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
• 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. '” 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.

NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF 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).

THE NAZIS TOLERATED GAYS. THEN EVERYTHG CHANGED

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).

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

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. 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.

GAY HOLOT

“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.

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

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.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

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. 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.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME - PHOTOGRAPHS

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.