Germans get the re-enactment
spirit,
set up Civil War camp at Würzburg
By Richelle Turner
Collins, Würzburg bureau
Richelle Turner Collins / Stars and
Stripes
Knut Ohmann, a Civil War re-enactor, takes a coffee break. He is one of about 25
re-enactors who trained at Leighton Barracks. The men learned how guard duty and first-aid
were performed during the American Civil War. |
WURZBURG, Germany — They came from Berlin, Frankfurt, Würzburg and Great Britain.
The men, 25 in all, gathered Friday on a field of grass at Leighton Barracks, behind
the 1st Infantry Division Museum. They weren’t part of an exhibit, but they could
have been.
They wear the battle rattle of a foregone era — sabers, muzzle loading rifles and
blue wool uniforms.
Not one of them is an American. And the Civil War ended more than 130 years ago. But
these Europeans went back in history at their annual camp-out and training session.
"What we are doing here this weekend is something like refreshing the
knowledge," organizer Peter Schneider of Berlin said Friday. "We will do some
training on Civil War tactics."
The men are officers from the Federal Battalion of Germany, a group of about 180
re-enactors whose hobby is the Civil War.
About 200,000 native Germans or people of German descent fought in the Civil War,
Schneider said. There were even some German units that spoke no English.
"Some came from poverty in Europe," Schneider said. "They had the hope
to start a new life. One big motivation for Germans was to give something back to the
nation that welcomed them when they had to leave Germany."
Schneider said many others joined the war because of what they saw as the oppression of
blacks.
"You find a lot of proud regimental histories from all the States," Scheider
said. "Only very few [Germans] fought for the Confederacy."
Schneider first became interested in the Civil War in 1966. He was interested in
military history, but said he didn’t want to get involved in something from German
military history. He decided to put his emphasis on the American Civil War.
In Würzburg, the re-enactors did it the way it was done more than 130 years ago. They
read from the same field training manuals. They gave the orders the same way former
leaders did.
Richelle Turner Collins / Stars and Stripes
Bernd Seyfried was one of about 25 American Civil War re-enactors camping out at Leighton
Barracks. Colleagues say Seyfried is a walking drill manual because of his extensive
knowlege of Civil War training manuals. |
Schneider, the unit’s executive officer, jokes that his colleague, Bernd Seyfried,
is a walking drill manual.
"I fear him because he always corrects me," Schneider jokes.
Seyfried, wearing a Civil War era uniform, glasses and toting his weapon, says manuals
are guidelines to use "so you can practice and look at how it works."
Seyfried, who lives near Frankfurt, participated in his first re-enactment in 1985.
Schneider has even traveled to Georgia to re-enact a battle there.
He was there for the 120th anniversary of one battle. He remembers that it rained so
much, making everything muddy. "You could cut it with scissors, he said of the rain.
The next day of the event it was extremely hot.
But the weather wasn’t like that this weekend. The men had nice cool weather on
Friday, and Saturday was partly cloudy with some chances of showers.
The only enemy here to battle was the occasional bug that flew by.
The campsite smelled of fresh brewed coffee. The men cooked it in authentic looking
coffee pots — over an open fire. They sipped it from the same type of cups that would
have been used by Union soldiers.
Nearby, white tents sat on the grass, blending in with the museum’s tanks and
armored vehicles that decorate the field.
For a few days at least, the men were living a part of American military history.
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