Gebirgsjäger - "A lttle less Nazi"?

[supermario]

I'll add my piece to this, even though i don't reenact German (Although i do chose to do Mountain troops of an allied nation)

Gebirgsjager is attractive. Its been mentioned before, but influences like the Airfix 1/32 scale toy soldiers certainly steered me towards liking German things. The caps looked so smart, and every sunday afternoon, we were spoonfed war films showing Germans in coalscuttle helmets. Thats why GJ and to a point DAK looked so attractive to the younger mind. Better looking uniforms.

For me, Gebirgsjager aren't so much 'Less Nazi', but rather 'less offensive' in the eyes of the uneducated public. Truth be told, none of us had a Waffen SS action man, and Airfix or Matchbox never made SS toy soldiers. I personally think that we were conditioned to think of units like GJ and DAK as less offensive, by the model makers and Hollywood. Lets face it, 'Where eagles dare' is still a great film, and the fact that the cast wear the uniform of GJ throughout makes it more palatible for those members of public who visit the show (I wonder how many times MOP mention WED to GJ reenactors???). All i remember of being a child is having a plastic MP40, wearing as much grey as possible and getting my mum to make me a GJ looking cap so i could play war in the woods with the rest of my school mates, and that was ok.

If you think what a MOP see's at shows, you get a derft of Infantry, all with belts and y straps, bread bags and a mass of K98's and MP40's. Without meaning to sound disrespectful, it all looks the same, Odal rune or not. What GJ has is different. Windcheater smocks, Alpenpacks, Alpen stocks, Ice picks, Ski's, snow shoes, the whole caboodle. Its a draw to the public. They recognise its different, and the fact that the gebigmutze is worn by most GJ reenactors is also different (M43 Feldmutze or not, they see the camo first). Its just my opinion, as an outsider to the mass of German Reenactment, but i hope it adds to this nice discussion.

Neil