How the Nazis stroyed the first gay rights movement

Contents:

• ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• JOHANN HARI : THE STRANGE, STRANGE STORY OF THE GAY FASCISTS
• THE PHILOSOPHIL FASCISTS OF THE GAY ALT-RIGHT
• THE STRANGE, STRANGE STORY OF 'GAY FASCISM' NIERS
• EUROPEAN FASCIST MOVEMENTS ARE LED BY HOMOSEXUALS ACRDG TO GAY JOURNALIST
• WHE NATNALIST GROUPS ARE SPLTG OVER GAY INCLN

ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI

In 2017, Germany’s Cabet approved a bill that would expunge the nvictns of tens of thoands of German men for “homosexual acts” unr that untry’s anti-gay law known as “Paragraph 175.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

Partly drivg this new era of tolerance were the doctors and scientists who started lookg at homosexualy and “transvtism” (a word of that era that enpassed transgenr people) as a natural characteristic wh which some were born, and not a “rangement. '” She go further, wonrg if “the purge of the SA and the killg of Röhm reprented the leral objective rrelative for the supprsn and reprsn of the homosexual sir their own Nazism?

Around 15, 000 gay people were sent to ncentratn mps, where some were experimented upon bizarre efforts to fd a “cure” for sexual orientatn, a forhadowg of Amerin psychologil and later fundamentalist efforts to try the same thg. One of the founrs of the German Nazi party, he was an open homosexual, fally assassated on the orrs of his rival for power, Adolf Hler, who may well have been homosexual himself.

It has been said by historian Louis Snyr that Röhm "projected a social orr which homosexualy would be regard as a human behavur pattern of high repute… He flnted his homosexualy public and sisted his croni do the same. Ray Hill, who filtrated the Brish fascist movement for twelve years to gather rmatn for anti-fascist groups, said homosexualy is “extremely prevalent” the Brish far right, and "at one stage the 1980s nearly half of the movement’s anisers were gay". Dutch polician Pim Fortuyn, scribed as a "gay former Marxist profsor", ran on an anti-immigrant and anti-Islam platform, that was tegorized as racist by leftwg observers.

JOHANN HARI : THE STRANGE, STRANGE STORY OF THE GAY FASCISTS

It is unclear how many of the men publicly or privately intified as gay or were part of gay muni and works that had been tablished Germany before the Nazi rise to power. Gay newspapers and journals, such as Die Frndschaft (Friendship) and Der Eigene (translated varly, but this ntext implyg “his own man”), ntributed to the growth of gay works. Fally, 1936 SS lear and Chief of the German Police Herich Himmler tablished the Reich Central Office for the Combatg of Homosexualy and Abortn (Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung r Homosexualät und r Abtreibung).

THE PHILOSOPHIL FASCISTS OF THE GAY ALT-RIGHT

Unverg the histori of gay men durg the Nazi era was difficult for much of the twentieth century bee of ntued prejudice agast same-sex sexualy and the ongog enforcement of Paragraph 175. A few years later, May 2008, the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted unr Nazism (Denkmal für die im Natnalsozialism verfolgten Homosexuellen) was unveiled nearby Tiergarten park central Berl.

Yet when the Brish Natnal Party - our own home-grown Holot-nyg bigots - announced was fieldg an openly gay ndidate the European electns this June, dited followers of fascism didn't blk. Mart Lee, thor of a study of European fascism, explas, "For Kuhnen, there was somethg supermacho about beg a Nazi, as well as beg a homosexual, both of which enforced his sense of livg on the edge, of belongg to an ele that was sted to make an impact. They have tried to dispt gay paras, scribe gay people as "evil", and BNP lear Nick Griff reacted charmgly to the bombg of the Admiral Dunn pub 1999 wh a lumn sayg, "The TV footage of gay monstrators [outsi the scene of rnage] flntg their perversn ont of the world's journalists showed jt why so many ordary people fd the creatur repulsive.

Homosexualy is "extremely prevalent" the upper echelons of the Brish far right, and at one stage the 1980s nearly half of the movement's anisers were gay, he claims. Gerry Gable, edor of the anti-fascist magaze 'Searchlight', explas, "I have looked at Bra's Nazi groups for s and this homophobic hypocrisy has been there all the time.

THE STRANGE, STRANGE STORY OF 'GAY FASCISM' NIERS

I nnot thk of any anisatn on the extreme right that hasn't attacked people on the grounds of their sexual preference and at the same time ntaed many gay officers and activists.

They felt that the cult of "real men" and hypermascule thugs was stirrg up the most base feelgs " the very place, the gay movement, where you would least expect them. Like so many of the generatn who formed the Nazi Party, he was nurtured by and obssed wh the homoerotic myth of the trench - heroic, betiful boys prepared to die for their brothers and their untry.

This belief the superry of homosexualy had a strong German tradn that grew up at the turn of the twentieth century around Adolf Brand, publisher of the untry's first gay magaze. German historian Lothar Machtan argu that Hler had Rohm - and almost all of the large number of gay figur wh the SA - killed to silence speculatn about his own homosexual experienc.

EUROPEAN FASCIST MOVEMENTS ARE LED BY HOMOSEXUALS ACRDG TO GAY JOURNALIST

In his disturbg 1999 film "Sk Flick', a bourgeois gay uple - one black, one whe - are sexually terrorised by a gang of gay skheads who beat off to 'Me Kampf' and beat up 'femm'. He impli that bourgeois gay norms quickly break down to reveal a fascist lurkg unrneath; the movie ends wh the black character beg raped ont of his half-aroed whe lover, as the racist gang chant, "Fuck the monkey. " It's te that racism and homophobia do not necsarily overlap - but as Rabbi Bernard Melchman explas, "Homophobia and anti-Semism are so often part of the same disease.

WHE NATNALIST GROUPS ARE SPLTG OVER GAY INCLN

Even after readg all their web rantgs, I didn't feel any closer to unrstandg why so many gay men ally themselv wh people who will almost always turn on them the end, jt as the Nazis did. "Generally nmned by a society that ntu to be largely hostile to gays, some men may fd refuge and a new power stat the far right, " one of their wrers has explaed. In an pecially nutty work of revisnist history lled 'The Pk Swastika', the 'historian' Stt Lively tri to blame gay people for the entire Holot, and scrib the murr of gay men the mps as merely "gay-on-gay vlence.

" A typil webse mentg on the book claims absurdly, "The Pk Swastika shows that there was far more btaly, rape, torture and murr mted agast nocent people by Nazi homosexuals than there even was agast homosexuals themselv.