“There is a lot of baggage in doing a German impression,” he said. Reenactors call this an “impression,” and usually they have clothing and gear for several different impressions. Like many WWII reenactors, sometimes he plays an Allied soldier, though usually he plays a German lieutenant. German paramedics shoot the breeze with Allied war correspondents.įornell, for years, has been a lead organizer of World War II Days, and was briefly president of the World War II Historical Reenactment Society, which has 1,200 members, primarily in the Midwest. A man playing a Nazi officer with a German shepherd - its mouth clamped tight behind a metal muzzle - walks by two women cosplaying as Andrews Sisters. A child in a Nazi uniform clearly too big for him suggested the desperation of a losing side. But people do need to eat and the Axis side had taco and barbecue vendors, so period Jeeps full of American soldiers rolled slowly past the enemy and stopped for plates of Al pastor. On one end was an Allied camp with soldiers on the other, this Axis occupation. Most of the reenactment sprawled across the land behind the museum, mingled in among the faux-historic structures. The field hospital over there, the guy who pays salaries over there, the guy who tends to horses (played by real horses), the cobbler who actually repairs the boots of Axis reenactors. “The idea is we’re in a French village, and we have taken it over and this is German division headquarters,” he said, pointing out the extent of the occupation. Though it wasn’t intended, his 5 o’clock shadow and dark eyes suggested tired days of battle. Dave Fornell of Elgin, scarily convincing in a green wool German lieutenant uniform and cap, adorned with the swastikas and eagles and insignia of the Nazi military, sat on the porch of the Axis-occupied headquarters and surveyed the fields in front of him. They take fidelity to their roles very seriously, obsessively so. This was such a good question I returned to World War II Days earlier this fall to ask German reenactors why - particularly in an age of Proud Boys, resurgent white nationalism and fascism-friendly populists - are you still playing a Nazi? Wait, so they have Nazis? Who would play a Nazi? They were sincere, thoughtful and knowledgeable. Ask about their “role in the war” and prepare to be there a while. It gets too heated, they would say, a surreal point coming from someone in a Nazi uniform. In fact, they didn’t want to talk politics. Then they would add they are red-blooded Americans, with no sympathy for Nazis or fascist ideology. Many said they wanted to use reenacting to ensure “nothing like this” takes place again. Some chose the German side to better understand the German side. Some mentioned they had family who fought in the German army (though many more said they had family who fought for the Allies). They also played Nazis because they thought the costumes were cooler, the equipment and vehicles more interesting - many compared it to being a child and how it’s always more fun to play Darth Vader than a humble Jedi. They were also here as educators, as amateur historians. “It’s a costume, man,” one guy in an SS uniform told me. They were playing schmucks, the lowest of the low, conscripted men who feared what would happen to their families if Hitler won and they had avoided service. Whenever I would ask anyone portraying a German soldier at Rockford’s annual World War II Days about why they had chosen to reenact a soldier on the Axis side of the war, eventually, almost to the person, after offering many different reasons, they would adopt a sheepish grin and say:īesides, they would usually add, they were not playing the bad Germans.
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