If You Want To Read Something Really Nuts

I've read a variety of books regarding the Nazi rise and fall in Germany. One of the books I read is"Rise and fall of the Third Reich and another Inside the Third Reich, both by Albert Speer (one of Hitlers close aides).

Speer recounts an episode following an assasination attempt on Hitler in which a pre-recorded message by Goering was automatically broadcast to the German nation. The recording alerted listeners that Goering was taking Hitlers place and so on. Goering was allowed to retire to his palace.

Speer visited the increasingly reclusive propaganda minister in Goerings cliff side palace. After a long wait Goering descended a spiral staircase in a slow, semi catatonic state. He was obviously under the influence of powerful drugs and was wearing womens make up and a lady's frilly night gown.

Gay support was used and then ruthlessly jettisoned in the early days of the National Socialist rise to power. An oft told anecdote is of a senior Nazi official walked in on another official in bed with a young man. The first official drew a pistol and shot both of them dead.

Who knows what kind of denial, angst and self hatred are behind the manifestations of inhumanity pitched to such destructiveness in the Germany of the thirties. One other thing I can tell you is that post WW1 Berlin was considered a place of wholesale depravity as defined by people professing moral outrage.
 
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Berlin between the wars had a reputation not unlike that of San Fransisco today.

You are right that there was a sort of "gay contingent" in the early nazi party, particularly in the circles around Ernst Roehm, that were wiped out in the "Night of the Long Knives" purge in 1934.

The Pink Swastika theory, however, insists that Naziism was at it's core, a homosexual conspiracy.
 
All this time I thought we were supposed to be a bunch of commies.
 
MzChrista said:
All this time I thought we were supposed to be a bunch of commies.

To the left we are Nazis, to the right we are commies. Either we are doing something very right or very wrong.
 
Queersetti said:
To the left we are Nazis, to the right we are commies. Either we are doing something very right or very wrong.

We're pissing off a lot of people, so we must be doing something right. ;)
 
I thought that homosexual people were rounded up with the other minoritys during the holicost?
 
1MOA said:
I thought that homosexual people were rounded up with the other minoritys during the holicost?

That is absolutely true, which shows how crazy the Pink Swastika thing is.
 
The really sad and troubling thing in all this, despite the fact that there are always people willing to support bizarre and ludicrous theories directed at minority and "outside" groups, is that these theories tend to increase and gather support during times of economic and political turmoil.
Considering the increasingly neo-conservative control of the government in this country and the continuing growth in influence of the fundamentalist right here and elsewhere, don't expect those theories to diminish in the near future. Rather, I would expect them to increase and the really scary part is that they will probably gather a growing support.
Pity that we live in such an emotionally and sexually repressed society.
 
You sound young.

I only say that because it used to be much, much worse. I'm only in my early 40's and I've seen huge changes from when I was a girl.

People older than me can remember when "home discipline" was a common term. What was it? When a man beat his wife.

"Where's Sarah today?"
"Oh, she couldn't come. Hal gave her some home discipline last night."
"Oh, well, maybe next week."

My mother, in the early 40's, was slapped in the face by her mother at age 11 because she sat with "some colored kids" at the movie theater rather than with the other white kids.

It seems to me that we try to right the larger issues and then move downwardly: IE Slavery, the women's rights, the civil rights, now sexual rights.

Well, truthfully, women's rights were begun and somewhat derailed by the Civil War for a time. And the ERA never became an amendment, tho if it had it would have been amended again by now to include other groups, don't you think?
 
PoliteSuccubus said:
You sound young.

I only say that because it used to be much, much worse. I'm only in my early 40's and I've seen huge changes from when I was a girl.

People older than me can remember when "home discipline" was a common term. What was it? When a man beat his wife.

"Where's Sarah today?"
"Oh, she couldn't come. Hal gave her some home discipline last night."
"Oh, well, maybe next week."

My mother, in the early 40's, was slapped in the face by her mother at age 11 because she sat with "some colored kids" at the movie theater rather than with the other white kids.

It seems to me that we try to right the larger issues and then move downwardly: IE Slavery, the women's rights, the civil rights, now sexual rights.

Well, truthfully, women's rights were begun and somewhat derailed by the Civil War for a time. And the ERA never became an amendment, tho if it had it would have been amended again by now to include other groups, don't you think?

I'm flattered, I guess. Actually I'll be 55 in less than two weeks. :D
But I understand your point and I agree that in looking back on the general trend of history, there has been a very gradual and erratic path toward heightened awareness for us as a human race. The unfortunate thing is that those advances are usually punctuated by a very strong reaction in the opposite direction. We usually wind up pulling out of it, but it takes sometimes hundreds of years, not decades. (see the Dark Ages - several of them)

I think the most recent that we can really identify here in this country is the slavery and civil rights issue. It was 100 years after emancipation that the civil rights movement finally came into full bloom and began to force the changes that supposedly had already been in place. Having spent my high school years in the segregated south, I have to tell you that it was not a pretty place to live. The incident that most sticks in my mind was the day in my freshman year that a white kid from our school ( we were still an all white school) was hiding behind trash barrels at the service station across the street. As a black kid walked by on the sidewalk, the white kid yelled out from his hiding place, "I bet you wish you were as white as me." The whole thing spoke volumes to me about inherent willingness of people to put themselves in a position of having it over someone else, without realizing what it does to themselves.
in addition, having come from a family whose mother grew up in Poland and was taken by the Nazis for slave labor, I probably tend to be a bit more sensitive to the machinations of the extremes in any political setting - somehow, somewhere, someone else always knows a better way that other people should live and has no compunction in forcing that on them.

Well, anyway, sorry for this long winded reply - but it feels good stretching the mental muscle a bit. And sorry if I took this thread away from its original intent, or did I?
Thanks,
:)
 
Northcountryguy, your contribution to the discussion is very appreciated, and in my opinion, right on topic.

You are correct, that every step forward creates resistance. The fortunate thing is that that resistance often makes us stronger still in our resolve to move forward.
 
Well, anyway, sorry for this long winded reply - but it feels good stretching the mental muscle a bit. And sorry if I took this thread away from its original intent, or did I?

It may have seemed like I was disagreeing with you, but I wasn't.

I'm just happy that SOME progress has been made, even during my life time!

I feel as if we, as a country, are at a halfway point. We've come a long way, but have a long way to go.

My biggest cause, myself, is children's rights. Now THAT's off topic.
 
PoliteSuccubus said:
It may have seemed like I was disagreeing with you, but I wasn't.

I'm just happy that SOME progress has been made, even during my life time!

I feel as if we, as a country, are at a halfway point. We've come a long way, but have a long way to go.

My biggest cause, myself, is children's rights. Now THAT's off topic.

I didn't think you were disagreeing with me - was just enjoying the discussion. Tend to miss that in the work I do - if anything I was amused by the "you must be young" thing.

Going beyond the country scenario, as a world we have a long way to go. A friend of mine said a while back that he felt it was never going to happen if it was left up to us - he saw the need for some serious divine intervention. :eek:
Never know what you'll wind up with if that were to happen - guess it depends on which religion is right; let's hope none of them are. :D
 
Oh good! :D

If you hang out in the right places you'll get a lot of good debate.

If you hang out in the wrong places you'll get a lot of bad debate.

If you hang out and just let it all hang out you'll get some bickering and hate mail. *tips hat to the GB*
 
PoliteSuccubus said:
Oh good! :D

If you hang out in the right places you'll get a lot of good debate.

If you hang out in the wrong places you'll get a lot of bad debate.

If you hang out and just let it all hang out you'll get some bickering and hate mail. *tips hat to the GB*
Thanks for the warning about the GB - went and checked it out. Seem to be some pretty sharp tongued folks there - I guess no matter where you go, people tend to gravitate toward the group mentality and can't seem to help themselves when they smell blood.

And thanks for the encouragement. Hope to see you around.
 
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