The Pink Swastika - Reception

Reception

Erik N. Jensen regards the authors' linkage of homosexuality and Nazism as the recurrence of a "pernicious myth", originating in 1930s attacks on Nazism by Socialists and Communists and "long since dispelled" by "serious scholarship". Jensen sees the book as coming about in "the aftermath of an Oregon measure to repeal gay rights". Dorthe Seifert cites it as a response to increasing awareness of Nazi persecution of homosexuals. Christine L. Mueller argues that the historical record does not support Abrams' assertions. Bob Moser, writing for the Southern Poverty Law Center, says the book was promoted by anti-gay groups and that historians agree its premise is "utterly false".

Jonathan Zimmerman, an historian at New York University, wrote the claim that gay people helped bring Nazism to Germany "is a flat-out lie." Zimmerman, points out that "Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis arrested roughly 100,000 men as homosexuals. Most convicted gays were sent to prison; between 5,000 and 15,000 were interned in concentration camps, where they wore pink triangles to signify their supposed crime." He further notes, "To win their release from the camps, some gays were forced to undergo castration. Others were mutilated or murdered in so-called medical experiments by Nazi doctors, who insisted that homosexuality was a disease that could be 'cured'." In addition, "Hitler authorized an edict in 1941 prescribing the death penalty for SS and police members found guilty of gay activity."