The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party

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This book addresses two interesting - and seemingly anomalous - facts concerning the Nazi movement. First, the early Nazi party embraced open homosexuals. The best example of this is, obviously, the founder of the Sturmabteilung (“SA”), namely Ernst Rohm. Rohm's homosexuality was known to other Nazis and he was not alone, as the story of the Night of Long Knives establishes.

Second, although most Americans associate homosexuality with effeminacy, in fact, there has been a long tradition that associates homosexuality with militarism and manliness. Homosexuality in warrior bands is well-established, e.g., the Zulus, Greeks, Janissaries, and the Theban “sacred band” being well-known examples.

A third element might be the Nazi proclivity for giant, nude, homoerotic statues.

So what gives?

This book addresses the issue by arguing that the homosexuals associated with the Nazis were of the militaristic, hyper-masculine variety, referred to as “Butches.” The authors claim that in the period from the late 19th century and 1933, a portion of German homosexuals belonged to two opposed camps, namely effeminate homosexuals who identified more with females, postulating, for example, that homosexuals were female souls in a male body. The other were hypermasculine who viewed males as the only sex worth associating with. The authors refer to the groups as “Fems” and “Butches” respectively, which may have been a term that was current in the period. (Note that most homosexuals did not belong to either group.)

The two groups differed in some fundamental ways. For example, the “Butches” endorsed pedophilia as a positive virtue; “Fems” made it part of their mission for social acceptance to condemn pedophilia, or, at least, sex with those younger than sixteen. Fems organized to overturn Paragraph 175 of the German penal code. Butches formed a “Society of the Elite” (or “Society of the Queer,” strangely, either translation works.) Butch organizations were tied into the occultism that proliferated in the era; Fems took a more scientific/psychological approach to normalizing and/or treating homosexuality.

The authors posit that Nazis were particularly offended by the “Fem-dominated” Sex Research Institute, where homosexuals were treated, because the SRI had treated Nazi leaders and had records on them. This explains, according to the authors, why one of the first acts of Nazi power was to break into the SRI and burn its records.

The authors propose that a far larger number of Nazi leaders were homosexual. Apart from Roehm, they point to Heydrich, von Schirach, Hitler, and a few others, but they don't offer much support for this, albeit accusations of perversion have always clung to these individuals. They do offer some contemporaneous and later sources that support these claims, but since these accusations come from Nazi opponents, it is probably best to remain skeptical.

Interestingly, there is a 1934 science fiction book called [[ASIN:B018S27770 Swastika Night (S.F. MASTERWORKS)]] by Murray Constantine. Constantine writes a projection about what the Nazi regime might look like after 700 years. One of the things she posits is that the position of women has been reduced to that of breeding vessels, while men have become brutal homosexuals.

So, was there something moving in the subterranean world of ideas that connected Nazis with hyper-masculine homosexuality during the early 1930s?

Perhaps.

This books is actually the first part of a longer book. The authors do provide footnotes and sourcing for their points, but, at times, they write in a polemical language, referring to authors as “homosexualist,” for example. This may be a true characterization and it is important to know the bias of a source, but it does make the authors appear to be “kooks” with an ax to grind, which also may be true.

I intend to use the book as an entry point for exploring the substantive issues raised above. I think that there may be some merit to this argument, but, on the other hand, this is an explosive topic for all that it may have some merit.

PSB