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Merged Teabagger Candidate Rich Iott is into Nazi Cosplay

The Wiking website never said that. This is a perfect example of people quote mining the text on the website and then twisting it around to bolster their points.

Did you read the quotes I just posted, directly from Iott?

"I think that they thought they were fighting for their homeland," Iott said. When pressed further, he replied: "I don't think we can sit here and judge that today. We weren't there the time they made those decisions."

You agree with him that we can't judge joining the Waffen SS and committing war crimes?
 
No matter how unsavory the Nazi government was, the front-line soldiers of the Waffen-SS (in particular the foreign volunteers) gave their lives for their loved ones and a basic desire to be free.

Yeah, you know something canis? I'm going to agree with you that this is probably something of a softpedal.
 
If he really was a Nazi, we would know. These people don't tend to be subtle about it. Ask MaGZ.
 
If he really was a Nazi, we would know. These people don't tend to be subtle about it. Ask MaGZ.

I don't think he's a Nazi. I think he's an idiot.

I think the whole bunch of them are so caught up in their dumbass fantasy that they are intentionally not looking at what the subjects of their emulation actually got up to.

I think this ends up in the tortured apologetics that came out in Unabogie's quote.

I also think that if you get so caught up in your fantasies that you end up apologizing for Nazis, what you need is one hell of a reality check, not election to public office.
 
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Some of those eastern european countries had suffered brutal abuses by the communists and as unlikely as it sounds, looked on the nazis as liberators. What might be such a person's reactions if he witnessed his fellows commiting war crimes? What sort of person is he if he looks the other way? What if he knows that there will be reprisals against him if he makes waves? Is fear of being "fragged" enough to justify silence? It is an interesting scenario to me. I am not sure that I can say what I would do in that situation.

Indeed. My estonian grandfather and all other able-bodied men were given a deadline after the Germans scared the Russians out: join by this date or you will be conscripted.

The day before the deadline he volunteered, ended up in the SS - and from what little we know passed the war working on an airfield. Of course I am prepared to discover different but need access to files and papers before I can really trace my grandfather's path. As of right now I am not even sure what unit he was in.

What I do know is those that didn't volunteer were put into the meat-grinder of the infantry - and as we all know being an infantryman in the Eastern Front was not a good recipe for longevity.

Perhaps its my family's personal history with the Germans - and the Russians - that has me seeing a lot of grey in these issues (and I'm not talking about uniform colour). I've read thousands and thousands of pages on the war in the Eastern Front over the past years and this has added to the nuance. Should we be sure to stand against anyone apologizing for or minimizing the crimes of the Nazis and the Stalinists? Surely.

But sometimes I think the bogeyman of the Nazis - well-deserved reputation though it is - causes us to lose sight of the humanity of those individuals caught up in the wheels of history at that time. And I think there is some room for us to find that humanity as long as we're careful to ensure it doesn't absolve people of responsibility. We can look to explain - not excuse - can't we?

That branch of my family has roots in Finland and Estonia - both countries who suffered greatly under the heels of the Russians before the war. What would any of us had done in that position and in that context?

In any event, the debate in this thread has been interesting and while I think there is room to humanize the Nazi soldier and the Stalinist machine by looking at their component parts I am not entirely sure this group of Nazi re-enactors are doing this with the proper care and attention. It does seem to me like they could be taking the humanizing thing too far and minimizing the crimes of the Nazis in their re-enactments. There does seem to be a kind of fetishization of the Nazis at play here.

That being said, I abhor absolutism and I think there are plenty of ways to make mistakes in going the other way (being so anti-Nazi we forget the fact that millions of people can't be so easily categorized/dismissed).
 
Did you read the quotes I just posted, directly from Iott?

"I think that they thought they were fighting for their homeland," Iott said. When pressed further, he replied: "I don't think we can sit here and judge that today. We weren't there the time they made those decisions."

You agree with him that we can't judge joining the Waffen SS and committing war crimes?

I am discussing the website for this history group, which you quoted.

As for what Mr. Iott said, I can't completely disagree with him, even if it opens me up for personnal attacks.

I can't say what it was like to be a norweigian national looking down the barrel of a communist eourpe back then. With hindsight, it is obviously a very bad moral choice to join with the nazis. I am not sure that I would have realized it back then in 1940's norway. Remember, the world did not find out about most of these attrocities until much later.

I think when studying history, we do have to look beyond our own knowledge of how things turned out when judging people's actions.

That said, I am fully willing to judg those that committed or was complicit in war crimes of any sort. They knew that was wrong at the time, obviously.
 
Yeah, you know something canis? I'm going to agree with you that this is probably something of a softpedal.

LOL! Ok, I can appreciate a well crafted zinger, even when I am the target. :D

Is that all you have to say about my post, though? Did nothing else I said even make you consider the question in a different light? I will feel it was very much a failure if not.
 
Indeed. My estonian grandfather and all other able-bodied men were given a deadline after the Germans scared the Russians out: join by this date or you will be conscripted.

The day before the deadline he volunteered, ended up in the SS - and from what little we know passed the war working on an airfield. Of course I am prepared to discover different but need access to files and papers before I can really trace my grandfather's path. As of right now I am not even sure what unit he was in.

What I do know is those that didn't volunteer were put into the meat-grinder of the infantry - and as we all know being an infantryman in the Eastern Front was not a good recipe for longevity.

Perhaps its my family's personal history with the Germans - and the Russians - that has me seeing a lot of grey in these issues (and I'm not talking about uniform colour). I've read thousands and thousands of pages on the war in the Eastern Front over the past years and this has added to the nuance. Should we be sure to stand against anyone apologizing for or minimizing the crimes of the Nazis and the Stalinists? Surely.

But sometimes I think the bogeyman of the Nazis - well-deserved reputation though it is - causes us to lose sight of the humanity of those individuals caught up in the wheels of history at that time. And I think there is some room for us to find that humanity as long as we're careful to ensure it doesn't absolve people of responsibility. We can look to explain - not excuse - can't we?

That branch of my family has roots in Finland and Estonia - both countries who suffered greatly under the heels of the Russians before the war. What would any of us had done in that position and in that context?

In any event, the debate in this thread has been interesting and while I think there is room to humanize the Nazi soldier and the Stalinist machine by looking at their component parts I am not entirely sure this group of Nazi re-enactors are doing this with the proper care and attention. It does seem to me like they could be taking the humanizing thing too far and minimizing the crimes of the Nazis in their re-enactments. There does seem to be a kind of fetishization of the Nazis at play here.

That being said, I abhor absolutism and I think there are plenty of ways to make mistakes in going the other way (being so anti-Nazi we forget the fact that millions of people can't be so easily categorized/dismissed).

Well said pinko. ;)
 
LOL! Ok, I can appreciate a well crafted zinger, even when I am the target. :D

Is that all you have to say about my post, though? Did nothing else I said even make you consider the question in a different light? I will feel it was very much a failure if not.

Well not really, because you're doing the thing again where you're countering positions I don't hold and haven't argued. I've got nothing against the majority of the WWII German soldiery. You get called up to fight, you fight.

On an individual level, I can even see mitigating circumstances in units that end up committing war crimes. Does the prison camp guard conspire to help prisoners escape and risk getting shot himself, or does he perpetuate the atrocity, or does he desert and risk being hung?

But none of that is at issue in this case, because the problem is that they don't address this issue. They put the problem at the ideological level, at the party level, and they remove it from the people that they're actually emulating. They don't mention the war crimes, so they don't deal with how the morality plays out.

In fact, as Unaboogie's quote shows, Iott wants to dodge any moral judgements on them. And this is a group that committed warcrimes.

If you've got a historical accuracy fetish down to the authenticity of the belts and canteens you're using, you can expect the lack of mention that their ultra-authentic genuine Mark II Panzerhauser bayonets were used to stab prisoners to death will draw some criticism. Especially when you retreat to moral relativism when questioned.
 
I don't think he's a Nazi. I think he's an idiot.

I think the whole bunch of them are so caught up in their dumbass fantasy that they are intentionally not looking at what the subjects of their emulation actually got up to.

I think this ends up in the tortured apologetics that came out in Unabogie's quote.

I also think that if you get so caught up in your fantasies that you end up apologizing for Nazis, what you need is one hell of a reality check, not election to public office.

I guess this is aimed at me. Let me say that I am not apologizing for nazis. That is as cheap as your zinger was well crafted. :(

So, If I understand you correctly, you do not think Mr. Iott or this wiking group are really nazis, but rather you do think they are not harsh enough when talking about nazis on their website?

Well, I don't disagree. :jaw-dropp

These guys are obviously not nazis, but they need to make that more clear, and in a way that the average peron can understand it.

They could be a lot plainer in what they say, harsher on the nazis, and give a better more detailed explanation about why they feel these foriegn volounteers are not as dispicable as everyone else thinks they should be. If they were better historians, we would not be discussing this, I bet.

Holy crap, did we just agree?
 
I think he dodges the question because he's put on the spot to explain a mere hobby of his.

If you were in his shoes, do you think you could say something to the effect of "Nazism is bad, the war crimes people in the unit committed are bad, but we're interested in the average soldier's life apart from the politics and goals of the war."

Hell, even if he could manage "Nazis were bad" he wouldn't look like such a stumblebum.
 
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I guess this is aimed at me

No, it really wasn't. "The whole bunch of them" referred to Iott's reenactors group. Unless you are a part of that group, in which case may I suggest updating your website and holding a team meeting to clear up a few things.

I'm sorry for the miscommunication.
 
Indeed obtuse :p

Heh. I had originally done a "think quick, you're playing a confederate. A reporter asks you if slavery is bad. What do you say?"

It gets the point across but I didn't feel like running down that confederate soldiers were largely not slaveowners, were largely fighting for feeling of southern identity, etc. etc.
 
I don't think he's a Nazi. I think he's an idiot.

I think the whole bunch of them are so caught up in their dumbass fantasy that they are intentionally not looking at what the subjects of their emulation actually got up to.


And for that I would cut him a little slack, and save my energies to attack actual Nazi sympathisers.
 
And for that I would cut him a little slack, and save my energies to attack actual Nazi sympathisers.

If he wasn't running for office, I wouldn't even mention it. But as I said before, if you end up apologizing for Nazis, you need a reality check, not an election victory.
 
Well not really, because you're doing the thing again where you're countering positions I don't hold and haven't argued. I've got nothing against the majority of the WWII German soldiery. You get called up to fight, you fight.

On an individual level, I can even see mitigating circumstances in units that end up committing war crimes. Does the prison camp guard conspire to help prisoners escape and risk getting shot himself, or does he perpetuate the atrocity, or does he desert and risk being hung?

But none of that is at issue in this case, because the problem is that they don't address this issue. They put the problem at the ideological level, at the party level, and they remove it from the people that they're actually emulating. They don't mention the war crimes, so they don't deal with how the morality plays out.

In fact, as Unaboogie's quote shows, Iott wants to dodge any moral judgements on them. And this is a group that committed warcrimes.

If you've got a historical accuracy fetish down to the authenticity of the belts and canteens you're using, you can expect the lack of mention that their ultra-authentic genuine Mark II Panzerhauser bayonets were used to stab prisoners to death will draw some criticism. Especially when you retreat to moral relativism when questioned.

OK, so I addressed some issues that you were not bringing up. Fair enough. keep in mind I am engaging with multable people here, and the post was addressed primarily towards Unaboogie. Still i am disapointed there was nothing in there that you found thought provoking.

Mr. Iott's statement may indee be an attemppt on his part to weasal out of his responsability for crimes committed while reenacting WWII battles, but it is not totally without merit.

It is easy enough to sling around words like "apologetics," but you are now seem to be arguing that each and every ss soldier was exactly as culpable as the next one for all war crimes committed. I just don't see things in such a black & white manner.

So you are seriously suggesting that at each and every WWII recreation, the recreators should be standing up and reciting the atrocities of the unit they are portraying?
 
OK, so I addressed some issues that you were not bringing up. Fair enough. keep in mind I am engaging with multable people here, and the post was addressed primarily towards Unaboogie. Still i am disapointed there was nothing in there that you found thought provoking.

Mr. Iott's statement may indee be an attemppt on his part to weasal out of his responsability for crimes committed while reenacting WWII battles, but it is not totally without merit.

It is easy enough to sling around words like "apologetics," but you are now seem to be arguing that each and every ss soldier was exactly as culpable as the next one for all war crimes committed. I just don't see things in such a black & white manner.

So you are seriously suggesting that at each and every WWII recreation, the recreators should be standing up and reciting the atrocities of the unit they are portraying?

I could be mistaken, but I don't think they're pretending to be specific named soldiers from the unit, so I think we have to stay at the Wiking SS level of responsiblity.

I also think it would be plenty sufficient for a historical reenactment group to include the full history on of the website instead of just the shiny heroic version and be willing to make a moral judgement/statement about the group's actions when asked.
 
I could be mistaken, but I don't think they're pretending to be specific named soldiers from the unit, so I think we have to stay at the Wiking SS level of responsiblity.

I also think it would be plenty sufficient for a historical reenactment group to include the full history on of the website instead of just the shiny heroic version and be willing to make a moral judgement/statement about the group's actions when asked.

No, I didn't mean to say they were portraying specific soldiers, so "wiking ss" responsability, as you say.

That division does have a relaitively light level of responsability. UGH! Now I do feel like a nazi apologist. :( I meant light compared to say, the totenkopf division. i am sure it was not light to thise that suffered at their hands.

I wonder if the average wiking ss soldier was a monster or an honorable combatant? I suddenly feel I have hit the edge of my WWII knowledge.



Again, fair enough & reasonable.

What were we disagreeing over? :)
 
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