‘Eldorado’: Netflix Expos the Secret Gay History of Nazi Germany – Rollg Stone

Contents:

• ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI
• NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY
• ‘GREAT FREEDOM’ AND THE LONG SHADOW OF AN ANTI-GAY LAW GERMANY
• THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
• THE NAZIS TOLERATED GAYS. THEN EVERYTHG CHANGED
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME - PHOTOGRAPHS
• SERI: GAY MEN AND LBIANS UNR THE NAZI REGIME

ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI

As Eleanor Hanck explas, Röhm, his face srred om war wounds, strsed a hyper-masculy to unteract ntemporary views of homosexualy as feme. His open homosexualy may have threatened the psychologil secury of some other Natnal Socialists, creatg a form of ‘male homosexual panic.

'” She go further, wonrg if “the purge of the SA and the killg of Röhm reprented the leral objective rrelative for the supprsn and reprsn of the homosexual sir their own Nazism? Even before Ernst Röhm was murred, the Nazis had begun crackg down on homosexualy, banng anizatns, burng books, and arrtg the first of some 100, 000. Around 15, 000 gay people were sent to ncentratn mps, where some were experimented upon bizarre efforts to fd a “cure” for sexual orientatn, a forhadowg of Amerin psychologil and later fundamentalist efforts to try the same thg.

Which didn’t stop burly Hler nfidante and head of the Nazi SA paraary wg Ernst Röhm, a not-terribly-closeted gay man, om equentg the tablishment. As the film explas, the SA had a strong homoerotic element, a disgt wh women and femy they somehow ed to jtify homosexualy – for a time, anyway. The film never out and yells , but is also a remr of the Fal Solutn tenor that still acpani much anti-gay and anti-trans rhetoric and, creasgly, policy.

NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY

He was also a bohemian spir who had a passnate homosexual relatnship wh Manasse Herbst, a Galician Jewish actor who fled Germany 1936. Hirschfeld, a groundbreakg sexologist, both gay and Jewish and therefore a prime target of Nazi Germany, was thankfully not prent when his stute was ransacked by mardg Nazi youth (here aga, there are photos).

Here we experience the nce that thrived before the fall, at a hiaway for those whose differenc would soon mark them for prison, exile, or, many s, ath ( is timated that between 5, 000 and 15, 000 gay people died the ncentratn mps for vlatg Paragraph 175). In 2017, Germany’s Cabet approved a bill that would expunge the nvictns of tens of thoands of German men for “homosexual acts” unr that untry’s anti-gay law known as “Paragraph 175.

‘GREAT FREEDOM’ AND THE LONG SHADOW OF AN ANTI-GAY LAW GERMANY

Partly drivg this new era of tolerance were the doctors and scientists who started lookg at homosexualy and “transvtism” (a word of that era that enpassed transgenr people) as a natural characteristic wh which some were born, and not a “rangement. Durg the followg year alone, the Gtapo arrted more than 8, 500 gay men, que possibly g a list of nam and addrs seized at the Instute for Sexual Rearch. Italy, wh a fascist regime obssed wh virily, sent at least 300 gay men to btal mps durg the war perd, clarg them “dangero for the tegry of the race.

THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI

Still, if they had been proment members of the gay and trans muny before the fascists me to power, as Berl lbian club owner Lotte Hahm was, was too late to hi. He was received that day wh meras, bouquets of flowers, and a greetg om the openly gay former mayor of Berl, Kls seven s earlier, Brazda survived a spell Buchenwald, the ncentratn mp to which he was sent havg twice been arrted for vlatg Paragraph 175, the German law prohibg male homosexual activy. Published 2016, Whisnant’s book subverts the notn that the only queer people targeted durg the Third Reich were gay men, suggtg stead that the Nazi party’s broar terpretatn of Paragraph 175 meant that a small portn of terned dividuals were what we today would ll genr-nonnformg or trans.

What’s more, Whisnant pots out that while lbian women were not necsarily arrted bee of their sexualy, that is neher to say that some lbian women did not end up ncentratn mps, nor that the homophobia of the time didn’t impact them more broadly.

” And bis the German public’s disda for the trans-posive physician, signs of other cracks the fa of early Berl’s tolerance beg to show when nsirg the number of gay magaz circulatg at the time.

THE NAZIS TOLERATED GAYS. THEN EVERYTHG CHANGED

This wasn’t exactly a well-guard secret; gay sirs om the time rell spottg the high-rankg official at gay bars, even pickg up male sex workers Munich. ” The historian ntu to scribe how some might have seen the Nazi’s emphasis on male-bondg, physil power, and homoerotic imagery as a draw toward jog the party the first place.

”Nazi-era propaganda, like this 1933 electn poster, often prented an ialized, homoerotic-tged view of ArchiveWhatever illn of acceptance queer members of the Nazi party might have felt the early 1930s vanished the aftermath of a pivotal event lled The Night of the Long Kniv. That is, by the letter, didn’t necsarily crimalize homosexualy, but rather what was nsired homosexual ntact — male-on-male peratn. ” Victor (Ge Friedrich) stammers disbelief, more to himself than to Hans (Franz Rogowski) fictnal character of Hans, liberated om a Nazi ncentratn mp at the end of World War II only to be sent directly to prison, is based on a chillg and often overlooked chapter German postwar is repeatedly arrted unr Paragraph 175, a law crimalizg sex between men that the Nazis expand jt a uple of years to their regime, and which was kept on the books for s law was ed, sometim wh elaborate stg operatns, to nvict up to 50, 000 gay men Wt Germany between 1945 and 1994 — roughly as many as were arrted durg the which the Nazis ed .

“For gay men, the Nazi era did not end 1945, ” said Peter Rehberg, the archivist of Schwul Mm, a gay cultural stutn Sebastian Meise, the director of “Great Freedom, ” read about the men who went om the ncentratn mps to prison bee of their sexualy, “really changed my unrstandg of history, ” he said a telephone terview om Vienna. But for many s, postwar Germany’s treatment of gay men was also neher liberal nor 1935, the Nazis strengthened Germany’s law crimalizg homosexualy, which was origally troduced the 1870s.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

This allowed the regime to crimalize not jt gay sex, but almost any behavr that uld be seen to n afoul of heterosexual norms, cludg lookg at another man. Bermbach spent four weeks jail and was fed 5, 000 marks — a hefty sum at the he paid off the fe, he beme one of the thoands of gay and bisexual men who fled Paragraph 175. He moved to Paris 1960 search of more and his wrg partner Thomas Reir llected many stori om Bermbach’s generatn of gay men durg the six years they spent rearchg and wrg the script for “Great Freedom, ” visg the archiv at the Schwul Mm and the Magn Hirschfeld Foundatn, which llects terviews wh men affected by the, Paragraph 175 did not stop gay culture om evolvg Wtern Germany; the German tle of the film, “Grosse Freihe, ” is a nod to a venerable gay bar Berl where the penultimate scene tak place.

A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn C, Page 3 of the New York edn wh the headle: The Long Shadow of Germany’s Anti-Gay Law. In Augt 2016, Palmer — who is bt known for his off-Broadway show “Fabulo Divas of Broadway” and his role on the “Mighty Morph Power Rangers” — was performg at Edburgh Frge Ftival when he stumbled upon an article about the specific targetg of gay men and women unr Hler. The play relat the story of Werner, a gay man 1930s Berl who assum the inty of his landlady, a German woman who had died unexpectedly, orr to avoid persecutn and imprisonment.

Acrdg to the Uned Stat Holot Memorial Mm, gay men were “often subjected to physil and sexual abe by mp guards and fellow mat, ” and some were “beaten and publicly huiated. While our ernment isn’t nductg forced stratns of gay men and women like the Nazis did, given the verable flood of anti-LGBTQ+ (and particularly anti-trans) laws beg passed by state ernments across the Uned Stat, Palmer believ we should be payg very close attentn to the legislative mov before ’s too late. While may seem unimagable for somethg as horrifyg as the Holot to repeat self, Palmer said he and his -creators want to remd dienc of the current trends towards thorarianism around the world as they watch Werner navigate the terror of beg gay 1930s Berl.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME - PHOTOGRAPHS

In Nazi Germany, a downward-potg pk triangle was sewn onto the shirts of gay men ncentratn mps—to intify and further humanize them.

As part of their missn to racially and culturally “purify” Germany, the Nazis arrted thoands of LGBT dividuals, mostly gay men, whom they viewed as Uned Stat Holot Memorial Mm timat 100, 000 gay men were arrted and between 5, 000 and 15, 000 were placed ncentratn mps.

SERI: GAY MEN AND LBIANS UNR THE NAZI REGIME

)Corbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, the mps, gay men were treated pecially harshly, by guards and fellow prisoners alike. “There was no solidary for the homosexual prisoners; they belonged to the lowt ste, ” Pierre Seel, a gay Holot survivor, wrote his memoir I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi timated 65 percent of gay men ncentratn mps died between 1933 and 1945. Even after World War II, both East and Wt Germany upheld the untry’s anti-gay law, and many gays remaed rcerated until the early 1970s.

The next year, post-war Germany’s first gay rights anizatn, Homosexuelle Aktn Wtberl (HAW), reclaimed the pk triangle as a symbol of liberatn. Horac Villalobos/Corbis/Getty ImagMemorial plaqu for homosexuals, Jehovah's Wns and Wehrmacht serters are placed where once stood one of the molished barracks Buchenwald ncentratn mp near Weimar, Germany.