ABSTRACT
On 18 August 1941, as we have seen, Hitler made his fateful declaration: ‘Especially in the Party and its various organizations, as well as in the Wehrmacht, it is necessary to act with ruthless severity against any case of homosexuality that appears in its ranks. If this is done the state apparatus will remain clean, and it must remain clean.’ Three months later this prompted a secret order for the cleansing of the SS and Police. With barbaric brevity this document stated over the Führer's own signature: ‘A member of the SS and Police who commits unnatural acts with another man or lets himself be abused for unnatural acts shall be punished with death.’
