Paper short abstract:

The first reenactment of a US Civil War battle in Germany took place in 1985 on the Baumholder military training ground. We use interviews and archival sources to document the event. We argue it was foundational in bringing the counter-curational practice of reenactment to Germany.

Paper long abstract:

The reenactment of past events by laypersons constitutes a major counter-curational practice within public history. The first reenactment of a US Civil War battle in Germany took place in 1985 in Rhineland-Palatinate. As it was not open to the public, accessible archival materials have been limited, and research into reenactments in Germany has so far not addressed this event.

The Baumholder reenactment, we argue, is foundational to the development of reenactment culture and therefore its thriving as a counter-curational practice in Germany, as it was connected with the founding of an influential organization dedicated to the promotion of Civil War reenactments in the Federal Republic. While the reenactment itself drew protagonists from all walks of life, its immediate contemporary contextualization was as part of a resurgent national socialism, organized in so-called “Wehrsportgruppen” that engaged in acting out potential future wars and committed terrorist acts.

This paper is based on our original archival research and two long-form interviews conducted with protagonists of the Baumholder reenactment. It draws from heretofore unavailable primary sources as well as articles published in niche magazines and short notices in local newspapers. We analyze these interviews in connection with the Cold War context, the specificities of German memorial practices, and with a type of post-war masculinity prevalent in West German society in the 1980s.

This undergirds our conclusion that reenacting the American Civil War provided an outlet to Germans intent on experiencing a nostalgic military homosociality otherwise disparaged in German public discourse.