War on Homosexuals

Daniel Platt’s Oct. 21 letter contains an egregiously distorted bit of Nazi lore regarding homosexuals. To suggest gays were instrumental in creating the climate of terror that aided Hitler’s rise to power is false and a libel to all gays.

While it is true that Ernst Roehm, one of the most influential early Nazi leaders, was flagrantly gay, his unapologetic life style merely gave Hitler a convenient excuse to purge a rival from power.

After Roehm’s liquidation, Hitler posed as the outraged moral leader of the Nazis and the Reich and ordered all gays sent to camps. Tens of thousands, and even some lesbians, were exterminated. (See Richard Plant’s 1986 book, “The Pink Triangle.”)

MARSHAL A. PHILLIPS, Los Angeles