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

Contents:

• NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY
• GAY NAZI MOVIE TRIUMPHS AT ROME FILM FTIVAL
• ‘ON THE SAME LEVEL AS THE NAZIS’: THE FILM ABOUT GERMANY’S POSTWAR PERSECUTN OF GAY MEN
• ‘GREAT FREEDOM’ AND THE LONG SHADOW OF AN ANTI-GAY LAW GERMANY
• ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI
• IN 'GREAT FREEDOM,' A MAN IS EED OM THE NAZIS, AND RE-IMPRISONED FOR BEG GAY
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME - PHOTOGRAPHS

NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY

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.

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).

GAY NAZI MOVIE TRIUMPHS AT ROME FILM FTIVAL

Cast & crewUser reviewsTrivia1997NC-171h 45mIn 1930s Berl, a gay Jew is sent to a ncentratn mp unr the Nazi 1930s Berl, a gay Jew is sent to a ncentratn mp unr the Nazi 1930s Berl, a gay Jew is sent to a ncentratn mp unr the Nazi productn, box office & pany Vios1More like thisReview Detailg the gradatn of Nazi-regime victims...

Homosexual playboy 1930s Germany fights to keep himself and his gay flat-mate out of the grasp of Nazi soldiers, but they are soon round up and face the horrors of war. This tough-gog drama don't lve too eply to the Party's ial nflict over homosexualy, but do touch on the labelg of gay men wh the Pk Triangle, makg them perhaps even more reviled than the Jews (Clive Owen picks the yellow Star of David symbol over the triangle, figurg beg a Jew might actually help him survive). As JW3, the Jewish muny centre north London, lnch GayW3, celebratg the liv of the LGBTQ muny throughout history to the prent day through film, theatre, mic and discsn, and upliftg Brish-Israeli documentary Who’s Gonna Love Me Now?, backed by the BFI, prepar for s cema release, now is a great time to look back at the bt of Jewish and Israeli LGBT cema.

Gay Jewish characters have been the subject of great films om around the world, and the list below featur films om the UK, France, Germany, the US, and, of urse, Israel.

‘ON THE SAME LEVEL AS THE NAZIS’: THE FILM ABOUT GERMANY’S POSTWAR PERSECUTN OF GAY MEN

A number of Brish films jt missed the list, cludg Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), which Jewish doctor Peter Fch enjoyed Brish cema’s first male-on-male kiss; award-wng short film Sidney Turtlebm (2008), starrg Derek Jabi as an elrly gay Jewish pickpocket and nman; and Lisa Gornick’s latt film, The Book of Gabrielle (2016), a funny and sharp study of a Jewish lbian whose sexualy is thrown to turmoil. The 10 films foc on culturally Jewish films featurg gay and lbian protagonists, almost all of which were directed by Jewish filmmakers. His adaptatn of Mart Crowley’s play, about a group of gay men who gather for Harold’s party, rultg a cel eveng of sadistic gam and sabotage, me at the wrong time – as the gay liberatn movement tablished s voice the early 1970s, negative or prsg pictns of gay men the media were seen as archaic and obstctive to progrs.

While Michael, the pathetic protagonist, is ed an unlikeable and self-pyg monster, the other characters are far more sympathetic, while the glor Harold, utterly unashamed of his homosexualy and wh nothg to hi, emerg om the rnage unsthed. Torch Song Trilogy (1988)Harvey Fierste is bt known for his stage work, particularly for wrg the books for the stage mils La Cage x Foll and Kky Boots, jog Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman as Broadway legends who happened to be both gay and Jewish.

The star of the show, though, is Fierste, who mak Arnold a lovable, vulgar and believably human figure who challenged the perceptn of drag queens as sexls clowns shamg the gay muny.

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

He kicked off his short reer wh Driftg (1982), a grim, semi-tobgraphil tale of a gay filmmaker tryg and failg to fd love and fundg for his next film.

Amazg Grace, ma nearly a later, is a much stronger piece of work, about two gay men – one an nocent teenager om a troubled fay, the other an HIV patient – who fall for each other after meetg Tel Aviv. In Man Is a Woman, he brgs all his nsirable charm and charisma to the role of Simon, a gay Klezmer mician who is offered 10 ln ancs om his tradnalist uncle if he agre to marry a woman.

ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI

Is the meang of the film’s tle, explaed at the vibrant Jewish weddg that starts the film, a homophobic nonsense? An attempted kiss at a New Year’s Eve party velops to a passnate romance, but the vlently homophobic and antisemic world of wartime Berl threatens their happs.

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

Few gay and lbian survivors were alive to tell their stori when Rob Epste and Jefey Friedman ma their important documentary Paragraph 175, whose tle riv om the German act of law prohibg gay sex, which ntued to exist to the 1990s. Rather than producg a para of cshed victims, the film foregrounds the sharp mentary of Gad Beck, a Jewish gay man who helped refuge pe; the wistful memori of love lost om Hez F., still too guard to reveal his full name; and the undiluted anger of Pierre Seel, who was tortured by Nazi officers. Luckily, Heather Juergensen and Jennifer Wtfeldt, who wrote and star as said let’s-give--a-whirl ‘lbians’, have w and chemistry on their si and create the neart cema has e to a gay Woody Allen movie.

The nflict between homosexualy and Orthodox Judaism has been explored a number of excellent documentari, cludg Tremblg Before G-d (2001), Keep Not Silent (2005) and Jesalem Is Proud to Prent (2008). Yossi (2012)Eytan Fox is one of Israel’s foremost directors, and all of his films foc on gay characters, often g homosexualy to ment on a wir theme, such as self-realisatn Mossad thriller Walk on Water (2004) or the Israeli–Paltian nflict The Bubble (2006). Where Amos Guttman wallowed the sadns of gay liv, workg as he was an era of fear and prejudice durg the AIDS crisis, Fox’s films are more optimistic and celebratory, if ocsnally btersweet.

(2016)After a year on the ftival circu, where won the documentary award at the Berl Film Ftival and the dience award at the UK Internatnal Jewish Film Ftival, Barak and Tomer Heymann’s feature about the life of Saar Maoz, an HIV posive gay man livg London after beg rejected by his Israeli fay and driven away om his Kibbutz, is fally gettg a short cema release April 2017.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

Saar fds acceptance the welg arms of the London Gay Men’s Chos, but the need to heal the rift between him and his fay leads him to ntemplate returng to Israel for good. Get our ee weekly email for all the latt cematic news om our film cric Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cematic email for eeA Danish movie about a gay love affair between two members of a neo-Nazi group won top honours at the Rome Film Ftival, while Helen Mirren won the bt actrs won for her pictn of Leo Tolstoy's wife Michael Hoffman's The Last Statn, while Meryl Streep picked up a reer achievement wng movie, Brotherhood, tak a hard look at the neo-Nazi group that the leadg character, Lars, jos after leavg the group rri out raids on homosexuals, but Lars and his mentor the group, Jimmy, beg a love affair that they try to keep secret. But as the award-wng new film Great Freedom mak clear, was fact a vdictive article of the German penal that crimalised male homosexualy and blighted the liv of 140, 000 men, more than a third of whom received prison sentenc.

” A “pk list” of known gay men, which the Nazis had piled, was still circulatn by the late 1970s, Meise says. “There are laws parts of the US which are siar to sectn 28 the UK, where you n’t talk about homosexualy schools. ” 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. 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.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME - PHOTOGRAPHS

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. He remembered Berl police pullg up large vans ont of bars known to be gay hot spots the late ’40s and ’50s.

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.

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.