Last weekend the Germans staked out Middle Tennessee. The Waffen-SS unit, Adolf Hitler’s feared and elite fighting force, camped out for two nights at nearby Cedars of Lebanon State Park. According to intelligence reports, they wore distinctive Waffen attire that included field-gray wool and camouflage parkas and helmet covers. Sightings also had them armed with high-power bolt action rifles, some automatic weapons, and a few plastic explosives.

OK, those guys weren’t real Germans, but German SS reenactors. When they shot, they fired blanks. And they participated in a field training exercise with 20 or so cadets from MTSU’s ROTC Forest Raider unit. So no, we’re not breaking any bad news here—World War II is still over.

But there are a growing number of people in Middle Tennessee who fight to keep the memories of that epic war alive. They are World War II reenactors, and they restage key battles and military themes of the bloody conflict. They wear intricate reproductions of war uniforms and weapons, ride in vintage military vehicles, and choose sides. In fact, in local parks, forests, and fairgrounds, you’ll find G.I. and Russian reenactors and even reenactors mimicking the struggle of the French Resistance—all waging tactical contests and gamely recreating actual World War II battles. They’re not as prominent as their Civil War counterparts—a continual sore spot for some of them—but they’re an emerging contingency nonetheless.

Because someone has to play the bad guy, many reenactors choose to join the Wehrmacht, or German, ground troops. That’s not normally met with too much controversy. In fact, in the Deep South, it can be more difficult recruiting Union reenactors than German soldiers.

But few reenactors face the kind of social stigma suffered by those who join the infamous Waffen-SS. Considered to be the best of the best of Hitler’s ground troops—a dubious distinction if there ever was one—the Waffen-SS had special weapons, uniforms, privileges, and, most of all, expectations. At the end of the war, it had 600,000 soldiers in its ranks. The Waffen-SS was part of the Nazi party and was more ideologically driven than the Wehrmacht.

For obvious reasons, MTSU’s ROTC commanders were a little sensitive when asked why their cadets were fighting a group of Nazi reenactors. In fact, they say, the SS reenactors form a very disciplined fighting force and make good training partners. Beyond that, they say, the reenactors admire the SS’s military organization, but don’t promulgate Nazi or Neo-Nazi propaganda.

“The Waffen-SS was an enemy of the United States during World War II,” says a matter-of-fact Maj. Jeff Bonner, an assistant professor of military science at MTSU and an advisor to the Forest Raiders, a small, tactical unit of the school’s ROTC program. “There are people here locally who have formed an organization who have utilized the Waffen-SS’s training techniques for recreational purposes,” Bonner says. “They are not trying to honor or glorify the political entity known as the SS. This is purely out of respect for their military organization.”

Bonner adds, “They are extremely sensitive” to the perception that they subscribe to a Nazi belief system.

A representative of the local SS reenactors did not return repeated calls, but other World War II reenactors support Bonner’s contention that the SS guys are in it for fun and history—not the Nazi ideology of white supremacy. The same way actors such as Dennis Hopper relish playing the bad guy, some reenactors enjoy taking the wrong side of a conflict.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find any Neo-Nazi among the reenactors,” says Mike Ezell, a Russian reenactor. “And the ones that are there don’t last long. Just about everyone hates them as badly as the real Nazis.”

Blake Wylie fights as a reenactor for the German infantry. He says that while there may be a perception that the SS reenactors hold the same set of Nazi ideals as the originals, it’s not accurate. “I intentionally chose not to go with the SS because there is more of a stigma with the SS than the regular German army,” he says. “That stigma is not necessarily deserved, but it’s out there.”

Still, a few reenactors grumble that while SS guys may not adhere to the insidious ideology that led to mass extermination of Jews and the deadliest war in the history of human civilization, they nevertheless reflect that less-than-congenial Nazi personality. As an example, rival reenactors note that their SS counterparts often refuse to play dead when they’re shot during tactical contests.

Many reenactments are not staged. Some are competitive affairs featuring ambushes, reconnaissance missions, and pretend casualties. Those reenactments follow the honor code to help determine which side has inflicted more damage. The Web site reenactor.net advises participants to “take a hit when you think you might have been hit.” But according to rival reenactors, the SS guys don’t always play by those rules.

“There is no bullet big enough to kill an SS reenactor,” says a frequent observer who did not want to be identified. “They are all bulletproof.”

Partisan bickering aside, the reenactment community is rather tight-knit. According to participants, most of the reenactors are—surprise—conservative white males with an affinity for guns. However, they are no more to the right of the political center than the members of a Hillsboro/West End book club might be to the left.

And while there are some reenactors who might lose perspective about what they do, that happens to all kinds of hobbyists—whether they’re train enthusiasts or triathletes. In fact, most reenactors say they simply hope to take people, dates, and events from the dry and dusty pages of history books and translate them into living and breathing events replete with real characters and context. History should not belong to the teachers, they might say, or for that matter, to Tom Brokaw.

“A lot of people think we’re a bunch of right-wing nuts, but we’re not,” Wylie says. “We just want to keep remembering history and the people who fought and died on both sides.”

Interestingly, the Civil War and World War II reenactors form entirely different subcultures. Civil war reenactors are typically more prominent among the general public than their World War II comrades. They’re featured at fairs, town celebrations, and school events. In Tennessee especially, their reenactments often make for more entertaining public displays, given that the Blue and the Gray often fought in close proximity and that many decisive battles happened in the Volunteer State.

World War II reenactors choose a stage that is often hidden from the public eye. That makes them, they claim, motivated more by the intrinsic pleasure of mimicking history than by playing soldier in front of their Uncle Curtis.

Joe Cooper, who is a Metro Police officer by day and has fought both as a Civil War and World War II reenactor, says that the latter group is a little more sophisticated.

“Some Civil War reenactors come across as rednecks,” Cooper says. “The World War II reenactors are a more subdued group. You have doctors, lawyers, and professors. You don’t feel embarrassed about bringing your family around them.”

Cooper, who served in the National Guard, stresses that reenactors are not forming an underground militia and often have no formal military training. Still, many do understand battlefield tactics and are well trained. Which brings us back to the Battle of Lebanon.

Maj. Bonner says that his cadets learned to be better soldiers fighting against the SS reenactors. “We wanted to work with this particular group of Waffen-SS reenactors because they are very disciplined and they know how to respect our training goals,” he says.

Overall, Bonner reports that the cadets learned from the exercise—which is the primary point, given that these young men and women are charged with ensuring that another World War is never reenacted on the global stage.

It’s not clear, however, how worthy a foe the SS reenactors were. Last weekend’s field training exercise was cut short a day. While Bonner would not comment on why, one source says the reenactors were not prepared for last weekend’s unseasonably chilly weather, in which temperatures dipped into the lower 30s. So the Führer’s most prized fighting squad decided to pack their gear and retreat home. Good thing for them, it’s impossible to reenact a Russian winter here in Middle Tennessee.