(January 30, 2015 at 10:40 am)Tonus Wrote: One of the notable things in Bill Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is that he constantly notes the rumors that at least some of Hitler's closest associates during his rise were homosexuals who were attracted to young boys. The implications are that (a)this behavior was typical of gays and (b)it shows just how despicable the Nazi party was, that it would consort with such men. Shirer is otherwise a pretty liberal guy, but he reflects the attitudes of the times in that time period.
I wonder if Fischer got his idea about Hitler 'surrounding himself with gays' from Shirer's book.
However, Shirer also points out that most of those so accused were done in with the 1934 purge, which works against the point Fischer was trying to make.
