The Pk Triangle: From Nazi Label to Symbol of Gay Pri | HISTORY

Contents:

• HLER WAS GAY - AND KILLED TO HI , BOOK SAYS
• NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY
• ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI
• THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• SERI: GAY MEN AND LBIANS UNR THE NAZI REGIME

HLER WAS GAY - AND KILLED TO HI , BOOK SAYS

Eyewns acunts om Hler's former lovers, and historil documents that for the first time illumate mours that have circulated for over half a century, are disclosed Hler's Secret: The Double Life of a Dictator rpected German historian Lothar Machtan even claims his book that Hler orred the aths of several high-rankg Nazis to prevent the secret of his homosexualy om Röhm, the lear of Hler's Sturm Abteilung or Storm Troopers, tried to blackmail Hler by threateng to reveal his sexualy. Acrdg to Erich Ebermeier, a lawyer and wrer who viewed Hler's ary fil years later: 'Dpe his bravery towards the enemy, bee of his homosexual activy he lost out on a promotn to non-missned officer.

Machtan says that Hler was particularly drawn to Rudolf Hs, his puty, who was known party circl as 'black Emma' and wh whom he had spent months Landsberg, then, did the Nazis persecute homosexuals, sendg hundreds of thoands of them to their aths labour mps and the gas chambers? This clud more than 100 gay and lbian bars and f, songs and films, and Magn Hirschfeld’s Instut für Sexualwissenschaft (the Instute for Sexual Science), which ntaed thoands of books and journals on sexualy and genr. Some Nazis believed that the majory of, if not all, homosexuals were Jewish bee many of the proment advot of gay rights and equaly were (cludg Hirschfeld as well as progrsive psychiatrists, physicians, lawyers and jurists).

More than 100, 000 men intified as homosexual were arrted and many sent to ncentratn mps at Buchenwald, Dach, Sachsenhsen, Mthsen and Achwz, where between 5, 000 and 15, 000 of them died.

NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY

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).

At the centre of this myth were claims, eher that Hler surround himself wh homosexuals – although Ernst Röhm was ually the only one they uld name – or that the Führer was himself homosexual.

ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI

Th: ‘Roehm is a notor homo-sexual, and he has equently abed his ary power as a supreme master over young men a terrible manner’; and, a ltle further down the list: ‘[Edmund] He belonged to the circle around the homo-sexual Roehm’ and was therefore, lerally by associatn, homosexual himself.

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

This list uld be prolonged to hundreds, for one lunatic office giv another lunatic a post; one murrer, who is a Police Chief, mak another murrer a Capta of Police; one homosexual ‘youth regenerator’ mak another homosexual his A. There is hardly much pot argug, on the ntrary, that lunatic, murrer and homosexual alike – if one really mt lump them together – are likely to avoid appotg lunatics, murrers and homosexuals, rpectively, for fear of drawg attentn to themselv.

But the myth of llective perversn had a purpose to serve the anti-Nazi stggle – which was rarely noticeably pro-homosexual self – and the facts of the matter uld be allowed to lie fallow.

He mentns the open homosexualy of Röhm and He – ‘The i which they held almost publicly more than once aroed storms of prott wh the Nazi Movement self’ – and the fact that Count Helldorf’s affair wh ‘the adventurer Hansen, alias Steschneir’ did not st the former his job as Berl’s chief of police. Yet, spe the signs of dulgence towards homosexualy wh Nazism – ‘He protected his followers as long as he believed he was sure of their fahfulns’ – Billger nclus by reeratg that ‘there is no known basis for the assumptn that Hler himself is homosexual – or ever has dulged homosexualy. Homosexual, impotent, mono-tticular or fted wh syphilis – Hler’s manift cleverns had to be unrmed by creatg the imprsn of a volatile hysteric whose polil perversy had origs sexual perversn.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

For a while, the homosexualy of Ernst Röhm was a favoure topic among left-wg journalists, attractg a range of negative rpons om ridicule to moral outrage, all signed to unrme the broar Nazi claim to social disciple and moral superry. Fally, the left-wg poet and journalist Kurt Tucholsky wrote a short say for Die Weltbühne (26 April 1932) straightforwardly entled ‘Röhm’, which he ma a simple and rather touchg plea for the homophobic propaganda to stop.

It is not clear whom he means by ‘we’ his climactic peroratn – is vaguely possible that he is a homosexual intifyg wh fellow homosexuals, but more probable that he means fellow leftists, which se he is overstatg the Left’s mment to homosexual law reform – but his rhetoric requir the llective first person to remd the Left of the requirement for solidary:.

His argument that Röhm is, as were, a ‘good’ homosexual and servg of the urty of a private life nnot have rried much weight anti-Nazi circl, where the slightt ht of sexual sndal among men who had laid such a substantial claim to the moral high ground would be veloped to s fullt propagandistic potential. He do, though, allow one way which the knowledge about Röhm’s homosexualy n legimately be ed agast the Nazis while not beg ed agast homosexuals: ‘If Goebbels screech or Hler thunrs about the moral y of morn tim, then should be poted out that there are obvly homosexuals among the Nazi troops. 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.

SERI: GAY MEN AND LBIANS UNR THE NAZI REGIME

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.

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. )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. 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.

In 1986, six New York Cy activists created a poster wh the words SILENCE = DEATH and a bright pk upward-facg triangle, meant to ll attentn to the AIDs crisis that was cimatg populatns of gay men across the untry. And the fact that was almost impossible to nvict anyone unls he nfsed to such a crime urt meant that police jt kept a watchful eye on gay bars and events, and Germany end up beg home to a vibrant gay muny. Historian Robert Beachy argu that, ironilly, the law spurred scientific tert the study of sexual preferenc, and that rearch tend to enurage a more scientific unrstandg of human sexualy, which further allowed the ia of gay rights to flourish.

The efforts only creased after the Night of the Long Kniv, the 1934 purge of Nazi lears who were acced of tryg to overthrow Hler; they clud Storm Troopers lear Ernst Röhm, whom the SS murred, later cg his homosexualy as jtifitn for his murr. Some were ed as guea pigs var medil experiments to fd a cure for typh fever and a cure for homosexualy, the latter of which led the SS to ject them wh ttosterone to see if would make them straight. As one of the USHMM’s curators has poted out, even as the Allied powers refully worked to scb Nazism om Germany, they left that part alone — perhaps bee they had anti-gay and anti-sodomy laws of their own.

Data on the victims started to be ced 1977, after a statistil analysis by soclogist Rudiger Ltmann of Bremen Universy claimed that as many as 60% of the gay men sent ncentratn mps may have have died. The first reference to pk triangl TIME also appeared that year, a story about gay-rights activists Miami who attached the symbols to their cloth as a show of solidary while prottg a vote to repeal a law protectg gay people om hog discrimatn. In 1979, Mart Sherman’s play Bent, spired by Heger’s memoir, opened on Broadway; the play, one of the characters tras his pk triangle for a yellow star, “which giv him preferential treatment over the homosexuals, ” as TIME’s review put .