just o u t ▼ n o v s m b o r 17, 1995 ▼ 13
HISTORY
TABOR FLORIST
Announcing the
opening of a
second location
Twisted truth
Scott Lively’s book fails to tell the whole story in its attempt
to blame homosexuals for the Holocaust
▼
by Sukie de la Croix
sick people but enemies of the state to be elimi
ver the years gay men have been
nated!”
blamed for just about everything,
As he did with the Jewish people, Hitler turned
from the fall of the Roman Empire
to
the
medical profession to justify the extermina
to the Jack the Ripper murders.
tion of homosexuals. By the mid-1930s, German
And now, accoiuing to a recently
physicians
published book, homosexual males were
respon were united in their belief that homo
sexuals posed a public health threat. They pointed
sible for the Nazi Holocaust.
to a large body of evidence that had been com
The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi
piled, since the tum of the century, to confirm the
Party, co-authored by Scott Lively, former Oregon
pathological nature of homosexual males.
Citizens Alliance membership director, and Kevin
This research began formally in 1905, when
Abrams, an Orthodox Jew and member of the
physician
Alfred Ploetz, psychiatrist Ernst Riidin,
National Association for the Research and Therapy
lawyer Anastasius Nordenholz and anthropolo
of Homosexuality, is a 224-page book claiming
gist Richard Thumwald founded a society called
that homosexuality was the “central element of the
Gesellschaft ftir Rassenhygiene (the Society for
fascist system,” and that the high-ranking Nazi elite
Racial Hygiene). In the society’s first published
were pedophiles and homosexuals.
volum e, A rch iv fiir Rassen- und G esell-
Lively said in a press statement, “If history is to
schaftsbiologie (The Journal o f Racial and Social
be told accurately, the behavior of homosexuals
under Hitler’s barbarous rule provides further evi Biology), Ernst Riidin argued that homosexuality
was a genetically determined “diseased form of
dence that homosexuality is a pathology.”
degeneracy.”
The Pink Swastika could be easily dismissed as
A typical statement of the Nazi period was
just another crackpot theory from the religious
made in 1934 by Professor Lothar Tirala of
right, written without a shred of evidence. The
Munich, who said, “Ger
problem is that the book
mans must use all possible
does have a shred of evi
means to suppress such sick
dence, which the bigoted
perversions in the body of
authors have distorted and
our
people.”
blown out of all proportion
Hitler took the evidence
to fit in with their own pe
of these medical "experts”
culiar ideology.
and used it to send tens of
So, what are the facts?
thousands of homosexual
What role did homosexu
males to the death camps.
als play in the Nazi Party?
So who is to blame for
And, if homosexuals did
the Nazi Holocaust? The
play a role, why were they
authors of The Pink Swas
ultimately persecuted?
tika accuse homosexuals of
Certainly, in the early
running the death camps,
years of the Nazi Party,
while ignoring the factual
Hitler associated freely
evidence that Hitler had al
with known homosexuals,
ready cleansed the Nazi Party of all known “sexual
most notably with his close friend Ernst Roem. The
deviants” long before the atrocities at Auschwitz,
two men met in 1919, and Roem was instrumental
in Hitler’s rise to power. If Hitler was unaware of Treblinka, et al.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but the gay slogan
Rbem’s homosexuality, then it was certainly brought
is true: “We are everywhere.” We write speeches
to his attention in 1925, when Roem took a male
for televangelist preachers, we vote for anti-gay
prostitute to court and charged him with theft. Yet
laws in the corridors o f power, we make
Hitler continued to court Roem’s support, electing
homophobic announcements from within the walls
him to transform the ramshackle brown-shirt mili
of the Vatican, and we contributed to the rise of
tia into the highly disciplined elite Storm Troopers.
the Nazi regime.
This unlikely alliance ended on June 30, 1934,
But for the authors of The Pink Swastika to say
when, after pressure from his military generals,
that homosexuality was the “central element of
Hitler ordered the assassination of Ernst Roem and
the fascist system” is nonsense. The finger of
dozens of other, mostly homosexual. Storm Trooper
blame must point to all of us, to the individual, for
leaders. This was known as the Roem putsch, or the
his or her gullibility in handing over our future to
“night of the long knives.”
politicians
without monitoring their every subse
Was Roem murdered because of his homo
quent move. We are all responsible for our his
sexuality, or did he just step on the wrong toes?
tory. All we can do now is to ensure that a similar
Whatever the reason, the “night of the long knives”
tragedy never happens in our future.
proved to be the turning point in Hitler’s tolerance
Authors Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams give
of homosexuality within the Nazi Party. The
away their true motives for writing this book by
small clique of sadistic and misguided homosexu
describing homosexuality as “pathological.” These
als that aided his rise to power were now of no
were the words of Adolf Hitler himself. You can
further use to him. He had successfully convinced
call The Pink Swastika whatever respectable name
the German people that Jews were subhuman and
you like—a Christian perspective, an orthodox
a poisonous blight on society, and now it was time
Jewish perspective—but what it is, undoubtedly
to tum his attention to other “undesirable” groups.
and without question, is two men planting the
At a 1935 Nazi Party Congress at Nuremberg,
seeds of fascism.
Gerhard Wagner, a leader of the German medical
profession, stated that the Jewish population had
Sukie de la Croix is a columnist fo r The Pink
a higher percentage of homosexuals than did the
Paper in London and has been writing fo r the
non-Jewish population, thus successfully linking
gay press in England fo r 15 years. He has
homosexuality with an already despised minor
recently
published a book o f short stories called
ity.
Black Confetti: New Fairy Tales for an Old
“Homosexuals are like Jews,” said one physi
Country and is currently writing a libretto fo r an
cian of the period. "They build a state within a
operetta. He now lives in Chicago with his lover.
state, they are state criminals. They are not poor.
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