The night of long knives was one of history's most dramatic gay-bashing incidents

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Since we're talking about it...

It was, among other things, the elimination of the substantial homosexual-leaning wing of the broader nazi movement. (More accurately, bi-leaning.)

I just thought I'd toss out that historical tid-bit.

One reason Hitler's anti-gay projects didn't get bigger historical play was that when the first drafts of Nazi history were written we still didn't even acknowledge the existence of gay people in polite conversation. (And when we did the term used was "pervert.")

(The first explicit mention of homosexuality in a mainstream American movie was in the mid-1960s.)

[Forkboy]

1. Oddly enough, the probable first movie with a gay character was in German in 1919.

It was called Anders als die Andern ("Different From The Others") and starred Conrad Veidt, whose portrayal of Gwynplaine in the movie "The Man Who Laughs" was the inspiration for The Joker in Batman.



Great piece on Veidt here...
http://robojapan.blogspot.com/2008/10/conrad-veidt-lost-actor-in-universals.html

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. In the USofA the production code folks used to ask studios to butch-up characters.

They would circle lines of dialog as being "a little light" or say, "This is acceptable only if delivered in a non-effeminate manner"

But there were still many gay characters in American films. Just not called out as such. (There's a 50s movie where the heroine breaks off her engagement when she finds out her betrothed is a "Momma's boy." And anyone who can follow the 1930s version of THE CHILDREN'S HOUR is a psychic.

But post WWI Germany was something different. Wiemar Germany seems to have had the most public gay scene of anywhere in the 20th century until well into the 1960s.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. God, it bugs the hell out of me.

These people running around joking about the night of long knives are as bad as nazis.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Ernst Röhm of the SA and his followers were a primary target in that

but Röhm's homosexuality was kind of incidental to the fact that he was a perceived threat to Hitler's leadership with his own base of power.

[cwydro]

5. Exactly.

They only used that in the publicity afterwards, but it had nothing to do with getting rid of him.

[apocalypsehow]

6. *Kick* & Rec. n/t.