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Ohio Republican Candidate Loves To Dress As a Nazi SS Officer

10/09/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Don’t mind that the Nazis killed millions of Jews? Don’t care that they killed thousands of gays? Don’t really know that they killed hundreds of thousands of other minority groups? Well, maybe the 5th SS Wiking Panzer Division is for you- it certainly is for millionaire businessman Rich Iott who loves to get dressed up as a Nazi SS officer and reenact World War II. Of course, it would be one thing if this whole thing sounded like those who reenact the Civil War, but when you start talking about saluting the “idealists” from occupied northern Europe who saw the Third Reich as “the protector of personal freedom and their way of life,” you cross over from reenacting to sounding like a bunch of genteel skinheads who get to keep their hair.

Iott, for his part, says that this is about his love of history. He stated “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.” Um…yes, I happen to be fascinated by history too, but you do not see me dressing up like an SS officer.

He went on to say about the webpage “This page or anyone involved in its creation, or members of reenactment groups listed here, are in no way affiliated with real, radical political organizations (i.e., KKK, Aryan Nation, American Nazi Party, etc.) and do not embrace the philosophies and actions of the original NSDAP (Nazi party), and wholeheartedly condemn the atrocities which made them infamous. It’s purely historical interest in World War II.”

While many of those who reenact the Civil War may seem a bit kooky, let us remember that none of the veterans of that war, nor any of the victims of that war, are still alive the way that there are still WWII veterans still alive today, and many of the victims of the Nazi regime still live as well.

Iott is a former grocery chain owner and member of the Ohio Military Reserve. His statements also ring a bit like those of Prince Henry, grandson of World War II ambulance driver Queen Elizabeth II.

The website that promotes this whole reenactment group has sanitized the horrors of the Nazi regime and it states in its Germany history section “Germany headed a strong movement in Europe to actively campaign (politically and through warfare) against the ideals of Bolshevist Communism. This culminated in 1941, when the German armed forces were pitted against the very home of Bolshevism, Soviet Russia.” And against the United States and Great Britain as well as what remained of the French forces under the command of Charles de Gaul.

They portray the Nazis as being the stalwart defenders of the world from the evils of Communism even though the Nazis were just as bad if not worse in many ways. They stated that the Nazis were this firewall against Communism despite “the true underlying totalitarian (and quite twisted, in most cases) nature” of Naziism. They even go on to say that these Nazis were valiant men who “died defending their respective countries in the name of a better tomorrow.” Never mind that many of those who fought for the Nazis did so against their wills and in fear of being shipped off to the concentration camps- and that is if they were not executed on the spot.

While the unit’s history includes things like the Battle of Leningrad, it leaves off the war crimes that were committed. According to Wikipedia’s War Crime’s section on the unit:

Members of the division’s bakery column, led by Obersturmführer Braunnagel and Untersturmführer Kochalty, assisted Einsatzgruppe A in rounding up Ukrainian Jews. Witnesses report that the Jewish victims were forced to run a gauntlet formed by soldiers who would beat them as they passed, and when they reached the end of the gauntlet, Einsatzgruppen officers murdered them and their bodies were pushed into a bomb crater … Between 50 and 60 Jews were killed in this manner, as a part of the larger Einsatzgruppe operation which resulted in over 700 murders.

This unit was also the original unit of Dr. Josef Mengele, called the Todesengle or Angle of Death for his notorious experimentation on human subjects which undoubtably is left off the site.

One history professor stated “It is so unhistorical and so apologetic that you don’t know to what degree they’ve simply caught up innocent war memorabilia enthusiasts who love putting on uniforms.”

Of course, Iott wants the voters to give him the benefit of the doubt and disagrees with the historian stating “They have to take it in context. There’s reenactors out there who do everything. You couldn’t do Civil War re-enacting if somebody didn’t play the role of the Confederates. [This] is something that’s definitely way in the past. … [I hope voters] take it in context and see it for what it is, an interest in World War II history. And that’s strictly all.” Of course, many of those playing the Confederates also acknowledge things like the damage that slavery did and the horrors of the Civil War. Even people who go to the Society for Creative Anachronism do not pretend that the horrors of the past never happened.

Iott claims that he does this as a “father-son bonding thing.” but one has to wonder what it means for a politician to dress up like a Nazi, which the United States Army once fought bitterly to defeat.

Besides- the only Republican who seems to be able to dress up like a Nazi and get away with it is Glenn Beck.

Their recruitment video

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