Adolf Hitler And Homosexuality

Peter Gay, a German Jew, escaped Nazi Germany just prior to the mass execution toward people of the Jewish faith that is now formally known as the Holocaust. Gay detailed this process in his memoir My German Question Growing up in Nazi Berlin. Like many Jews living as German constituents during the 1930’s, Gay’s family was hesitant to leave their home due to Hitler’s radical rise to power. The Fröhlich’s, Gay’s last name in German, decision to stay in Germany although they began to face immense persecution was a similar choice that millions of European Jews made during this time period, due to a constant denial that such an event like the holocaust would occur.

The "euthanasia" program was Nazi Germany's first program of mass murder." Hitler Many people think that during the Holocaust only Jews were victims, but there were several other groups of people that were affected by this. Hitler and the Nazis chose other groups besides Jews because he also saw them as a disgrace towards German society. These groups included homosexuals, African Germans, and people with disabilities Homosexuality was frowned upon before the Nazis came to power and was against the law, but after Hitler rose to power Nazis intensified persecution. Male homosexuals were tracked by Nazis and forced into concentration camps, suspicion was enough to be prosecuted.

insane to torture the human race that way. Others praise him for attempting to exterminate

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” -Primo Levi. The Holocaust was an age of man killing man over prejudices and blind hatred. Around 6 million Jews, around 3 million Ethnic Poles, 3 million Ukrainian Slavs, 2-3 million Soviets, 1.5 million Belarusian Slavs, around 400,000 Serbs, 270,000 disabled, 90,000-220,000 Romani, 80,000-200,000 Freemasons, around 20,000 Slovenes, 5,000-15,000 Homesexuals, 2,500-5,000 Jehova’s Witnesses, and 7,000 Spanish republicans were murdered, forced into ghettos, abused, and discriminated against by the Natzi’s. The mental trauma these individuals were forced to go through must have crushed their soul, hope, and their will to live.

The dehumanization and organization of non-heteronormative (gay) men took place long before the Holocaust began, starting with the legislative passage of Paragraph 175 in Germany. This legislation resulted in highly detailed police records of men suspected of homosexual activities readily accessible. Inevitably these records made it easier than ever for gay men to be arrested and detained for their identities, and for their

Both the Nazi Political Movemen,t in Germany, and the post World War II/Cold War attacks on homosexuals, were driven by similar goals. The Nazi movement arose after Germany had lost World War 1 and was being restricted heavily by the Treaty of Versailles. The country faced major inflation and extremely high unemployment rates. The Nazi party

    The extreme xenophobic and homophobic tendencies of the Nazi and German lifestyle was astounding. The Nazi influencers in Germany went as far as to legally ban the Germans from having sexual contact with Jews (“21 Horrible”). Furthermore, Nazi’s tried to ‘cure’ homosexual Germans and Jews by forcing them to take testosterone shots and sleeping with Prostitutes (“21

In 1939 September 1st, a man with ambition set out to achieve his goal, the total control over the European continent, which many of the previous rulers had failed to accomplish. Adolf Hitler, the man with such ambition, committed the worst genocide ever known to humankind with the support of his fellow Nazi party of Germany. This forced six million Jews to work in concentration camps. They were constantly humiliated, tortured, and murdered by various inhumane methods. Such actions eventually succeeded in wiping out one-third of the Jewish population in Europe. The book The concentration camps not only physically and psychologically damaged the people, it tore apart many different relationships that were initially solid, resulting in the loss of faith in humanity.

Heinrich Himmler was a military commander appointed by Hitler himself to deal with many issues involving homosexuality. Heinrich was also involved the the most public homosexual scandal of that time, the murder of the chief of staff or Hitler’s Sturmabteilung (SA). Giles main focus of his essay titled The Denial of Homosexual : Same Sex Incidents in Himmler’s SS and Police was to point out the reasons that he believed lead Himmler to his actions towards homosexuality. It was known by Giles that Himmler had an obsession with targeting homosexuals, in the article it even mentions that Himmler was known for saying he wanted to kill homosexuals.

This newfound approach to German sexuality was due to a youth movement, which believed restrictions on sexuality were simply not warranted. “There was a new emphasis in general on leibeskultur, or body culture, on an appreciation of the human body devoid of social taboos or restrictions? Tolerance of homosexuals is a prime example of modernism because this approach was truly ahead of its time. One can make this deduction because homosexuals were shunned in all other European countries throughout this era. Although Germans did not collectively approve of homosexuality, their over-all measure of tolerance was unlike any other.

against homosexuality) no longer applied to those who were visiting Germany around the time of the

As a result of propaganda, Hitler was seen as a superhuman, or a religious figure

In the time just before the Nazi regimes rise to power, the German people were still paying back war reparations and forced in the treaty of Versailles to accept the full blame of causing World War One. Being German was not at this time to be proud; there was guilt and shame amongst the population. The Nazi ideology appealed to the German people because it advocated unification, equality, power, and put the blame of their suffering on the Jews. The Nazi way was attractive and no one at the beginning of the rise of the Nazis could have foreseen just how extreme their beliefs and actions would become.

Henceforth, even though presented evidences above do not represent all ancient civilizations and their standing with homosexuality, we can safely presume that many ancient nations were affirming toward homosexuality.

The moral dilemma that I was presented was killing 3-year old Adolf Hitler to prevent the Holocaust. I can try to change Hitler’s mind, but he will still make the same decision, no matter what. If I decide to kill him or not, I would not be charged for the murder, which is the plus side of this moral dilemma. After a long week of thinking about this question, I thought to myself that I could not have the courage to kill an infant. I have a guilty conscience and if I were to do something like that, I would not be able to forgive myself. I understand that Hitler’s choices during World War II was inhumane, but it is a part of world history that needs to be studied and to not be reiterated. On the contrary, if I don’t kill him, six million