Women at the front: remediating gendered notions of WWII heroism in historical re-enactment

Abstract

Historical re-enactments have become an increasingly popular topic in academic debate, as some scholars argue that re-enactments allow participants to critically investigate history and its representations. As a pastime dominated by men, most literature on war re-enactment and gender, however, has emphasized the subordinate position of women and the reproduction of conventional gender roles. This paper focuses on two European women re-enactment groups that challenge this understanding: Die Flakhelferinnen in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany and the Army Nurse Corps of the United States. Based on a visual ethnography of their Instagram combined with fieldwork in the Czech Republic and Belgium, I analyse the strategies these reenactors use in the remediation of the ‘invisible’ histories of women in the armed forces during WWII. The analysis demonstrates a complex negotiation between historical notions of ‘femininity’, contemporary identities, and Instagram’s affordances in the remediation of gendered pasts.

Keywords:

• Historical re-enactment
• gender
• performance
• Instagram
• visual ethnography
• femininity
• WWII

Introduction

As a researcher, I analyse the ways in which historical reenactors experience, negotiate, and question the pasts they reconstruct within their hobby. Recently, one of my participants, a woman reenactor impersonating Die Flakhelferinnen of the German Wehrmacht in WWII, re-posted an image on her Facebook page of two women reenactors¹ covering their faces with their hands. The caption read: ‘Re-enactment women are not here for your entertainment. They are not there because their husbands/boyfriends ‘let them out of the house’ and they are not there for you to fetishize.’ This post, and various others on her page, often highlights the struggles women reenactors may face within this male-dominated pastime. This triggers questions about the ways women reenactors navigate prejudices that endure in popular reconstructions of war histories, specifically WWII?

War re-enactments are, like the histories they often restage, saturated by male power structures and gendered values (Filewod, 2003; Kennedy, 2004; Hunt, 2008; Davis, 2012; Gapps, 2020). As most public re-enactment events are centred on the recreation of military combat, I observed how women reenactors may find themselves ‘restricted’ in their performances: for them, partaking in battle is generally considered ‘inauthentic’ as it would not reflect the historical reality of the past.² In historical re-enactment, the perceived authenticity of one’s performance functions as a ‘status-differentiating capital’ (Braedder, 2017, 186; Gapps, 2020, 183–184). Authenticity is thus socially construed between reenactors and strongly related to questions of authority (Zurné, 2022). However, as the ‘true’ past can never be attained, re-enactment also allows participants to shape the performance of history in a dynamic and potentially democratic manner (Agnew, 2004; De Groot, 2009; Schneider, 2011).

Recent scholarship has indicated that this dominantly white, male pastime is slowly becoming more inclusive (Bates, 2016; Baraniecka-Olszweska, 2021; Tomann, 2022), allowing more women to claim agency in historical representation and remembrance. Yet, research on the construction of gender in war re-enactment is limited. Some scholars focussing on large-scale, publicly accessible events have argued that women may subscribe to essentialized gender roles reproduced within the practice (Carlà-Uhink & Fiore, 2016; Tomann, 2022). While I generally share similar observations with regard to public re-enactments in Belgium and The Netherlands, this study focuses on women reenactors who actively sought to challenge the subordination of their gender identity. These white, middle-class women often participate in their own women-exclusive re-enactment groups and are, in contrast to the commonly studied reenactors, mostly aged between 18-31. Rather than attending conventional public events, the main sites of their performances consist of privately organized gatherings or online spaces, where they use Instagram and Facebook to connect with ‘virtual communities’ of other (women) reenactors (Rheingold, 2000). As a result, the tendency to focus solely on publicly accessible ‘in situ’ performances in studies on re-enactment has produced an empirical gap with regard to alternate practices and gender expressions, nor does it corroborate the technological developments of the past decades (Yagodin, 2019).

Scholars have pointed to the pivotal role of (social) media in contemporary memory practices (Erll, 2011; Hoskins, 2017; Birkner & Donk, 2020), and this has become particularly prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic when public performances were largely prohibited. Cultural memories are the result of remediation between the individual and the collective, hereby shaping how and what is remembered in society through performative acts (Erll & Rigney, 2009: 392). As a result, the process of remediation constitutes which memories become hegemonic and which are ‘forgotten’. In the last two decades, this process has become increasingly embedded in digital networks (Hoskins, 2017). In 2021, 66.2% of the world's population³ spent an average 147 min per day on social media platforms.⁴ Such numbers illustrate that our virtual practices are intrinsically intertwined with our supposedly ‘real’ everyday lives and vice versa (Couldry, 2004; Airoldi, 2018; Barendregt, 2019). As such, processes of historical meaning-making in the digital realm can hardly be overlooked. For many women reenactors, Instagram in particular has become one of the main ways to remediate their historical ‘selves’, while simultaneously ‘sharing’ and commenting on those of others. On this photo and video-sharing platform, the image is the main signifier, and texts, in the form of captions, hashtags or comments are merely secondary (Adriaansen, 2021: 193). This requires an analytical framework that takes into account high levels of visuality. In addition, the construction of historical representations on social media platforms takes shape dialogically between users, allowing reenactors and other users to produce meaning in an interactive manner (Adriaansen, 2021). While women have historically been associated with the ‘consumption of media’ instead of the production, platforms such as Instagram may democratize the means for visual creation (Wong, 2016; Caldeira et al., 2018). However, digital technologies are not neutral in their design, as their principles and ideologies actively shape the information people can access and consume (Hutchby, 2001; Boyd, 2020). This study then aims to shed a light upon the gendered dynamics by which cultural memories are produced, distributed and consumed, whether in ‘in situ’ performances or the digital realm.

The question of how women reenactors remediate historicized gender roles online is particularly interesting in relation to WWII history. The scarcity of resources required both the Allied and Axis nations to mobilize all of society, characterizing WWII as a ‘total war’. As such, many women moved ‘forward’ into ‘naturally’ ‘masculine’ domains, including paid employment and the military, thereby challenging conventional norms with regard to the division of labour and sex (Rupp, 1978; Higonnet, 1987; Goldstein, 2002; Hagemann, 2011). To mediate this gender dilemma, the female body became a social and cultural battleground in which nationalistic and political ideologies were inscribed (McEuen, 2011; Ringel, 2020). In Nazi Germany, women’s bodies were seen as microcosms of society, and women were expected to look healthy and naturally beautiful to reflect the purity of the Aryan race (Stephenson, 1975; Rupp, 1978; Ringel, 2020). In the USA, on the other hand, women were urged to create supposedly ‘hyperfeminine’ bodies to uphold morale, as glorified in the images of desirable and angelic nurses (Delano, 2000; McEuen, 2011; Richardson, 2019). This study will therefore explore how two women re-enactment groups representing each ‘side’ of the war have appropriated these gendered histories and the opposing ‘feminine’ ideals in their on- and offline performances. I therefore ask: How do groups of women reenactors remediate gendered memories of the Allied and Axis forces in World War II and how does this pertain to historically normative notions of gender?

To explore this question, I will draw on Joan Scott's work (1984, 1986, 2010) and in particular Judith Butler’s (1990) notion that gender is a socially constructed performance that resides in repeated words, actions and behaviours. Socially gendered categories that appear ‘natural’ are thus a result of processes of constant reiteration (Butler, 1988: 526; Johnson, 2015). Yet, whereas the notion of performance may suggest agency, gender performativity is not a ‘deliberate’ act but rather a ‘constrained’ process (van der Watt, 2004): we are conditioned to enact in certain, gendered ways, and these are intrinsically linked to power differences. Notions of masculinity and femininity are thus defined in relation to one another, may change over time, and vary between various (groups of) people. Subsequently, the post-war memories that inform reenactors also involve gendered understandings about the nation, war and politics. As cultural values are both inscribed on and performed through the body, reenactors can never truly cast aside their own contemporary identities in the performance of supposedly authentic history. The practice of re-enacting may then reveal the constructed nature of gender, destabilizing what is considered authentic, historical or natural (Davis, 2012: 327; Jones, 2020: 90). This also applies to re-enactment on social media: if gender is the product of processes of (self) representation, images on Instagram do not only depict gendered memories but actively shape them, albeit confined to a specific cultural frame (De Lauretis, 1987; Caldeira et al., 2018). Drawing on feminist theory (Grosz, 1994; Bordo, 2013; Brook, 2014), this paper analyses the female body in re-enactment as a site where historical notions of ‘femininity’ and contemporary, often more fluid, understandings are forced to interact.

For this study, I draw on visual ethnography and anthropological fieldwork among two re-enactment groups performing opposing roles, namely Nazi Germany’s Flakhelfer⁵ and the United States Army Nurse Corps.⁶ The first group, Die Flakhelferinnen, portray auxiliary positions within the armed forces of Nazi Germany and is the women’s subdivision within a re-enactment group focussing on German impressions. The group is located predominantly in Belgium and consists of seven members of Belgian, Dutch, Italian and Swiss descent. Their Instagrampage @frauen.von.felix is titled after the nickname for their restored antiaircraft weapon and has 1,301 followers.⁷ The second re-enactment group, the Army Nurse Corps in WWII, is a women-exclusive re-enactment group consisting of thirteen members of Polish, Czech and French nationality, and focuses on various impressions of the United States Army Nurse Corps. Their Instagram page @armynursecorpsinww2 has 7,486 followers.⁸ Taking Instagram’s distinctive visual mode of communication into account, 248 images⁹ were analysed for this paper based on a model by Smelik et al. (1999). I additionally analysed captions, hashtags, comments, and the relation between visuals and text. However, images have no ‘fixed’ or ‘universal’ meaning and only become meaningful in the process of interpretation (Hall, 1973). I therefore draw upon Sarah Pink’s (2007, 2011) approach to (visual) ethnography and argue that acts of (self)representation and historical image-making cannot be analysed separately from the social processes in which they take shape. Hence, this study is based on participant observation as a (temporary) member of both re-enactment groups in the period 2019-2021. Whereas most studies on re-enactment tend to focus on large-scale events, my research indicates that much of the hobby is performed in ‘secluded’ gatherings where audiences and the enactment of scripted historical narratives are lacking. Training camps, patrol missions, drill practice, workshops and marches generally require membership to participate. Although public performances, and to a lesser extent private gatherings, were severely limited during the COVID-19 pandemic, I was able to participate in various multiple-day events to gain a proper understanding of the, to use Goffman’s (1959) term, ‘backstage’ of historical re-enactment. Furthermore, I draw upon five interviews with Flakhelferinnen and ten interviews with ‘nurses’ to gain insights about their motivations and experiences. I hereby aim to shed a light upon the cultural discourses that inform their (digitally mediated) performances.

In the following text, I will analyse how the women in these re-enactment groups employ various (opposing) strategies to negotiate authentic femininities concerning WWII history and how this is shaped by the online platform on which this is performed, Instagram. In the first section of this paper, I will introduce the origin of the re-enactment group Die Flakhelferinnen and the historic background of women auxiliaries in Nazi Germany. Then, I will demonstrate how these women reenactors divert from normative ideals on womanhood in the German context and adopt what are considered masculine traits to claim battlefield heroism. Next, I will introduce the second re-enactment group and describe how historically dominant imagery depicted army nurses as ‘Angels of Mercy’. I will demonstrate how these reenactors underline, negotiate and challenge this imagery by demonstrating that femininity and heroism can coexist. In the concluding remarks, I will summarize how the repeated and embodied enactments of these women reenactors constitute alternate (historicized) notions of gender and identity, yet these performances are subjected to the same hegemonic gender dynamics online, as the design of digital platforms such as Instagram tend to reflect and reinforce norms that are most prevalent in society.

Visualizing the obscure histories of German women combatants

As contemporary social practices are increasingly digitally mediated, social media also played a vital role in my own access to re-enactment communities. I learned about the existence of Die Flakhelferinnen through Instagram and used Facebook to establish our first contact. My main ‘gatekeeper’ within this group was a twenty-five-year-old woman whose interest in re-enactment started in her teenage years. Fascinated by World War II, Gemma started authoring fictional stories in which she imagined herself as a male combatant in either the German or Soviet army. She initially chose a Red Army soldier as her first ‘impression’, a term in re-enactment jargon used for the role an individual wants to portray (Daugbjerg, 2014 : 725–728). However, Gemma told me she did not get along with the Soviet re-enactment groups she met at her first re-enactment event. Despite the Red Army famously deploying women as snipers and infantry in frontline duty units,¹⁰ she did not feel comfortable within the group: ‘There was this connotation of … women are equal, but not really equal’ (Gemma, 25) [my translation].¹¹ Instead, she felt a connection with reenactors who focussed on the German Wehrmacht during WWII. When asking about the ethics of performing German impressions, Gemma emphasized how ‘ordinary’ German citizens had been required to fight for their nation, reiterating a common position in war re-enactment that the ‘average’ individual was just a pawn in a political game with ‘little interest [..] in larger ideological concerns’ (Daugbjerg, 2020: 26). Further critical probing proved to be a dead end when I argued that most Flakhelferinnen enlisted voluntarily, as Gemma claimed that she primarily joined because of ‘the atmosphere and friendship’ in the re-enactment group. Gemma was the first female member and initially decided to cross-dress, yet other members of the group disapproved, despite many of them being historically ‘inaccurate’ themselves in terms of physical appearance (wearing glasses for example or being overweight).¹² She explained: ‘It was so not done, for a reason I still don’t understand, so I had to search for something else’. Gemma described her search for a suitable ‘impression’ as a ‘personal problem,’ as ‘there are many tasks where German women had to wear skirts. I didn’t want that. I really wanted to do something active, something in which I could get dirty.’ She explained that since she did not ‘always fully feel like a woman, but neither fully like a man’ throughout her life, she persisted in wearing trousers.¹³ After doing some research, she decided to choose Flakhelferinnen as her main impression. Gemma argued that the Flakhelferinnen uniform strongly resembled the male uniform and was therefore the best ‘gender-neutral compromise’ that could blend her preferences with her historical impression.

Until this day, relatively little is known about this female subdivision of the German Wehrmacht, as Hitler opposed the conscription of women in the armed forces. Nazi propaganda included separate but complementary spheres for men and women, exemplified by the slogan Kinder, Küche, Kirche that described how motherhood was considered the feminine contribution to the German Empire (Koonz, 1987; Gupta, 1991). The German state was a hegemonic Männerbund in which a woman's main role was to guard racial purity as ‘Mother of the People’ (Rupp, 1978: 15). In the 1930s, the Nationalist Socialist regime realized more women had to be brought into the paid labour force because of economic necessity (Biddiscombe, 2011: 64). These demands were then incorporated with the normative ideals of femininity and beauty as health, exercise, and physical strength in combination with broad childbearing hips were emphasized: the ideal Nazi woman was not ‘frail and helpless’ (Von Papen, 1999; Ringel, 2020). Combat deployment of women remained long at odds with official Nationalist Socialist propaganda, although the relation between propaganda and practice proved to be paradoxical (Biddiscombe, 2011). The growing losses at the frontlines forced the German authorities to quietly advance to a new level and the recruitment of the Flakhelferinnen in particular was ‘the start of [this] slippery slope’ (Biddiscombe, 2011: 68). The Flak-Helferinnen Korps was officially established on the 16th of October 1943 and consisted mostly of volunteers, unmarried women¹⁴ aged between 18-40 years old. Their tasks were initially restricted to crewing barrage balloons, searchlights, or command posts (Williamson, 2012). Despite these women being subject to military law and military discipline, they never officially attained the status of soldiers (Hagemann, 2012: 486). How many women specifically served as Flakhelferinnen and in which conditions remains unknown, perhaps because, as ‘auxiliary’ Lena (21) explained, ‘it was not supposed to be known’. Estimates lie around 170,000 in 1944 (Pool, 2016: 186).

Some scholars have pointed out that even in the twenty-first century, imagery of women in the German armed forces remains challenging to collective memory, as German women were long neglected or presented as victims rather than complicit or driving actors in war (Biddiscombe, 2011; Hagemann, 2011). While Nazi propaganda did promote the contributions of women in the war effort, these depictions were according to Gemma highly ‘unrealistic’ as they mostly represented Helferinnen wearing crisp blouses, tailored jackets and even heels while working on aircraft maintenance or other supporting jobs.¹⁵ Gemma’s interest was triggered when she learned about the supposedly ‘real history’ of the women auxiliaries and their roles at the frontlines (or just behind, to be more precise). Her partner then bought an original Flugzeugabwehrkanone 38, ‘so I would have a place in re-enactment, so I wouldn't have to sit and be pretty but could have an active role’. Throughout the years, several women joined her, today consisting of seven ‘Flakhelferinnen’ whom I will from now on call ‘auxiliaries’. The group joins public re-enactment events in Belgium and The Netherlands depending on the organization, as reenactors who enact the German troops may be excluded or met with hostility. Similarly, their Instagram page regularly receives negative comments. As several posts have been deleted by Instagram operators, the sources for this analysis have been limited in comparison to the second group discussed in this paper.

Weapons and muscles

Photography and photo-sharing on Instagram is an essential part of re-enactment culture: reenactors frequently photograph one another as ‘tableaux vivant’ in which they can perfect their simulations (Gapps, 2009: 402). Absolutely no modern items are allowed to be displayed within the frame, performances must be situated in a natural or historical setting, and tattoos have to be hidden or covered up with makeup to prevent the present from ‘leaking in’ (Arps, 2022). The reenactors of Die Flakhelferinnen use also other strategies of authentication in their online performances, such as image-editing tools and predefined ‘faux-vintage filters’ which historicize their performances as ‘already history’ (Adriaansen, 2021: 196). In almost all of the 118 images analysed, black and white, sepia or grey-scale filters are applied, often with heightened contrast. The aesthetic characteristics seem therefore to convey a sense of historical realism, hereby taking on the role of the ‘historical document’ to represent the conditions and experiences of the war.¹⁶ Overall, the content of most posts mainly shows the ‘auxiliaries’ performances at various re-enactment events besides a few exemptions such as selfies and posed images.

The most prominent category that appeared through analysis was what I titled ‘combat-imagery’: a representation of Flakhelferinnen as active combatants in WWII. This was particularly evident in the way the bodies of the ‘auxiliaries’ were represented in relation to material culture: they were often depicted with weaponry or various kinds of (heavy) machinery pertaining to armed conflict, such as using searchlights, spotting binoculars, carrying ammunition or operating their main source of pride, the renovated Flak 38. In these images, it is particularly the dynamic framing, body language, and facial expressions that transmit a heightened sense of focus, tension, and danger, which suggests a remediation of medial aesthetics that characterize Hollywood combat films (Bolter & Grusin, 1999). An example of this can be found in Figure 1, a back-and-white photo in which the camera is positioned at a low angle. The viewer looks up at an ‘auxiliary’ whom we only see from the back, while she actively points a Flak 38 on a gun mount at a passing plane. Another ‘auxiliary’ is standing next to her, and while she is only partly included in the image, she holds the Flak 38 ammunition and looks up, assisting the first ‘auxiliary’ in combat. Whereas both are in clear sight of the supposed ‘enemy’, their body language, expressions and lack of protective gear do not suggest fear but rather determination and boldness. The image is remarkable because Flakhelferinnen were initially not allowed to crew weapons themselves as they were not to be associated with combat (Williamson, 2012: 10). Under Nazism, and in many other Western contexts at that time, men and women ought to have different psyches. As military aggression was traditionally considered unwomanly (Rupp, 1977: 363), the image suggests Flakhelferinnen in WWII may have penetrated ‘the world of men’, hereby transgressing feminine normativity. Similarly, at a public war re-enactment event in Belgium, four of the ‘auxiliaries’, including myself, participated in the (mock) battle that was organized, Gemma and myself carrying two small handguns. Gemma explained to me that her research on Flakhelferin veterans had shown that some had secretly learned to operate arms, hereby justifying our performance. A study by historian Perry Biddiscombe (2011: 68) confirms that Flakhelferinnen were trained with various kinds of weapons to protect their facilities despite National Socialist’s anti-emancipatory reputation. The image, therefore, does not only signify women performing similar tasks as male soldiers, its dynamic framing and the angle also suggest an immediate sense of danger for Flakhelferinnen that Nazi authorities long tried to conceal. Even until October 1944, the Army High Command ordered women personnel to be employed at a fair distance from the frontlines ‘as to exclude the possibility of an immediate enemy incursion’ (Biddiscombe, 2011: 68–69). Yet, the ‘auxiliaries’ argued that due to shortages, Helferinnen were in positions as forward as battalion command posts, therefore challenging conventional understandings of female service as ‘non-combatant’. Moreover, the representation of military combat is so infused with androcentric understandings of masculinity (and therefore the opposite of femininity), that the performances of these ‘auxiliaries’ suggest a complete reversal of these binary categories.

Figure 1. ‘Auxiliaries’ targeting a passing plane. Image by Die Flakhelferinnen.²⁴

Besides images that signify fighting and valour, other interesting observations included the expressive behaviour of the ‘auxiliaries’ and their interactions with male bodies. In many of the images, ‘auxiliaries’ are accompanied by the male reenactors of the 277 Infanteriedivision of the German Wehrmacht. Some include them working together on the transport of the Flak 38, others are much more informal, such as an ‘auxiliary’ combing a soldier's hair, giving each other a high-five or three soldiers jokingly lifting an ‘auxiliary’ horizontally. This kind of imagery contradicts the negative stance of the Nazi population on female soldiering, and little evidence has been found that male soldiers shared any Kameradschaft with their female counterparts (Biddiscombe, 2011: 82–87). The frequency of such imagery however produces a counternarrative in which horizontal comradeship transcended gender boundaries in Nazi history.

Another interesting image with regard to the dynamics between the sexes was found in a series of posts that featured a photo shoot with a re-enactment photographer (see Figure 2). In these images, a visual narrative of a Fahrzeugproblem [vehicle issue] with the truck transporting their Flak 38 is performed, as elucidated by the caption. The images show the ‘auxiliaries’ ‘inspecting’ their Flak 38, ‘fixing’ a flat tyre and ‘waiting for back-up’. The framing of the photo suggests an observational style: the medium-long shot enables an overview of all characters and their relationships within the image. The visibility of the natural environment hints toward the need for self-sufficiency. The facial expressions and posture of the ‘auxiliaries’ exert determination and focus while working next to their male counterparts: it is them who do the work, implying therefore that the ‘auxiliaries’ are skilled and physically strong enough to handle the truck’s tyres. This hands-on approach is further reinforced by the reluctant posture of the male soldiers. Despite Nazi propaganda reflecting men as decisive and in control (Kühne, 2018: 390), it is here the ‘auxiliaries’ that signify confidence, rather than the modesty or shyness that were considered feminine traits (Ringel, 2020: 247). The comments under the post emphasize this issue even more: a fellow reenactor commented ‘love how men don’t do a thing!’, as one of the ‘auxiliaries’ replied jokingly that ‘the men are supervising’, placing a sarcastic emphasis on the last word. The images, therefore, do not only communicate womanly skill but also power and even leadership, while the potential ‘emasculation’ of their male colleagues is simultaneously diffused with humour.

Figure 2. Flakhelferinnen and 277 Volksgrenadierdivision performing a vehicle issue. Photo by Michiel Peeters.

Taking the body as a ‘cultural product’ (Grosz, 1994), this study also included an analysis of the posture and stylization of the ‘auxiliaries’ in terms of clothing, hair and makeup. I noted for example how the ‘auxiliaries’ often foreground the female body in a manner that emphasizes traits historically reserved for men, namely physical strength, bravery, and valour. A particular elucidating example can be found in an image posted on International Women’s Day (2021) that shows one of the ‘auxiliaries’ imitating the famous muscle-flexing pose of Rosie the Riveter. The ‘We Can Do It!’ posters by Howard Miller were aimed at boosting the worker’s morale during the total war of WWII and became an international symbol for women’s emancipation (McEuen, 2011: 1).¹⁷ The imitation of this cultural icon demonstrates how re-enactment practices refashion existent medial constructions in memory culture (Bolter & Grusin, 1999; Erll & Rigney, 2009). Through the process of ‘remediation’, representations are made meaningful in new cultural contexts, hereby transforming an originally American icon and its subsequent emancipatory connotations into a German setting. Furthermore, next to the adoption of Rosie’s pose, the body is similarly dressed in a more ‘American’ style and thus presents a rival notion of womanhood during WWII. Women in the Wehrmacht had to maintain the ‘dignity and reputation’ of the Aryan race (Pool, 2016: 186–187). Hair had to be ‘off the shoulders’, and while they were allowed to remove their jackets in warm weather, revealing their short-sleeved blouses, the ‘hat with insignia and tie must be worn’ (Pool, 2016). The ‘auxiliary’ in this image, however, wears a long, relatively messy braid and a tank top, showing more skin than the often depicted well-groomed German women with crips uniforms (Ringel, 2020: 251). Similar to Figure 1, the active pose emphasizes an athletic and muscular physique which is ‘naturally’ associated with masculinity (Grosz, 1994). The racial premises on which Nazi ideology was founded instructed a ‘Hellenic ideal of beauty’ in which women were expected to be graceful and noble, whereas men eager to fight, assertive, and courageous (Günther, 1927). Yet, the posts on their Instagram page as well as my participation demonstrated not only the display but also a true necessity for physical strength, particularly with regard to the transportation and operationalization of their Flak 38. The ‘auxiliaries’ therefore seem to adopt this ‘masculine’ rhetoric by emphasizing traits that are usually attributed to men.¹⁸

While most of the ‘auxiliaries’ performances seem to blur the binary opposition between masculinity and femininity, this was not exclusively the case. Some performances signified what we commonly associate with ‘essential femininity’. This includes the notion that physical attractiveness is one of the most important assets: ‘feminine’ features should thus be enhanced with cosmetics and figure-fitting clothing. At special and celebratory outings, for example, we transformed from our boiler suits to the Flakhelferinnen’s formal wear, including a skirt, tights, heels, a fitted jacket, and a handbag. A significant amount of time was dedicated to beauty routines, including hair curling and the application of makeup. The ‘auxiliaries’ showed me proudly the items they collected in the handbag, in particular makeup the auxiliaries supposedly ‘secretly’ made themselves such as lip product and blush from beet juice. According to Nazi propaganda, however, it was ‘un-German’ to change one’s look using makeup or by accessorizing (Century, 2017: 34). As the German race was superior, German women did not need any products to enhance their psychical characteristics. Additionally, excessive makeup was associated with the immoral women of the enemy, such as Parisian or Jewish women (Century, 2017). The ‘auxiliaries’ in this study, however, emphasized how women combatants listed products, makeup recipes and beauty practices in their diaries. Hanna (28) argued that the time-consuming routine of hair curling was also an important ritual in which Flakhelferinnen would gossip and give each other advice. Beauty was in that sense not understood as a form of oppression by having to satisfy the male spectator (Felski, 2006). Rather, it was a source of agency. By engaging in communal beauty, Flakhelferinnen resisted the ‘natural’ feminine ideals imposed by the Nazi party.

In their aims to ‘re-engender’ the cultural memory of the German Wehrmacht, the reenactors of Die Flakhelferinnen draw upon the male-centric ‘models’ or ‘schemata’ that circulate within memory culture (Erll & Rigney, 2009). In Nazi ideology, ‘soldierly masculinity’ reigned at the top of society (Kühne, 2018: 396). The ‘auxiliaries’ performances thus appropriate the normative and premediated imagery of the masculine ‘warrior’ that shaped their own conceptualization of heroism (Hartsock, 1984; Erll & Rigney, 2009). By reproducing the aesthetic characteristics of such earlier representations and instead ‘inserting’ different protagonists, they aim to show that war heroism can be similarly produced by female bodies. Yet, ‘masculine’ heroism is dependent upon the subordination of alternative masculinities (Halberstam, 2018 : 1). Historically, German women who assumed ‘masculine’ characteristics were at risk of being labelled ‘dangerous’ lesbians who had put their femininity into jeopardy (Biddiscombe, 2011: 84). As common conceptions of masculinity and femininity are used to define ‘real men and women’ (Dudink et al., 2004: xv), gender roles are often assumed to be reflected in gender identity.¹⁹ As described earlier, at least one of the ‘auxiliaries’ wasn't so sure whether she truly identified as a ‘real woman’ herself. While the re-enactment of Die Flakhelferinnen allowed Gemma to challenge historically gender normative behaviour in some ways, it also demonstrated how the ‘role-playing’ body is still social, cultured and gendered and within the re-enactment community, subjected to hegemonic power structures. Gemma was not allowed to cross-dress whereas others were equally historically ‘inaccurate’. This illustrates the subordinating effects of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1987, 1995): to be ‘accepted’ in a male-dominated field, women are expected to behave in a heterosexual feminine manner (Rana, 2022). This illustrates how gender performativity never consists of a voluntary act, but rather a ‘reiteration of norms which precede, constrain and exceed the performer’ (Butler, 1993: 234). Gemma thus had chosen a female impression that could be ‘de-feminized’ the most, as a convergence of conventional gender ideals and more fluid contemporary perspectives.

The digital memories performed by the ‘auxiliaries’ are similarly mediated within a specific cultural framework. Instagram’s affordances, meaning the user’s action possibilities within the technologies at their disposal (Hutchby, 2001; boyd, 2020), thus shape what, how and where the ‘auxiliaries’ performances are displayed and on whose ‘feeds’. In the case of the ‘auxiliaries’, these proved to be highly impacted by the platform’s ideology as reflected within the Terms of Use and users’ ‘editorial power’, such as likes, comments and reports (Burns, 2015: 16–17). The ‘auxiliaries’ described how their page and posts were often labelled or reported as hate speech or hate crimes, resulting in the removal of images as well as complete accounts. The ‘auxiliaries’ therefore engage in various self-regulating practices, such as blocking the ones they suspected of reporting their pages, screening new followers, the use of the hashtag #nonpolitical and covering the Reichsadler (imperial eagle of Nazi Germany) is on their WWII uniforms. Lena (21), a law student and relative newcomer to the practice of re-enacting, would ‘curate’ the comments on posts by deleting the ones she considered, sexist derogatory or hateful. She hereby explained how combatant women were ‘less likeable’ on digital platforms because they were just ‘expected to look beautiful, not tough’. She also argued that women were attributed the label farb more frequently within comment sections, a derogatory term used to describe an ‘inadequate’ reenactor (Gapps, 2009: 399).²⁰ In addition, each of the ‘auxiliaries’ in this study has chosen to only feature their re-enactment names online and has set their individual pages to ‘private’, allowing images to be shared only with a selected set of ‘friends’. Crowdtangle data²¹ also demonstrated how the ‘auxiliaries’ most ‘liked’ photos include selfies, a category commonly associated with young women (Burns, 2015: 16–17), whereas the least ‘liked’ photo is an April Fools’ joke that offers a jar of the ‘auxiliaries’ bathwater for sale, ‘filled to the brim with re-enactment dirt, Flak grease and a hint of sweaty perfume’. Research confirms how hegemonic gender dynamics prevail online: women are still more regularly confronted with sexism and hostility on digital platforms (Nakamura, 2013; Burns, 2015). Yet, the ‘auxiliaries’ also actively regulated and crafted their online environments to make sure their posts would remain visible on Instagram. As such, they had to carefully negotiate the platform’s possibilities and constraints within their performances.

A woman’s comfort: performing the United States army nurse corps

The second re-enactment group, the Army Nurse Corps in WWII, shares a similar origin story with Die Flakhelferinnen. First-lieutenant Evelyn (29) started re-enacting in Poland around the age of fifteen as a hobby she shared with her dad. She explained that even though Poland was never liberated by the US and many citizens had even felt ‘abandoned’, she was particularly drawn to the American side of WWII history ‘because of the [Hollywood] movies’. The German and Soviet troops had caused ‘just too much bad memories’, she argued. While they initially started out collecting war-related artefacts and visiting historic sites, Evelyn explained that ‘it was not enough for [her]’. Subsequently, she contacted the few US Army re-enactment groups that existed in Poland at that time. The first one declined because they ‘just wanted to be with guys amongst themselves’. She then joined another group with her dad until she reached the age of eighteen ‘because he did not want me to go all night somewhere with a group of guys’. She first decided to cross-dress as a male medic of the US 1st Infantry division, however, her impression was, like Gemma’s, criticized as being ‘inauthentic’. Throughout re-enacting, she learned about the role of women within the US Army and decided to focus specifically on nurses because ‘contrary to common belief, they were always the closest to the frontline, [..] in the field, dirty, close to the action’.

The Army Nurse Corps was officiated established in 1901 (Gaskins, 1994: 47) but it was not until WWII that the Army truly needed proportionate numbers of nursing personnel. American nurses had been represented as ‘Angels of Mercy’ since the late-nineteenth century, with magazines and Hollywood imagery depicting women with radiating skin and a delicate touch to emphasize motherly care (Kalisch & Kalisch, 1983; Vishwanath, 2014). Accordingly, nursing generally did not face a lot of scrutiny by appealing to gender stereotypes (McEuen, 2011; Richardson, 2019). Frontline nursing, however, contradicted this subjugated role, as ‘young women’ would be exposed to ‘demeaning’ physical labour, naked male bodies and diseases (Richardson, 2019: 239). The emphasis on ‘hyperfeminine’ traits became vital in countering this imagery, defined as an ‘exaggerated adherence to a stereotypic feminine gender role’ which is often centred around the understanding that a woman’s primary value lies in her sexuality and physical attributes (Murnen & Byrne, 1991: 480). One of the most prominent reiterated myths of the corps was that nurses were expected to ‘boost’ enlisted men’s morale with their emotional generosity and appearances (Richardson, 2019: 239).²² Cosmetics played a particularly vital role in the legitimation of frontline nursing. Cosmetic kits were widely used as incentives for recruitment and official handbags were equipped with sufficient pockets for their storage (McEuen, 2011). Bright red lipstick became the nurses’ most iconic symbol of idealized womanhood (Haskell, 1944). Nurses, therefore, had to perform seemingly contradictory roles: saving lives in the dangers and dirt of the frontlines while consistently keeping up their appearance (Goodman, 1998: 280). Such ‘emphasized femininity’ therefore legitimized existing gender hierarchies (Connell, 1987; Goodman, 1998: 280; Schippers, 2007). Eventually, 350,000 women volunteered for military service during WWII, including 59,000 nurses (McEuen, 2016: 1). Various scholars however have pointed out how the war failed to have a significant impact on women’s status in American society (Rupp, 1978; Hartmann, 1982; Honey, 1985; Campbell, 1993). Media and government policy sustained and even enhanced traditional gender roles after the war through effective propaganda. Female war participation, including frontline nursing, was framed as self-sacrifice for a cause larger than themselves, hereby reiterating women’s subordinate position (Honey, 1985).

Evelyn started off by re-enacting the history of US army nurses in WWII in a mixed group. However, a big argument with the other male members resulted in her decision to start a women-exclusive re-enactment group. She explained: ‘You know, guys, they always want to do the fighting. They never want to do [..] a field hospital, it always seemed too boring for them, and we couldn't do anything because we couldn't take part in battles’. Starting off with only five women in Poland, Evelyn moved to the Czech Republic for work and the group expanded in three years to thirteen members. They participate frequently in public events throughout Europe, however, their main performance consists of an annual private training week where they replicate the training army nurses received in WWII. The group has become quite well known internationally in the last few years, both in the re-enactment as well as veteran community, due to the supposed authenticity of their performances and their active presence on social media. This, in addition to the international character of their members, illustrates how reenactors form ‘imagined’ and ‘virtual’ communities across state borders, sustaining these relations through mediated technologies (Anderson, 2006; Hine, 2015). Furthermore, their appropriation of US history demonstrates how the study of re-enactment cannot be confined to the national frame, as mass mediatization (in this case Hollywood films) produces ‘prosthetic memories’ whereby their consumers may establish intimate relations to histories foreign to them (Landsberg, 2004, 2018),

Adventure, sisters and ‘likes’

The online performances of the ‘nurses’ include various kinds of authentication strategies such as imitations of original WWII photographs, often posted side by side to highlight the authenticity of their simulation. Some of these posts are also accompanied by captions that copy slogans of original recruitment posters, testimonials from army nurses, or lyrics of songs. Hashtags are used to situate the image within digital re-enactment culture, to connect with other (women) reenactors, or target users interested in specific topics such as 1940s fashion, as exemplified in the use of #womeninuniform, #reenactress, #ww2, and 1940shairstyle #redlips. However, rather than employing ‘faux-vintage’ filters, many of the ‘nurses’ images are presented in colour to reveal specific historic qualities. As Evelyn explained: ‘because in original photographs you can’t [see the actual colours]. [..] You can't see the details, [..] you can't see anything. So, I prefer to have it in colour’. Here, authenticity is not construed by simulating the look of historical photographs, but rather by producing what cannot be found in historical records. As such, the re-enactment image becomes a simulacrum in which the simulation is considered in some ways more faithful than the original photograph (Baudrillard, 1994). Yet, these cinematic decisions may also have certain gendered connotations, as will be discussed below.

A first glance of the ‘nurses’ Instagram page seems to reiterate the conventional ‘feminine’ ideal of nursing during WWII, in particular in relation to the way their bodies are styled. Many of the images include portrait shots made within a studio, suggesting (semi) professional photoshoots. The lighting is often particularly centred upon their faces, their overall uniforms and styling impeccable, and props are carefully selected and positioned to support the enacted narrative. An example can be found in Figure 3, which features a nurse leaning comfortably against a chair while sipping from a coconut, her face brightly lit. The colour tones of the overall image are soft and light, hereby highlighting the colourful accents such as her blue eyes. The clean uniform emphasizes the waist, softly curled hair and delicate light skin reminding the viewer of nurses’ ‘angelic qualities’ and resonating with the whiteness and purity emphasized in US War recruitment posters (McEuen, 2011: 37). Additionally, the ‘nurse’ is wearing makeup, as evidenced in the dark lashes, red nail polish and coloured lips. The display of beauty routines, both historically and in re-enactment, signifies that military service is not incompatible with femininity. The image, however, also demonstrates nursing as an opportunity for adventure, independence, and self-determination. A significant amount of the material culture displayed within this image and others refer to the tropical areas where the nurses were stationed. This includes beige tailored uniforms, nurses wearing a lei (Hawaiian necklace of flowers), and specifically in this image the coconut and backdrop of reed. Such imagery signifies a sense of travelling and exploring foreign places. The narrative that nursing would thus allow for self-development by expanding one’s worldview was something that also frequently returned in interviews. First-lieutenant Evelyn (29) for example argued that one of the main motivations of recruits to join the corps was to ‘go and see some of the world’. Presenting it as an emancipating opportunity, Evelyn argued that

In the 40s, women had [only] three career paths: they could be a teacher or a typist, [..] or they were at home with kids, of course. So, there were so limited career options for them. Of course, many of them chose nursing because this is the kind of career that opened the door to travelling [..] especially when you didn't have a lot of money and you were from some village in Kansas.

Nursing then did not only offer the opportunity to travel and learn, it also offered financial stability and self-sufficiency. The performance of nursing in foreign places then suggests that army nurses exercised autonomy and assertiveness rather than the passivity typically associated with traditional femininity. Furthermore, the emphasis on adventure also demonstrates how Evelyn adopted a character profile that strongly resonated with her own backstory, interest and ambitions. Evelyn was herself a frequent traveller, loved the outdoors, and had also moved abroad for work. Likewise, Second-lieutenant Luca (26) was actually a doctor in her daily life, and had frequently given workshops on historical medical procedures such as sutures within the group. As such, the other participants in this study did not mimetically perform an existing historical persona, but rather ‘played themselves’ albeit in a different (historical) setting, hereby demonstrating the interplay between historical and contemporary identities in re-enactment practice.

Figure 3. ‘Nurse’ stationed in Hawaii. Image by Army Nurse Corps in WWII.

In addition, the performance of adventure is also related to the notion of heroism and courage. As everyday life revolves around the mundane and ordinary, ‘heroic life’ comprises the elements of leaving behind what is familiar and comfortable, and suggests distress, uncertainty and danger (Hunt, 2008: 467). Several posts on the Instagram page of the ‘nurses’ reveal how army nurses were living in tents and barracks under the same circumstances and same levels of discomfort as their male colleagues, constantly having to adapt to new situations. Similarly, the most important re-enactment event for the nurses was a very intensive week full of lectures and physical activities, including weapon training, obstacle courses, long hikes and overnight stays in the outdoors with limited supplies. Fran (27), a PhD student in the history of fashion and a frequent hiker herself, often emphasized that ‘real’ nurses were accustomed to hardship, had greasy hair, stained shirts, and wore baggy men’s trousers. This strongly contradicted the issued skirts as shown in recruitment posters. Furthermore, they hereby subverted a commonly expressed criticism with regard to re-enactment practice, namely that these performances result only in ‘sanitised’ versions of the past (Thompson, 2004; De Groot, 2009: 106; McCalman & Pickering, 2010: 12). Instead, my observations of the training camp testify that entertainment and comfort are considered secondary to affective experiences associated with the ‘discomforts’ of war (Zurné, 2021).

In addition to the performance of physical hardship, the ‘army nurses’ are presented in their expressive behaviours as resourceful and intelligent. In several of the images, the ‘nurses’ enact taking care of heavily wounded soldiers. An example is Figure 4. The performance is situated in an old building. The flag with the red cross in the backdrop, the tiles and the dirty and bloody bandages on the floor suggest an improvised operating room. The physically impaired male patient lies on a stretcher, anonymous to the viewer as his face is barely visible. While the patient has little to no agency, the two nurses, on the other hand, are slightly bent over him, their body language indicating dominance and control, while their facial expressions suggest urgency. The image presents a narrative in which the patient is in a potentially life-threatening situation, signifying that army nurses carried tremendous responsibilities. In addition, they had to make bold decisions while being subject to the danger and unpredictability of war. Moral rectitude, mental strength and perseverance are what constitute their professional competence. Yet, ‘nurse’ Louise (32) explained discontentedly that although army nurses had reported symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) after returning from the front, they were however denied treatment. This comment touches upon the socially imposed hierarchy between men and women in the war period. Army nurses had been provided with free and high-quality education and were consistently facing situations where they were more knowledgeable than their ranked male superiors (Richardson, 2019: 239). The Corps had lobbied for more gender equality after WWI, and subsequently nurses were officially granted the rank of officer in 1920 (Richardson, 2019). This fact was often reiterated during my fieldwork with the ‘nurses’, as they claimed their officer rank would force male soldiers to listen, respect them, and refrain from making sexual advances.²³ However, their relative hierarchy was often portrayed inaccurately by other re-enactment groups performing WWII. During my stay with the ‘nurses’, ‘our’ field kitchen was for example staffed by male reenactors as this was ‘historically accurate’. Surprisingly, I had never witnessed this task division before at public re-enactment events, as contemporary (and historical notions) of who ought to do the cooking were displayed rather than what was historically accurate. This frustrated some of the ‘nurses’ immensely, and one of the posts on the nurses’ page was also dedicated to debunking this ‘common mistake’ in re-enactment. Evelyn explained that she ‘gave up’ on correcting other reenactors at public events, as they did not ‘listen to a woman anyway’. The Instagram post hereby demonstrates how people may prioritize specific mediums for specific messages (Madianou & Miller, 2013). The ‘nurses’ had moved from the physical and male-dominated site of re-enactment to their own curated space in the digital realm to resist their subordinate identity.

Figure 4. ‘Nurses’ performing a medical emergency. Image by Luke Havenport.

Furthermore, another way in which the ‘nurses’ claimed agency was through the performance of sisterhood. I noted how many of the images present the nurses in a collective rather than by themselves, for example by working in companionship, seated together during meals, walking arm in arm, holding each other's hand while crossing a river or helping each other such as washing one’s hair. These performances signify that support, unity and teamwork in achieving collective goals are highly valued within the corps. This solidarity is further reinforced by the frequent use of the words sister and sisterhood in offline life and as hashtags in captions of their posts (Zurné, 2021). Analysing explicitly what is not represented in their posts (Smelik et al., 1999) shows that the ‘nurses’ are rarely depicted interacting with other people. Male figures are either completely absent or presented with limited agency, such as the wounded soldier in Figure 4. As a result, the ‘nurses’ mainly signify solidarity among a homogenous community of women with a seemingly similar gender, ethnic, and class identity. Scholars have pointed out how the invocation of imagined bonds of kinship and camaraderie is historically related to gendered notions of patriotism (Tasker, 1993; Jarvis, 2010; Kühne, 2002, 2018). Historian Thomas Kühne (2002: 249) has argued, for example, how in Germany, camaraderie was initially encoded as ‘feminine’, since it expresses warmheartedness and was therefore associated with the loving care of womanhood. Expressions of brotherhood then did not destabilize the gender order, but mediated between the hard ideals of masculinity and the soft elements ‘of being a man’ (Kühne, 2002). Yet, women in the military were excluded from this bonding practice, both in the German as well as American contexts. Several scholars have demonstrated how women in the military have historically presented themselves as a feminine collective that rivalled with the fraternity of soldiers (Condell & Liddiard, 1987: 49; Lee, 2008). Moreover, this presentation helped to gain respect and status within the military hierarchy (Lee, 2008). Yet, while camaraderie is in theory genderless, it is almost exclusively (pre) mediated in popular culture in its male rendition, brotherhood, and strongly related to notions of heroism (Tasker, 1993). This is evidenced in acclaimed films such as Band of Brothers (2001) or Saving Private Ryan (1998). The nurses’ enactment of sisterhood can thus be understood as an alternative form of heroism rooted in a collective ‘feminine’ war experience. The performance of this ‘feminine’ collective is in fact not confined to the practice or re-enactment but ‘trickles over’ into their contemporary lives. A telling example of this can be found in several images that show the ‘nurses’ dressing up in their WWII uniforms at important rites, such as two marriages of reenactors in 2020. None of the ‘nurses’ knew each other prior to joining the group, but connected (often digitally) over their interest in re-enactment and WWII history. The attire then does not merely refer to the embodiment of the historical ‘army nurse’, but also creates a visually uniform collective, connecting individuals with a group identity that may offer a sense of belonging and emotional support as they move from one phase in life to another. Through the hobby of re-enactment, sisterhood was not only performed but – like gender – becomes an outcome by constant reiteration.

The digital performances of the ‘nurses’ were equivalently shaped by the politics of the Instagram platform. While practising on a shooting range was a core component of the annual training camp, their Instagram page featured no images with weapons: out of 458 posts, only one featured a ‘nurse’ with ammunition in her hand, and another showed a nurse pointing to a cardboard target. Evelyn (29) suspected the ability of Instagram’s architecture to ‘limit’ the ‘spreadability’ of such posts by arguing that ‘[the] algorithm prevents us from getting likes on images [that feature] weapons’. The ‘nurses’ told me they, therefore, did not upload such images, and that they usually also ignited negative reactions. This was exemplified in a person commenting that the ‘nurse’ with her cardboard target was ‘way off with her shots’. Often, other (women) reenactors got involved, the comment section regularly resulting in discussions covering topics such as the position of women in the army, safety and professionalism. An example can be found in a post that features a ‘nurse’ posing next to a handmade sign that read ‘Nurses’ quarters, no men allowed!’. Whereas one (female) user commented that the sign ‘[was a] bit sexist, don’t you think[?]’, others jumped to the ‘nurses’ defence, citing historical evidence of original photographs with similar signs. The discussion shows how the meaning of the image was created dialogically between the producers, namely the ‘nurses’, and their audiences on digital platforms, hereby underlining the conceptualization of media as a practice rather than a ‘stable text’ (Couldry, 2004).

In addition to technological filters, ‘cultural filters’ impact the distribution and reception of certain images, meaning the social norms, expectations and conventions that shape digital photographic practices (Rettberg, 2014; Caldeira et al., 2018: 28). The most ‘liked’ post included two ‘nurses’ posing in spotless white seersucker dresses, looking sideways into the camera, with red lips, neatly styled hair, and a soft smile (Garmur, 2019). The least ‘liked’ photo, on the other hand, featured five ‘nurses’ in their green boiler suits and helmets, looking sideways while sitting or leaning against a rock, taking a rest during a hike (Garmur, 2019). The ‘nurses’ described how they curated themselves in order to be ‘liked’ (Goffman, 1959) on the platform by applying makeup and adjusting their uniforms and hair for photos. This increased the visibility, spreadability and searchability of their performances, as Instagram’s algorithmic feed prioritizes content users are predicted to enjoy (Costa, 2018; Ross, 2019). The notable number of portraits on their Instagram page that featured crips uniforms, beautifully lit skins, friendly facial expressions and bright red lips, don’t represent their interpretations of WWII army nurses but are instead strategic responses to Instagram’s affordances and the politics of the gaze. This builds on the idea that the performance of our digital selves, whether historicized or not, is often highly crafted and polished for specific purposes (Bluteau, 2021). The algorithmic design and user’s ‘editorial power’ on Instagram may therefore result in the reproduction of socially accepted gender conventions, rather than subversion. As Charlotte (32) argued, ‘pretty pictures just receive more likes’.

Conclusion

This article has analysed the ways in which women reenactors negotiate, appropriate and remediate these memories of women’s roles in WWII. My analysis focussed on two women reenactor groups: Die Flakhelferinnen and the Army Nurse Corps in WWII. These women reenactors faced a ‘double bias’: not only did they perform traditionally ‘masculine’ histories, public war re-enactments are generally male-dominated spaces saturated by patriarchal power structures. The main sites of their performance consisted therefore of private gatherings and online spaces such as Instagram. Drawing upon Instagram’s distinctive visual mode, the reenactors of this study used various authenticating strategies to converge historical notions of womanhood and their contemporary identities.

This study demonstrates how the reenactors of Die Flakhelferinnen employ various ‘historicizing’ filters to produce ‘historical documents’ that represent the unknown and controversial histories of women auxiliaries in Nazi Germany. Their performances emphasize qualities associated with male soldiering through images that foreground combat, physical strength, leadership and courage. These ‘auxiliaries’ thus appropriate, or even assimilate, what is considered the norm: the male body, in their attempts to claim battlefield heroism. The reenactors of the Army Nurse Corps, on the other hand, highlight gender differences: their appearances include many symbols of the American ‘feminine’ ideal of the 1940s (e.g. neat uniforms, clear white skin, iconic red lips). As such, frontline nursing seems initially modelled into what Halberstam (2018: 6) would call a ‘compliant form of femininity’. A more critical reading, however, shows how the ‘nurses’ also present themselves as taking advantage of an opportunity for self-development, hereby demonstrating autonomy and agency. Additionally, by drawing upon ‘premediations’ of brotherhood, the ‘nurses’ claim authority over a collective ‘feminine’ war experience by performing its female counterpart: ‘sisterhood’. The enactment of ‘sisterhood’ further shows how continuous reiteration may produce a sense of belonging that ‘spills over’ in their ‘regular’ lives, as demonstrated in important moments of transition. This underlines the conceptualization of memory (and identity) as a set of practices that constitute identities, rather than reflect or represent them.

Yet, because of the absence of other identities in their performances, whether gender or ethnicity related, only a specific type of femininity and sisterhood is enacted, namely one of white, young, educated women. Idealized femininity in times of war is always intertwined with categories beyond gender such as class and race, both in the US well as German context (Stephenson, 1975; Gordon, 2002; McEuen, 2016). This re-enactment of female empowerment and solidarity, therefore, reiterates the exclusion of ‘other’ femininities, both historically as well as in contemporary re-enactment culture (hooks, 1982; Yuval-Davis, 1997; Hill Collins, 2009; Davis, 2012).

This study has also demonstrated how historical re-enactments are situated, whether in ‘unmediated’ contexts or on social media, and how these environments then shape their performances. Whereas public war events are saturated by androcentric power structures, digital platforms are governed by algorithmic structures and institutional ideologies. In particular, Instagram’s technological affordances, its Terms of Use, users’ ‘editorial power’ and the subsequent ‘cultural filters’ both limit and enable the ways in which reenactors’ performances are mediated. Whereas the ‘auxiliaries’ mainly had to navigate the platform’s institutional filters and hate comments, the ‘nurses’ were highly aware of what their followers wanted to see and thus ‘like’. Their reflexivity about these expectations demonstrates how gender performativity is always constrained by the discursive power which precedes it. The discussions in the comment section further demonstrate how these digital memories should be understood as processes rather than ‘finished’ products, as they only become meaningful in interaction with the platforms’ architecture and other users. Considering social media to be a major agent through which norms and values are communicated (Caldeira et al., 2018), Instagram plays then a vital role in shaping cultural memories. This critical analysis of the ways in which gender is enacted on the platform demonstrated that Instagram may reproduce certain hegemonic representations of femininity, therefore privileging particular representations of history over others. Yet, digital anthropologists have argued that such ‘affordances’ of platforms are too often regarded as overtly deterministic (Madianou & Miller, 2013; Costa, 2018). By ‘curating’ their comment sections, changing privacy settings, and consciously ‘crafting’ their feeds, women reenactors found ways to mediate alternative discourses about femininities during WWII. As these findings largely contradict earlier studies on gender in war re-enactment, this highlights the importance of broadening our understanding of what historical re-enactment is and how it is mediated. By focussing on ‘in situ’ re-enactments performed at large-scale events, museum settings, or commemorations, issues of power and asymmetry within re-enactment culture and public history more generally are ignored. This study has shown how women reenactors may find alternative performative modes to challenge conventional understandings of WWII history. They hereby demonstrate how digital platforms do not merely function as a means to disseminate their performances, but rather as a set of practices through which gendered memories of war are actively shaped in processes of remediation.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Loes Oudenhuijsen and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research has been funded by the Erasmus Initiative ‘Vital Cities and Citizens’ of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Notes on contributors

Lise Zurné

Lise Zurné is a PhD candidate at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication. Her project explores the representation of modern war history in historical re-enactment and focuses on the ways in which reenactors negotiate contested pasts, including decolonization, gender representation and the performance of hardship. She completed a bachelor's in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (VU Amsterdam) and a master in Visual Ethnography (Leiden University), graduating both cum laude. Her documentary The Feel of History (2017) has been screened at various ethnographic film festivals. Correspondence to: Van der Goot Building, M 6-38, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA Rotterdam, UK.

Notes

1 Throughout this article, I use woman as an adjective as ‘female’ often refers to biological characteristics. See (accessed 16-6-2022): https://www.newyorker.com/culture/comma-queen/female-trouble-the-debate-over-woman-as-an-adjective

2 Despite re-enactments’ focus on battle, little attention is paid to the violence that affects civilians in military combat, and certainly not the specific violence that women suffer, such as rape (Grever, 2017).

3 Accessed 10-6-2022: https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

4 Accessed 10-6-2022: https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide/

5 Also known as Luftwaffenhelfer or Luftwaffenhelferin for women.

6 The names of the groups within this study have been disclosed with their consent for two main reasons. First, their ‘impressions’ relate to motivation to re-enact, gender dynamics within re-enactment, national identities, and more. Analysing their practices without taking these roles and their historical contexts into account would make the material virtually meaningless. Second, a group’s ‘impression’ is almost always reflected in the group's title. A Google Search on ‘re-enactment' and any of these ‘impressions’ would imminently result in their websites or social media pages, therefore leading to the question of whether anonymity can truly be ensured in the digital era (Vorhölter, 2021). I did decide to use pseudonyms instead of the re-enactment names participants use for their historical persona. This is because some have received negative responses to their ‘impressions’. The current strategy is thus an awkward compromise between the ethical standards of qualitative research and my aim to provide a meaningful analysis (Duclos, 2019; Vorhölter, 2021).

7 Data accessed 21-02-2022.

8 Data accessed 21-02-2022.

9 This includes 117 images of Flakhelferinnen and 131 images of ‘nurses’.

10 Over 800,000 women served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war, approximately half of these were trained for combat and deployed at the frontlines (Campbell, 1993: 318).

11 The interviews in this study were conducted either in English or Dutch and have been translated by the author.

12 Thomas Kühne (2018: 409) has described how cross-dressing from male to female was a quite common practice within the German armed forces during WWII. Paradoxically, cross-dressing did not effeminate male soldiers but served to affirm masculinity ‘by contrast.

13 Gemma uses she/her pronouns.

14 The Nazi state permitted the employment of single, divorced or widowed women. Married women were confined to their duties as housewives and mothers (Hagemann, 2012: 495).

15 An example can be found in Pool (2016: 217).

16 Source (accessed 18-5-2022): https://www.historytoday.com/archive/saving-private-ryan.

24 I have obtained permission to feature the images in this article.

17 While Rosie the Riveter has become an international symbol for women's independence, Melissa McEuen (2011) has argued that the muscular and cheerful icon actually appeared infrequently in print, as hyperfeminized women still touted most of the advertisements.

18 I must point out here as well that the wartime definition of gender in Germany was not always as clear-cut as presented in official propaganda. In her analysis of the Nazi magazine NS FrauenWarte, Sharon Ringel (2020: 247–251) has demonstrated that the German female ideal may include 'masculine' features 'as long as the women presented fulfil a valued role for their party and country' such as athletes' efforts for the Olympic Game. The emphasis on a strong and muscly bodily physique could also be interpreted as a commitment to German nationalism, albeit these depictions were then often accompanied by an emphasis on other 'feminine' attributes.

19 Gender roles comprise gendered behaviour, often defined in opposition (masculine versus feminine), whereas gender identity relates to a sense of self, often defined in terms of male versus female, binary versus fluid (Nagoshi et al., 2014: 6).

20 The exact definition of the term has been much debated. However, I hereby draw upon historian (and reenactor) Stephen Gapps (2009) general definition: ‘far be it for me to tell them what they are doing wrong’ (399).

21 Crowdtangle is a tool that allows researchers to track the data of public pages on Facebook and Instagram (Garmur, 2019).

22 Cynthia Enloe (2000: 219) argues that these values were initially also reflected in the military regulations: married women and mothers were initially not allowed to enter the corps as leaving their husbands and children would be considered immoral and indecent. In addition, the rules upheld an ideology in which nurses were considered innocent and possibly available as a romantic partners.

23 It is important to note here that while the officer’s rank of army nurses may present us with an image of women’s liberation and emancipation, scholars have argued that in reality women were still subjected to masculine hierarchical environments that in practice it lacked the authority, benefits, and equal pay compared to male officers (Gaskins, 1994: 91; Enloe, 2000: 224).