‘On the same level as the Nazis’: the film about Germany’s postwar persecutn of gay men | Film | The Guardian

Contents:

• ‘GREAT FREEDOM’ AND THE LONG SHADOW OF AN ANTI-GAY LAW GERMANY
• ‘ON THE SAME LEVEL AS THE NAZIS’: THE FILM ABOUT GERMANY’S POSTWAR PERSECUTN OF GAY MEN
• NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY
• GAY NAZI MOVIE TRIUMPHS AT ROME FILM FTIVAL
• THIS POST-WAR PRISON DRAMA ISN’T A “GAY MOVIE”, IT’S A LOVE STORY

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

” 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 .

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

“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.

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.

NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY

But did ph many aspects of gay life unrground, acrdg to Kls Schumann, 84.

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

GAY NAZI MOVIE TRIUMPHS AT ROME FILM FTIVAL

“As for beg nounced for beg homosexual, I’ve long fotten about that. 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.

THIS POST-WAR PRISON DRAMA ISN’T A “GAY MOVIE”, IT’S A LOVE STORY

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.

Trends may change but homophobia never falls out of fashn.