Don’t agree with you on that Paul as we take about 70% of the available information in by visual means; that is by looking. How many visitors attending public displays actually come up to an ‘informed’ group member to ask or discuss things, particularly in depth? I would suggest very few in comparison to overall numbers. Of those who do ask questions how many would ask about beards? That means a lot of people will have made assumptions based entirely on what they’ve seen in passing the display. That is beards were acceptable for fallschirmjaeger with no differentiation between theatres or time period in the war.As long as the display at the public event had good information boards and was well displayed showing that it was depicting an Italy scenario and that well informed reenactors were on hand to talk to the public I don't see there being a problem.
The wearing of goatee beards is one of those subtleties that not all members of the public would be aware of and we are risking misinforming them. By all means show copies of the original pictures but make sure there is a short description highlighting this was a trend noticeable in Italy (and by some in Russia) and didn’t conform to military regulations but more likely from a relaxation of those regulations locally.
I think GRFJ takes the best approach by adopting the norm rather than the exception, which if I recall correctly was your own policy when running a group.
Geoff
