Date: Sat, 5 Nov 1994 00:46:23 -0800 (PST) From: Edward Segel Subject: C. Mueller on Nazis=Gays I am re-forwarding to gaynet, etc., a corrected text of Prof. Christine=20 Mueller's essay on the Nazis=3DGays charge. (The few typos, including one= =20 date, have been corrected, and the line and paragraph layout has I hope=20 been straightened out.) If you are using her essay as reference, or=20 passing it on, please use this corrected version to replace the earlier one= . (I tried forwarding this earlier in the day, and somehow the essay itself= =20 didn't go through. So I'm trying again. Sorry about the problem.) 1 From=20cmueller@reed.edu Tue Oct 25 16:08:27 1994 Date: Mon, 24 Oct 94 22:48 PDT From: Christine Mueller To: segel@reed.edu The Other Side of the Pink Triangle: Still a Pink Triangle Christine L. Mueller Professor of History and Humanities, Reed College October 24, 1994 =09=D2In the SS, today, we still have about one case of=20 homosexuality a month. In a whole year, about eight to ten=20 cases occur in the entire SS. I have now decided upon the=20 following: In each case, these people will naturally be=20 publicly degraded, expelled, and handed over to the courts. =20 Following completion of the punishment imposed by the courts,=20 they will be sent, by my order, to a concentration camp, and=20 they will be shot in the concentration camp, while attempting=20 to escape.=D3 =09 Heinrich Himmler, 18 February 1937 (1) =09Thus Heinrich Himmler, the man most likely to succeed=20 Adolf Hitler as Fuehrer in 1945, once again escalated the war=20 on sexual behavior that did not conform to male heterosexual=20 supremacy, an ideal he linked to winning the world race war=20 of survival. "A people of good race which has many children=20 has the candidature for world power and world domination. A=20 people of good race which has too few children has a one-way=20 ticket to the grave . . ." he admonished the SS in one of his=20 four-hour lectures. (2) Two years earlier, on the anniversary=20 of his successful ambush and murder of Ernst Roehm, SA chief=20 and Himmler's former, deeply hated commanding officer,=20 Himmler had secured Hitler's approval of a revision of the=20 law, unchanged since the founding of a united Germany in=20 l871, that set prison terms for homosexual acts. Paragraph=20 l75a, as it was called until it was repealed in 1968/69 (3),=20 now additionally criminalized eight new acts, attitudes,=20 intentions, and reveries, apart from sex itself, and punished=20 them with draconian sentences of three to ten years'=20 incarceration. (4)=20 =09 Despite the fact that Himmler often personally=20 protected Nazi homosexuals and kept their "crime" secret, (5)=20 in that year, 1935, the actual arrests under the Criminal=20 Code almost quadrupled, from 948 to about 3700. Recorded=20 arrests reached an annual high of 8115 in 1939 and fluctuated=20 at 1935 levels until the records break off in 1944. (6)=20 Unrecorded arrests, which included homosexuals from European=20 countries occupied by the Third Reich, and ad hoc killings=20 may have reached 220,000, according to estimates of the=20 Protestant Church in Austria. (7) This wide variation in=20 figures of casualties is due to the state of the records, and=20 to the fact that homosexuals continued to be treated as=20 criminals after the war. Their imprisonment remained part of=20 their police record, and they received no compensation for=20 concentration camp sentences. "Unlike other survivors, the=20 gay prisoners soon discovered that their persecution had not=20 ended. . .Throughout the l950s and l960s, German courts=20 convicted homosexual men at a rate as high as that of the=20 Nazi regime." (8) The dangers of publicity muted homosexual=20 voices, and therefore only a few memoirs and known survivors=20 exist. =20 =09Uncertainty about the numbers of homosexuals who=20 disappeared under the Nazi regime is also the direct result=20 of the high mortality of such prisoners in Nazi camps. When=20 the SS newspaper Das Schwarze Korps published the view that=20 "unnatural acts deserve the death penalty," (9) this merely=20 represented the logic of Himmler's "guiding Nordic principle:=20 extermination of degenerates." (10) Though the law prescribed=20 only prison terms of various lengths, thousands of=20 homosexuals either went to prison first and then were re- arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a "Class III"=20 concentration camp; or they were arrested by the Gestapo in=20 the first place and sent directly to a "Class III"=20 concentration camp. "Class III," writes Eugen Kogon, "stood=20 for the 'mills of death' which prisoners seldom left alive."=20 Because Nazi doctrine classed homosexuals with criminals,=20 Jews, and "political prisoners deemed especially dangerous,"=20 (11) homosexuals found themselves in Class III camps. =20 Obviously, incarceration in any concentration camp "posed a=20 threat to a prisoner's life," (12) but the classification of=20 homosexuals as particularly dangerous was telling: "The=20 closer a prisoner's category was to the heart of Nazi=20 ideology, the more dangerous his circumstances in the camp."=20 (13) From surviving prisoners to Rudolf Hoess, commandant at=20 Auschwitz, witnesses nearly unanimously report that=20 homosexuals were exposed in all camps to the greatest=20 brutality. John Steakley summarizes the evidence: =D2The chances for survival in a Level 3 camp were low indeed.=20 Homosexuals were distinguished from other prisoners by a pink=20 triangle about three-and-one-half inches high, worn on the=20 left side of the jacket and on the right trouser leg. To make=20 homosexuals more readily distinguishable, pink triangles were=20 about an inch larger than the yellow triangles worn by Jews=20 or red triangles worn by political prisoners. There was no=20 possiblity of 'passing' as a heterosexual, and the presence=20 of 'marked men' in the all-male camp population evoked the=20 same reaction as in modern prisons: homosexuals were brutally=20 assaulted and sexually abused.=D3 (14) =09The SS tortured homosexuals to death (15), worked them=20 to death, shot, raped, beat, and starved them, and=20 performed medical experiments on them. The latter included=20 hormonal injections intended to correct their homosexuality=20 and save them for the propagation of the race . They killed=20 them for sport and target practice (16). Many prisoners also=20 abused them. Sharing Nazi opinions of them, they kept them at=20 the bottom of the prisoner hierarchies that distributed=20 protection and assistance. Indeed, they were only marginally=20 higher than Jews. (17) Homosexuals were designated by their=20 fellow prisoners as the fodder for quotas -- for special=20 details, deportation, or reduction of the prisoner population=20 through execution. (18) Accepting castration might or might=20 not lead to release: release after castration could lead=20 directly to duty at the front in a feared SS penal battalion.=20 (19) In this situation, Hoess recalled, "two friends on=20 several occasions committed suicide together." (20) =09A sociologist's analysis of mortality in the camps=20 concludes: =09=D2Reading the many reports and asking the prisoners'=20 committees (which still exist today) about the prisoners with=20 the pink triangles, one repeatedly learns that they were=20 there, but nobody can tell you anything about them. =20 Quantitative analysis offers a sad explanation for the=20 extraordinary lack of visibility: the individual pink- triangle prisoner was likely to live for only a short time in=20 the camp and then to disappear from the scene. After four=20 months, one in four had left: after a year, one in two. It=20 was otherwise for the Jehovah's Witnesses and politicals:=20 after a year, four out of five and two out of three,=20 respectively, were still in the camp. This thinning out is=20 due to deaths: three out of four deaths among the homosexuals=20 occurred within the first year after their committal.=D3 (21) =09Given such a record, it is churlish indeed to deny=20 homosexuals the status of victims accorded to Jews, gypsies,=20 and the sick, merely because they were not gassed en masse,=20 but found death in other ways; and because a small fraction=20 miraculously survived. (22) Though not direct victims of the=20 Holocaust (except, of course, for Jewish homosexuals),=20 homosexuals were victims of racial cleansing, obviously a=20 corollary of the genocidal ideology of Aryan racial=20 supremacy, and in practice a deadly threat. Jews and gypsies=20 were "enemy races," scheduled for extermination; homosexuals=20 were saboteurs of the race, a problem in reproductive policy. =20 Himmler made such policy in the Reich Central Office for the=20 Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion. As "racially less=20 valuable members of the German population," homosexuals "were=20 subject to a series of negative measures" suited to the=20 relationship of their "problem" to racist values. (23) Some=20 Nazi physicians thought their "disorder" could be cured and=20 instituted forcible medical "treatment" and "rehabilitation."=20 Others thought it a "hereditary pathology" that required=20 quarantine or extermination; others thought it merely a=20 rebellious behavior: "[they build] a state within a state,=20 they are state criminals. They are not 'poor, sick' people to=20 be treated, but enemies of the state to be eliminated!"(24)=20 Despite the fact that "no gay ghettos were sacked, its=20 inhabitants carried off to be gassed," (25) there can be no=20 doubt that homosexuals (and yet other categories of=20 "undesirables" such as persistent failures, alcoholics, the=20 homeless, the retarded, juvenile delinquents, and the=20 mentally ill) were victims of the same regime that killed=20 Jews and gypsies, and for ideologically related reasons. If,=20 as Abrams claims, Judith Reisman indeed wrote that "it is=20 unconscionable for radical homoxexuals to wrest 'Nazi=20 victim status' from the bones of millions of exterminated=20 men, women, and children," (26) she is completely wrong.=20 Homosexual victims were victims in their own right. =09Before their rise to power, Nazi members of parliament=20 helped quash a proposal to limit Paragraph l75, announcing=20 officially: =D2Anyone who even thinks of homosexual love is our enemy. We=20 reject anything which emasculates our people and makes it a=20 plaything for our enemies, for we know that life is a fight=20 and it's madness to think that men will ever embrace=20 fraternally. Natural history teaches us the opposite. Might=20 makes right. And the stronger will always win over the weak.=20 Let's see to it that we once again become the strong! But=20 this we can only do in one way -- the German people must once=20 again learn how to exercise discipline. We therefore reject=20 any form of lewdness, expecially homosexuality, because it=20 robs us of our last chance to free our people from the=20 bondage which now enslaves it.=D3 (27) =09Immediately on taking power, Nazis raided and destroyed=20 homosexual clubs, associations, and organizations. They=20 created police inventories of homosexuals to fire them from=20 office and to harass them with interrogations and=20 investigations. (28) "Toughening up" Paragraph 175 and a=20 rising rate of arrests thereafter forced the highly visible=20 but illegal homosexual lifestyle underground. As one survivor=20 put it, "We lived like animals in a wild game park, always=20 sensing the hunters." (29) =09Does this record not contradict the evidence that=20 homosexuality was prevalent in Nazi organizations, most=20 saliently in the early SA under the leadership of Ernst=20 Roehm, but also in the SS and the Hitler Youth? At the hands=20 of Kevin Abrams, these well-known facts become revelations of=20 a hidden history, and lead him to propose an "Other Side of=20 the Pink Triangle": "The record shows that there was far=20 more brutality, rape, torture and murder committed against=20 innocent people by Nazi deviants and homosexuals, than there=20 was against homosexuals." (30) National Socialist leaders=20 and the SS, Abrams argues, were primarily homosexual, and the=20 qualities we associate with Nazi aggression and genocide are=20 rooted in that homosexuality. Permitted by a "liberal miasma=20 of sexual deviance" to take root, Nazism burst forth,=20 revealing the pathological nature of homosexuality. =20 Therefore, contemporary Americans should be more cautious=20 than German "liberals" were, for gays are like Nazis. Above=20 all the public must reject that propaganda image of gays as=20 victims which serves as a wedge to open the door to power. =20 So certain is Abrams of this startling conclusion, he permits=20 himself to interpret the evidence any way he needs to, with=20 slight regard for historical scholarship -- or indeed the=20 fundamental rules of logic. =09His first concern is to show that National Socialism was=20 rooted in earlier organizations founded by homosexuals, and=20 that the combat philosophy they touted was directly a product=20 of homosexuality. Certainly the prevalence of homosexuality=20 in the German Workers' Party, Thule Society and certain=20 Freikorps (veterans' bands) matched their proportions=20 elsewhere in German society -- in liberal parties, for=20 example, the army officer corps, the royal families and=20 aristocracies, the Catholic and Protestant clergies, the=20 universities, the socialist movement, among bureaucrats,=20 industrialists and small shopkeepers, in theater, music and=20 the arts, in small villages and big city slums. To make the=20 open homosexuality in proto-fascist groups appear to be=20 amazing, Abrams suppresses the fact that homosexuality had=20 increasingly -- but only partially -- "come out" in early=20 twentieth-century Germany. It was recognized in every walk=20 of life; in some parts of society it was openly tolerated, in=20 others secretly, and in others it was still repressed. In=20 each walk of life, homosexuality was imbued with the values=20 of its social, political and cultural environment. In the=20 anti-liberal movements, among the youth groups, nudists, sun-=20 and body-worshippers it was associated with health and sex=20 reform and thus with a superior, anti-bourgeois lifestyle.=20 (31) This tradition did find its way into National Socialism=20 and was mixed there with military homoeroticism. =20 Homosexuality was secretly tolerated in the army officer=20 corps, where it was embedded in a homophobic,=20 "traditionalist" culture. (32) Indeed, even conservative=20 bourgeois nationalism in this period centered on the erotic=20 image of the youthful German soldier. (33) No "liberal=20 miasma" was needed to actuate this tradition; nor was there=20 any "liberalization" of Paragraph 175 during the Weimar=20 Republic -- this is entirely a figment of Abrams'=20 imagination, needed in his view to "explain" the particularly=20 homosexual elements in Nazi organizations. What the twenties=20 did witness -- not only in Germany -- was a high degree of=20 unofficial toleration of individual emancipation -- but not=20 an inch of collective, legal emancipation. Little wonder=20 that homosexuals were also to be found in the organizations=20 out of which the NSDAP arose, and that in that culture,=20 homosexuality was associated with combat and ferocity. But=20 far from being an expression of homosexuality, that ethos=20 represented the stamp of an anti-Semitic, anti-capitalist,=20 para-military world-view on both heterosexual and homosexual=20 members. =20 =09For if homosexuality was present in every political=20 organization (and class, church, and profession) in Germany,=20 it cannot alone account for the specific nature of Nazism.=20 Homosexuality was only one element among others there. One=20 must reverse Abrams' causal account: the outstanding and=20 defining feature of these groups, where toleration of=20 homosexuality by a heterosexual majority was as secondary as=20 their interest in vegetarianism and demand for whole-grain=20 bread, was their racist patriotism and anti-liberalism. The=20 German Workers' Party, an association of German railroad=20 workers in Bohemia who were fighting off the competition of=20 Czech workers, was "a libertarian national party, which with=20 all its strength was dedicated to fighting reaction, feudal,=20 clerical and capitalist special privileges, and alien=20 national influences." (34) The Thule Society was one=20 splinter of "an underground movement of fervent, militant=20 sects which nurtured a folkish anti-Semitism like a secret=20 science." (35) The Freikorps, armed cohorts of veterans - of=20 which the "homosexual" Rossbach group was only one - were=20 dedicated to eradicating socialism, liberalism, and Judaism,=20 all of which they perceived to be enemies of the German=20 Nation. Thus they attempted to topple the Weimar Republic by=20 force. In short, the salient features of the legacy of=20 Nazism from its forerunners were violence, racism and a new=20 kind of authritarian demcoracy for the little man -- not=20 primarily homosexuality at all. =09Abrams' analysis thus has the tail wagging the dog, and=20 he persists in this error in his account of the early Nazi=20 party. Again he links one set of facts -- that the SA (as=20 Shirer aptly put it ) was "a motley mob of brawlers," (36) --=20 to another set of facts -- that numerous SA leaders were=20 homosexual; and he assumes he has established a causal=20 connection. Again he suppresses the context: for example,=20 the fact that the majority of the SA was heterosexual=20 (indeed, if millions of SA men were homosexual, Germany would=20 have had a sheerly unbelievable rate of homosexuality!). He=20 fails to mention the levels of political violence in Germany=20 that left hundreds dead on all sides in 1932 (the SA were,=20 after all, physically fighting the equally violent communist=20 and socialist combat units). Additionally it buttresses his=20 case gullibly to accept as fact the smears levelled at the=20 Nazis by socialists and communists. They tried to undermine=20 the appeal Nazi attitudes had for certain sectors of the=20 German public by labelling the Nazis "perverts." (37) Their=20 successful propaganda campaign influenced the homophobic=20 sources Abrams uses, as a recent scholarly work has=20 demonstrated. (38) Abrams has not considered that in taking=20 statements made at the time at face value simply because they=20 stem from contemporaries he turns out to be repeating=20 disinformation. =20 =20 =09Empirical data does not therefore corroborate the causal=20 connection between homosexuality and Nazi political violence. =20 Abrams next attempts to posit it as an abstract sociological,=20 or perhaps anthropological, possibly a biological,=20 generalization, citing five instances of "homosexuality"=20 observed in ancient, Asian, and primitive rituals or warrior=20 societies. These sometime conjunctions prove to him that=20 "the most warlike nations have been those who were most=20 addicted to the love of male youths." (39) Can then nations=20 not so addicted, like the U.S.A, ever be as "warlike" as the=20 homosexual, like Germany, and defeat them? Abrams' pseudo- social-scientific logic here is strikingly similar to the=20 pseudo-biologistic logic of Nazi eugenics: he has succumbed=20 to the same mythological argumentation. In fact, his=20 argument here is the argument that some Nazis, like Roehm,=20 advanced about the special powers of homosexuals, and which=20 had some influence on Hitler. =09=D2Rudolf Diels, the founder of the Gestapo, recorded some=20 of Hitler's personal thoughts on the subject: 'He lectured me=20 on the role of homosexuality in history and politics. It had=20 destroyed ancient Greece, he said. Once rife, it extended its=20 contagious effects like an ineluctable law of nature to the=20 best and most manly of characters, eliminating from the=20 reproductive process those very men on whose offspring a=20 nation depended. The immediate result of the vice was,=20 however, that unnatural passion swiftly became dominant in=20 public affairs if it were allowed to spread unchecked.' With=20 its mingled elements of condemnation, dread, and admiration,=20 Hitler's view appears to be a concatenation of eugenics, fear=20 of conspiracy (similar to the 'Elders of Zion' legend), and=20 the theory of homosexual superiority advanced by Hans=20 Blueher.=D3 (40) The "scholarly" crux of Abrams' piece is this=20 moral reversal of Blueher's pseudo-biologistic theory. =20 Blueher claimed that homosexuals were genetically more purely=20 warriors and therefore superior to heterosexuals. Abrams=20 agrees that they are more purely warriors, on grounds as=20 scientifically obscure as Blueher's, but for that reason=20 worse than heterosexuals. =20 =09Abrams next proceeds to link this principle of history=20 to contemporary America, drawing a parallel between "gay=20 political strategy" ("exaggerating homosexual victim status") =20 and the "Nazi/homosexual tactic" ("posturing as the victim")=20 that presumably helped them to power. (41) Whatever the=20 validity of his views of the political strategy of American=20 gays, any similarity to Nazi strategy founders on a simple=20 fact known instinctively to every student of Nazism, namely=20 that the Nazis never, ever, portrayed themselves as victims. =20 This was not merely a canny propaganda tactic on the part of=20 Goebbels and Hitler. All the powerful Nazis exhibited a=20 distinct aversion to the position of victim. Is Abrams=20 thinking here of the Nazi propaganda image of Germany as a=20 victim of international Jewry? If so, the image was one of=20 blonde women and heroic men seduced and swindled by Jews. =20 The Nazis were the relief to Germany's misery, not a part of=20 it. Or perhaps Abrams thinks of Mein Kampf as the testament=20 of a victim: on the contrary, it is a tale of the revenge of=20 a "master" on those fools who took him to be a victim. The=20 Nazis divided the world into masters and victims, and they=20 were never to be found on the wrong side. =09This forced analogy reveals that it is not enough for=20 Abrams to refute gay histories of Nazi persecution -- he=20 claims to know categorically that "in Nazi Germany,=20 homosexuals as a specific "group" were NEVER targeted for=20 extermination and were treated far better than most other=20 concentration camp prisoners." (42) The point of the false=20 parallel between Nazi and gay "strategies" is to imply=20 further that claims of persecution should be read as a secret=20 sign of the real, i.e. Nazi, nature of American gays! If=20 homosexuality equals "warlike," American gays must be like=20 Nazis in many other ways as well. After this observation,=20 the unfolding of the Nazi regime in his article becomes a=20 sketch of the potential dangers gays pose to America. =20 =09Abrams' task is now to show that homosexuality was=20 rampant in National Socialist leadership -- that it survived=20 the purge of the "homosexual" SA and was the dominant feature=20 of the SS, the SD, and even Hitler himself, "the pathological=20 god born of a masculo-homosexual cult." (43) These are=20 spectacularly garbled passages. On the one hand, Abrams=20 claims that Paragraph 175 was less stringent after 1935, but=20 a few pages later, in the course of asserting that political=20 opponents of the regime, not homosexuals at all, were=20 persecuted under that paragraph, he unwittingly presents=20 evidence that the law was indeed made more stringent. He=20 asserts that there were no homosexuals in concentration camps=20 and then twice refers to the testimony of a homosexual in a=20 concentration camp about the rapes of homosexuals in=20 concentration camps by the SS. And while the overall=20 argument aims to show that homosexuality was accepted in the=20 regime, he uses complaints and denunciations of homosexual=20 Nazis by heterosexual Nazis to show the presence of=20 homosexuality. =09Oblivious to these contradictions, Abrams concentrates=20 on solving what seems to him the major obstacle to his case,=20 the fact that when Hitler purged Roehm and the SA, he=20 explained his murderous acts as a purge of homosexuals. A=20 contemporary witticism asked: if this was what Hitler did=20 upon discovering Roehms' homosexuality, what would he do when=20 he found out about Goebbels' club foot!? In other words,=20 neither the alert public in 1934 nor any historian since has=20 taken that "spin control" at face value. Laboriously, Abrams=20 kicks at an open door, showing what everyone already knows,=20 that Hitler let Roehm be killed for reasons other than=20 homosexuality. Abrams arrives at the surprisingly correct=20 conclusion that "much to the delight of the Reichswehr (the=20 German army), landowners and industrialists, Hitler had put=20 an end to the 'Second Socialist Revolution,'" (44) but from=20 this he extracts an incorrect meaning. What it shows is not=20 that Hitler promoted homosexuality both before and after the=20 Roehm purge and sacrificed Roehm only to absolute necessity,=20 but rather that homosexuality had not been and never became=20 an important aspect of National Socialist ideology or=20 practice; that Roehm had been supported not as a homosexual,=20 but in spite of it, because he was a tough, fearsome and=20 loyal supporter; that Hitler dropped him when he became a=20 rebel. Loyalty to his person and program was Hitler's=20 overriding demand of his lieutenants. Roehm posed a problem=20 from the start, because he was a powerful and charismatic=20 leader with millions of his own loyal followers, and he=20 threatened to remain outside the Hitler state. Hitler shared=20 an old friendship with him; but he also feared this "loose=20 cannon," and had only reluctantly accepted him as SA chief on=20 his return from Bolivia. (45) He disdained him in private=20 ("The clique from the Bratwurstgloeckl are all fairies!")(46)=20 while flattering him in public. Abrams takes precisely this=20 flattery as incontrovertible evidence of their (homosexual?)=20 bond. Above all, Hitler simply needed Roehm, as long as his=20 service was unconditional and as long as Hitler lacked other=20 means of support. Abrams puts his finger on it when he=20 writes: "More than once he had warned his party comrades=20 against being too squeamish about a man's personal morals if=20 he were a fanatical fighter for the movement." (47) Sadly,=20 Abrams does not recognize his own insight. Moreover, it=20 should be noted that the "morals" here referred to included=20 much more than homosexuality-- Goebbels' actresses and=20 Goering's thefts, for example. The army was, as Abrams=20 proposes, deeply implicated in the Roehm purge, but not, as=20 Abrams would have it, because it balked at the prospect of "a=20 gang of unruly homosexual thugs running the German army."=20 (48) The problem was not homosexuality, but that "these=20 armed poultry farmers or department store porters would wake=20 up with the rank of general or at least colonel, just because=20 they had won the titles of SA group or brigade leaders as a=20 result of various scuffles in beer cellars or back alleys." =20 (49) Homosexuality in the SA was for the army just as=20 secondary to the main issue -- power -- as Abrams shows it to=20 have been for Hitler. =09Does proving at length what everyone already knows --=20 that homosexuality was not a central issue in the Roehm purge=20 -- thus prove that the National Socialist regime was and=20 remained an expression of the "pathology" of homosexuality? =20 Abrams tries to argue, first, that the SS inherited that SA=20 tradition, despite the fact that it was established to=20 protect Hitler from the SA and was led by two homophobic=20 heterosexuals, Himmler and Heydrich, the one married and the=20 other a notorious ladies' man. The SS (Schutzstaffel or=20 guard companies) was not named after "a homosexual group in=20 Vienna." (50) The SA did not "become the Sicherheitsdienst=20 (SD)," (51) but a military sports club (52); nor was the SD=20 the "branch of the SS security service that controlled the=20 concentration camps." (53) It was the SS security service,=20 while a special division of the SS, Totenkopf, was assigned=20 to the camps. Thus Abrams' notion that "whenever the murder=20 of innocent masses of Jews, Poles or captured allied=20 prisoners was portrayed in the movies, it would have been the=20 Sicherheitsdienst division, the 'butch' homosexuals, who were=20 responsible," is patently -- Hollywood. Abrams' insinuations=20 that Hitler himself was homosexual are based on such=20 tendentious reading of such dubious evidence -- wartime=20 polemics and drug-store histories -- that Abrams himself=20 seems unwilling to state his position baldly. And indeed, if=20 Hitler had founded the NSDAP with homosexuals, openly=20 promoted a homosexual agenda, had a homosexual relationship=20 with Roehm, and so forth, one wonders why he himself remained=20 in the closet? Hitler was not a homosexual; but he was=20 ambivalent about homosexuality among his followers. =20 Sometimes he complained, at other times he defended them. =20 That is, until the dominant heterosexual elements in the=20 NSDAP politicized the matter. Quite possibly to make the=20 party more acceptable to the German public -- who were indeed=20 horrified at the violence of party squads -- a campaign=20 against homosexuality got underway, largely under Himmler's=20 aegis. "Homosexuality" served, among other things, to pin=20 the obnoxious violence of the 1930-1934 period on a scapegoat=20 that had disapppeared -- the "homosexual SA." Thus, as=20 Heiden wrote: "A storm of defamation descended on these=20 dead men." (55)=20 =09But the official campaign was also fed by an increasing=20 social intolerance of any but a "normal" heterosexual=20 lifestyle in Germany. Nazi politicization of the issue of=20 homosexuality, now labelled "a frightful legacy of the=20 liberal period," itself created the evidence of homosexuality=20 in Nazi organizations -- the celebrated cases, the rumors,=20 the jokes -- on which Abrams relies. "Among older youths,=20 homosexuality, that very special Nationalist Socialist=20 'crime,' became a prominent feature of the criminal=20 landscape, mostly because the Hitler youth and SS, by no=20 means immune from this supposed flaw, mobilized a 'sharpened=20 fight' to eradicate it." (56) It is worth noting that the=20 contemporaneous attack on 'gay New York' by politicians and=20 police (57) had much less scope for persecution than did the=20 SS, because of the comparative strength of American civil=20 rights. Only thirty years later did new emancipation=20 movements in both Germany and the U.S.A. once again reveal=20 the presence of homosexuals in all walks of life. The notion=20 that this movement derived from Nazism, or, as Abrams puts=20 it, shares a "homosexual pathology" with the Nazis, requires,=20 we have already noted, not only tendentious research,=20 fallacious reasoning, and gullibility -- excusable because=20 ignorance can be changed -- but also a dishonorable=20 determination to adapt the evidence to his needs. =20 =09The abuse to which he subjects Heiden's Der Fuehrer is=20 particularly flagrant. To suggest Hitler's homosexuality,=20 for example, Abrams changes Heiden's text: "With Roehm and=20 Heines, Stennes helped to impose the rule of the homosexuals=20 over the SA;" to: "with Roehm and Heines, Hitler helped to=20 impose the rule of Roehm's exclusively homosexual clique over=20 the SA." (58) Abrams has Roehm writing from Bolivia that he=20 intended "to spread the culture," whereas in the original, he=20 spreads "culture," i.e. Kultur. (59) In another example,=20 Heiden describes a factional feud inside the party, during=20 which Goebbels, taking sides against Hitler, called him a=20 "vain operetta queen" (60) -- a play on Hitler's popular=20 title, "The King of Munich." In Abrams' rearrangement of the=20 text, Goebbels is referring to Roehm and appears to be=20 complaining about his homosexuality (61). Since in German=20 the word queen (Koenigin) has no reference to homosexuality=20 whatsoever, this error speaks volumes for the quality of=20 Abrams' scholarly credentials. =20 =09These selected instances must suffice to show how=20 assiduously Abrams has doctored his quotations; it would be=20 tedious to list them all. Two myths challenged by the=20 recovery of the memory of homosexual victims of Nazism seem=20 to have provoked Abrams' exercise in "revisionism." First,=20 his irritation that "gay apologists...portray themselves as=20 historical victims of Nazi persecution on par with the Jewish=20 people" (62) reveals his unrealistic assumption that the=20 "honor" of being victimized by the Nazi regime is possessed=20 exclusively by one group. Though certainly each category of=20 victims was subjected to unique conditions, and thus the term=20 "victims of the Holocaust" should indeed refer to those=20 exterminated on grounds of race, the term "victims of Nazism"=20 cannot refer exclusively to those who perished in Operation=20 Reinhard. After all, apart from Jews and gypsies, millions=20 of other individuals died as a result of Nazi persecution and=20 aggression. Indeed, recent research suggests that our=20 conventional categories may not take Nazi plans into account.=20 The millions of Slavs who died of hunger, disease, exposure,=20 overwork, and violence are generally not included in the=20 category of victims of the Holocaust, yet their eventual=20 disappearance by attrition was anticipated. (63) But even if=20 Abrams were correct to exclude all other groups from=20 victimhood, Charles Maier's objection to such an abuse of the=20 Holocaust seems apt: he terms it "the perverted myth that=20 exploits the memory of an infinite horror to justify even a=20 far less repressive behavior." (64) =20 =09A second deeply rooted attitude is revealed when Abrams=20 identifies homosexuality with heightened masculinity,=20 murderous violence, and sadism (although, in a manner=20 dangerously close to a conspiracy theory, he also associates=20 it with femininity and passivity). This leads him to protest=20 the gay claim of the persecution of homosexuals from another=20 emotional angle -- victimhood just does not suit his image of=20 them. On the contrary, he envisions destruction, killings,=20 and the rape of prisoners as typical of homosexuality. Such=20 violent assaults, however, are not expressions of any=20 sexuality. They are rather a typical weapon of heterosexuals=20 used to intimidate and torture both homosexual and=20 heterosexual males in all-male environments -- such as=20 American prisons. Can Abrams thus argue that the American=20 prison population is basically homosexual? Rapes by the SS=20 do not require such belabored myth-making as this article to=20 explain: they raped as heterosexuals, and their actions do=20 not show that the Nazis were homosexuals at all. Steakley=20 proposes that =D2with their relentless emphasis upon strength, purity,=20 cleanliness, and masculine comradeship, the Nazi=20 Maennerbuende (all-male groups) surely contained a strong=20 element of deeply repressed homoeroticism; the degree of=20 repression was evidenced by the vehemence of the Nazi=20 reaction to those who were overtly homosexual. The biblical=20 scapegoat was the sacrificial animal upon whose head the=20 amorphous guilt of the entire community was placed.=D3 (65) =09Perhaps he is also correct to say that "The self=20 righteousness that could prompt this type of action cuts=20 through the entire ideology glorifying racial purity and=20 extermination of degenerates to reveal stark fear of=20 homosexuality." (66) =20 =09The historical record is far from supporting Kevin=20 Abrams' emotional and ignorant assertions. The advice his=20 essay implies -- to support governmental action to repress a=20 "masculo-homosexual cult, marked by deviance, brutality and=20 dictatorial power" -- should be recognized for what it is,=20 what Jefferson would have called "a form of tyranny over the=20 mind of man." Endnotes 1. Quoted in Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The=20 Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 (Cambridge, England,1991),=20 193. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., 183; James D. Steakley, The Homosexual Emancipation=20 Movement in Germany (New York, 1975), 110. 4. Ibid.,110; Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State, 192. 5. Gerhard Rempel, Hitler's Children (Chapel Hill, 1989), 52. 6. Steakley, Movement, 111. 7. Ibid., 106. 8. Klaus Mueller, "Introduction," in Heinz Heger, The Men=20 with the Pink Triangle (Boston, 1980), 13. 9. Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State, 191. 10. Ibid., 192. 11. Eugen Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell, trans.=20 Heinz Norden, (New York, l979), 35. 12. Ruediger Lautman, "Gay Prisoners in Concentration Camps=20 as Compared with Jehovah's Witnesses and Political=20 Prisoners," in Michael Berenbaum, ed., A Mosaic of Victims:=20 Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis (London, 1990),=20 201. 13. Ibid., 202. 14. Steakley, Movement, 113. 15. Heger, Pink Triangle, 37-45; Steakley, Movement, 121. 16. Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State,195-197. 17. Kogon, Hell, 43-44. 18. Heger, Pink Triangle, 101. 19. Ibid. 20. Quoted in Steakley, Movement, 116. 21. Lautmann, "Gay Prisoners," 204. 22. If Kevin Abrams has quoted Judith Reisman correctly in=20 "The Other Side of the Pink Triangle," (n.p., n.d.), 6. 23. Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State, 46. 24. Informationsdienst, June 20 1938, quoted in Robert=20 Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge,=20 Mass., 1988), 213. 25. Judith Reisman, quoted in Abrams, "Other Side," 6. 26. Ibid. 27. Steakley, Movement, 84. 28. Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State, 194. 29. Quoted in ibid., 194. 30. Ibid., 10. 31. Steakley, Movement, 21-69. 32. See Nicholas Sombart, "The Kaiser in his Epoch," in John=20 C. G. Ruehl and Nicholas Sombart, eds., Kaiser Wilhelm II,=20 New Interpretations: The Corfu Papers, (New York, 1982).=20 33. George L. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Middle-class=20 Morality and Sexual Norms in Modern Europe, (Madison,=20 Wisconsin, 1985), 88,122. 34. Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship, (New=20 York, 1970), 55. 35. Ibid., 45. 36. Quoted in Abrams, "Other Side," 4. 37. Mueller, "Introduction," 10. 38. See Jorn Meve, Homosexuelle NS: ein Stereotyp in Politik=20 und Literatur des Exils, (Berlin: 1990). 39. Quoted in Abrams, "Other Side," 5. 40. Steakley, Movement, 109-110. 41. Abrams, "Other Side," 5. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid., 10. 44. Ibid. 45. Martin Broszat, The Hitler State (London and New York,=20 1981), 37-8. 46. Konrad Heiden, Der Fuehrer (Boston, 1944), 294. 47. Abrams, "Other Side," 9. 48. Ibid., 8. 49. Heiden, Der Fuehrer, 746. 50. Abrams, "Other Side," 7. 51. Ibid., 7. 52. Broszat, Hitler State, 35-38. 53. Abrams, "Other Side," 7. 54. Ibid. 55. Heiden, Der Fuehrer, 763. 56. Rempel, Hitler's Children, 83. 57. See George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture=20 and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, (New York,=20 1994). 58. Abrams, "Other Side," 7; Heiden, Der Fuehrer, 372. 59. Abrams, "Other Side," 6; Heiden, Der Fuehrer, 303-304. 60. Ibid., 370-371. 61. Abrams, "Other Side," 6. 62. Ibid., 10. 63. Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and=20 the Final Solution, (New York, 1991), 66-84. 64. Charles S. Maier, The Unmasterable Past: History,=20 Holocaust, and German National Identity (Cambridge,=20 Massachusetts, 1988), 166. 65. Steakley, Movement, 117-118. 66. Ibid.