Kevin Abrams: The other side of The Pink Swastika

This title is a play on a 1994 article by Kevin Abrams, published in Peter LaBarbera’s Lambda Report, titled, “The Other Side of the Pink Triangle.” Abrams is co-author of The Pink Swastika and organizer of an organization called the International Committee for Holocaust Truth. This organization produced three reports with the same message as The Pink Swastika. As noted in the first paper, the group believes,

Hitler’s plans for a “1000 Year Reich,” is a “Homofascist” Conspiracy which still thrives today disguised as “gay” rights. Today’s Holocaust memorial museums are being co-opted as part of a broader homosexualist strategy.

Current American Nazis would violently take issue with this view, but that is a topic for another post.

The ICHT seems to consist of Howard Hurwitz, Judith Reisman, Christopher Barder, Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams. Hurwitz is a former school principal and heads a small group called the Family Defense Council. As far as I can tell, the FDC does not have a website but has various writings and descriptions scattered on the web (e.g., here and here).

As noted yesterday, the attempt to link Nazis and gays (as a movement) seems to have been triggered by outrage over the “gay holocaust” metaphor and a desire to prevent that metaphor from generating public support for gays in in the 1990s. Abrams piece on the pink triangle was circulated among activists during this period and brought at least one scholarly refutation. Christine Mueller of Reed College wrote a piece which examined and refuted the essential claims of the Abrams’ article. Abrams then replied with a rebuttal.

Mueller points out the massive leaps of logic and fact required to make National Socialism an invention of a cohesive homosexual plot. Here is one example:

The abuse to which he subjects Heiden’s Der Fuehrer [a book about Hitler] is particularly flagrant. To suggest Hitler’s homosexuality, for example, Abrams changes Heiden’s text: “With Roehm and Heines, Stennes helped to impose the rule of the homosexuals over the SA” to: “with Roehm and Heines, Hitler helped to impose the rule of Roehm’s exclusively homosexual clique over the SA.” (58) Abrams has Roehm writing from Bolivia that he intended “to spread the culture,” whereas in the original, he spreads “culture,” i.e. Kultur. (59) In another example, Heiden describes a factional feud inside the party, during which Goebbels, taking sides against Hitler, called him a “vain operetta queen” (60) — a play on Hitler’s popular title, “The King of Munich.” In Abrams’ rearrangement of the text, Goebbels is referring to Roehm and appears to be complaining about his homosexuality (61). Since in German the word queen (Koenigin) has

no reference to homosexuality whatsoever, this error speaks volumes for the quality of Abrams’ scholarly credentials. These selected instances must suffice to show how assiduously Abrams has doctored his quotations; it would be tedious to list them all.

What makes The Pink Swastika and other materials like it difficult to critique for the casual reader is this kind of revisionism. Quotes are slightly altered; or even given properly but then the meaning is altered out of historical context. Readers interested in the details should read Abrams’ initial article, the Mueller critique and then Abrams’ rebuttal. The essence of Abrams arguments comes back to the quote above:

Hitler’s plans for a “1000 Year Reich,” is a “Homofascist” Conspiracy which still thrives today disguised as “gay” rights. Today’s Holocaust memorial museums are being co-opted as part of a broader homosexualist strategy.

Mueller’s response points out the errors of fact and context which are driven by confirmation bias and apparent outrage over a perception that another undeserving group was appropriating the holocaust metaphor.

Prior posts in this series:

May 28 – Scott Lively wants off SPLC hate group list

May 31 – Eliminating homosexuality: Modern Uganda and Nazi Germany

June 3 – Before The Pink Swastika

June 4 – Kevin Abrams: The other side of The Pink Swastika

June 8 – A historian’s analysis of The Pink Swastika, part 1

June 9 – A historian’s analysis of The Pink Swastika, part 2

June 11 – American Nazi movement and homosexuality: How pink is their swastika?

June 15 – Nazi movement rallies against gays in Springfield, MO

June 17 – Does homosexuality lead to fascism?

June 23 – The Pink Swastika and Friedrich Nietzsche

List of posts on Uganda and The Pink Swastika