Are Nazi uniforms considered "offensive"?

Eh, I have a question that may be considered stupid (treat me like a newbie, I've returned after two years of inactivity):
Are Nazi uniforms considered offensive? I'm attempting to adapt WW2 German uniforms from Return To Castle Wolfenstein and I wanted to be sure how far do I have to go with "modifying" them - as we had some major media fuss in Poland regarding the tailoring and sale of RL Nazi uniforms.
So, do they have to be "German Wolfenstein version", or "worldwide, bigger, longer, uncut and with swastikas on"?

a) Godwins
b) Yes
c) This post surely needs no other responses

However, German soldier uniforms are not - so be TASTEFUL and you're ok.

I believe that anything nazi related is a total 'no no' in SL.

Broccoli

Agreed


And when youre done with your RTCW project, lemme know! That was one of the single scariest games I ever played!

Yes, Nazi uniforms are considered offensive in SL.


Anyone remember this incident?: /120/98/31114/1.html

Do you have to ask yourself this ?

Yes

OK, so this goes no further than adlers. Just let me use the adlers. No swastikas. No SS initials. Adlers are for the German Army. Swastikas are for the Nazi party. SS is SS.

It's stupid as hell. It's probably the policy I most disagree with LL. But to answer your question, yes.

Acting like a Nazi? Offensive. Plastering nazi propaganda posters all over Luskwood? Offensive. Historically accurate German uniforms and/or equipment including Nazi symbology? Not offensive. But LL will still take action (sometimes).

Unfortunately, LL isn't willing to take context into consideration. I guess I don't blame them, in abstract, because it would be a lot of work. Doesn't mean it doesn't suck for people who have innocent intentions, though.

There are countries (France, for example) where Nazi symbols are illegal, except when presented as part of a historical display. Because of that, LL is pretty much forced to ban then in SL. Even if you were to build an in-world World War II museum, RL legal authorities would probably not recognize it as an appropriate context.

You can get banned altogether from SL if you make or use anything Nazi. Like Reitsuki said, it's a stupid rule, but it's LL's rule and LL owns SL, so we live with it.

Back before the days when 'naming names' was a problem I see.

I liked this quote best:

"offer public apologies to Shiryu for having his big night griefed by Hitler. (And hey - if you have to get griefed - you got the biggest griefer in history to do it"

Broccoli

Aside from the legalities, I ask for the simple matter of taste. Does one want to dress up (assuming for Halloween) as ... say, someone who has more death, destruction and cruelty on his hands than Saddam?

No fun to see there at all, at least not from my view.

If it's some sort of Historic roleplay, wargame, or museum dispaly, I see nothing wrong. I find revisionist history far more offensive. If you just want to go goosteppng across the grid however, it may not be a good idea. In the end however it is up to LL, it's their playground.

Five minutes of googling found this quote from Deutsche Welle*

"Under German laws, giving the Hitler salute, wearing Nazi uniforms or displaying the swastika carries a penalty of up to three years in prison."

There are similar laws in many other European countries as well, but its not yet an "EU" thing (although the current German government is pushing for it). I'd doubt SL would have a tougher standard, since they seem to be purely reactive when it comes to matters such as this.

Hogan's Hero's is rebroadcast in Germany (heavily redubbed) so what they have there would probably make a good baseline for what is OK (I'm not being flippant - a large chunk of the actors suffered in the camps).

*dw-world.de - the German international broadcaster, somewhat like the BBC international service

That's a good one. Better than the guy who griefed the BDSM place with Abraham Lincoln

I agree it's a stupid rule, but as you said, they own the place.

I'm probably going to get flamed for this but I think a blanket rule against Nazi uniforms is ridiculous. How do you have WW2 roleplay without Nazi's? If someone wants to have sex fantasies with Adolf, I think it's pretty damn sick, but who am I to stop them? I wouldn't be offended by any kind of KKK roleplay either. To me it all comes down to the intent.

Best example (and not a great one) I can give is the Dixie flag. If people want to wave that flag in their American Civil War roleplay then absolutely, go ahead. To have that flag actually waving above the statehouse in Georgia, however, is repulsive.

I think the problem with leaving some contexts ambiguous, is that haters tend to hide in the ambiguity and protest with all sorts of tautological whining. So to designate some uses as legitimate would likely create a magnet for hate-speech-in-history-enthusiasts-clothing. Bummer, but there it is.

Don't listen to these people, it's fine. Do what you want.

Sincerely,

Prince Harry

Certain things become symbols for people - or maybe just lightning rods - and take on a life of their own that's completely separate from their reality. Nazi symbolism and expressing outrage over Nazi symbolism are two of these.

Mel Brooks could portray Nazis in The Producers because he was mocking Nazism, and because he's both Jewish and a brilliant comic genius. Ditto Chaplin (except I don't think he was Jewish).

Representations for historical or educational purposes can get away with it. I once saw an exhibit of photographs of the 1936 (Berlin) Olympics by the brilliant but intellectually flawed photographer Leni Riefenstahl that was meant to be worshipful but dramatically showed the frightening obsessiveness and brutal thuggishness of the Fascists of the day (Mussolini's Italy was represented too). It was at a large university in a part of the country noted for its relative liberalism, and nobody turned a hair.

If you're doing this in SL, expect to be scrutinized by the Lindens; prohibiting portrayal of "Nazi regalia" is one of the few cases of outright censorhip I have encountered from LL. An educational site, especially one meant to drive home the evils of Nazism, would probably be ok. An RP WWII site probably too - provided it was done just for distinguishing the Axis side.

If you're planning to walk around SL in a plausible representation of an SS uniform, visiting clubs and malls and shopping for hair or shoes, you'd better be prepared for a lot of flak. The Holocaust is still a raw, exposed wound in the Western psyche, and you WILL get criticized, attacked, griefed, and AR'd. The more provocative it seems, the worse it will be. Hell, if I ran across someone RP'ing a Nazi officer in such a setting, I'd RP an anti-Nazi partisan and trap, burn, and orbit him myself, and re-orbit, and re-orbit, if he came back. And you can be certain the Lindens will take a very dim view of it.

Beyond that, if it really does come across in any way as pushing a neo-Nazi agenda or glorifying Nazism, you will be toast. There was a sim some months ago that was displaying Nazi symbols, flattering portraits of Hitler, and antisemitic propaganda within its boundaries, and found "Your Land, Your Rules" has limitations; it quickly disappeared.

The Lindens IMO are wonderfully free of the censorship bug in general; I'm pretty sure their prohibition (I believe it is in the TOS) is there mainly because that sort of thing will produce the SL equivalent of civil disorder and a lot of really bad press in RL if tolerated for any length of time beyond what it takes to ban an account.

I loved Wolfenstein too. An homage to that game would be fine for me - in a setting that makes it clear that is what you are doing. Plus, the Nazis really were good at designing nifty uniforms. And I hate censorship. But even now, sixty-plus years on, there is still too much pain and shame for Western Civilization for such a costume to be taken as just another off-beat avatar here.

Just one person's perspective; I hope it was helpful.

ugh...how lame really.

It's a costume...no...a VIRTUAL costume...no...PIXELS on the screen.

Not coming down on you Travis, just the fact that this is so widely accepted as offensive in a virtual world is something I find both ridiculous and scary at the same time.

*snort* You reminded me of the video for Electric Six's "Gay Bar"
That's probably as far as I can go:

I planned only clothing based on the Elite Guard and Blavatsky models, although I might work on the Fallschirmjaeger and partisan models too - I had to throw away my RL trenchcoat (it was bloody 60 years old, I dug it out in my grandma's attic) and I need something for a replacement.

And as for Germans - I could go on a really long and nasty rant with colorful names, sexual references, doubts about their intelligence and masculinity, et caetera, et caetera. Beginning with USK and BDSM... Err, NSDAP... No, sorry, I meant BPjM.

I'd ask him for his boots.

I'll get you a pair of those. Serious.

EDIT: Laced or not?

You'd better not- Germany is the 2nd-most represented country in Second Life, both in terms of population and hours spent in-world.

Regarding the costumes though, in my mind, context is everything. There's someone in-world I love very much who has a fascination with all kinds of military regalia. It doesn't bother me to see her playing dress-up. I've seen griefer thugs in Nazi uniforms though, and they're just plain annoying.