Many commentators have expressed surprise that amongst the police officers, soldiers, teachers and local government officers recently ‘outed’ as right wing extremists by the online publication of the British National Party’s (BNP) membership list, was the owner of a gay club in Warrington. Acquaintances of Allan Sternhammer, proprietor of the ‘Throbbing Cock’ nightclub, have expressed surprise at his links with the far right group. “He’s been active in the gay community for years – I didn’t think those Nazi-types went in for that sort of thing, they thought it was degenerate, didn’t they?” observes local drag queen Billy Backwind, who has regularly performed at Sterhammer’s club in the guise of Screaming Gladys Brownwing. “Mind you, he did have a lot of black leather nights at the club. Come to think of it, there were those stories the local rent-boys tell, too. They reckon he makes them wear pink triangles, then wears jack boots and a coal-scuttle helmet when he takes them up the chutney. Some of them say he shouts ‘Sieg Heil’ and gives a Nazi salute as he comes. But lots of blokes like to do that sort of thing don’t they? It’s just a bit of harmless role play, isn’t it?” However, leading conspiracy theorist Sam Nodger is far from surprised that active homosexuals are to found on the membership lists of Britain’s far right organisations. “There’s a huge underground network of neo-Nazi homosexuals,” the thirty-eight year old Mancunian claims. “Their organisation can be traced all the way back to Nazi Germany. Despite the regime’s later antipathy toward homosexuality, in its early days the Nazi Party boasted many openly gay men amongst its leaders.” Most infamous of these was Ernst Rohm, leader of Hitler’s notorious private army of thugs, the Sturmabteilung, or SA, as it was also known. “He was eventually assassinated during the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ in 1934, after heterosexual rivals such as Himmler became worried as to his influence over Hitler – they feared that the whole Reich could go gay,” says Nodger. “According to one source, Himmler concocted the plot against Rohm at the behest of Eva Braun, who feared that the SA leader was trying to ‘turn’ Adolf – apparently she once came home to find them in bed together!” The conspiracy theorist believes that many pre-war German homosexuals were attracted to Nazism by its emphasis upon strong masculinity, male bonding, physical fitness and a predilection for elaborate uniforms with black leather trimmings and jack boots. “This is still reflected in the traditional gay uniform of black leather and peaked caps is clearly derived from SS uniforms – although I doubt those handlebar moustaches would have been tolerated by Himmler,” he observes. “It’s also no accident that homosexuals are occasionally still referred to as ‘Brown Hatters’ – a clear reference to the colour of the uniforms worn by Rohm’s SA stormtroopers!”
Driven underground, Germany’s fascist homosexuals quickly formed the Gay Nazi League, an underground network dedicated to advancing its members within the Nazi hierarchy and Germany’s armed forces. “Anti-gay feelings ran very high within the German armed forces – they were dominated by Prussian aristocrats who had bought into the popular stereotypes of gay men as being limp-wristed effeminates, and feared that homosexuals would reduce the army to a bunch of cissies,” explains Nodger. “These attitudes long pre-dated the Nazi-era and were exploited by the British Army during the First World War, when, in 1916, they sent famed war hairdresser Vidal Sassoon behind enemy lines to perm the hair of several German units while they slept.” Indeed, the sudden appearance of the ‘Ypres Bubble Cut’ convinced the German High Command that, due to the pressure of trench warfare, their men were turning gay. Consequently, three front-line infantry regiments were shot and another five disbanded. Although forced to remain secret, the League developed its own version of the Nazi ideology, positing that it should seek the establishment of a blonde haired, cruelly good-looking race of Aryan homosexuals. Effeminacy was seen as degenerate and unworthy of the true gay Nazi. Plans were drawn up for the establishment of special detention camps for homosexuals from the conquered territories, where degenerate effeminate and submissive non-Aryan gays would be trained as sex-slaves by whip-cracking, black leather clad guards. By 1944, with Germany facing hostile forces to both the East and the West, the League believed the time was ripe for a change of direction for the Third Reich, the old heterosexual leadership having apparently failed, and launched an audacious bid to seize power. Several Nazi generals, including Bottenhagen and von Donger (the hero of Leningrad), who were members of the League, were involved in this daring conspiracy to seduce Hitler and induct him into the organisation. However, the advances of a whip-wielding and fishnet stocking-clad Bottenhagen were resisted by the Fuhrer and the conspirators all executed.
With Allied victory inevitable, the Gay Nazi League decided that if it was to achieve its dream of an Aryan gay Reich, it would have to relocate its operations. With the aid of Admiral Donitz, another prominent sympathiser, its members escaped by U-Boat to Antarctica in 1945. “Several U-Boats were seen off the coast of Argentina in 1945, heading for Antarctica”, Nodger claims. “The League knew, from ancient Tibetan texts recovered by Nazi archaeologists, that the lost civilisation of Atlantis had actually been located within the hollow Earth, beneath the South Pole.” Since 1945, he believes, the League has been working to establish a self-perpetuating gay Reich through the development of advanced artificial insemination techniques, cloning and genetic manipulation – with their scientists attempting to isolate the ‘gay Nazi’ gene. According to Nodger, the Western powers have long been aware of the gay Nazi presence in Antarctica. In 1946 a US expeditionary force under Admiral Byrd was sent to Antarctica to eradicate the threat. However, many of the sailors were seduced by the Nazis – Byrd’s second in command was last seen dancing into a blizzard hand-in-hand with an SS Colonel – and they were forced to withdraw. Since then the US has been content simply to contain the threat within Antarctica. However, despite these attempts at containment, Nodger believes that the Gay Nazi League has secretly infiltrated extreme right wing groups, including the BNP, throughout the world. “They’re just biding their time,” he says. “Waiting until they have sufficient influence over these organisations to seize power!” Gay groups have responded angrily to Nodger’s theories, branding them homophobic and accusing him of perpetuating out-moded gay stereotypes. Professor Jerry Mire – visiting Chair of Politics and Sexuality at the Bangkok Institute of Economic Studies – agrees. “Its a long-standing myth that gay men are into uniforms, jackboots and swastikas. Not only that, but no gay man has worn one of those black leather caps since 1975!” he says, although he concedes that there is a strong homoerotic undercurrent in present-day neo-Nazi groups. “All that macho posturing and head-shaving – its obviously indicative of men who are insecure about their own sexuality and are trying to overcompensate. Either that, or their dicks are too small.”
