Identity?

[J. Penn]

I see that reenacting groups carry and even in some cases require soldbuch and other forms of identification.

Whose name goes in these documents? Do re-enactors use the names of actual soldiers who served? Or do they give themselves suitable names of their own choosing?

Just curious.

[Unki Hans]

Hi J. Penn,
Our reenacting unit has a plan implimented for this situation. First we "Germanize" your name (if needed), then we take all of your "real life" data, (age, profession, family, etc.) and take it all back to a war time date. We use mid '43 as the refference point. For example, I am 46 years old now. In '43 I would still be 46, but my date of birth would be 1897. We create a first person identity to use in our living history presentations based upon the details of our own lives. This keeps it easy to remember when conversing with the public. You suppliment the info by picking a town in Germany to "be from", on where your unit would have drawn its recruits from. After we create this period persona, we enter it all into the Soldbuch. Thats how we do it. Hope this helps.
Unki Hans

[Leibstandarte_reenactor]

my "alter ego" name is Hans Georg Schultz i have a soldbuch and all fictional date of birth, city, its quite neat.

[J. Penn]

Interesting, it sounds like fun to make up a role that is historically sensible yet still familiar to the role-player. One would think that with the exacting attention to detail paid to reenacting that reenactors would have to try to recreate the exact lives of the actual soldiers who fought!

[Leibstandarte_reenactor]

that is what makes it great, the "living History" part of it, camping living just like they did

[Unki Hans]

The use of the identity of an actual participant of the period strikes me as sort of intrusive on the man and his family, and shows a lack of respect to the real man. Better that we as reenactors use our own identity as a base from which to craft our first person impressions. For me, what I do in my portrayal is ment to honor the veterens, so I choose this method to do so.

[Germania]

I agree with Unki Hans

[Leibstandarte_reenactor]

The use of the identity of an actual participant of the period strikes me as sort of intrusive on the man and his family, and shows a lack of respect to the real man. Better that we as reenactors use our own identity as a base from which to craft our first person impressions. For me, what I do in my portrayal is ment to honor the veterens, so I choose this method to do so.

my name is totaly fictious as far as i know, maybe there was a soldat names Has Georg Schultz somewhere but i did not base my name off of a real man.

[Germania]

The use of the identity of an actual participant of the period strikes me as sort of intrusive on the man and his family, and shows a lack of respect to the real man. Better that we as reenactors use our own identity as a base from which to craft our first person impressions. For me, what I do in my portrayal is ment to honor the veterens, so I choose this method to do so.

my name is totaly fictious as far as i know, maybe there was a soldat names Has Georg Schultz somewhere but i did not base my name off of a real man.

But why you don´t use your own name? Is it an ugly name?

[Leibstandarte_reenactor]

my real name is Craig Schultz not a german sounding name, my grandfathers name is Hans and his brothers is Georg so thats where i get mine from

[Germania]

Okay this is understandable and acceptable because it has an real and familar background!