Posted on 01/09/2003 5:43:35 AM PST by Skooz
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Thu Jan 9, 3:22 AM ET
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By Andrew Wallenstein
NEW YORK (The Hollywood Reporter) --- HBO is developing a documentary based on a controversial book that claims Adolf Hitler was gay.
Scheduled to air next year on either HBO or Cinemax, the documentary will draw from "The Hidden Hitler," a biography released in 2001 to heavy criticism from historians who disputed its allegations. One academic who reviewed the book for the Washington Post chastised the author, German history professor Lothar Machtan, for coming "perilously close to blaming the entire Holocaust on Hitler's alleged sexuality."
The documentary will be produced by Los Angeles-based World of Wonder, whose credits include "Monica in Black and White" for HBO and the upcoming theatrical release "Party Monster."
"The thrust of the documentary looks at the body of evidence that in his early life, Hitler was, in all possibility, gay," said Fenton Bailey, co-director of the program with Randy Barbato. Bailey and Barbato are co-founders of World of Wonder.
An abridged 49-minute version of the documentary aired on the United Kingdom's Channel 5 in November with the title "Is Hitler Gay?" The full 75 minutes are expected to air on HBO with either the new title "The Pink Fuhrer," the original British title or a combination of both.
The documentary features interviews with Machtan and other noted historians. The production, which took 10 months to complete, visits European cities where Hitler spent his early years, including his hometown of Linz, Austria.
"Hidden" recounts eyewitness testimony describing Hitler's sexual activity during and after World War I. The book also suggests that he murdered a high-ranking Nazi who attempted to blackmail him by threatening to disclose his homosexuality and persecuted hundreds of thousands of other gays and lesbians to "disguise his own true colors."
Depictions of Hitler's early life have become a bona fide trend in movies and television. "Max," an independent film currently in theaters, provides a fictional account of Hitler's short-lived career as an artist, while CBS is preparing a miniseries on his rise to power that will air later this year. Both projects have been criticized for humanizing Hitler.
When NBC's "Today" anchor Matt Lauer interviewed Machtan about the book in October 2001, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation blasted the program for failing to grill the author on the validity of his claims.
GLAAD news media director Cathy Renna has higher hopes for the documentary. "We would welcome a rigorous and fair examination of the book from all different sides, which it didn't get from the mainstream media when it first came out," she said.
Bailey defended his company's decision to explore Hitler's alleged homosexuality. "It's an absolutely uncomfortable subject, but you're in graver danger if you refuse to explore an idea in fear that someone might misinterpret it," he said.
World of Wonder has another gay-themed documentary coming to cable in the spring as part of MTV's "True Life" series. "Homo High" examines the lives of a group of students attending a private gay high school in Dallas.
"He was thoooooo mithunderstood," they will chirp. "Hitler was oprethed by a heterothexual world and thimply wanted to expreth his thexuality. The gatthing of Jewth, the murdering of gypthies...that was all just his expretthion of rage for being oprethed by the mattheth. It was all Reagan's fault."
Guess what world leader:
- Was the first to Western leader to fully legalize a woman's "right to choose"
- an animal lover
- never drank
- passed ordinances against public smoking
- was a vegetarian
- loved the opera and music
- earned money as a watercolor artist when he was young
- spoke out against war after his service
- ushered in the first Nationalized Health Care in the Western world
- was an early advocate of mass transit and rail
- cut unemployment through massive public works probjects
- spoke out against prostitution as exploiting women
- declared a National War on Poverty
You get the picture.
"One academic who reviewed the book for the Washington Post chastised the author, German history professor Lothar Machtan, for coming "perilously close to blaming the entire Holocaust on Hitler's alleged sexuality."
Unadulterated BS- Hitler first and ever foremost an ant-semite-and the war was about racial purity.NOT ABOUT HIS PENIS PROBLEMS.
Franz Liebkind: Not many people know it, but the Fuhrer was a terrific dancer.
Or was it the browneyes?
There is no denying that the top echelons of the Nazi Party, especially in it's early days (26-34), was full of homosexuals.
You can always tell when someone is about to make a highly dubious claim: they lead in with the "there is no denying that...'' proviso.
Apart from Ernst Rohm, what top Nazis were "gay"? Is having Rohm and a few other gays in the SA enough to make the statement that the "top echelons of the Nazi Party" were "full of gays", true? Or is this just more rhetorical excess?
No doubt the Nazis had their gay subcultures, just like the GOP has "log cabin republicans". Do these gay Republicans define the GOP in relation to the gay issue? No? And if not, how is the NSDAP any different? Any large organization is going to have a certain percentage of homosexuals.
I would wager that the Nazis had no more homos than any other German political party of their day, and probably fewer than existed in the socialist or communist parties. Remember, when the great Catholic writer, poet, and adventurer Roy Campbell said "the sodomites are on your side" he was referring to the Spanish Communists and their leftist supporters, not to the fascists or nazis supporting Franco.
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