1

Homosexuality, Pederasty, & Occultism’s Combined Influence On the Third Reich

With thanks to Scott Lively, author of The Pink Swastika, where much of this information
came/excerpted from

In 1945, a Jewish historian by the name of Samuel Igra published Germany’s National Vice, in which he
called homosexuality a “poisoned stream” that ran through the heart of Nazism. (In the 1920’s and 30’s,
homosexuality was known as “the German vice” across Europe because of the debaucheries of the
Weimar period). Igra, who escaped Germany in 1939, claims that Hitler:

“…had been a male prostetute in Vienna at the time of his sojourn there, from 1907 to
1912, and that he practiced the same calling in Munich from 1912 to 1914”1

Desmond Seward, in Napoleon and Hitler, says Hitler is listed as a homosexual in Viennese police
records.2 (Keep in mind that Hitler was not exclusively gay, as he had sexual affairs with at least four
women.) Lending further credence to this fact, noted by Walter Langer, that during several of those
years Hitler “chose to live in a Vienna flophouse known to be inhabited by many homosexuals” (more on
Langer in just a moment).

Frank Rector writes that, as a young man, Hitler was often called “der schoen Adolf” (the handsome
Adolf) and later his looks “were also to some extent helpful in gaining big-money support from Ernst
Rohm’s circle of wealthy gay friends.”3

Langer, a psychiatrist, was commissioned by the Allies in 1943 to prepare a thorough psychological
profile of Hitler. His report, kept under wraps for 29 years was published in book form in 1972 as The
Mind of Adolf Hitler. Langer writes that Hitler was certainly a “coprophile” (a person who is sexually
aroused by human excrement) and may have practiced homosexuality as an adult. He cites the
testimony of Hermann Rauschning, a former Hitler confidant who,

“reports that he has met two boys who claimed that they were Hitler’s homosexual
partners, but their testimony can hardly be taken at face value. More condemning,” adds
Langer, “would be the remarks dropped by [Albert] Foerster, the Danzig gauleiter, in
conversation with Rauschning. Even here, however, the remarks deal only with Hitler’s
impotence as far as heterosexual relationships go without actually implying that he
indulges in homosexuality. It is true that Hitler calls Foerster ‘Bubi,’ which is a common
nickname employed by homosexuals in addressing their partners [back then]. This alone
is not adequate proof that he has actually indulged in homosexual practices with
Foerster, who is known to be a homosexual.”4

However, writes Langer, “even today, Hitler derives sexual pleasure from looking at men’s bodies and
associating with homosexuals.”5 A well-known fact is that Hitler’s greatest hero was Frederick the
Great, a well-known homosexual.6

Like Langer, Waite, in his book The Psychopathic God Adolf Hitler, also hesitates to label Hitler a
homosexual but cites substantial circumstantial evidence that he was:

“It is true that Hitler was closely associated with Ernst Rohm and Rudolf Hess, two
homosexuals who were among the very few people with whom he used the familiar ‘du.’
But one cannot conclude that he therefore shared his friends sexual tastes’. Still, during
the months he was with Hess in Landsberg, their relationship must have become very

1
Samual Igra, Germany’s National Vice, Quality Press; London [1945], p. 67
2
Desmond Seward, Napoleon and Hitler, Simon & Schuster; New York [1990], p. 299
3
Frank Rector, The Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals, Stein & Day; New York [1981], p. 192.
4
Walter Langer, The Mind of Adolf Hitler, N A L Dutton; New York [1972], p. 178
5
ibid., p. 179
6
The Homosexual In History, p. 44
 2

close. When Hitler left the prison he fretted about his friend who languished there, and
spoke of him tenderly, using Austrian diminutives: ‘Ach mein Rudy, mein Hesserl, isn’t it
appalling to think that he’s still there.’ One of Hitler’s valets, Schneider, made no explicit
statement about the relationship, but he did find it strange that whenever Hitler got a
present he liked or drew an architectural sketch that particularly pleased him, he would
run to Hess – who was known in homosexual circles as ‘Frauline Anna’ – as a little boy
would run to his mother to show his prize to her…. Finally there is the non-conclusive
but interesting fact that one of Hitler’s prized possessions was a handwritten love letter
which King Ludwig II had written to a manservant.”7

Hitler, if homosexual, was certainly not exclusively so. There are at least four women, including his own
niece, with whom Hitler had sexual relationships, although these relationships were not normal. Both
Waite and Langer suggest that his sexual encounters with women included expressions of his
coprophilic perversion as well as other extremely degrading forms of masochism. It is interesting to note
that all four women attempted suicide after becoming sexually involved with Hitler. Two succeeded.

Whether or not Hitler was personally involved in homosexual relationships, the evidence is clear that he
knowingly and intentionally surrounded himself with practicing homosexuals from his youth. Like Rohm,
Hitler seemed to prefer homosexual companions and coworkers. In addition to Rohm and Hess, two of
his closest friends, Hitler filled key positions with known or suspected homosexuals. Rector, himself a
“Gay Holocaust” revisionist, attempts to dismiss sources that attribute homosexuality to leading Nazis,
but nevertheless writes that:

“Reportedly, Hitler Youth leader, Baldur Von Schirach was bisexual; Hitler’s private
attorney, Reich Legal Director, Minister of Justice, butcher Governor-General of Poland,
and public gay-hater Hans Frank was said to be a homosexual; Hitler’s adjutant Wilhelm
Bruckner was said to be bisexual;… Walter Funk, Reich minister of Economics [and
Hitler’s personal financial advisor] has frequently been called a ‘notorious’ homosexual…
or as a jealous predessesor in Funk’s post, Hjalmar Schacht, contemptuously claimed,
Funk was a ‘harmless homosexual and alchoholic;’… [Hitler’s second in command]
Hermann Goering liked to dress up in drag and wear campy make-up;…”8

SS Chief Heinrich Himmler’s “pederastic proclivities [were] captured on film” by Nazi film maker Walter
Frenze.9 Igra, states that Hitler’s chauffeur and one-time personal secretary, Emile Maurice, was a
homosexual. Moreover, even more interesting is this,

“Julius Streicher, the notorious Jew-baiter, was originally a school teacher, but was
dismissed by the Nuremberg School Authorities, following numerous charges of
pederasty brought against him.”10

Reinhard Heydrich, mastermind of the first pogrom, Kristallnacht, and of the death camps, was
homosexual.11 In the book The Twelve Year Reich, Richard Grunberger tells of a party given by Nazi
propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, which degenerated into a homosexual orgy.12 A recent biography of
Albert Speer by Gitta Sereny speaks of a “homo-erotic (not sexual) relationship” between Speer and

7
Robert G. L. Waite, The Psychopathic God Adolf Hitler, Signet Books; New York [1977], p. 283f
8
Frank Rector, The Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals, Stein & Day; New York [1981], p. 57
9
Washington City Paper, April 4, 1995
10
Samual Igra, Germany’s National Vice, Quality Press; London [1945], p. 72f
11
see: Reinhard Heydrich: The Chilling Story of the Man Who Masterminded the Nazi Death Camps, Military Heritage Press:
p. 64
12
Richard Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany 1933-1945, Ballantine Books; New York [1971],
p. 70
 3

Hitler.13 Langer notes that Hitler’s personal bodygaurds were “almost always 100 percent
homosexuals.”14

The Nazi party was founded by homosexuals. The Bratwurstgloeckl, a tavern frequented by homosexual
roughnecks, is where Rohm joined the handful of sexual deviants (and occultists). Their organization,
one known as the German Worker’s Party, was now called the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei, The National Socialist German Worker’s Party – slang, the Nazis.

It was no coincidence that homosexuals were among those who founded the Nazi Party. In fact, the
party grew out of a number of groups in Germany which were centers of homosexual activity and
activism. Many of the characteristic rituals, symbols, activities and philosophies…

For example: Nietzsche, also like Jorg Lanz Von Liebenfels (more later) was dubbed the
“Father of National Socialism,” Nietzsche is probably more deserving of this distinction,
being so labeled by Nazi luminaries Dr. Alfred Rosenberg and Dr. Frank. Others have
called him the “Father of Fascism.” Rabidly anti-Christian and a homosexual, Nietzsche
founded the “God is dead” movement and contributed to the development of existentialist
philosophy. Nietzsche’s publisher, Peter Gast, called Nietzsche “one of the fiercest anti-
Christians and atheists.”

Nietzsche never married, and had no known female sex partners, but went insane at age
44 from syphilis and eventually died of it. According to Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung,
Nietzsche had caught the disease at a homosexual brothel in Genoa, Italy.15

…we associate with Nazism came from these organizations or from contemporary homosexuals. The
extended-arm “Seig Heil” salute, for example, was a ritual of the Wandervoegel (“Wandering Birds” or
“Rovers”), a male youth society that became the German equivalent of the Boy Scouts. The
Wandervoegel was started in the late 1800’s by a group of homosexual teenagers. Its first adult leader,
Karl Fischer, called himself “der Fuehrer” (“the Leader”).16 Hans Blueher, a homosexual Nazi
philosopher and important early member of the Wandervoegel, incited a sensation in 1912 with the
publication of The German Wandervoegel Movement as an Erotic Phenomenon, which told how the
movement had become one in which young boys could be introduced into the homosexual lifestyle. 17
The Wandervoegel and other youth organizations were later merged into the Hitler Youth, which itself
became known among the populace as the “Homo Youth” because of rampant homosexuality.18

Many of the Nazi emblems, such as the swastika, the double lightning bolt “SS” symbol, and even the
inverted triangle symbol used to identify classes of prisoners in the concentration camps, originated
among homosexual occultists in Germany (some, such as the swastika, are actually quite ancient
symbols which were merely revived by these homosexual groups). In 1907, Jorg Lanz Von Liebenfels
(Lanz), a former Cistercian monk whom the church excommunicated because of his homosexual
activities,19 flew the swastika flag above his castle in Austria.20 After his expulsion from the church, Lanz
founded the Ordo Novi Templi (“Order of the New Temple”), which merged occultism with violent anti-
Semitism. A 1958 study of Lanz called, “Der Mann der Hitler die Ideen gab” – or, “The Man Who Gave
Hitler His Ideas” – by Austrian psychologist Wilhelm Daim, called Lanz the true “father” of National
Socialism.

13
Newsweek, October 30, 1995
14
Walter Langer, The Mind of Adolf Hitler, N A L Dutton; New York [1972], p. 179
15
Scott Lively, The Poisoned Stream: “Gay” Influence in Human History: volume one, Germany 1890-1945. Founders
Publishing Corp.; Keizer: Oregon [1997]
16
H. W. Koch, The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development 1922-1945, Stein & Day; New York [1976], p. 25f
17
Frank Rector, The Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals, Stein & Day; New York [1981], p. 39f
18
ibid., p. 52
19
Dusty Sklar, The Nazis and the Occult, Dorset Press; New York [1989], p. 19
20
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology, New York
University Press; New York [1985] p. 109
 4

List, a close associate of Lanz, formed the Guido Von List Society in Vienna in 1904. The Guido Von
List Society was accused of practicing a form of Hindu Tantrism, which featured sexual perversions in its
rituals (the swastika is originally from India). A man named Aleister Crowley, who, according to Hitler
biographer J. Sydney Jones, enjoyed “playing with black magic and little boys,” popularized this form of
sexual perversion in occult circles.21 List was “accused of being the Aleister Crowley of Vienna”.22 Like
Lanz, List was an occultist; he wrote several books on the magic principles of rune letters (from which he
chose the “SS” symbol). In 1908, List “was unmasked as the leader of a blood brotherhood which went
in for sexual perversion and substituted the swastika for the cross”.23 The Nazis borrowed heavily from
Lis’s occult theories and research. List also formed an elitist occult priesthood called the Armanen
Order, to which Hitler himself may have belonged.24

The Nazi dream of an Aryan super-race was adopted from an occult group called the Thule Society,
founded in 1917 by followers of Lanz and List. The occult doctrine of the Thule Society held that the
survivors of an ancient and highly developed lost civilization could endow Thule initiates with esoteric
powers and wisdom. The initiates would use these powers to create a new race of Aryan supermen
who would eliminate all “inferior” races.

Hitler dedicated his book, Mein Kampf, to Dietrich Eckart, one of the Thule Society’s inner circle and a
former leading figure in the German Worker’s Party (when they met at the gay bar mentioned earlier).25

“…And among them I want also to count that man, one of the best, who devoted his life
to the awakening of his, our people, in his writings and his thoughts…”26

After the above dedication, the notes in this edition of Mein Kampf read, “Dietrich Eckart was the spiritual
founder of the National Socialist Party.”27 The various occult groups mentioned above were outgrowths
of the Theosophical Society, whose founder, Helen Petrovna Blavatsky, was a lesbian, 28 and whose
“bishop” was a notorious pederast Charles Leadbeater. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, was
obsessed with Freemasonry,29 which is full of occultic influences and practices.30

The dreaded SA Brownshirts or Sturmabteilung (“Storm Troopers”, the SA) were largely the creation of
another homosexual, Gerhard Rossbach.31

“…the SA, under its leader Ernst Rohm, was administered to a large extent by
homosexuals. And elaborate pimping service had been developed to satisfy the
appetites of Rohm and his cohort…”32

21
J. Sydney Jones Hitler in Vienna 1907-1913, Stein & Day; New York [1983], p. 123
22
ibid., p. 123
23
Dusty Sklar, The Nazis and the Occult, Dorset Press; New York [1989], p. 23
24
Robert G. L. Waite, The Psychopathic God Adolf Hitler, Signet Books; New York [1977], p. 91
25
Wulf Schwarzwaller, The Unknown Hitler: His Private Life and Fortune, National Press Book; Washington D. C. [1989], p.
67
26
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, translated by Ralph Manheim: Houghton Mifflin; New York [1971], p.687
27
Ibid.
28
James Webb, The Occult Underground, Open Court Pub; LaSalle: Il. [1974], p. 94
29
G. S. Graber, The History of the SS: A Chilling Look at the Most Terrifying Arm of the Nazi War Machine, David McKay
Company; New York [1978], p. 81
30
see: Andre Nataf, The Wordsworth Dictionary of the Occult, Wordsworth Refernce; France [1994], pp. 58-60; Texe Marrs,
New Age Cults & Religions, Living Truth Publishers; Austin: TX [1990], pp. 199-203; Debra Lardie, Concise Dictionary of the
Occult and New Age, Kregal Publishers; Grand Rapids: MI [2000], p. 108; D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the
Magic World View, Signature Books; Salt Lake City: UT [1998], “freemasonry,” index, p. 604
31
Robert G. Waite, Vangaurd of Nazism: The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany 1918-1923, W. W. Norton &
Company; New York [1969], p. 209
32
G. S. Graber, The History of the SS: A Chilling Look at the Most Terrifying Arm of the Nazi War Machine, David McKay
Company; New York [1978], p. 47
 5

Rossbach, who historian Gruber says “was a open homosexual,”33 formed the Rossbachbund
(“Rossbach Brotherhood”), a homosexual unit of the Freikorps (“Free Corps”). The Freikorps were
independent inactive military reserve units, which became home to the hundreds of thousands of
unemployed World War I veterans in Germany. Rossbach also formed a youth organization under the
Rossbuchbund, calling it the Schilljugend (“Schill Youth”).34 Rossbach’s staff assistant, Lieutenant
Edmund Heines, a pederast and murderer, was put in charge of the Schilljugend. The Rossbuchbund
later changed its name to Storm Troopers (in honor of Wotan, the ancient German God of storms). 35 It
was Rossbach who seduced Hitler’s mentor, Ernst Roehm, into homosexuality. It was under Roehm’s
leadership that the Brownshirts became notorious for brutality.

During this time, known homosexuals headed pro-Nazi fascist organizations in both England and
France. In England, such an organization was called the Anglo-German Fellowship, and was headed by
British homosexuals Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess, and Captain John Robert Macnamara. In France,
two groups, the Radical Socialist Party, headed by Edouard Pfeiffer, and the French Popular Party
headed by Jacques Doriot, represented the pro-Nazi fascists. Pfeiffer was openly homosexual, although
less is known about Doriot, but his organization seems to have to have had an attraction for
homosexuals in any case.36

Homosexualists John Lauritsen and David Thorstad report that in the Soviet Union, homosexuality
became known as “the fascist perversion” during the 1930’s. They quote the Soviet intellectual, Maxim
Gorky: “There is already a slogan in Germany, ‘Eradicate the homosexual and fascism will disappear’.”37
Dr. Nathaniel S. Lehrman38 wrote a recent article entitled, “Was Hitler's Homosexuality Nazism's Best-
Kept Secret?” In it, he documents Hitler’s homosexuality, so well in fact, that the article is included
herein:39

Adolf Hitler's homosexuality has been demonstrated beyond question by German historian
Lothar Machtan's massively researched new book, The Hidden Hitler, which shows
homosexuality's central role in Hitler's personal life.

But the crucial role within the Nazi movement of the most vicious and lawless types of
homosexuality, which Machtan also shows, is even more important than Hitler's personal
preference. In 1933, six months after Hitler took power, the distinguished Jewish author Ludwig
Lewisohn described what Machtan confirms, that “the entire [Nazi] movement is in fact and by
certain aspects of its avowed ideology drenched through and through with homoerotic feeling
and practice.” And those homosexual currents inextricably were connected with vicious German
militarism long before the Nazis.

Hitler quit school at age 16 and in 1909 moved to Vienna, where he twice took and failed the Art
Academy's entrance examination. Shortly after his move, August Kubizek, a young man from
his hometown, joined him and they lived together for four months. Intensely jealous, Hitler wrote
Kubizek, “I cannot endure it when you consort and converse with other young people.”

Hitler's adolescent move to sexually liberated Vienna — so new to him and so different from
home — and his open choice there of homosexuality calls to mind the choice involved in what
Charles Socarides calls America's “Thanksgiving Day Massacre.” His book, Homosexuality: A
33
Ibid, p. 33
34
Robert G. Waite, Vangaurd of Nazism: The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany 1918-1923, W. W. Norton &
Company; New York [1969], p. 210
35
G. S. Graber, The History of the SS: A Chilling Look at the Most Terrifying Arm of the Nazi War Machine, David McKay
Company; New York [1978], p. 33
36
John Costello, Mask of Treachery: Spies, Lies, Buggery and Betrayal, Warner Books; New York [1990], p. 300ff
37
John Lauritsen and David Thorstad, The Early Homosexual Rights Movement: 1864-1935, Times Change Press; Sebastopol:
CA. [1995], p. 69
38
Former clinical director of Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., and writes on issues of medicine and psychiatry
from Roslyn, N.Y.
39
Insight, “Insight on the News - Fair Comment” (Issue: 02/25/02)
 6

Freedom Too Far, describes that “massacre” as when a college freshman, home for the first
time after months at a sexually liberated college, joyfully informs his startled parents, “Hey
Mom, hey Dad! Be thankful! I have something to tell you. I'm gay!”

For the next several years, Hitler drifted aimlessly. Despite immense Nazi efforts to erase as
much of his past as possible (by destroying his massive police records, for example) Machtan
dug out clear evidence of Hitler's homosexual activities during this period, such as his five
months at a men's hostel known as “a hub of homosexual activity.” He formed close
attachments to several men, but throughout his life was uninterested in relationships with
women.

In May 1913, he moved with another young man to Munich (said to be “a regular El Dorado for
homosexuals”) and, in September 1914, joined the Bavarian army. He spent the war years as a
behind-the-lines messenger, enjoying a long and active sexual relationship with another runner,
Ernst Schmidt. At war's end, Hitler returned to Munich and more homosexual activities.

He met at that time Capt. Ernst Roehm, a well-connected army officer who soon offered him his
first job — as a political spy for the army within a newly organized workers' party. Hitler's
political rise from that point was "meteoric," Machtan writes. Politically "an unknown quantity"
when he joined the party in 1919, three years later he had become an important political
influence — “the repository of the deutsch-folkisch [roughly German ultranationalist]
movement's hopes.”

Hitler's rise largely was due to the two brilliant homosexuals who mentored and tutored him:
Roehm, a notorious pederast and a contemporary, and Dietrich Eckart, 21 years his senior.
Roehm, a career staff officer during the war, had access to both secret army funds and to
military and right-wing groups such as the ultranationalist, anti-Semitic and homoerotic
Freikorps — the fiercely anticommunist terrorist squads that sprang up, especially in eastern
Germany, in response to the political chaos of the early Weimar Republic. Eckart was a fiercely
anti-Semitic journalist and playwright who taught Hitler political tactics and introduced him to
Munich and Berlin society, as well as to other wealthy people throughout the country.

In April 1923 Hitler was convicted of treason for his nearly successful coup against the Bavarian
government. Sentenced to five years in prison, he was released after nine months. He then
began collecting the lawbreakers, sexual and other, who would form the heart of his new Nazi
Party. Machtan shows that the party was a sexual swamp from its very beginning, an evil
conspiracy in which members held sexual or other criminal secrets over one another's heads.
Indeed, Machtan suggests that Hitler's fear that Roehm and other openly homosexual Nazis
would "out" him and his associates was a motive for his later murder of Roehm.

The Nazi Party, whose terrorism and conspiracy had won it a maximum of 37 percent of the
popular vote, took power in January 1933. In June 1934 Hitler had Roehm — his mentor, one-
time closest friend and head of his 3 million-man storm-trooper organization (S.A.) — murdered,
along with many of Roehm's homosexual party loyalists and hundreds of nonhomosexual
opponents. These peremptory murders destroyed the rule of law in Germany and opened the
door for the Holocaust's unprecedented brutalities.

The massacre, and the tighter laws against homosexuality that followed, are used falsely today,
especially by some Holocaust-remembrance enterprises, to show that the Nazis actively
opposed it and that they persecuted homosexuals just as they did Jews, only to a lesser extent.
In a 1931 exposé of the Nazi Party, two years before it took power, the Munich Post attacked
“the disgusting hypocrisy that the party demonstrates — outward moral indignation while inside
its own ranks the most shameless practices prevail,” and said that “every knowledgeable
person knows that inside the Hitler party the most flagrant whorishness contemplated by
paragraph 175 (defining homosexuality as a criminal offense) is widespread.” Machtan confirms
 7

that Nazi hypocrisy, noting how “homosexuality was simultaneously proscribed and protected:
Hitler had tailored it to his political and personal requirements.”

Serious political errors mar this remarkably researched book. The most important involves the
role of Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935), the well-known Jewish homosexual psychiatrist-
researcher whom Machtan calls “the pope of homosexuality,” and his being used as an
unquestioned authority on the subject. Hirschfeld, recently honored at a conference at the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum, spent his life seeking to repeal section 175 and get
homosexuality accepted. Why then was he such “an object of hatred” by the Nazis and their
Freikorps predecessors, with Eckart, for example, viewing him “with positively pathological
loathing?”

The answer is the “two irreconcilable philosophies linked by a common dysfunction”

[homosexuality] that existed then in Germany: the “Butches” (or “Machos”) and the “Femmes,”
whom Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams differentiate in their invaluable book, The Pink Swastika.
“The roots of this conflict span a 70-year period which saw the rise of homosexual militancy in
the movement that gave Nazism to the world.” Machtan mentions neither the conflict nor the
Lively-Abrams book.

The Butches were openly and deliberately lawless. They defied criminal statutes, including
those governing homosexuality. As criminals, they were not concerned with trying to change the
law. They were anti-Semitic, militaristic and gratuitously brutal. Their sexual ideal was the man-
boy relationship extolled and engaged in by the Greeks, Crusaders and Teutonic knights. They
considered these pederastic activities morally superior to sex with women, whom they despised
as useful only for breeding. Their deepest hatred often was directed against the Femmes and,
especially, Hirschfeld, whom they reviled as effeminate and therefore contemptible.

“Femmes,” reported variously to be perhaps 5 percent to 15 percent of all homosexuals, saw

homosexuality on the same moral level as heterosexuality, rather than above it. They supported
the overall rule of law and opposed pederasty and sadomasochism. Many were involved in
artistic and scientific activities — dance, music, theater and medicine — and persuaded many
German intellectuals, liberals and Jews of homosexuality's acceptability. This acceptance of
Femme homosexuality, based partly on seeing homosexuals as a harmless, often creative,
“persecuted minority,” seriously undermined public awareness of the true threat and acute
danger of Macho homosexuals.

Hirschfeld inadvertently helped the Nazis in another way: by keeping many Nazi sex criminals
out of prison. Lively and Abrams describe this, but Machtan doesn't. The Prussian authorities,
rather than incarcerating many of these criminals, referred them instead for psychiatric
treatment at Hirschfeld's Sexual Research Institute. The institute consequently collected an
immense amount of material about Nazis' sexual crimes. That's why its records were the first
fuel chosen for Nazi book-burning.

Another probable reason for Hitler's anti-Semitism is traditional Judaism's appreciation of

women and its fierce opposition to homosexuality and the debasing of women. German-Jewish
historian Samuel Igra describes this in his neglected 1945 book, Germany's National Vice.
Machtan cites the book but not the concept.

The same assistance Hirschfeld and other Jewish homosexuals, and their liberal and
psychiatric supporters, inadvertently gave Nazism by accepting homosexuality is demonstrated
by the review of The Hidden Hitler in the New York Times Book Review by psychiatrist Walter
Reich, former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Totally ignoring
the viciousness of Macho homosexuality, its intimate connection with German militarism and its
pivotal role in creating Holocaust brutalities, Reich suggests that if Hitler was indeed
homosexual that “may actually serve to humanize” him. When will today's liberal supporters of
homosexuality, organized and otherwise, recognize how deliberate defiance of traditional sexual
 8

morality can lead to that deliberate defiance of all traditional morality, which defined the
Holocaust!

The first book burning in pre-war Germany, one of the [now famous] newsreels shown here in the U.S. in
the 30’s, was at the Sex Research Institute, although the newsreels didn’t mention what was being
burned, outside of books and files that is. This institute had extensive records on the sexual perversions
of numerous Nazi leaders, many of whom had been under treatment there prior to the beginning of the
Nazi regime. The German courts required treatment at the Sex Research Institute for persons convicted
of sex crimes. Ludwig L. Lenz, who worked at the Institute at the time of the raid (May 6, 1933. [On May
10th the Nazi’s burned books and files from there]) but managed to escape with his life, later wrote of the
incident:

“Why was it then, since we were completely non-party, that our purely scientific Institute
was the first victim which fell to the new regime? The answer to this is simple…. We
knew too much. It would be against medical principles to provide a list of the Nazi
leaders and their perversions [but]… not ten percent of the men who, in 1933, took the
fate of Germany into their hands, were sexually normal…. Our knowledge of such
intimate secrets regarding members of the Nazi Party and other documentary material
– we possessed about forty thousand confessions and biographical letters – was the
cause of the complete and utter destruction of the Institute of Sexology.”40

The harsh policies and public pronouncements against homosexuality by Hitler and Himmler, the sacking
of the above Sex Research Institute of Berlin, the “Rohm Purge” (also known as the “Night of the Long
Knives”), and the internment of homosexuals in work camps, etc., were all internal conflicts and
struggles for power in Germany itself. The law against homosexual conduct had existed in Germany for
many years prior to the Nazi regime as Paragraph 175 of the Reich Criminal Code. When Hitler came to
power he used this law as a means of tracking down and punishing those homosexuals who, in the
words of one victim, “had defended the Weimar Republic, and who had tried to forestall the Nazi
threat.”41

In February of 1933, Hitler banned pornography, homosexual bars and bathhouses, and groups which
promoted “gay rights.” Ostensibly, this decree was a blanket condemnation of all homosexual activity in
Germany, but in practice it served as just another means to find and destroy anti-Nazi groups and
individuals.

The masculine homosexuals in the Nazi leadership selectively enforced this policy only against their
enemies and not against all homosexuals. Even Rector lends credence to this perspective, citing the
fact that the decree “was not enforced in all cases.”42 Another indication is that the pro-Nazi Society for
Human Rights (SHR) continued to participate in German society for several years after Hitler’s decree.
In The Racial State, Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann remind us that Rohm was a leading
member of the SHR; and we know from Anthony Read and David Fisher that the SHR was still active in
Germany as late as 1940.43 Furthermore, Oosterhuis and Kennedy write that “although he was well
known as a gay activist, [Adolf] Brandt was not arrested by the Nazis.”44

In 1935, Paragraph 175 was amended with paragraph 175a that criminalized any type of behavior that
could be construed as indicating a homosexual inclination or desire. (Interestingly, the new criminal

40
Irwin J. Haeberle, “Swastika, Pink Triangle, and Yellow Star: The Elite Rights Committee, 1992,” Harvard Gay and Lesbian
Review (Summer, 1995), p. 369
41
Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wipperman, The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945, Cambridge University Press; New
York [1991], p. 183
42
Frank Rector, The Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals, Stein & Day; New York [1981], p. 66
43
Anthony Read & David Fisher, Kristallnatch: The Nazi Night of Terror, Times Books; New York [1989], p. 245
44
Edited by Harry Oosterhuis, Homosexuality and Male Bonding in Pre-Nazi Germany: The Youth Movement, the Gay
Movement and Male Bonding Before Hitler’s Rise: Original Transcripts from Der Eigene, the First Gay Journal in the World,
Haworth Press; Binghampton: NY [1992], p. 7
 9

code addressing homosexuality deleted the word “unnatural” from the definition.45) This new law
provided the Nazis with an especially potent legal weapon against their enemies. It will never be known
how many non-homosexuals were charged under this law but it is indisputable that the Nazis used false
accusations of homosexuality to justify the detainment and imprisonment of many of their opponents.

“The law was so loosely formulated,” writes Steakley, “that it could be, and was, applied against
heterosexuals that the Nazis wanted to eliminate… the law was also used repeatedly against Catholic
clergyman.”46 Kogan writes that “The Gestapo readily had recourse to the charge of homosexuality if it
was unable to find any pretext for proceeding against Catholic priests or irksome critics.”47

“The most famous example is that of actor Gustaf Grundgens…. Despite the fact that
his homosexual affairs were as notorious as those of Rohm’s, Goering appointed him
director of the State Theater…. [And] on October 29, 1937… Himmler advised that
actors and other artists could be arrested for offenses against paragraph 175 only with
his personal consent…”48

The Hitler Youth is another source of reports exposing the meaninglessness of the Nazis harsh rhetoric
against homosexuals. Koehl observes that Himmler “mitigated his penalties privately” and tried to keep
every incident of homosexual molestation of the Hitler Youth boys by the SS “as secret as possible.”49
But Koehl goes on to cite the records of RJF, the security division of the Hitler Youth administration.
“During the first six-months of 1940,” writes Koehl, “[there were] 10,958 crimes committed by Hitler
Youths, the most common were theft (5,985), [and] homosexuality (901).”50 When cross-referenced
against the list of expulsions from the organization, however (itself an absurdly mild punishment for a
supposed capital crime), Koehl found a low rate of expulsions for homosexuality:

“Since the RJF Report listed 900 cases of homosexual crimes during a six-month
period alone, and only a third of that number were expelled during a twenty-five month
period by court action, it suggests that the RJF was more hesitant to uphold Article 175
of the Criminal Code that its official propaganda would have the public believe… [One]
young delinquent with a record of minor thefts, for which he had spent eight weeks in
jail, was not expelled from the Hitler Youth. In September 1940 the SRD surprised him
and several prison workers in a wild homosexual orgy in broad daylight on a roadside.
With sensational evidence like this in hand, the SRD leader then sought to have the
culprit expelled from the Hitler Youth. But it took some time before this occurred.”51

The increasing apathy of Hitler Youth officials toward homosexuality was an attitude reflected in the
larger society as well. In 1937 the Reich Minister of the Interior issued a change in policy regarding
Paragraph 175. Under the new ruling only four-time repeat offenders could be jailed or sent to camps
for homosexual offenses. This was reaffirmed in 1940 by Himmler.52

“We shall find that, far from eliminating the sex perverts from his party, Hitler retained
most of them, and that he moved against those whom he did eliminate only with the
greatest reluctance and after he had been relentlessly pushed by outside forces and
circumstances…”53
45
W. Edward, Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: The Indoctrination of a People, Huntington House; Lafayette: LO [1990], p. 3
46
James D. Steakley, The Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Germany, Ayer Publishers; Manchester: NH [1976], p.
111
47
Eugen Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell, Berkley Publishing Group; New York [1984], p. 44
48
Richard Plant, The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals, Henry Holt & Co; New York [1995], p. 116
49
Robert L. Koehl, The Black Corps: The Structure and Power Struggles of the Nazi SS, University of Wisconsin Press;
Chicago: IL [1983], p. 51f
50
ibid., p. 84
51
ibid., p. 85ff
52
“Quantity and Interpretation – Issues in the Comparative Historical Analysis of the Holocaust.” In Holocaust and Genocide
Studies: Volume 4, Number 2, 1989, p. 146
53
Samual Igra, Germany’s National Vice, Quality Press; London [1945], p. 77f