The Nazi dictatorship policed, prosecuted, and ultimately murred thoands of gay men durg s 12 years of le.
Contents:
- ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI
- IN WWII, TWO GAY SOLDIERS’ FORBIDN ROMANCE LIV ON IN THEIR LOVE LETTERS
- "COMG OUT UNR FIRE": THE STORY OF GAY AND LBIAN SERVICEMEMBERS
- WERE GAY CONCENTRATN CAMP PRISONERS 'PUT BACK PRISON' AFTER WORLD WAR II?
- HOW WWI SPARKED THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
- WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO BE GAY DURG WWII
ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI
* gay german soldiers ww2 *
It is unclear how many of the men publicly or privately intified as gay or were part of gay muni and works that had been tablished Germany before the Nazi rise to power. However, the Nazi mpaign agast homosexualy and the regime’s zealo enforcement of Paragraph 175 ma life Nazi Germany dangero for gay men.
IN WWII, TWO GAY SOLDIERS’ FORBIDN ROMANCE LIV ON IN THEIR LOVE LETTERS
Ernst Röhm, the hight-rankg gay Nazi, prents an tertg study the nstctn and ntament of masculy by the right. * gay german soldiers ww2 *
The latter term dated to 1869, when a pamphlet advotg for crimalizatn of sexual relatns between men ed the term “Homosexualät” (“homosexualy”).
In ntrast, the work of gay men that veloped around thor Adolf Brand and his anizatn Gemeschaft r Eigenen (The Communy of Kdred Spirs) took a different approach.
"COMG OUT UNR FIRE": THE STORY OF GAY AND LBIAN SERVICEMEMBERS
Gay and Lbian soldiers faced extraordary discrimatn durg World War II. Most found new muni of people and thrived spe the opprsn. Disver the film Comg Out Unr Fire that shar their story. * gay german soldiers ww2 *
It was the relatively eeg atmosphere of the Weimar Republic that gay muni and works grew and veloped unprecented ways. Some joed “iendship leagu” (Frndschaftsverbän), groups that polilly and socially anized gay men, lbian women, and others.
Gay newspapers and journals, such as Die Frndschaft (Friendship) and Der Eigene (translated varly, but this ntext implyg “his own man”), ntributed to the growth of gay works.
Shortly thereafter, they sought to dismantle the visible gay cultur and works that had veloped durg the Weimar Republic.
WERE GAY CONCENTRATN CAMP PRISONERS 'PUT BACK PRISON' AFTER WORLD WAR II?
An onle edy seri highlighted the fact that the end of the war did not mean the end of persecutn for many gay German men. * gay german soldiers ww2 *
In a further latn, the Nazis ed new laws and police practic to arrt and ta whout trial a limed number of gay men begng late 1933 and early 1934. Three events the years 1934–1936 radilized the Nazi regime’s mpaign agast homosexualy and led to more systematic opprsn of gay men.
Fally, 1936 SS lear and Chief of the German Police Herich Himmler tablished the Reich Central Office for the Combatg of Homosexualy and Abortn (Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung r Homosexualät und r Abtreibung).
The notorly homophobic Himmler saw both homosexualy and abortn as threats to the German birth rate and th to the fate of the German people. In rarer s, the Kripo or the Gtapo would send a man directly to a ncentratn mp as a “homosexual” (“homosexuell”) offenr.
HOW WWI SPARKED THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
In the early 20th century, the medil tablishment beme fixated wh the ia that gay people uld be “cured.” To achieve this, they turned to a lany of btal practic: om electrotherapy to lobotomi. * gay german soldiers ww2 *
For example, gay men tegorized by the Nazi regime as Aryan had far more optns than those tegorized as Jews or Roma (Gypsi).
Unverg the histori of gay men durg the Nazi era was difficult for much of the twentieth century bee of ntued prejudice agast same-sex sexualy and the ongog enforcement of Paragraph 175.
The efforts of scholars and German gay rights anizatns have helped to brg the persecutn of gay men unr the Nazis to the public eye. In the 1990s, the German ernment acknowledged “persecuted homosexuals” (“verfolgten Homosexuellen”) as victims of the Nazi regime. For the first time, gay men who had suffered at the hands of the Nazis beme eligible for moary pensatn om the German ernment for jtic perpetrated agast them.
WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO BE GAY DURG WWII
Elae Tyler May, History Whout Victims: Gays World War II, Reviews Amerin History, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Jun., 1991), pp. 255-259 * gay german soldiers ww2 *
A few years later, May 2008, the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted unr Nazism (Denkmal für die im Natnalsozialism verfolgten Homosexuellen) was unveiled nearby Tiergarten park central Berl. Adolf Hler’s regime overturned all prev attempts Germany to crimalize same-sex acts, to challenge bigoted stereotyp about homosexualy, and to create tablishments where the men uld live and socialize openly.
Ernst Röhm, lear of the SA, the Nazi Party’s stormtroopers, had been openly gay, but Hler had only tolerated this until he beme too troublome. Although the Third Reich was one of the most heartlsly homophobic regim morn history, practilly no first-hand acunts of Nazi vlence agast gay men existed eher Wt or East Germany before the early 1970s.
As early as 1946, Eugen Kogon, the progrsive German Catholic journalist and survivor of Buchenwald, scribed the suatn for gay men the mps. ” That same year, the Soviet zone of occupatn (later the German Democratic Republic), Rudolf Klimmer appealed to the Organizatn of Those Persecuted by the Nazi Regime to offer regnn of gay men as victims of Natnal Socialist terror. Acrdg to Erik Jensen, gays and lbians “not only met silence the postwar perd regardg the Nazi persecutn of homosexuals, but they also faced the pernic myth that homosexuals themselv formed the backbone of the Nazi movement.