NAZI RESISTANCE FIGHTER HANS SCHOLL WAS GAY ACCORDING TO NEW BOOK

A new book says Nazi Resistance leader Hans Scholl was gay.

Hans and his sister Sophie Scholl have martyr status in Germany as symbols of "popular resistance" against the Nazi regime.

Post-war Germans have held up Hans and Sophie as proof that there was widespread resistance to the Nazi regime.

Of course, there was not any widespread resistance to the Nazi regime. And Hans and Sophie were summarily beheaded after a janitor caught them distributing anti-Nazi leaflets at Munich University. Proving that resistance was futile.

After a show trial, they were beheaded 19 February 1942 ... along with others in their student group.

It has always been assumed they acted out of a love of freedom and democracy ... until now.

This book says Hans hated the Nazis after being arrested for gay sex as a teenager. He was able to say it was all innocent "horseplay" and was released. 

But try as he might, he was not able to deny his gayness.

Gayness was grounds for being sent to a concentration camp, and Hans successfully avoided romantic entanglements ... until he met fellow university student Alexander Schmorell (smoking pipe in photo with Scholl). 

That is when Hans became radicalized.

Hans and Schmorell became lovers ... partners in crime ... and collaborators against the Nazi regime. Sophie Scholl's role in all of it was peripheral ... she helped distribute leaflets ... which was what she was doing when the university janitor caught them red-handed.

Schmorell had not helped distribute leaflets that evening. But he was soon rounded up ... and he was executed a couple of months later along with a host of other "Staatsfeinde" (enemies of the state).

Ironically, it was only a few months ago that the German parliament FINALLY exonerated all persons imprisoned under the Nazi regime's anti-gay laws.