History of gay men in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

After World War I, in the period known as the Weimar Republic, gay men in Germany, especially in Berlin, enjoyed more freedom and acceptance than anywhere else in the world.Fact|date=May 2008 However, upon the rise of Adolf Hitler, gay men and, to a lesser extent, lesbians, [ [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005478 Lesbians and the Third Reich] ] were two of several groups targeted by the Nazi Party and were ultimately among the roster of 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, and they were compelled to sexually conform to the German norm. An estimated 1.2 million men were out homosexuals in Germany in 1928.Fact|date=March 2008 Between 1933-45, more than 100,000 men were registered by police as homosexuals ("Rosa Listen" or "Pink Lists"), and of these, some 50,000 were officially sentenced. Most of these men spent time in regular prisons, and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of the total sentenced were incarcerated in concentration camps. It is unclear how many of these 5,000 to 15,000 eventually perished in the concentration camps. The leading scholar Ruediger Lautman however believes that the death rate in concentration camps of imprisoned homosexuals may have been as high as 60%. Homosexuals in camps were treated in an unusually cruel manner by their captors, and were also persecuted by their fellow inmates. This was a factor in the relatively high death rate for homosexuals, compared to other "anti-social groups".

After the war, the treatment of homosexuals in concentration camps went unacknowledged by most countries. Some that did escape were even re-arrested and imprisoned based on evidence found during the Nazi years. It was not until the 1980s that governments acknowledged this episode, and not until 2002 that the German government apologized to the gay community. This period still provokes controversy, however. In 2005, the European Parliament adopted a resolution regarding the Holocaust where the persecution of homosexuals was mentioned.

Rise of Nazism

Prior to the Third Reich, Berlin was considered a liberal city, with many gay bars, nightclubs and cabaretsFact|date=May 2008. There were even many drag bars where tourists straight and gay would enjoy female impersonation acts. Adolf Hitler decried cultural degeneration, prostitution and syphilis in his book "Mein Kampf", blaming at least some of the phenomena on Jews.

Berlin also had the most active LGBT rights movements in the world at the time. Jewish doctor Magnus Hirschfeld had co-founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, WhK) in Berlin in 1897 to campaign against the notorious "Paragraph 175" law that made sex between men illegal. It also sought social recognition of homosexual and transgender men and women. It was the first public gay rights organization.

In 1919, Hirschfeld had also co-founded the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexology), a private sexology research institute. It had a research library and a large archive, and included a marriage and sex counseling office. In addition, the institute was a pioneer worldwide in the call for civil rights and social acceptance for homosexual and transgender people.

The advancements of the gay community were soon erased, however, with the coming to power of Hitler's Nazi Party.

Nazism declared itself incompatible with homosexuality, because gays did not reproduce and perpetuate the master race.Ironically many members within the Nazi party were gay, which was another incentive for the Nazi party to destroy any evidence that could be used as "blackmail" against them.Since homosexuality is hard to disprove, the Nazi party also charged "homosexuality" against anyone who may have been perceived as a threat to the Nazi party in some way.All those who were labeled "Gay men" were denounced by the Nazi party as "enemies of the state" and charged with "corrupting" public morality and posing a threat to the German birthrate.

Hitler stated that homosexuality was "degenerate behavior" which posed a threat to the capacity of the state and the "masculine character" of the nation. This is ironic sincemany people in Hitler's circle were in fact gay as written in page 57 of "The Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals" by Frank Rector: "Hitler Youth leader, Baldur von Schirach was bisexual; Hitler's private attorney, Reich Legal Director, Minister of Justice, butcher Governor- General of Poland, and public gay-hater Hans Frank was said to be a homosexual; Hitler's adjutant Wilhelm Bruckner was said to be bisexual;...Walter Funk, Reich Minister of Economics [and Hitler's personal financial advisor] has frequently been called a "notorious" homosexual ...or as a jealous predecessor in Funk's post, Hjalmar Schacht, contemptuously claimed, Funk was a "harmless homosexual and alcoholic;" ... [Hitler's second in command] Hermann Goering liked to dress up in drag and wear campy make-up...".

The role of homosexuals within the Nazi party is often ignored or overlooked, probably because these facts might imply that "all homosexuals are evil" to thosewho are ignorant - but this is not true since between 5,000 to 15,000 homosexuals were put in concentration camps by the Nazi Party. Ironically though, it cannot be ignoredthat many Nazis who were homosexual happened to play a vital role in the persecution of both gay and Jewish people.

In page 299 of the book "Napoleon and Hitler" written by Desmund Seward, it says that "Hitler is listed as a homosexual in Viennese police records". One gay holocaust survivor has even claimed that Hitler was a male prostitute, but this rumor has yet to be proven true. Ernst Röhm, the leader of the SA, was a homosexual. Though Hitler was verbally outspoken against homosexuality, Hitler did not directly order any persecution of homosexuals until he viewed some of the homosexuals within his own party to be a threat. Another incentive of Hitler was to prove that he truly was "anti-homosexual" after Mussolini expressed disgust in how some of Hitler's staff behaved homosexually at a party. Hitler needed the Italian dictator's alliance and this was one of the two main reasons (aside from eliminating potential political rivals) why Hitler ordered the Night of the Long Knives to commence.

Nazi leaders such as Himmler viewed homosexuals as a separate people and ensured that Nazi doctors experimented on them in an effort to locate the hereditary weakness many party members believed caused homosexuality.

Some leaders clearly wanted gay people exterminated, while others wanted enforcement of laws banning sex between gay men or lesbians.

Ernst Röhm, a friend of Hitler who was eventually perceived as a potential threat, was the leader of the SA, the Nazi Party's first militia, was discreetly gay until 1925 when he was outed by a Social Democratic newspaper that published a number of love letters written by Röhm, as were some other top leaders of the SA, such as Edmund Heines. After 1925, Röhm was quite open about his sexuality and was a member of the League for Human Rights, Germany's largest gay rights group.

German Jews played a prominent role in the gay rights movement in Germany. The German-Jewish arts and film community had a large concentration of homosexuals.

German Jews like Magnus Hirschfeld were heavily criticized. They were demonized for their controversial ideas which were shocking to many people in Europe. Even though Sigmund Freud had nothing to do with the gay rights movement in Germany (since he was an Austrian Jew), he was targeted because he was Jewish and had controversial ideas about sexuality. Anyone who promoted controversial sexual ideas was thought of as a deviant by German society and especially by the Nazis. Freud was particularly criticized for concepts such as the Oedipus Complex which he claimed was a psychodevelopmental phenomena where children developed sexual feelings toward the opposite sex parent.

Purge

In late February 1933, as the moderating influence of Ernst Röhm weakened, the Nazi Party launched its purge of homosexual (gay, lesbian, and bisexual; then known as homophile) clubs in Berlin, outlawed sex publications, and banned organized gay groups. As a consequence, many fled Germany (e.g. Erika Mann, Richard Plaut). In March 1933, Kurt Hiller, the main organizer of Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute of Sex Research, was sent to a concentration camp.

On May 6, 1933, Nazi Youth of the Deutsche Studentenschaft made an organised attack on the Institute of Sex Research. A few days later the Institute's library and archives were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of the Opernplatz. Around 20,000 books and journals, and 5,000 images, were destroyed. Also seized were the Institute's extensive lists of names and addresses of LGBT people. In the midst of the burning, Joseph Goebbels gave a political speech to a crowd of around 40,000 people. Hitler initially protected Röhm from other elements of the Nazi Party which held his homosexuality to be a violation of the party's strong anti-gay policy. However, Hitler later changed course when he perceived Röhm to be a potential threat to his power. During the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, a purge of those who Hitler deemed threats to his power took place. He had Röhm murdered and used Röhm's homosexuality as a justification to subside outrage within the ranks of the SA. After solidifying his power, Hitler would include gay men among those sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Himmler had initially been a supporter of Röhm, arguing that the charges of homosexuality against him were manufactured by Jews. But after the purge, Hitler elevated Himmler's status and he became very active in the suppression of homosexuality. He exclaimed, "We must exterminate these people root and branch... the homosexual must be eliminated." (Plant, 1986, p. 99). Shortly after the purge in 1934, a special division of the Gestapo was instituted to compile lists of gay individuals. In 1936, Heinrich Himmler, Chief of the SS, created the "Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion."

Gays were not initially treated in the same fashion as the Jews, however; Nazi Germany thought of German gay men as part of the "Master Race" and sought to force gay men into sexual and social conformity. Gay men who would or could not conform and feign a switch in sexual orientation were sent to concentration camps under the "Extermination Through Work" campaign.

More than one million gay German men were targeted, of whom at least 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 were serving prison terms as convicted gay men. [ [http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/hsx/ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum] ] Hundreds of European gay men living under Nazi occupation were castrated under court order. [Giles, Geoffrey J. "'The Most Unkindest Cut of All': Castration, Homosexuality and Nazi Justice," Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 27 (1992): pp. 41-61.]

Some persecuted under these laws would not have identified themselves as gay. Such "anti-homosexual" laws were widespread throughout the western world until the 1960s and 1970s, so many gay men did not feel safe to come forward with their stories until the 1970s when many so-called "sodomy laws" were repealed.

Concentration camps

Estimates somewhat vary as to the number of gay men killed in concentration camps during the Holocaust ranging from 5,000 to 15,000 - which is less than 1% of the number of holocaust victims who died in concentration camps. Larger numbers include those who were Jewish and gay, or even Jewish, gay, and communist. In addition, records as to the specific reasons for internment are non-existent in many areas, making it hard to put an exact number on just how many gay men perished in death camps. It is also hard to tell how manyholocaust victims labeled "homosexual" were actually gay since the Nazi party used the charge of "homosexuality" as means to disarm any potential threat to their agenda. See "pink triangle".

Gay men suffered unusually cruel treatment in the concentration camps. They faced persecution not only from German soldiers but also from other prisoners, and many gay men were beaten to death. Additionally, gay men in forced labor camps routinely received more grueling and dangerous work assignments than other non-Jewish inmates, under the policy of "Extermination Through Work". SS soldiers also were known to use gay men for target practice, aiming their weapons at the pink triangles their human targets were forced to wear. There were several cases in which gay men imprisoned in camps ripped the Star of David Patch off dead Jews and put it on it place of theirs, hoping it would grant them better treatment.

There are also accounts among holocaust survivors that some of the Nazis in the concentration camps were gay, and would kill or torture those who did not wish to engage in homosexual relations with the Nazis who happened to be gay.

The harsh treatment can be attributed to the view of the SS guards toward gay men, as well as to the homophobic attitudes present in German society at large. The marginalization of gay men in Germany was reflected in the camps. Out of the 5,000 to 15,000 homosexuals who were in these concentration camps, many died from savage beatings, some of them caused by other prisoners. Nazi doctors often used gay men for scientific experiments in an attempt to locate a "gay gene" to "cure" any future Aryan children who were gay.

An account of a gay Holocaust survivor, Pierre Seel, details life for gay men during Nazi control. In his account he states that he participated in his local gay community in the town of Mulhouse. When the Nazis gained power over the town his name was on a list of local gay men ordered to the police station. He obeyed the directive to protect his family from any retaliation. Upon arriving at the police station he notes that he and other gay men were beaten. Some gay men who resisted the SS had their fingernails pulled out. Others were raped with broken rulers and had their bowels punctured, causing them to bleed profusely. After his arrest he was sent to the concentration camp at Schirmeck. There, Seel stated that during a morning roll-call, the Nazi commander announced a public execution. A man was brought out, and Seel recognized his face. It was the face of his eighteen-year-old lover from Mulhouse. Seel then claims that the Nazi guards stripped the clothes of his lover and placed a metal bucket over his head. Then the guards released trained German Shepherd dogs on him, which mauled him to death.

Experiences such as these can account for the relatively high death rate of gay men in the camps as compared to the other "anti-social groups." A study by Ruediger Lautmann found that 60% of gay men in concentration camps died compared to 41% for political prisoners and 35% for Jehovah's Witnesses. The study also shows that survival rates for gay men were slightly higher for internees from the middle and upper classes and for married bisexual men and those with children.

Post-War

Homosexual concentration camp prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution, this is because less than only 1% of those who died in concentration camps (somewhere between 5,000 to 15,000) were labeled "homosexual" when put in concentration camps (as opposed to about 6,000,000 Jews who were killed in masses because they were Jewish). Reparations and state pensions available to other groups were refused to gay men, who were still classified as criminals — the Nazi anti-gay law was not repealed until 1994, although both East and West Germany liberalized their criminal laws against adult homosexuality in the late 1960s.

Gay Holocaust survivors could be re-imprisoned for "repeat offences," and were kept on the modern lists of "sex offenders." Under the Allied Military Government of Germany, some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment, regardless of the time spent in concentration camps.

The Nazis' anti-gay policies and their destruction of the early gay-rights movement were generally not considered suitable subject matter for Holocaust historians and educators. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s that there was some mainstream exploration of the theme, with Holocaust survivors writing their memories, plays such as "Bent", and more historical research and documentaries being published about the Nazis' homophobia and their destruction of the German gay-rights movement.

In 2005, the European Parliament marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp with a minute's silence and the passage of a resolution which included the following text:

...27 January 2005, the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Nazi Germany's death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where a combined total of up to 1.5 million Jews, Roma, Poles, Russians and prisoners of various other nationalities, and homosexuals, were murdered, is not only a major occasion for European citizens to remember and condemn the enormous horror and tragedy of the Holocaust, but also for addressing the disturbing rise in anti-semitism, and especially anti-semitic incidents, in Europe, and for learning anew the wider lessons about the dangers of victimising people on the basis of race, ethnic origin, religion, social classification, politics or sexual orientation,...

On May 6th 2008 a street in Berlin was named after Magnus Hirschfeld. The location is just on the opposite side of the former Institute for sexology at the Spree river. The date marks the 75th anniversary of the destruction of the institute in 1933.

On 27 May 2008 a memorial to the Homosexuals persecuted under Nazism was unveiled in Berlin "to honour the thousands of homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945" [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7422826.stm Berlin remembers persecuted gays] BBC, 27 May 2008] . The memorial comprises a four metre high monument with a small window through which a film can be seen of two men kissing.

ee also

* Karl Gorath
* Kurt von Ruffin
* Albrecht Becker
* Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim
* Heinz Dörmer
* Karl Lange
* Paul Gerhard Vogel
* Ernst Röhm
* Pierre Seel
* Homomonument
* Historikerstreit
* Adolf Hitler's sexuality
* Nazi eugenics

References

External links

* [http://www.revue-quasimodo.org/PDFs/7%20-%20Becker%20Albrecht%20Tatouage%20.pdf Becker le marqué, Quasimodo]
* [http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/hsx/ Nazi Persecution of Gays 1933-1945] and [http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/homosexuals_02/ another exhibition] - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
* [http://www.gedenkort.de/eng-start.htm Site of the private initiative to create a national monument for the homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis]
* [http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/roehm.htm Night of the Long Knives - the murder of Ernst Röhm]
* [http://www.sodomylaws.org/world/germany/genews008.htm Boston Globe - Gay Hholocaust survivor speaks]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3314887.stm BBC News - Berlin to Mark Nazis' Gay Victims]
* [http://www.petertatchell.net/history/survivors.htm The Independent - Survivors of a Forgotten Holocaust]
* [http://www.pink-triangle.org/ History of the gay and lesbian experience during World War II]
* [http://members.aol.com/dalembert/lgbt_history/nazi_biblio.html The Nazi Persecution of Gays - Annotated bibliography of non-fiction sources]
* [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/seel.html Pierre Seel - An account of a gay Holocaust survivor]
* [http://www.mtsu.bastin/homobg.htm Gays and the Holocaust]
* [http://users.cybercity.dk/~dko12530/hunt_for_danish_kz.htm Article on various experiments conducted on gay men in concentration camps]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0444518 A Love to Hide, movie on gay holocaust]
* [http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/nazi.htm Richter Norton, "One Day they Were Simply Gone: The Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals"]
* [http://www.rosa-winkel.de Die Männer mit dem rosa Winkel] de icon