The News Briefs column in the January 17-23, 2003 issue of the Gay City News had an item headlined "We Don't Want Him." The him being referred to is none other than Adolf Hitler. The news brief, written by Andy Humm, announced that HBO was "developing a documentary called The Pink Fuhrer" that explored "whether or not Adolf Hitler was homosexual."
Seventeen years later, the film, which I have not seen, should by now be available on DVD. I would like to see it to judge for myself if what is discussed is credible.
The thing that interests me more is the headline--"We Don't Want Him" instead of "Was Hitler Gay?" I can understand the urge to reject Hitler because of his genocidal, anti-Semitic pronouncements and behavior. But if he was a closeted homosexual, then he becomes part of gay history, like it or not.
Gay history has the tendency to celebrate only those deemed the good guys while ignoring those identified as villains like J. Edgar Hoover, Roy Cohn, Cecil Rhodes, and the murderers Leopold and Loeb.
If we're going to study gay history, it should be studied like all other histories, warts and all; the good, the bad, and the ugly; the sacred and the profane. By sanitizing and cherry-picking history, it becomes distorted and valueless. Looking at history in its fullness makes it possible for us to more accurately analyze and evaluate people, attitudes, actions, and events.
We can't do that if we hide the historical record. The history exists and we have to deal with it.
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