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

Contents:

• ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI
• NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY
• IN 'GREAT FREEDOM,' A MAN IS EED OM THE NAZIS, AND RE-IMPRISONED FOR BEG GAY
• THE PK TRIANGLE: FROM NAZI LABEL TO SYMBOL OF GAY PRI
• FROM GAY NAZIS TO 'WE'RE HERE, WE'RE QUEER': A CENTURY OF ARGUG ABOUT GAY PRI
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI

A man  make-up and pearls nmng transgenr people may seem untertuive, but Milo Yiannopoulos is hardly the first gay reactnary. The se of Ernst Röhm, the hight-rankg gay Nazi, prents an tertg study the nstctn and ntament of masculy by the right. Röhm opposed his party’s stand on Paragraph 175 of the German penal , which ma male homosexual acts illegal.

NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY

(Earlier, the Social Democrats, one of the few parti to mpaign for the repeal of Paragraph 175, showed self willg to gay-ba Röhm. 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.

IN 'GREAT FREEDOM,' A MAN IS EED OM THE NAZIS, AND RE-IMPRISONED FOR BEG GAY

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.

At a certa pot, Röhm’s iendship wh Hler uld only take him so far a Nazi regime creasgly set on eraditg homosexualy. Röhm is but one player this ncise, ftly told doc that the Eldorado as a lnchg pad to a broar story about beg gay Nazi Germany. 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.

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

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). Adrian Florido speaks wh actor Franz Rogowski about the movie "Great Freedom, " where a German man is imprisoned for beg gay.

Some gay men sent to ncentratn mps Nazi-era Germany were eed and sent right back to prison after the war end. Before the pk triangle beme a worldwi symbol of gay power and pri, was tend as a badge of shame.

FROM GAY NAZIS TO 'WE'RE HERE, WE'RE QUEER': A CENTURY OF ARGUG ABOUT GAY PRI

In Nazi Germany, a downward-potg pk triangle was sewn onto the shirts of gay men ncentratn mps—to intify and further humanize them. Homosexualy was technilly ma illegal Germany 1871, but was rarely enforced until the Nazi Party took power 1933. 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.

Jt as Jews were forced to intify themselv wh yellow stars, gay men ncentratn mps had to wear a large pk triangle.

“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 ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, 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. In 1972, The Men wh the Pk Triangle, the first tobgraphy of a gay ncentratn mp survivor, was published.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

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. 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. 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.