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The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party is a book first published in 1995 by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams. The book drew criticism from historians.

Summary

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According to the authors, homosexuality found in the Nazi Party contributed to the extreme militarism of Nazi Germany. The title of the book, as well as the book itself, is a reference to a book by Richard Plant called The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals, a book detailing homophobia in the Nazi Party and the homosexual victims of Nazism. Lively and Abrams also take up the subject of Nazism in America and discuss the Boy Scouts. The book states that many leaders in the German Nazi regime, including Adolf Hitler himself, were homosexual and says that eight of the top ten serial killers in the US were homosexuals. One significant research source for the writing of The Pink Swastika was the book, Germany's National Vice, written by Samuel Igra, and Scott Lively refers to it as "the 1945 version of The Pink Swastika."

Reception

Erik N. Jensen regards the authors' linkage of homosexuality and Nazism as the recurrence of a "pernicious myth", originating in 1930s attacks on Nazism by Socialists and Communists and "long since dispelled" by "serious scholarship". Jensen sees the book as coming about in "the aftermath of an Oregon measure to repeal gay rights". Dorthe Seifert cites it as a response to increasing awareness of Nazi persecution of homosexuals. Christine L. Mueller argues that the historical record does not support Abrams' assertions. Bob Moser, writing for the Southern Poverty Law Center, says the book was promoted by anti-gay groups and that historians agree its premise is "utterly false".

Jonathan Zimmerman, an historian at New York University, wrote the claim that gay people helped bring Nazism to Germany "is a flat-out lie." Zimmerman, points out that "Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis arrested roughly 100,000 men as homosexuals. Most convicted gays were sent to prison; between 5,000 and 15,000 were interned in concentration camps, where they wore pink triangles to signify their supposed crime." He further notes, "To win their release from the camps, some gays were forced to undergo castration. Others were mutilated or murdered in so-called medical experiments by Nazi doctors, who insisted that homosexuality was a disease that could be 'cured'." In addition, "Hitler authorized an edict in 1941 prescribing the death penalty—yes, the death penalty—for SS and police members found guilty of gay activity."

However, according to Hari: "The twisted truth is that gay men have been at the heart of every major fascist movement that ever was - including the gay-gassing, homo-cidal Third Reich. With the exception of Jean-Marie Le Pen, all the most high-profile fascists in Europe in the past thirty years have been gay. It's time to admit something. Fascism isn't something that happens out there, a nasty habit acquired by the straight boys. It is - in part, at least - a gay thing, and it's time for non-fascist gay people to wake up and face the marching music."

See also

• Abiding Truth Ministries
• Ernst Röhm, executed in 1934 during the Night of the Long Knives
• Pink triangle
• Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
• Paragraph 175
• Sexuality of Adolf Hitler

References

1. Lively, Scott; Abrams, Kevin (1995). The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party. Founders Publishing. Corporation. ISBN 978-0-9647609-0-5.
2. "People & Events". Mennonite Brethren Herald. 1999-11-05. Retrieved 2007-06-14. In their controversial book, The Pink Swastika, Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams assert that many leading members of the Nazi party in Germany were homosexuals. They also state that eight of the top ten serial killers in the US were homosexuals, including Donald Garvey, John Wayne Gacy, Patrick Wayne Kearney, Bruce Davis and Jeffrey Dahmer. The Apr. 22 Globe and Mail reported that the Columbine high school killers 'professed to be bisexuals'. – RTV Bulletin, Western Report {{cite news}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
3. "Religious Right Groups Involved in Antigay Incidents". People For the American Way. Archived from the original on 2006-12-15. Retrieved 2007-06-14. the controversial book, The Pink Swastika,
4. Lively, Scott. Scott Lively speaks about his book, The Pink Swastika. Event occurs at 26'15. {{cite AV media}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |trans_title= (help)
5. ^ Erik N. Jensen (January/April 2002). "The Pink Triangle and Political Consciousness: Gays, Lesbians, and the Memory of Nazi Persecution". Journal of the History of Sexuality. 11 (1/2): 319–349, pp. 322–323 and n. 19. doi:10.1353/sex.2002.0008. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. Dorthe Seifert (Fall 2003). "Between Silence and License: The Representation of the National Socialist Persecution of Homosexuality in Anglo-American Fiction and Film". History and Memory. 15 (2): 94–129, p. 94. doi:10.2979/HIS.2003.15.2.94.
7. "The Other Side of the Pink Triangle: Still a Pink Triangle". October 24, 1994. Retrieved 2008-11-08.
8. Bob Moser (2005). "Making Myths". Intelligence Report (117). Southern Poverty Law Center. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
9. ^ Zimmerman, Jonathan (August 27, 2011). "Did Nazis persecute gays, or were they gay themselves?". The Bakersfield Californian/History News Service.

External links

The Strange, Strange Story of Gay Fascists. 10/21, 2008 by Johann Hari - Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-strange-strange-story_b_136697.html

• The Pink Swastika 5th (Internet) edition
• The Pink Swastika 4th edition
• The Pink Swastika 3rd edition
• The Annotated Pink Swastika, a fact check of the authors' sources, and corrects the more serious factual errors contained in the book.

• 2002 books
• Nazism
• Conspiracy theories
• Books about Nazism
• Homophobia