Men, Heroes and Gay Nazis

During a gay march in Berlin, the crowd is asked for opinions on gay men who hold extreme right wing views or who are white power skinheads or neo Nazis. Almost all respond with disapproval. One participant notes the absurdity, saying that if those groups had lived in the era they admire, they would have been exterminated.

The film presents four gay men in present-day Germany who have been or are involved in right wing politics: Andre, Bela Althans, Alexander Schlesinger, and Jorg Fischer. Their testimonies are interwoven with historians journalists and intellectuals. The framing shows how fascism and homosexuality cross paths through recent German history.

Andre is a skinhead who defines violence as the courage to defend himself and as part of the warrior within. He is openly gay and tolerated by his peers, yet he lives under constant threat. He eventually moves away from the skinheads toward conservative politics.

Bela Ewald Althans was a leading neo Nazi in the early 1990s, an Adolf Hitler admirer and Holocaust denier. In 1994, he was arrested and spent 21 months in jail for denying the Holocaust during a visit to Auschwitz captured on film for a documentary. He is now involved in the gay community and works in advertising, and he says he does not regret his past.

Alexander Schlesinger, from East Germany, is a member of a political party representing extreme right wing views. He argues that being gay does not automatically make a person better and that a gay man can be racist. He says gay men are drawn toward a masculine ideal and cannot stand a screaming queen.

For nine years Jorg Fischer was an active member of the extreme right wing parties NPD and DVU and he had a relationship with another male party member. They had sex many times a week but never talked about sex or used the word gay. He left those groups in 1991 and later found a different romantic partner and began working on social issues.

The documentary recounts the life of neo Nazi Michael Kuhnen, who kept his homosexuality secret until 1981 when he published a booklet and came out as gay. He argued that gay men make better fighters because they have no families and are closer to their comrades. Kuhnen died of AIDS in 1991 after being ostracized by former supporters.

Ernst Rohm, co founder of the SA, was openly gay and trusted for his strength. Hitler knew about Rohm's homosexuality but relied on him for violence and power. In 1934 Rohm and several leaders were killed during the Night of the Long Knives as the regime consolidated control.

Rudolf Hess had no interest in women in his youth and wrote love letters and poems to men. He later married on Hitler's advice, illustrating the complexity of personal lives in the era. These details are shown to underscore the hidden homoerotic currents in the inner circle.

During the Nazi regime between 5 and 15 thousand gay men were killed in concentration camps. The film places these numbers within the broader pattern of state brutality toward perceived deviance. It connects personal stories to the brutality of the period.

Pierre Seel, a gay Holocaust survivor, appears briefly recounting how a young friend was eaten alive by the dogs of Schirmeck-Vorbruck concentration camp. The fragment highlights the brutal treatment of homosexual prisoners. The memory anchors the film's historical arc.

Historians journalists and intellectuals who follow fascism and homosexuality across German history are woven into the testimonies. They trace how authoritarian ideologies have intersected with sexual identities over decades. The film uses these threads to build a continuous narrative.

The documentary emphasizes that extreme right wing homosexuals have appeared across eras and asks how personal rights intersect with political ideology across generations. It invites viewers to consider the persistence of these tensions in modern society. The message lingers as a prompt for reflection rather than a simple conclusion.