Triad of Resistance, Defeat, and Reconciliation: The production of historical meaning in the performances of Czech military reenactment through the example of Estonian SS units
Abstract
This study explores several military reenactor performances through the optics of reenactment studies after the affective turn and post-positivist oral history. These are co-organized or independently produced by a Czech military history reenactment club, which is specific for its unique affectivity, experience, and production of historical meaning.
In action and film reenactment performances, which we refer to as The West, The March, and Division 45, the reenactors focus on the reconstruction of the final phase of the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian) combat journey in the Czech lands in May 1945. In doing so, they produce meanings that conflict with contemporary Czech military culture and official memory, but they avoid historical revisionism.
In this sense, the reenactor performances touch upon, among other things, the still highly conflicting local issues of the politics of memory - the so-called crimes of the victors of the summer of 1945, especially the crimes committed against prisoners of war of various types of the German armed forces, subjected to highly inhumane treatment. Until now, these crimes have been debated in the Czech historical community more or less only in relation to German civilians.