How the Nazis stroyed the first gay rights movement

Contents:

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

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.

NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY

'” 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. He was also a bohemian spir who had a passnate homosexual relatnship wh Manasse Herbst, a Galician Jewish actor who fled Germany 1936.

THE NAZIS TOLERATED GAYS. THEN EVERYTHG CHANGED

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).

Here's how the two are lked“One n anize the qutn of female prostutn, which by parison wh this qutn [of male homosexualy] prciple is pletely harmls, a way that is acceptable for a civilized people. In Nazi Germany, a downward-potg pk triangle was sewn onto the shirts of gay men ncentratn mps—to intify and further humanize them.

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

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.

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

)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. 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.

GAY HOLOT

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. 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.

WHY THE MYTH OF THE “GAY NAZI” IS BACK CIRCULATN

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. 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. ” 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 .

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

“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.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME - PHOTOGRAPHS

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. 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.