Second question - what could this possibly have to do with the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany in the 1930s?
Third question - does the name Samuel Igra mean anything at all to you?
OK from my perspective. I have spent a long time studying the history of the First World War, the Weimar Republic, the rise of the Nazis to power, and the German Resistance in the Second World War. I am less well up on Austrian history at the turn of the last century, but I am gradually getting there. Despite some things that you might read to the contrary, the break-up of the Austrian Empire in the Eastern part of Europe probably had as a great an impact as anything on the history of the continent in first half of the 20th century, and was the fuse that set off the explosion that was the First World War.
And from the First World War and its aftermath, including the Versailles agreement, the complete reconstruction of the political map in Europe, and the economic difficulties originally stemming from another continent (North America - 1929) arose the Second World War.
That is the text book logic, very briefly stated.
Back to Austria for a moment. It is difficult to believe looking at Austria now - a small, prosperous landlocked country in the centre of the continent - was one of the great powers of Europe for generations. Wars on the continent for centuries revolved around Great Britain, France, Prussia and Austria. In the East the Turkish Ottoman Empire and Russia also had important parts to play.
Prussia eventually became the leader of the combined Germany, Britain and France continued to behave like major powers even when their empires had waned, Austria eventually became what it is now - the days of Imperial glory behind it, a small prosperous country in the centre of Europe.
Not that getting there was that easy. Apart from losing its Empire, Austria also had already lost its place as the leader of the German states. When the combined Germany was on the horizon, the military might of Prussia crushed the Austrians at the Battle of Sadowa in 1866.
Left behind were fond memories of what might have been, and this was to leave an often bitter impact on many.
Not least on Austria's possibly least favourite son ever.
OK still wondering why I asked the questions at the beginning and then ignored them?
Good, we are back together. We needed the scene setting first though.
Anyway pick a historian to give you details on the rise of Hitler, the Nazis and the coming of the Second World War. Alan Bullock, Hugh Trevor-Roper, William L. Shirer. Maybe Erwin Leiser, a Swedish journalist, whose Jewish family fled Berlin in 1938, and who went on to produce the documentary film "Mein Kampf" in 1960.
All very good if you want what would seem relevant on detail and historical events and consequences.
Then there is Samuel Igra.
For most people who have studied the history of WW2, the names I quoted previously are probably well-known. Igra though is an obscurity.
Unless you are one of a number of American Christian Conservatives (not all of them incidentally, but a few on the extreme), and then it might not be such a new name.
In 1945 (before the events that had turned the world had even finished) Igra produced a book that is totally different from anything you would get from the accredited writers named above.
The book was called "Germany's National Vice", and the essential basis of it was that the rise of the Nazis came down not to chronic nationalism or the needs for empire, or any master race theory, or to regain lands lost in the East of Europe for German speaking peoples, or ....
No. The fundamental driving force that brought the Nazis to power was ..... homosexuality!
Since this work, a cottage industry has developed working on Igra's theory. I am not sure whether this is in Igra's work, but we then from these "believers" get Hitler being a male prostitute in Vienna in the years between 1908 and 1913 (as he allegedly "confirmed to a room-mate in the pension where he was staying"), his "obvious relationship" with Ernst Röhm, the known homosexual head of the SA who was assassinated on the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934 (which itself was completely a cover for the party being a homosexual coven founded in a Gay bar in Munich in 1923), the SA being an exclusively Gay organisation usw usw usw.
Nothing to do with power, nationalism or Lebensraum. Nothing to do with revenge for the stab-in-the-back leading to Germany's humiliation and defeat in 1918 usw.
Urban legend run wild. Interesting that Shirer, who worked for Hearst publications in Germany from 1934 to 1940 and observed how the Nazis took over power and ran their ruthless régime, never noticed this!
Also strange how large numbers of Gay bars disappeared from sight after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, how an athlete like Otto Peltzer and a tennis player (and Wimbledon finalist), Gottfried von Cramm were persecuted for their behaviour, and some 15,000 to 25,000 male homosexuals suffered the same fate as the Jews and the Roma in concentration camps - strange at least if the theory that the Nazis were primarily a homosexual movement is true.
Igra was an orthodox, deeply religious Jew, and he held pretty much the same opinion on Gays and their behaviour that is held by the ultraconservative believers in the US. Homosexuality is evil, the Nazis were evil, put the two together ....
If you want a text book example of this thinking try reading the following work which I came across on the Web the other day:
http://www.logisticresearch.com/Michael_Johnson_on_Naziism.pdf
This starts out reading like a highly intelligent academic thesis (and realise that the author has a Ph. D.), wends its way through a series of well-researched references, then starts to define Gay behaviour in stereotypical fashion and ends up with a diatribe upon the danger that they are to civilised society.
Personally I first developed an interest in what happened in Germany from 1914 to 1945 from the works of Erwin Leiser (see also above). He was also Jewish, though perhaps not as orthodox as Igra. Drawing upon a wealth of material some 15 years after the war in 1960 he produced the film "Mein Kampf" (large parts of which are still available upon YouTube - the film is grainy, the commentary in German and the sound has not stood the test of time. Nonetheless it is worth the time to watch it). This is a strictly orthodox political analysis of Hitler and his rise to power. And in my opinion far more credible.
As one example I will quote (from the English translation of his book on the film) regarding the Night of the Long Knives.
"However, the SA, under the leadership of First World War officer, Ernst Röhm, was developing into a power within the state independent of the army. In June 1934, in order to prevent conflict between these two powerful groups Hitler had Röhm and many of his party friends shot in Munich".
To be added at this point, it was not just the SA leadership who were assassinated. On the same night the leaders of the Socialist wing of the party, the Strasserites who wanted to see Germany as a "workers' state" (but a non-Bolshevik "workers state") were also assassinated, as Hitler's conservative business backers saw them as a danger. There may well have been "good" political reasons for the assassination of Gregor Straßer in particular - putting them into a "Gay context" is on the other hand very difficult.
One of the problems over the years researching Hitler's rise to power was the seeming shortage of information in the years before the First World War. Up to this week I was prepared to acknowledge that this shortage still was the case. Not any more.
I would recommend instead:
http://schikelgruber.net/
On his time in Vienna (1908 - 1913):
http://schikelgruber.net/vienna.html
On his time in Munich (1913 - 1914) and the First World War
http://schikelgruber.net/war.html
And on Hitler being Gay (if you have children under the age of 18 please do not let them read this, or if you are under 18 yourself, please do not read it - it contains references that may be disturbing. Adults of a sensitive disposition should also avoid it):
http://schikelgruber.net/homo.html
This is like a lifetime's work, and the devotion to research is intense. Details on the author can be found on the site. It is worth noting that he does not just present details of what he perceives to be facts, he also presents rumours and dismisses them only if the evidence looks dubious. I agree with his conclusions in the final piece on Hitler's homosexuality incidentally - that he was far removed from being Gay and actually detested homosexual men at least. These arguments are extremely lucid, clearly thought out and appear to have been shaped by the evidence - and the fact that male homosexuals were widely pursued in Nazi Germany tends to underline this.
The problem with urban legends meanwhile is that they gather a life of their own and eventually reach the point where the rumour displaces the fact. That they also often suit a particular agenda though is a much more serious concern. We should regard history as a series of facts and learn from them and not as a convenient tool through which people can pursue future policy for their own ends to the detriment of everyone else.
Update (1.12.2021) - unfortunately all the links to schikelgruber.net have disappeared from the Web. The site has disappeared entirely and a whole wealth of knowledge and research with it. Not merely sad, but suspicious. Erasure of carefully researched facts - whose interest does that serve?
No comments:
Post a Comment