Tea Party Favorite Fetishizes Waffen-SS

[Lenin II]

http://theredphoenix.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/reenactorfest_sized.jpg

Yeah, We Didn’t See This One Coming…

The Tea Klux Klan is at it again. Rich Iott, “the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio’s 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite” (1) has spent the last few years wearing the uniform of a German Waffen-SS officer and participating in Nazi re-enactments. The Atlantic originally ran the story, complete with a full spread of color photos featuring the GOP candidate in the uniform of the elite Nazi unit. It was revealed that “Iott, whose district lies in Northwest Ohio, was involved with a group that calls itself Wiking, whose members are devoted to re-enacting the exploits of an actual Nazi division, the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, which fought mainly on the Eastern Front during World War II” (1).

Congressional Candidate’s Group Openly Hails Nazi Forces

The following quote saluting the fascist armed forces of Nazi Germany appeared on the group’s website:


Nazi Germany had no problem in recruiting the multitudes of volunteers willing to lay down their lives to ensure a ‘New and Free Europe’, free of the threat of Communism. National Socialism was seen by many in Holland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and other eastern European and Balkan countries as the protector of personal freedom and their very way of life, despite the true underlying totalitarian (and quite twisted, in most cases) nature of the movement. Regardless, thousands upon thousands of valiant men died defending their respective countries in the name of a better tomorrow. We salute these idealists; 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 [emphasis added].

Iott is a member of the Ohio Military Reserve and noted in the article, “I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that here was a relatively small country that from a strictly military point of view accomplished incredible things. I mean, they took over most of Europe and Russia, and it really took the combined effort of the free world to defeat them. From a purely historical military point of view, that’s incredible” (1). However, if one reads the above statement one can see far more than simply “historical” or “military” fascination with the Nazis. Instead the support of their policies and world outlook is palpable.

Notice that the Tea Party candidate barely makes any references whatsoever to the atrocities committed by the Nazis during on the Eastern Front, and instead chooses to openly praise the violent and cruel anti-communism of the SS, which culminated historically in the slaughter of over 20 million Soviet citizens and 5-7 million Red Army soldiers, among other war crimes committed in Europe. In fact, the Tea Partier outright says in the interview that “the group chose the Wiking division in part because it fought on the Eastern Front, mainly against the Russian Army, and not U.S. or British soldiers” (1).

In addition, the Wikin group’s website contains “a lengthy history of the Wiking unit, a recruitment video, and footage of goose-stepping German soldiers marching in the Warsaw victory parade after Poland fell in 1939 [emphasis added]” (1).

Its no coincidence that the crypto-fascist Tea Party is fetishizing an anti-communist military regimen that butchered millions of Jews, Slavs, Poles, Soviet citizens, Serbs, Roma, homosexuals, dissenting clergy and those with physical or mental disabilities during the Second World War. The Tea Party has not done a very good job of hiding their own innate racist viewpoints when it comes to immigrants and ethnic minorities in the United States, nor have they hidden their connection with actual fascist and racist organizations.

Original Article:

1) http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/why-is-this-gop-house-candidate-dressed-as-a-nazi/64319/



http://theredphoenix.wordpress.com/2010/10/09/tea-party-favorite-fetishizes-waffen-ss/

[Animal Farm Pig]

Some people get their fun from dressing up and playing Army. They re-enact battles from various conflicts. For there to be a battle, somebody has to play the bad guy. Cops vs robbers doesn't work unless someone is willing to play the cop. Likewise for Nazis vs Soviets.

This story is just political games. It is as relevant as the story about that one candidate who may have smoked marijuana in 1976, and the rumors about that other candidate who some people say is a lesbian.

We should be against the Tea Party for their reactionary policies, not stupid distractions like this.

[ContrarianLemming]

You know I can play as the Taliban in one of my video games

am I fethishizing them?

please, get real, this is a WW 2 reinactment, it's fun, you can play as the NAzi's in video games, that doesn't mean much.

[Rjevan]

This isn't simply about a WW2 reenactment and they also don't just play army, the play a very specific division of the Waffen-SS. Did you read the group's statement? I sure hope that not everybody who plays Nazis in video games views them that way and gives "justifications" like this. They jump on the favourite Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS apologist train, all too common here in Germany. It goes like this: "Well, sure, the Nazi government, the brown fat cats, they were scum, haha, but yeah, the ordinary troops, the average soldiers who selflessly gave their lives for their beloved fatherland and people - they were fucking heroes and I won't tolerate anybody speaking bad about them. Sieg Heil!" All this talk about heroic patriots viewing the Nazis as their only bulwark against the Judeo-Bolshevik cancer and voluntarily signing up to defend freedom and human rights in (Nazi) Europe against the horrors of communism - usually this suggests a bit more than mere historical interest and same goes for this group. So much for this "argumentation", btw:


The actual Wiking unit has a history as grisly as that of other Nazi divisions. In her book "The Death Marches of Hungarian Jews Through Austria in the Spring of 1945," Eleonore Lappin, the noted Austrian historian, writes that soldiers from the Wiking division were involved in the killing of Hungarian Jews in March and April 1945, before surrendering to American forces in Austria.


We should be against the Tea Party for their reactionary policies
I think this says very much about the people the Tea Party movement attracts and upholds, and revealing that a politician is a Waffen-SS sympathizer can hardly be compared to somebody smoking pot or being homosexual.

[Lenin II]

Apparently a lot of people didn't even read the article or the comments this GOP candidate's group made praising the SS and the anti-communist fighters on the side of the Axis.

Should've looked before you leapt.

[NecroCommie]

Having done a deal of re-enactent myself, and some US imperialist re-enactent too, I can say that while a good portion of participants take it apolitically, the hobby also attracts those who just take it as an excuse to fantasize about killing people. The connection between nazi re-enactment and tea partying really isn't a long shot, but it's still just a hypothesis.

[The Douche]

I have a friend who reenacts waffen SS, he was married to a non-white girl, and has a ethnicly mixed child. Is he a nazi? His unit's website probably has a disclaimer about honoring the everyday soldiers and not the politcs of nazism as well.

I have reenacted both the Union and the Confederacy of the US civil war, does that mean I support both abolition and slavery?:rolleyes:

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

I have a friend who reenacts waffen SS, he was married to a non-white girl, and has a ethnicly mixed child. Is he a nazi? His unit's website probably has a disclaimer about honoring the everyday soldiers and not the politcs of nazism as well.

I have reenacted both the Union and the Confederacy of the US civil war, does that mean I support both abolition and slavery?:rolleyes:

You didn't read the article. There is nothing wrong with Reanactment (politics wise), however this prick went on to praise there anti-communism and 'defence of freedom'.

[The Douche]

I did read it, hence my comment about "honoring the everyday soldiers".

My interpretation was that the guy thinks its a good thing that these men loved their country and decided to fight for it against communism. That is not the same as supporting nazism as a political movement. Though it does a have a myriad of other problems.

[pranabjyoti]

You know I can play as the Taliban in one of my video games

am I fethishizing them?

please, get real, this is a WW 2 reinactment, it's fun, you can play as the NAzi's in video games, that doesn't mean much.
The difference is when you play Taliban, you will certainly be harassed or perhaps arrested by FBI. But none have even proposed the arrest of those who are championing SS, in short the Nazi ideology. More comically, no trot or some kind of "leftists" there to protest against the glorification of bloody, monstrous regime of Hitler while they are too much enthusiastic about protesting and denouncing another "bloody, monstrous regime". Perhaps to them, both are equal (very much like the imperialist propaganda).

[The Douche]

Maybe nobody reenacts the taliban cause its current and not historical?

There is no glorification of nazism in those statements that I see. Glorification of nationalism, anti-communism, imperialism, and war? Yeah. But national socialism? No.

[Obs]

I, as well, see no problem in routinely emulating mass murderers.

[The Douche]

I, as well, see no problem in routinely emulating mass murderers.

Yeah, Tom Cruise, obvious nazi, for playing one in a movie.

[IndependentCitizen]

Has anyone read the statement made about anti-communism? Defending their actions against Communism is just as bad as defending any action the SS took.

[The Douche]

Has anyone read the statement made about anti-communism? Defending their actions against Communism is just as bad as defending any action the SS took.

"Fighting against communism is honorable and worthy of praise" is not the same as "National Socialism is a good political ideology which we should apply".

Is it bad to glorify people for fighting against communism? Yeah. Is it the same as being a nazi? Get real...

[Tatarin]

The Tea Party will probably dissolve on the day when they realize the scene wasn't a re-enactment.

[Nolan]

"Fighting against communism is honorable and worthy of praise" is not the same as "National Socialism is a good political ideology which we should apply".

Is it bad to glorify people for fighting against communism? Yeah. Is it the same as being a nazi? Get real...

"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"

They're praising the SS, not just the everyday soldiers.

[Rjevan]

I have reenacted both the Union and the Confederacy of the US civil war, does that mean I support both abolition and slavery?
That's not comparable, it might be if you reenacted solely the Confederacy, making statements glorifying the "brave and heroic men" who fought under the banner of the south to protect their country, freedom and human rights against the barbarian hordes of the Union. But there'd still be a difference.


"Fighting against communism is honorable and worthy of praise" is not the same as "National Socialism is a good political ideology which we should apply".
They make no critical comments on the actions of the Waffen-SS in general or this unit specifically, on the contrary, they state that fighting communism under the banner of the Waffen-SS is something being worthy of praise because it's a partiotic fight for freedom. Wouldn't have exactly reached that conclusion, Waffen-SS and freedom...

Also, we're at the same point as I already mentioned again, seeing the troops of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS (!) as independent from the nazi leaders. They didn't went out to fight communism in the name of "western democracy" or anything comparable, they joined the elite troops of the nazi party, which openly propagated that their goal is to extinguish the Jews, Slavs and Bolsheviks.


Is it bad to glorify people for fighting against communism?
Is it bad to glorify people of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, responsible for several war crimes as killings of (Jewish) civilians, fighting the "threat of Judeo-Bolshevism" and the "subhuman slavs" under the banner of National Socialism and equate this with love for one's country for freedom? Hell yes!!!

[Ocean Seal]

Glenn Beck go home, and seriously America if you don't see that Nazism and Socialism are polar opposites then there is something wrong.

[Jimmie Higgins]

http://theredphoenix.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/reenactorfest_sized.jpg

1. The sad thing is that people do this with the Civil War all the time. So dressing up and paying tribute to generals who wasted the lives of men to preserve Slavery is a "weekend hobby" and considered "normal".

2. I wonder if these guys were really delighted by the photos of Sandra Bullock's husband's mistress?

3. Why hasn't the Mel Gibson photo like this appeared... it's gotta be out there somewhere!

4. I want to see Glenn Beck explain this one and how fascists and communists (and Obama and the Democrats) are all the same thing again. Imagine if there was a photo of any Democrat out there wearing a USSR uniform and how Glenn Beck would react to that.

5. "Have you looked at our caps? I mean, they have skulls on them. Are we... are we the baddies?"

[The Douche]

I dunno, maybe you just have to be from a backwards conservative town in the US to understand this, but I can totally see how these guys could not be racist or nazis in any way. (or maybe they are, I wouldn't know, but I do know the reenacting a nazi doesn't make you a nazi)

[Kiev Communard]

Nothing unusual. Ukrainian right-wing liberals (whose economic policies are quite close to U.S. Tea Party) also love to fetishize "freedom fighters" of Nachtigal and other pro-Nazi para-military troops of WW II, claiming that they "fought against Bolshevik totalitarianism".

[RED DAVE]

I dunno, maybe you just have to be from a backwards conservative town in the US to understand this, but I can totally see how these guys could not be racist or nazis in any way. (or maybe they are, I wouldn't know, but I do know the reenacting a nazi doesn't make you a nazi)Playing at being nazis, consciously or unconsciously, is serious shit. It's not like choosing up sides in a basketball game, skins against shirts.

Anyone who fucks with nazi stuff in any way, from "backwards conservative town in the US" or anywhere else is automatically guilty until proven innocent of harboring nazi-style beliefs. There is no neutrality when it comes to nazis.

The teabaggers are already establishing links with the right in the UK, which has a fascist background, so this doesn't surprise me. The racism and antisemitism of the right always surfaces sooner or later. Even in "respectable" right-wingers and so-called libertarians, it's there.

RED DAVE

[The Douche]

Playing at being nazis, consciously or unconsciously, is serious shit. It's not like choosing up sides in a basketball game, skins against shirts.

Anyone who fucks with nazi stuff in any way, from "backwards conservative town in the US" or anywhere else is automatically guilty until proven innocent of harboring nazi-style beliefs. There is no neutrality when it comes to nazis.

The teabaggers are already establishing links with the right in the UK, which has a fascist background, so this doesn't surprise me. The racism and antisemitism of the right always surfaces sooner or later. Even in "respectable" right-wingers and so-called libertarians, it's there.

RED DAVE

Ok man, I dunno what the point of this arguement is. Is tom cruise a nazi? I mean he did play one in a movie right? So that means he "fucks with it".

If you wanna attack the tea party and this dude, then attack him for his actual politics, not some picture of him in a historical reenactment, fuck, have some principles, this is why people laugh at the left.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Ok man, I dunno what the point of this arguement is. Is tom cruise a nazi? I mean he did play one in a movie right? So that means he "fucks with it".

If you wanna attack the tea party and this dude, then attack him for his actual politics, not some picture of him in a historical reenactment, fuck, have some principles, this is why people laugh at the left.If it was just the costume... maybe. But the fact that they are revising the history of the WWII from the perspective of the NAZI party is pretty fucking crazy. It's one thing to say, hey we were just playing cops and robbers and someone has to be the baddie, it's another to say, NAZIs may have done some messed up things, but their hearts were in the right place because they were just trying to defend Germany and stop the left! That's a bullshit line - even the mainstream of the bourgeois doesn't see it that way (other than the industrialists in the US at the time who actually supported the NAZIs because they were fascist sympathizers - but then again, what does that make thise make-believe-fascists? NAZI sympathizers!).

They are making the same argument about WWII that NAZI propaganda made at that time to justify their repression, war, and ultimately attempted genocide. To sat they were misguided but their project is valid is to defend the NAZIs and their goals. It's like what the racist right has done with the US civil war - they want to say it's about "state's rights" in the abstract rather than what it really was: "state's right" (or that of their ruling class and plantation owners) to own slaves and maintain that system.

[The Douche]

If it was just the costume... maybe. But the fact that they are revising the history of the WWII from the perspective of the NAZI party is pretty fucking crazy. It's one thing to say, hey we were just playing cops and robbers and someone has to be the baddie, it's another to say, NAZIs may have done some messed up things, but their hearts were in the right place because they were just trying to defend Germany and stop the left! That's a bullshit line - even the mainstream of the bourgeois doesn't see it that way (other than the industrialists in the US at the time who actually supported the NAZIs because they were fascist sympathizers - but then again, what does that make thise make-believe-fascists? NAZI sympathizers!).

They are making the same argument about WWII that NAZI propaganda made at that time to justify their repression, war, and ultimately attempted genocide. To sat they were misguided but their project is valid is to defend the NAZIs and their goals. It's like what the racist right has done with the US civil war - they want to say it's about "state's rights" in the abstract rather than what it really was: "state's right" (or that of their ruling class and plantation owners) to own slaves and maintain that system.

But where is the supposed justification of National Socialism as a political ideology, not an (obviously flawed) defense of german soldiers?

[Jimmie Higgins]

But where is the supposed justification of National Socialism as a political ideology, not an (obviously flawed) defense of german soldiers?


National Socialism was seen by many in Holland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and other eastern European and Balkan countries as the protector of personal freedom and their very way of life, despite the true underlying totalitarian (and quite twisted, in most cases) nature of the movement.That is de-facto support of the NAZIs. They are essentially argueing that the NAZI's means were wrong but their ends were good. In fact you can not separate the two - their means were vile because their ends were vile, you can not smash working class resistance in Germany without scapegoating and thuggery/intimidation in the streets. You can not be an imperialist country without much in the way of an empire without attacking other imperialists to take their empire. To claim that the NAZIs were simply acting in self-defense is a total re-write of even the bourgoise version of history.

[RED DAVE]

Ok man, I dunno what the point of this arguement is. Is tom cruise a nazi? I mean he did play one in a movie right? So that means he "fucks with it".No. It means he played a nazi in an anti-nazi film.


If you wanna attack the tea party and this dude, then attack him for his actual politics, not some picture of him in a historical reenactment, fuck, have some principles, this is why people laugh at the left.His "actual politics" seem to involve fun and games as make-believe nazi.

I have principles. People laugh at the left because some people who consider themselves leftists don't.

By the way, the particular Waffen-SS group that this swine like to dress up and play was probably the group the killed 1/3 of my family. I have zero tolerance for nazis, nazi games, etc.

RED DAVE

[The Douche]

That is de-facto support of the NAZIs. They are essentially argueing that the NAZI's means were wrong but their ends were good. In fact you can not separate the two - their means were vile because their ends were vile, you can not smash working class resistance in Germany without scapegoating and thuggery/intimidation in the streets. You can not be an imperialist country without much in the way of an empire without attacking other imperialists to take their empire. To claim that the NAZIs were simply acting in self-defense is a total re-write of even the bourgoise version of history.

Well with the emphasis yes, it does look like an apology for NS. So in this case, perhaps there is some sympathy for the ideology, and not just a desire to portray a historical military organization.


By the way, the particular Waffen-SS group that this swine like to dress up and play was probably the group the killed 1/3 of my family. I have zero tolerance for nazis, nazi games, etc.


This obviously makes a difference. And while I disagree with you (there is nothing wrong with historical reenactment, if thats all it is) I can understand where you're coming from, given the circumstances.

[Nuvem]

This has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE RE-ENACTMENT. You're making all of your points based around the re-enactment, but that has less than nothing to do with this. The point is that he is SAYING with words and not implying through re-enactment that the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-Schutstaffeln should be honored and glorified for KILLING COMMUNISTS, ignoring the millions of Jews, Roma, Poles, homosexuals, cripples etc. who were rounded up and exterminated by the Einsatzgruppen.

Allow me to reiterate; he is claiming through implication that the Nazi regime was preferable to rule by the Soviets and therefore that Fascism is preferable to Communism (not meant to spark a debate over whether or not the USSR was socialist or not, it's about his conceptions and not ours). He is claiming, essentially, that the deaths of millions of Red Army men and women and 20,000,000 Russian civilians was worth it just because they were Reds and that the men who killed them, Fascists (especially in the case of the SS, who were never conscripted but had to pass loyalty tests and exams on Fascist policy and philosophy), were heroes and should be lamented.

[The Douche]

Cool necro job bro.

[Imposter Marxist]

This is not an old thread. Perhaps you're upset that you're getting called out for not understanding a subject that you were arguing about.

[The Douche]

The last post before yours was 5 days ago, thats kind of old, and speaking of that last post before yours, maybe you should read it. Fuckface.

[Lenin II]

This is not an old thread. Perhaps you're upset that you're getting called out for not understanding a subject that you were arguing about.

Quoted for truth.


Anyway, what I had wanted was a discussion about what this means for the potential empowerment of fascism in the USA in light of the Tea Klux Klan, SB1070 and the crisis. There seems to a rise in reaction globally, with more bourgeois states becoming desperate and aggressive.

It's left me wondering if fascism will come from an outright coup by Tea Fascists or if they can obtain power through the ballot box and the bourgeois will surrender voluntarily like they did in occupied European states during WWII.

Any thoughts on that?

[The Douche]

I'm not upset about shit, moron. Read my fucking posts:


Well with the emphasis yes, it does look like an apology for NS. So in this case, perhaps there is some sympathy for the ideology, and not just a desire to portray a historical military organization.


As far as "fascism" coming to the states, I doubt it, not in the 1930s european style. That would involve to much government regulation of the economy for the american right to tolerate.

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

I'm not upset about shit, moron. Read my fucking posts:




As far as "fascism" coming to the states, I doubt it, not in the 1930s european style. That would involve to much government regulation of the economy for the american right to tolerate.

Actually it tended towards co-opting independent industries into the M-I complex, as in america. Hinkel, Focke-Wulf, and Heckler & Kock were not nationalized.

[Adil3tr]

This is an example of how people look at the nazis in a "scholarly" manner which i think comes from capitalists trying to ignore that the fascists were capitalist reaction. This guy said "Germany did amazing things from a military standpoint," people separate the military buildup from the murder of unions and enslavement of the German people.

[Reznov]

This is an example of how people look at the nazis in a "scholarly" manner .

Who are these people you speak of?

And wouldn't we be guilty of the same thing as looking at the Soviets as well?

[Adil3tr]

Who are these people you speak of?

And wouldn't we be guilty of the same thing as looking at the Soviets as well?
Ummm... read the rest of the post. And not really. The soviets weren't quite so murder-six-million-jews-for-no-reasony

[Reznov]

Ummm... read the rest of the post. And not really. The soviets weren't quite so murder-six-million-jews-for-no-reasony

Yeah, who cares about the Holodomor. That had a reason.

[L.A.P.]

Nazi Germany had no problem in recruiting the multitudes of volunteers willing to lay down their lives to ensure a ‘New and Free Europe’, free of the threat of Communism.

I heard a communist on Youtube once imply that conservatives secretly approve of the Nazis fight against the Soviet Union and I guess he was right. In regards to the people saying this is just people playing war well I would agree with that if any of the people part of this group actually played a Jew or Soviet and not a Nazi.

[Nuvem]

Yeah, who cares about the Holodomor. That had a reason.

I say this as a staunch anti-Stalinist. The famine was not an intentional act. Though it was the worst in Ukraine, it affected all parts of Russia to a greater or lesser degree. It was the fault of Stalin and his economic planners for rushing collectivization and industrialization, but famine was never the goal. The idea that it was intentional genocide is a claim perpetuated by Ukrainian Nationalists and anti-Communists.


On April 28, 2010, the Council of Europe stated that Stalin's regime was guilty of the Holodomor famine that killed millions in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, but that it cannot be classified as an act of genocide because it did not target the Ukrainian people specifically.

I agree with the above statement.

Back to the topic at hand, however, I think it's glaringly obvious that the modern "Neo-Conservative", for all their talk of democracy and freedom, is little more than a Nationalist who would gladly support unapologetic authoritarian dictatorship if it meant fighting Leftists of any tendency or extremity. The Anglo-Saxon majority in America's politics have no problem inflicting brutal oppression on the people of Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa and are guilty in total of more offenses, deaths and overall crimes than the Nazi regime was during its relatively brief existence. The offenses are simply not so racially focused and not nearly so concentrated.