31.7.2011
Unit HQ
Ok, Parola Tank Museum family day was a warm one and the next event, "Mauser Hill march" will most probably be a warm weekend, too.
So do take enough drinking water with you and do not forget to think
what to wear - if weather is scorching hot a HBT uniform would be my
choice.
But as has been mentioned before: no tropical stuff!
I try to add some new pics today, already updated a new vendor link: In Trenches, go check it out.
Met some German and Finnish Waffen-SS veterans today in Helsinki,
spent some time together in Hietaniemi cemetery where we laid wreaths
to Finnish
and German war memorials and also sung "Ich hatt' einen Kameraden" together.
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael
Gaißmair"
16.5.2011
Unit HQ
First
two events of warm time of the year are done, next bigger effort is the
"Family Day" in Parola Tank Museum where we will portray
Waffenbrüder of Finnish WW2 soldiers. Members from Etulinja should be coming as well in Finnish uniforms.
I do hope that the sad individual who has been telephoning and
complaining about re-enactors to the museum, to director of Finnish War
Museum, to the chairman of Finnish parliament,
to Vladimir Putin, to Barack Obama and most probably also to His
Holiness Benedictus XVI would quit his senseless effort of undermining
the WW2 re-enactment scene in Finland,
as he is at the moment the laughing stock of each and every serious
re-enactor in this country, not to mention the amount of amusement his
rat-like whining voice
causes to museum officials here and there. I am quite sure that Pope also feels sorry for him.
To put it simply: Mister
E.N., please do stop, you are only making yourself ridiculous. You
can't kill this hobby from this country whatever you do.
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael
Gaißmair"
28.4.2011
Unit HQ
Members of "Michael
Gaißmair" took part in Finnish Waffen-SS veterans association's 70th anniversary party in Helsinki
Edelweiss badges were temporarily removed and replaced with lion badges in left cuff.
Our warmest thanks to our hosts and also big thank you to our Kamerad from "Wallonien" who also participated.
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael
Gaißmair"
8.3.2011
Unit HQ
More Winter training 2011 pictures updated, the last page has also a very nice Wochenschau
video filmed and edited by our Dutch Kameraden.
Have fun with the pictures, I try to make one last page of pictures more!
Also found some more of our own Wochenschau clips from 2007. I disabled the Front-Kino page from our site as it
did not serve any useful purpose anymore, from this day onwards Wochenschau clips of happenings can be
found from the photo page of the happening itself.
Picture and picture archive conversions are still "being processed", if you encounter any dead links, let me know.
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael
Gaißmair"
21.2.2011
Unit HQ
Best wishes from the forest and Winter Training 2011 happening!
It was THIS cold, -33°C was the lowest recorded temperature..
Pictures will be online soon!
One unit announcement: SS-Rottenführer Franz Repper has been promoted to SS-Unterscharführer.
Franz has been one of the key figures in the success of our unit and
this promotion is a reward for five years of excellent service.
Congratulations!
P.S. We have been in Facebook for some time, but only now managed I to link that here:
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael
Gaißmair"
12.2.2011
Unit HQ
One week till Winterausbildung 2011 happening!
Official Lagerbefehl can be found here as .pdf document.
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael
Gaißmair"
9.1.2011
Unit HQ
Happy New Year 2011 to all!
Updated some new things to our "Uniforms" section; as our unit grows bigger and we get more and more publicity
at home and abroad it's good to pay attention what we do look like. Our authenticity officer, SS-Rottenführer Franz Repper
has updated our uniform requirements, go take a look at them and keep them in mind when planning future uniform purchases.
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael
Gaißmair"
11.12.2010
Unit HQ
OK, its almost Christmas, but before we settle down to celebrate with family and friends, it's time for some new updates:
Pile of pictures from out Christmas party has been updated as well as some war-time gems from Franz Repper collection.
Next
year will be a special year for us, as in early 2011 our unit
will be five (5) years old! That's quite an accomplishment,
I am happy to be a member of the best known and most active Finnish re-enactment unit. During these years we have gone through
interesting times, we have had many good laughs and almost as many unhappy situations. But with help of proper Kameradenschaft we
have always emerged as winners.
These years would not have been possible without my good friend Franz Repper. Without him, we wouldn't have our unit at all.
I wish all our unit members, their families and friends peaceful Christmastime and happy new year 2011.
Start collecting your gear for Winter Training 2011!!
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael
Gaißmair"
11.11.2010
Unit HQ
Just received alarming news: Someone or something does see our unit
as "extremist organization"
and based
on this - quite interesting - view has taken appropriate action and
warned the Finnish Army that our group is
a "alarming example" of a
group that uses Finnish Army facilities to "play military dramas with live
ammunition".
A few points to clarify the situation:
1) we are not an "extremist organization" but honest re-enactors who are
interested on military history
2) we have never used Finnish Army facilities, such as shooting ranges
3) if there's something the authorities would like to know, go ahead
and ask. Email address is in the front page!
4) all our actions and things we do are based on the Finnish law.
Here's the article a local newspaper wrote about the new orders from
the army:
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael Gaißmair"
21.9.2010
Unit HQ
Small set of pictures from German
military cemetery Helsinki
updated.
Soldiers resting there are far away from their home, in the middle of
beautiful Finnish forest.
Not many weeks till StuG und PaK
training weekend!
See you there!
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael Gaißmair"
18.8.2010
Unit HQ
Still haven't managed to update the pics of May/II and July
happenings,
but got a nice article from our SS-KB
working for Lappland-Kurier,
he had
visited the Soldatenfriedhof
Norvajärvi, the last resting place of many soldiers from "Nord".
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael Gaißmair"
10.8.2010
Unit HQ
Second set of August 2010
pictures is online, as is a small article about Mauser Hill.
Pictures from Michael
Gaissmair/Etulinja May happening are waiting, as are pictures
from Parola Tank Museum from
early July. If all goes well they should be online within a week!
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael Gaißmair"
8.8.2010
Unit HQ
Back home from August 2010
re-enactment weekend, also known as Unternehmen
Eulenwald.
Traditional march to Mauser Hill
was extremely tough this year, as we have a very warm summer;
temperatures were closer to +30°C, which is quite warm. All gear was
soaked in sweat, but luckily we had
enough drinking water with us, so no one got dehydrated! It also seems
that I need more physical excercise to
keep pace with fast moving Gebirgsjäger,
less desk duty and more walking out from now on!
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael
Gaißmair"
30.7.2010
Unit HQ
Finally
back from summer holidays with family and only a week to go until "Unternehmen Eulenwald",
our traditional summer training and forest marching weekend. As usual
we head off to Mauser Hill
located in our summer training area.
Picture updates from summer happenings should be online soon..
6.5.2010
Unit HQ
It seems that our pictures have been "loaned" to websites elsewhere as well; why not as copyrights
of those pics must have been expired a long time ago, but as we have had the trouble of locating them,
scanning the pics and putting them online it would be fair to put our units's name next to the pics!
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael
Gaißmair"
21.3.2010
Unit HQ
Did some small maintenance work with the "Albums" -page, as it
turned out that
the old location where the albums were stored did not work. Well-
luckily webspace is cheap,
so I contacted our service provider and ordered 100Mb more space for
our site.
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael Gaißmair"
14.3.2010
Unit HQ
OK, first set of Three Days in January pics is now online!
Sorry for the delay, I wish there were 48 hours in a day!
Ewald Koch, unit
commander, "Michael Gaißmair"
14.2.2010
Unit HQ
As you may know, our unit hq suffered a serious computer screw-up in
late October 2009.
My computer simply went dead and refused to work anymore. That's why
all updates have been "on hold"
for some time. Luckily, we have a beautiful iMac computer now (no more
MS and PC crap in this house)
and update situation will be improving. I have lots of picures from "Three Days in January" waiting
to be processed and updated here!
Ewald Koch, unit commander
28.10.2009
Unit HQ
Lots of time has passed since the last post on this page.
However I would still like to announce that my accomodation issue is
now OK
and that I am living in my new "HQ" in the beautiful village of
Helsinki as Franz would put it.
And yes, I am back from combined sick-leave/house renovation leave and again in my post as unit commander
Ewald Koch, unit commander
28.4.2009
Until my situation with this renovation and temporary accomodation
improves,
SS-Rottenführer Franz Repper is acting as unit commander.
Ewald Koch, unit commander
17.3.2009
Unit hq
Februar 2009 pics should be all online now: six pages of
winter re-enacting! Added also a new link.
Updates will be limited during April-May as unit hq will be moving to
new premises. Please bear with me on that!
Ewald Koch, unit commander
9.3.2009
Winter training weekend was completed succesfully. My warmest thanks
to all participants, both from abroad and home.
Pics of the event will be online sooner or later, I have a big pile of
them and going through all pics takes time.
And some happy unit news as well:
Our Gebirgsjäger-Kamerad Michael Eichen has been promoted to SS-Sturmmann
Justification to promotion was commitment to unit, active
participation in unit happenings and correct military-like behaviour.
Congratulations!
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael Gaißmair"
5.2.2009
Only a few weeks to our winter weekend!
I am afraid there won't be many updates before that but I also guess
that our SS-KB Willi will be in the forest with
us taking dozens of great pictures for all of us to enjoy!
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael Gaißmair"
10.1.2009
Unit hq
New PK pictures updated - 3 pages of great pictures. My warmest thanks to our SS-KB Willi!
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael Gaißmair"
7.1.2009
Unit hq
It's new year and new tricks! 2009 will be the fourth (4th!) year of
active SS Gebirgsjäger re-enacting in our country.
Not a small thing as we don't have many active WW2 re-enacting groups
here (the only other active unit I know is Etulinja).
Winter training weekend has been confirmed to be 27.2.2009 - 1.3.2009. Check your emails and contact me if in doubt.
And yes, I will update new pics soon!
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael Gaißmair"
28.12.2008
Unit hq
This page will replace the old Michael Gaißmair forum which has not
been very active for year or so. From now
on all unit information will be announced on this particular page as
well as mailed or emailed to unit members.
The old forum will not be completely deleted, I just removed the link
from our website.
Many of you must have wondered where the updates of our pages have
been and when will next unit weekend be.
Update situation has been quiet because of things in my personal life
(which I will not discuss here), next
happening will be winter training in traditional winter training time
and -place. Check your emails!
My warmest thanks for year 2008 to all unit members! Let's make 2009
even better year
what comes to SS Gebirgsjäger re-enacting in Finland!
Ewald Koch, unit commander, "Michael Gaißmair"
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