Persecution of Homosexuals in Nazi Germany and The Holocaust - Post-revisionist Framing of The "Gay Holocaust"

Post-revisionist Framing of The "Gay Holocaust"

In recent years new work has been done on the Gay Holocaust and rather than emphasizing the severity of destruction to communities or the exclusivity of the genocidal process of the Nazi regime, it focuses on the intersections of social constructions such as gender and sexuality within the context of social organization and political domination. Spurlin claims that these all functioned with one another in forming Germany’s social order and final solution to these social problems. Rather than being autonomous policies, “They were part of a much larger strategy of social disenfranchisement and the marking of enemies....” This discourse incorporates numerous disciplines including gender studies, queer studies, Holocaust studies and genocide studies to tease out the axis at which they meet in social control specifically under National Socialism in Germany.

The approach taken by Spurlin is highly effective as he cross-relates identity construction with enemy construction and analyzes the way that it functions within the institutions of social organization such as the medical institution and the camp (citation needed). The study reveals that the homophobic impulse along with the anti-Semitic and other national threats seldom operated alone and that in terms of Nazi policy they were functioning on similar levels with differing opportunities to implement solutions, such as the Holocaust. This study is the most recent addition to the discourses of the “Gay Holocaust” and holds much promise in terms of generating a complete and interwoven understanding of where homosexuality factors into Nazi race policy and social organization. By re-evaluating the way in which National Socialism in Germany generated the other and how it functioned in terms of social organization, Spurlin asserts that homophobia was one of many forces that generated the Hitler’s Final Solution, along with anti-Semitism and misogyny.