[gobucks]

Very interesting info .... given that you have this level of detail squirrled away, I have a question:

I have read accounts which argue emphatically that a significant core of the original nazi party leadership was overtly homosexual, in the pederasty sense, especially the leaders of the precursors of the SS and Gestapo.

Does this ring a bell with you?

[PzLdr]

Homosexuality in the SS was punishable by death. On the other hand, the SA [Sturmabteilung] was riddled with homosexuality, from Ernst Roehm down though the senior ranks [Edmund Heines], to Roehm's staff - and Hitler knew , and ignored it - as long as the SA served his purposes.

Roehm and the boys were bumped off because they kept yelling about the "Second Revolution", and Roehm publicly announced he wanted to consolidate the German Army and SA into a defense corps - with himself as chief. His head was the price the German Army demanded for first accommodating themselves to the Hitler regime [they provided the SS with weapons and trucks for the "Night of the Long Knives"], and then swearing personal loyalty to Hitler.

What the Army didn't see was that by colluding with the Nazis to get rid of the SA, they cleared the way for the SS [at the time a subordinate formation of the SA] to become their rival, and the most powerful faction in Nazi Germany.