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Homosexuals & the Holocaust: Nazi Views On Homosexuality

Heinrich Himmler (May 14, 1928):

“Anyone who thinks of homosexual love is our enemy. We reject anything which emasculates our people and makes it a plaything for our enemies, for we know that life is fight, and it is madness to think that men will ever embrace fraternally”

Heinrich Himmler (February 18, 1937):

“I wish to explore a few ideas on the subject of homosexuality. Amongst certain homosexuals there exists the following point of view: "what I do is of no importance to anyone else, it is a personal and private matter." Everything which touches upon sexual matters ceases to be private when the life or death of a nation depends on it. It is the difference between world domination or annihilation ... A nation with many children can gain supremacy and mastery of the wordl. A pure race with few children already as one foot in the grave; in fifty or a hundred years it will be of no significance; in two hundred years it will be extinct. It is essential to realise that if we allow this infection to continue in Germany without being able to fight it, it will be the end of Germany, of the Germanic world. Unfortunately this is not the simple matter it was for our forefathers. For them, the few isolated cases were simply abnormalities; they drowned them in bogs. Those who found bodies in the mire did not know that in 90% of the cases they found themselves face to face with a homosexual who had been drowned with all his belongings. This was not punishment, more the simple elimination of this particular abnormality. It is vital we rid ourselves of them; like weeds we must pull them up, throw them on the fire and burn them. This is not out of a spirit of vengeance, but of necessity; these creatures must be exterminated.”

Rudolf Höss (Commandant of Auschwitz):

“I found the habits and mentality of the various kinds of homosexuala and the study of their psyches under prison conditions, extemely instructive.”

Rudolf Diels (First Gestapo Chief):

“He lectured me on the role of homosexuality in history and politics. It had destroyed ancient Greece he said. Once rife, it extended its contagious effects like an ineluctable law of nature to the best and most manly of characters, elimination from the reproductive process those very men on whose offspring a nation depended. The immediate result of the vice, however, was that unnatural passion swiftly became dominant in public affairs if it were allowed to spread unchecked.”


Sources: People with a History: An Online Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans History.