Since its inception, the homosexual movement has always numbered gays whose political leanings tend towards the extreme right; these are men who set great store by masculinity and nationalism, who look down on ‘fairies’ and women and propagate anti-Semitism. Writing shortly before his death from Aids at the end of the 1980s, neo-Nazi Michael Kühnen claimed that gay men made better fighters, because having no family made them more independent and braver. My documentary portrays gay men who describe themselves as right-wing, or who have a history of alignment with the extreme right.
Andre is a skinhead. He associates with a group of other bald-headed right-wing men, most of whom tolerate his being gay. Alexander Schlesinger is a member of a political party representing extreme right-wing views. He claims that his party’s chief is aware of his homosexuality. Bernd Ewald Althans, who gained a reputation for his film, Profession: Neonazi, did time for his denial of the Holocaust. Today, he organizes gay parties in Berlin. For nine years, Jörg Fischer was an active member of the extreme right-wing parties NPD and DVU. During this time he had a relationship with another male party member which lasted four years. He left these organization in 1991 and now works as a journalist.
Journalist Rainer Fromm estimates that 10–15% of neo-Nazi party leadership is gay and that their homosexuality is tolerated within the party.
Some may be shocked that I do not take a stand in my film and do not portray gay neo-Nazis as monsters, but as people living their lives in dramatic contradiction. Professor Rüdiger Lautmann provides the most conclusive explanation: “Gays have always been persecuted, in all political parties, all religions and all societies. There is no reason why gay men should not affiliate themselves with right-wing groups – for the fear of being discovered and punished was, and still is, almost the same everywhere.” Rosa von Praunheim –Berlinale
Rosa von Praunheim, born November 25, 1942, in Riga, during the German occupation under his real name Holger Radtke, grew up with his adoptive parents in East Berlin under the name Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky. After the escape to West Germany in 1953, the family lived at first in the Rhineland and eventually settled in Frankfurt am Main. In Frankfurt, von Praunheim attended a classical language high school but left already after finishing secondary school level. He started to study painting at Offenbach’s Werkkunstschule (today: Hochschule für Gestaltung – HfG). One year later, he transferred to Berlin’s Hochschule für Bildende Künste but did not graduate any of his studies. At this time, during the 1960s, he assumed his stage name Rosa von Praunheim, as reminiscence to his Frankfurt quarter Praunheim and to the “Rosa Winkel” (pink triangle) – the symbol, homosexuals had to wear in the concentration camps during the Third Reich.
In 1967, Rosa von Praunheim made his movie… read more
