Customer Reviews

The Pink Swastika

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(32)

 

 

I was looking around on the web for information about Heydrich. Excerpts from 'the Pink Swastika' pop up in the search results. On further reading, however, it becomes a bit perplexing. The Pink Swastika states that Hitler was looking for someone to start up an SS intelligence service, and that Eberstein brought Heydrich to the attention of Hitler. The book cites Callum MacDonald's book as the source for this information.

But you can read that part of MacDonald's book on google books, that is not what it says. It says that Himmler was running the SS, Himmler was looking to start up the intelligence service, and Eberstein brought Heydrich to Himmler's attention. This is a small fact, possibly an honest mistake... but ...

There is also a document on the web called 'the annotated Pink Swastika', that describes this error, but also numerous other errors in the book. It also describes other instances where the book cites sources, but when you go and read those sources, the sources don't say what the Pink Swastika claims they say.

It would seem to indicate that these problems are not isolated typographical errors, but repeated misquoting and mis-citation of sources. I would be very careful when reading the Pink Swastika as a work of factual history....

Just got done with the book. As the author points out, the facts the book presents are easily corroborated. The sources are out there. The critics of this book seem to fall into 2 groups; the ad-hominem personal attackers 'HE'S JUST A JEW-LOVING HOMOPHOBE CHRISTIAN AND PROBABLY A REPUBLICAN TOO! <yawn> And the more serious researcher that quotes one other book with an opposing point of view and implies that book is Gospel (joke). Of course the other book uses just a relatively few examples and they extrapolate this to imply there were 10's of 1,000's of homosexuals interned-a claim never proved. The irony here is that Lively and company freely admit there were a relatively few homosexuals but refuse to be intellectually dishonest, like the critics mentioned above, and claim something they can't prove. If you want to be respected then can just one of you homosexuals write something that at least pretends to be intelligently written?

Gay militants are portraying all who oppose their objectives as "Nazis". Perhaps you've seen a Gay Pride Parade where hundreds of pink triangles are worn or carried. Authors Lively and Abrams (an Orthodox Jew) expose the "Big Lie" that the Nazis were "Anti-Gay". The Nazis were NOT "Anti-Gay"; they were Anti-Femme (anti-effeminate homosexual). The Pink Triangle prisoners in concentration camps were often the sex-slaves of the SS-SD; the death-camp guards who were often former members of the Brownshirts (SA); a notoriously masculine homosexual organization founded by Ernst Rohm; the notoriously open Butch Gay man who was the mentor and "du" buddy of Adolt Hitler. Indeed, the party that later became known as the "Nazi" Party was founded in a Butch Gay Bar in Munich! Lively and Abrams prove that the roots of Naxism can be found in Homo-fascism and Homo-occultism, and that the roots of the gay rights movement in America can be traced directly to the Society for Human Rights; the butch gay organization in which Rohm and other early Nazi leaders were members and founders. An excellent book that bookstores REFUSE to carry. Gay propagandists have dismissed this book as "revisionist"; although the one of the book's authors is an Orthodox Jew, and the book confirms the Holocaust. It's a great expose of the "Big Gay Lie" of today; that the Nazis were Anti-gay.

To its credit (ONE star, as opposed to NO stars), Pink Swastika makes occassional accurate factual statements, but in order to reach its conclusions -- that Nazi Germany was somehow a plot brought about by masculine gay men -- it has to ingnore whole swatches of facts that counter the premise and elevates rumor to a level of fact (such as the old rumors that Hitler, Himmler, and Heydrich were closeted gays or bisexuals). Were some of the early Nazi's gay? You bet! Ernst Roehm was one of a handful of gay men who led the early party. However, the overwhelming, uncontrovertable evidence is that gay men and women were victims of the Nazis even if a handful participated in the persecution.

Pink Swastika may not be as outrageous as the Protocols of Zion, but it is from the same genre as Protocols. If one is to read the book, do so with heavy doses of skepticism and caution.

Excellent book! This book gives ample evidence that the sexual perversion of homosexuality easily lends itself to authoritarian impulses. Not only do the authors make a strong case that homosexuals played a critical role in the formation of the Nazi Party, but they also show how many Nazi leaders in Europe and the USA also came from the gay movement. The myth that all gays were persecuted by the Nazis is demolished in this book -- most of the camp guards were sadistic gays. The underlying theme is that when a society accepts a moral relativistic philosophy (leading to acceptance of homosexuality) it could very well lead to the eventual destruction of our constitutional rights. The authors show that the reason why the Nazis were so anti-semitic had to with historical reasons. The Jewish culture -- with its old testament ethical system -- brought an end to the macho-gay/Warrior mentality that dominated so much of ancient Europe, especially ancient Rome and Greece. These ancient pagen cultures, which glorified sex between warriors, were worshiped by the Nazis who blamed the Jews for the introduction of biblical morality which, of course, condemned homosexuality and ended much of the pagan lifestyle in Europe. I highly recomment this book. California State Assemblyman Steve Baldwin

The authors of this book provide some facts about the Nazi system and its leaders in their book, but they leave out crucial information, make loads of mistakes (some of which seem disingenuous), and spin what they do include to support their anti-homosexual agenda. This is not objective history, but a polemic. For example, the authors claim that, because "sodomy" was a crime in Germany and many other countries both before and after the rise of the Nazi regime (true), it's perfectly acceptable that homosexuals were placed in concentration camps during the days of the 3rd Reich. By that reckoning, people today shouldn't be upset about slavery in Colonial America, because it was "legal" at that time. The authors point out that there was never a directive to murder all homosexuals in Germany, as there was against Jews. This is true, but, as they admit, homosexuals were killed in the camps, and through violent attacks on the outside. Yes, the number of gays killed by Nazis was miniscule compared to the number of Jews murdered, but so what? Does that mean no one can talk about it, or that we should pretend it never happened? Discussing the topic of Nazi homophobia in no way lessens anyone's respect for what Jews, political dissidents, Catholics, Romany, degenerate artists, etc., suffered under the 3rd Reich, unless you're hysterically homophobic, as these authors appear to be.

In an effort to make their case that the Nazi leadership was "poisoned" by homosexuality, the authors leave out masses of evidence and documentation that prove Hitler's minions purposely targeted homosexuals for arrest and harrassment, and that Germany's laws supported this. The authors claim that the Nazi government's anti-homosexual policies were selectively applied, or covers for other purposes. I'll just list a few of these policies here, and you can decide for yourself whether this conclusion is logical: 1928: the Nazi party publishes a pamphlet containing its response to the idea of repealing the anti-homosexual law known as Paragraph 175, "Anyone who thinks of homosexual love is our enemy"; Feb. 23, 1933: 24 days after being appointed Chancellor, Hitler bans all homosexual-rights groups; October 24, 1934: the Gestapo secretly orders local police to collect names of all homosexuals in Germany; June 28, 1935: Paragraph 175 is amended with broader language, so that a mere touch between men can be interpreted as an arrestable offense; October 26, 1936: the Reich's "Central Office to Combat Homosexuality and Abortion" is established.

It is true that a few Nazi higher-ups, such as SA leader Ernst Röhm, were homosexual, but that does not invalidate official Nazi homophobia, just as Goebbels' clubfoot did not prevent Hitler from having "cripples" euthanized. One can make a good case that Röhm's homosexuality was part of the reason Hitler ordered him killed. (Though one can make just as good a case that it was a mere pretext for removing a man who was becoming too powerful for Hitler's comfort.) There is no evidence for the authors' claim that "most" of the Nazi leadership was gay.

One major failing of the book is that the authors have no true understanding of what homosexuality is. They make no distinction between sadistic prison camp guards who sometimes raped male prisoners, and men who are sexually oriented towards other men. They also foolishly lump pedophiles into the mix, as if gay men are just waiting for the chance to prey on children. I caught a number of assertions that are completely unproven, such as the authors' belief that there is less homosexuality among American boy scouts than among members of the Hitler Youth, due to the Boy Scouts' "Judeo-Christian" underpinnings. This is just one example of the authors' weak historiography.

It is true that victims of crimes or social attacks can sometimes read history with an eye that focuses too intensely on issues that affect their own group. The authors of this book think that some writers have been too emphatic about the sufferings of homosexuals in Nazi Germany. But it remains a proven fact that gays were one of Hitler's many targets, and this book does not change that fact. If you were convinced by it, I suggest you read some other books on the topic, such as "The Pink Triangle", and general surveys of the Nazi period.

BTW, I would have preferred to give this title no stars, but Amazon requires that I assign at least one.

A well researched book and a breath of fresh air in an era of endless political correctness. It's a safe bet that none of the negative reviews of this book, actually took the time to read it: virtually all of their "objections" are delt with, with impressive documentation. The claims that this book tries to blame homosexuals for all the evil in the world or other absurdities, are not based on this book: It merely deals with the actual history and roots of the Nazi movement.

I have studied World War II from my teens to the present (over 20 years) and I knew the recent premise the gay rights organizations claimed about those who oppose their agenda were somehow following in the footsteps of the nazi's was untrue. I recall in Shirer's classic "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" on the night of the long knives when Hitler purged members of the Brownshirts who posed a political threat to him. They found some in bed with young men. What I found truly incredible in the Pink Swastika was some of the newsreel footage we saw of Nazi's burning books was actually records of facilities that were treating many of the nazi leaders and their various sexual perversions. Sadly, in today's political environment, historic fact will take a back seat to political correctedness and not only will the facts not be disseminated to many but the author's of these writings will no doubt be attacked and thrown into the same old "homophobe" category as all others with evidence that thegay rights agenda historically has been disastrous to cultures and societies.

A fascinating book and a must read to all of those who want to go below the surface of many claims made about persecution of gays in the Third Reich. Highly recommended.

The Pink Swastika is like an introduction into the origins of the modern homosexual movement. But by no means is homosexuality new as this very informative book points to Sparta and Greece where homosexuality was the norm. Older men would seduce young boys who would in turn seduce young boys when they became older. The authors draw the comparison between homosexuality in Sparta and the Nazis. They also explain how the homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis where 'fems', unlike the Nazis hierarchy which was largely 'butch.'

This book should be required reading in college to counteract the misinformation spewed out by the homosexual mafia.

I'm certainly no expert on the history of Nazism, so I'll leave it to others who are better informed than me to criticize Lively and Abrams in that regard. What I am sufficiently well-informed to criticize is their treatment of the Theosophical Society in their chapter entitled "Homo-Occultism". Lively and Abrams seem to think that this fascinating piece of Victorian eccentricity was some kind of outfit for "promoting" homosexuality. Their evidence is:

(1) Madame Blavatsky, one of the founders of the Theosophical Society, MIGHT have been a lesbian.

(2) Blavatsky's friendship with Mrs Annie Besant, who became the leader of the Theosophical movement after Blavatsky's death, MIGHT have been of a lesbian nature.

(3) Charles Webster Leadbeater, a renegade Church of England curate who abandoned his ministry, joined the Theosophical Society, was later irregularly consecrated a bishop by another schismatic bishop and formed his own "Liberal Catholic Church", was almost certainly a pederast. (They're right on this one.)

Needless to say, Lively and Abrams gloss over any facts that might cast doubt on (1) and (2), which rest on an extremely flimsy foundation to start with, and fail to mention the fact that Leadbeater was pressured into resigning from the Society as soon as his hanky-panky was discovered and was allowed to resume his place in the Society later only after Mrs Besant (no doubt gullibly) had been persuaded that he had mended his ways.

They attempt to link Theosophy to Nazism on the grounds that:

(1) Theosophy became popular in Germany and Austria (but not in other countries? Britain? America? India?)

(2) one founder of a cranky German nationalist and occultist group was clearly influenced by Theosophical ideas

(3) Madame Blavatsky had some weird ideas about "root races", of which the Aryan was supposed to be the fifth (the Theosophical Society's declared first object of forming "a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour" is naturally ignored)

(4) the Society's emblem includes a swastika (both the fact that the swastika was a symbol in use thousands of years before Nazism, and the detailed explanation given by the Society of every symbol contained in its emblem, are, of course, again simply ignored)

Such "reasoning" would make a cat laugh.

I hear that Lively, in his book "The Poisoned Stream", claims also to have discovered "gay fingerprints" on "the Spanish Inquisition, the French `Reign of Terror', the era of South African apartheid, and the two centuries of American slavery". (I wonder what else. The Mafia? The Camorra? The Bermuda Triangle? Christian Science?)

It's all rather reminiscent of Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code", which at least wasn't presented as more than a novel, even if its author did make spurious claims about the alleged historical facts on which it was based. As a journalist remarked at the time, "Everyone except the Abominable Snowman seems to be in on this."

Lively and Abrams' method is basically a simple one, and we can all do it if we have the necessary time, energy and degree of fanaticism. You start by taking any organization or movement that your readers are likely to regard as discreditable. Then you look for people associated with it who were homosexual; since a proportion of the world's population have always been homosexual, you're almost certain to find some - even if only closeted ones, and even in homophobic movements. If you find yourself short of "definites", settle for "possibles". Add an immense amount of fanciful conjecture and ignore or distort any facts that conflict with your thesis. Stir it all together and Bob's your uncle - you've proved that homosexuality was what caused it all.

If their scholarship on the history of the Nazi movement is equal in quality to their scholarship on the Theosophical Society, then it's quite worthless.