From: crdunlea@rodan.acs.syr.EDU (Christopher R. Dunlea)
Subject: Re: Homosexual Nazis?
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 02:10:54 EST

In article <1993Jan22.172007.27907@bradley.bradley.edu> larry@bradley.bradley.edu (L. D. Stratton) writes:
>In <1993Jan22.163418.10191@bradford.ac.uk> K.M.Hetherington@bradford.ac.uk (KM HETHERINGTON) writes:
>
>>There's an interesting bit in "Mein Kampf" where Hitler is describing his
>>teenage years. I will have to paraphrase, as I don't have a copy to hand.
>>He was talking about why he liked a particular school he was sent to on
>>account of all the "Husky boys" there and points out that this interest
>>seriously worried his mother!
>>I'll try and root out the exact quote at some point, but it makes very
>>interesting reading and as for the inplications...
>
>   It is known that Hitler had an undescended testicle and historians 
>   generally attribute him with asexuality.
>
>   A far as the Reich is concerned, in its beginnings the Brown Shirts,
>   forerunners of the SS, was headed by a fellow whose name escapes me
>   but who was homosexual.  In 1936 (?) there was a move to consolidate
>   power by Himmler, Goebbles, etc. and "The Night of the Long Knives"
>   involved a massive purge of many Nazi leaders at the time.  One of
>   these was the head of the Brown Shirts, a homosexual, and several
>   other prominent homosexuals in the Nazi organization and government.
>   That is when things turned nasty for gays in Germany.

Ernest Rohm was the SA leader and former party leader. There is little 
known about the incidents of the Night of the Long Knives, save that
Rohm and several non-Hitler leaders were shot out of the party (and this
world). German newspaper reports, in mentioning the incident, said that 
they were taken away bwcause these people, at a vacation resort, were
engaging in gross honosexual acts (the papers even were fairly graphic,
saying that the SS had to "literally pull the men apart"). 
One thing is clear however--many of the top leaders of the NSDAP were
gay, something that Hitler must have known for years. The leak of Rohm's
homosexual practices was carried out for political reasons alone, as a means
to gain power in the party.
>
>   Hitler himself has never been considered to be gay or even gay-sympathetic.
>   When you read the passages in "Mein Kampf" (try to read the German 
>   original, BTW), there is more humor and sarcasm --- which later turned
>   into hatred.  Gays in the Third Reich were thought incapable of producing
>   any Kinder and the trait nonproductive for the proliferation of the
>   'super-race'.  

Well...there is less consensus among historians than you may think. While
psychologists and psychohistorians aren't sure, some have argued that hitler
was simply in a deep stage of repression: he had no interest in women, cert-
ainly as far as sex went, and had glorious visions of German manhood. On the
other hand, his anti-gay policies can be seen (in a freudian way) as a 
rejection of his own forbidden identity. The reproductive argument was
largely, again, an excuse. Hitler in many ways was trying to overcome the
fact that he was a failure in everything and was extremely insecure about      
his identity.


Chris