This story is predicated on people's historical ignorance...
Waffen-SS reenactors
Sorry, but these d-bags playing soldier are going for something very specific in reenaacting the Waffen-SS.
Not the Wehrmacht, mind you -- that is, the standard German Army. But, rather, the Waffen-SS, who were the fullest expression of Nazi ideological aims. Hitler was displeased with his dependence on the Wehrmacht in WWII, and, particularly with the reluctance and political unreliability of the German generals -- he wanted soldiers who were politicized, fully Nazified, and willing to carry out the atrocities required of them without question.
What he'd originally relied upon was the Wehrmacht to conquer an area, and then the SS would come in behind the regular army and start butchering civilians. And sometimes the SS would cross paths with the Wehrmacht. Hitler and Himmler crafted the Waffen-SS (literally, "Weapon SS") as the ultimate Nazi soldier -- and that's the important distinction: not every soldier in the German Army was a committed Nazi -- and that was the "problem" in Hitler's view: he wanted a whole army of fucking Nazis, and the Waffen-SS served that role.
So, these paramilitary goons who play "Waffen-SS" aren't just innocent history buffs; they are creeps who actually fondly want to play Nazi in a way that they can get away with, so they come in under the war reenactment aegis as a cover for this clear fondness for Nazism. The Waffen-SS weren't better soldiers than the Wehrmacht, the professional class of soldiers -- they were more prone to fighting to the death and to committing war crimes, but, again, it's because of they were political soldiers and weapon-toting goons who were put in that role because they were hitmen for Hitler. Basically, death squads writ large. They were never part of the professional German Army, and Hitler wanted them to remain independent of them because he wanted them to remain "politically pure." They were responsible for any number of massacres and war crimes during WWII. That these creeps in this country are reenacting battles as Waffen-SS men is disgusting.
But then, these are the same brand of creepos who are fond of doing Civil War reenactments, likely wishing everybody could be on the side of Confederacy! I highly doubt these same freaks do Red Army reenactments, even though there were plenty of battles where the Red Army routed their beloved Nazis. No, these guys are very specifically honoring a criminal, politicized, blood-soaked, and disgraced paramilitary army, and are, thereby, disgracing themselves in the process.
Oh, and I'm sure they play innocent and claim that they're only "honoring" the conscript-dominated Waffen-SS of 1943 and beyond, but I highly doubt that. The whole organization was a criminal enterprise, the warhammer of Nazi Germany.
