Confederates on the Rhine

Why are so many Germans participating in Civil War reenactments—and siding with the South?

"On a warm spring morning about 50 miles north of Berlin, Union troops and their Confederate rivals prepare for battle." That's the attention-grabbing lede of a PRI story on the bizarre phenomenon of Germans reenacting the American Civil War. The reporter explains that many participants feel "a personal connection to the war," and that everyone with whom she spoke took care to note that 200,000 Germans had taken part in the fight:

After World War II, any talk of military glory became socially taboo here...So for those at the reenactment, it is appealing that the U.S. Civil War took place in another country, in another time. It is safer, even romantic.

But the two parties to the fraternal conflict exert unequal appeal. When Germans gather at the reenactments, "more people want to be on the Confederate side." That produces a surreal spectacle. Germans marching about in butternut and gray, pretending to dwell in Dixie. With Teutonic precision, they have replicated every detail, down to the brass buttons and the brightly colored piping on their trousers.

Yes, the Seven Weeks War and the Franco-Prussian War would seem to carry little negative baggage today. The Dual Empire is ,unfortunately vanished, and the Second Empire is equally defunct. In the Wars of German Unification Prussia was very much seen by those on the left and right as a ‘progressive, modernizing ‘ state. Interestingly Prussia and the US had very good relations during this period and France was seen , with some justification, as a threat to US republican institutions. The French adventure in setting up a puppet ‘empire’ in Mexico certainly was a direct challenge to the Monroe Doctrine as well as being supportive of the CSA. During the 1870 war a number of US Army officers were attached as observers to the Prussian armies and MG Phil Sheridan was Bismarck's personnel guest at the Royal Headquarters during the critical stage of the war. Phil Sheridan recounted his experiences with great relish in the second volume of his memoirs.And last but not least, overwhelmingly Germans fought on the Union side. There were a variety of reasons, a lot of ‘Red 48ers’ emigrated to the US after the failure of the leftist wave of revolutions. They were ideological recruits. A substantial German emigration had begun to the US as early as the 1820’s when the formation of the Evangelical Church produced a rupture in many congregations of Pietist Protestants and led to immigration to the US to worship as they liked. Most of these people ended up in Ill and Wisconsin. Finally, during the war US agents recruited Germans and other Europeans by the boatload to serve in the Union Army. It was one way of filling the ranks and later a way to depress the actual number of men drafted.

In the seceded states and the border states allegiances were divided. In Missouri away from the large German population of St Louis most Germans favored the Union. Disunion was seen as leading to the political fragmentation that had made Germany a perpetual battlefield and the resort of a mass of parasitic petty nobility. On the frontier in Texas the German communities in places like Fredericksburg pretty much seceded from the Confederacy. The US Army was seen as the protector of the settlements from raiding Indians and secession removed this protection. For four years these towns lived like independent city states and formed their own home guard and negotiated with the local Indians to enlist them sin keeping distant raiders away.

In long settled areas such as North Carolina where there were significant German and Swiss-German communities there was pretty universal support of the CSA. In Charleston one of the three or four actually complete militia artillery units ‘The Charleston German Artillery Company’ took part in four years of operations starting with the firing on Ft Sumter and they were considered one of the premier artillery units in the Confederate forces.

There are even stranger sightings of the CSA battle flag. A decade and a half ago when the Sudan Civil War was at its height a high ranking state department emissary visiting the South Sudan secession forces as part of an ongoing attempt to work out some modus vivendi between the two halves was jolted to find the heavily armed guard of honor drawn up on the tarmac at the airport to be carrying Confederate battle flags. Before he had digested this interesting item the band assembled near the plane struck up the fast beat version of ‘Dixie’ which was played as he reviewed the honor party. Subsequent questioning led to being told that some of the south Sudan rebels had gone to some black evangelical colleges in the deep south and had some knowledge of the CW/WBTS. Further they had witnessed SCV members in Confederate uniforms parading to the strains of Dixie and the Bonny Blue Flag of Confederate Memorial Day. Since these fellows were southern Sudanese and were in rebellion against the central government and wanted their own nation it seemed appropriate to incorporate the regalia of another earlier group of southern rebels. Slavery wasn't a big issue to these folks either as it was practiced throughout the Sudan. The South Sudan rebels thought that slavery in their area was much more humane and civilized as they were virtually all Bible reading Christians , than in the North, the land Islamic Fundamentalism.

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