XPost: alt.gossip.celebrities, alt.politics.democrats.d, alt.global-warming   
   XPost: alt.rush-limbaugh, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: xeton2001@yahoo.com   
      
   It is a common myth that Hitler was not a Christian. In fact, he always made   
   it clear that he was a Roman Catholic. In Mein Kampf Hitler wrote "By   
   defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord".   
   Once he gained power he got the support of both the Protestant and Catholic   
   churches.   
      
   In the 1920s, homosexual people in Germany, particularly in Berlin, enjoyed a   
   higher level of freedom and acceptance than anywhere else in the world.   
   [citation needed] However, upon the rise of Adolf Hitler, gay men and, to a   
   lesser extent, lesbians, were two of the numerous groups targeted by the Nazi   
   Party and were ultimately among Holocaust victims. Beginning in 1933, gay   
   organizations were banned, scholarly books about homosexuality, and sexuality   
   in general, were burned, and homosexuals within the Nazi Party itself were   
   murdered. The Gestapo compiled lists of homosexuals, who were compelled to   
   sexually conform to the "German norm."   
      
   Between 1933 - 45, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals, of   
   which some 50,000 were officially sentenced. Most of these men served time in   
   regular prisons, and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of those sentenced were   
   incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps. It is unclear how many of the 5,000   
   to 15,000 eventually perished in the camps, but leading scholar Ruediger   
   Lautman believes that the death rate of homosexuals in concentration camps   
   may have been as high as 60%. Homosexuals in the camps were treated in an   
   unusually cruel manner by their captors.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)