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From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Excerpts from the World (of the Australian NewsMag OUTRAGE)
Message-ID: <1644@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 18-Dec-85 16:58:53 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncca.1644
Posted: Wed Dec 18 16:58:53 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Dec-85 05:03:05 EST
References: <138@water.UUCP>
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 22

For the record, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, was violently anti-homo-
sexual, more so than Hitler himself.  Militant heterosexuality, meaning as
well violent antihomosexuality, was a central part of Nazi ideology and
practice.  Chronologically the first target of Nazi mass violence after
Hitler was elected Chancellor in 1933 was Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute
for Sex Research in Berlin (Hirschfeld was one of the earliest gay
activists), which was sacked one night, its unique and enormous collection
of books on sex & sexuality put to the torch in a public bonfire.  This
incident proved to be a kind of model for subsequent Nazi raids and
victimizations.

The only high-placed Nazi that was homosexual or bisexual that I know of
was Goering.  Ernst Roehm, head of the equally violent & bigoted SA, a
rival to Hitler's Nazi's in the early 30s, was also homosexual or bisexual,
and was slaughtered with a few thousands of his followers one night in a
treacherous assault by Hitler.

The license implied in jokingly wondering if Himmler was gay stems from
the fag-baiting tactics adopted by the European and North American left 
in the 1930s (& 40s?) in an attempt to discredit the Nazi regime.

						Ron Rizzo