that reenacting is more or less a farce and that WWII battles cannot be reenacted in an accurate way. No artillery, no aircraft, the sham battles happen at absurdly close range, and nobody wants to take a hit, not to mention the fact that most reenactors are too fat, and many too old for their impressions. I am getting into small, total-immersion events and away from the sham battles with the blank ammo and easter egg "grenades." Some people call this "applied archaeology." Let the 101st and the SS duke it out in their absurd war games, I don't care. I welcome the division that Mike describes. As far as I am concerned, the farby powder-burners are in a different hobby than I am.

[Bobwirtz]

I used to reenact as a Fallschirmjager many years ago. I decided to drop it in favor of collecting authentic uniforms and headgear. But to me it's always been this way: American Civil War reenactors set up and reenact a particular battle as it happened and the public is very much a part of it... as spectators and visitors to the camps. However, when we reenacted THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE at Fort Indiantown Gap, PA, it was always a tactical engagement. We didn't actually act out a battle in front of spectators. There were no spectators because we were out in the woods and fields and had umpires tell us who was dead, wounded, captured, etc. It was a tactical, not a reenactment in the strict meaning of the word. We also did living history at air shows, etc. and would dress up and lay all of our equipment out in camp to show visitors and explain to them who we were, our equipment, uniforms, etc. Sometimes we put on a small tactical for the spectators/visitors, but it was small scale and not a reenactment. How are you going to reenact THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE?

The only pet peeve I have about reenacting is the fat guys out there. If they were doing FJ, the plane would never get off the ground with their fat rearends in them. I've seen guys dressed in panzer uniforms with their bellies hanging out the bottom of the jacket. Come on... these guys couldn't get into or out of a tank to save their lives! Tape a long cardboard tube on their chest and have them pretend to BE THE TANK! Or the MOUNTAIN... nothing personal but I think if you're going to portray something, then you should be professional about it and the WWII soldier was lean, mean, fighting machine! Maybe you sign up to be one of those supply types!

Bob

[Fallschirmjaeger]

Fallschirmjäger

I recently attended a D-Day memorial reenactment where all of the Germans opposing the beach landing were Waffen-SS, fallshirmjagers and a few gebirgsjagers, no generic Heer troops. Again, revisionist history?
In my opinion, a trully elite unit would be the one that had all of it's members completely outfitted very similarly, as is everything issued from the same depot, everyone in good physical condition, everyone being able to drill with German commands, portraying plain German infantrymen, and be uniformed and equiped to match the time frame of the battle being portrayed.
Am I wrong in my thinking here?
Denny

On this one well there where many FJ units that took part in the normandy fighting like the well known 6th FJ regt 2nd,3rd,5th,6th FJ divsions and many waffen ss panzer divsions etc...Now there where more heer divisons there but these elite units did major damge on the allied units and them not being there The front i think would have been lost earlier.

The fact remains that the usual engagements in WW2 when Americans encountered Germans were Dog-face G.I.s vs regular German Landsers, battles such as Airborne vs Waffen SS were not all that common yet those are what seems to be mostly portrayed in reenacting. I simply don't think that this is doing history justice. Maybe I am just getting old and hard-headed.
Denny

Well yes most likely but the FJ for example fought from normandy landings to the surrenders in may 1945 and fought in most of the major engagements on the western,eastern and southern fronts and more like arnhem,the battle of the bulge,hurtgen forest,battles for the west and east banks of the rhine in northern germany and holland etc.. on the west.On the many battles in italy like monte cassino,the gothic lines battles etc..,the eastern battles from leningrad and all over the fronts to before berlin and the city itself and so on.But yes they where in not as many numbers as the heer,waffen sss etc..but they did there part and fought tuff fight against there oponents to the end or there surrender.

[DennyB]

I must have missed that story

I still can't find where FJs were opposing the initial landings on D-Day, that was the battle that was being portrayed, the American landings on Utah and Omaha. I see where there were several foreign conscripts mentioned, some Asiatic which led to many myths that there were Japanese fighting there but no mention of FJs on the beach.
I realize that there were FJs in every theater where the Germans were fighting but they still were not the main fighting force, it was Heer. The Heer still outnumbered the FJs and that is my point. Heer troops are vastly under-represented compared to SS and FJ in reenacting. I am not taking away from their skill and courage as fighters, just that their numbers were far fewer than the Heer.
Denny

[Bobwirtz]

Denny,

Like I posted, I've never considered WWII reenacting as historically-accurate reenacting; not like the Civil War. It was never a spectator event when I was involved.

If you want everything as historically accurate as possible, then you need to hold the D-Day event in France.

Bob