Were Gay Concentratn Camp Prisoners 'Put Back Prison' After World War II? |

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

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.

The latter term dated to 1869, when a pamphlet advotg for crimalizatn of sexual relatns between men ed the term “Homosexualät” (“homosexualy”).

IN WWII, TWO GAY SOLDIERS’ FORBIDN ROMANCE LIV ON IN THEIR LOVE LETTERS

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. 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.

"COMG OUT UNR FIRE": THE STORY OF GAY AND LBIAN SERVICEMEMBERS

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.

WERE GAY CONCENTRATN CAMP PRISONERS 'PUT BACK PRISON' AFTER WORLD WAR II?

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. 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.

HOW WWI SPARKED THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

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. An attempt by the Hamburg-based Society for Human Rights to w regnn of gay ncentratn mp mat Wt Germany met the same fate as Klimmer’s enavor.

Calls for gay and lbian liberatn the palist mocraci the late 1960s and early ‘70s did fally create a more open atmosphere for the history of the opprsn of gays and lbians the Third Reich to emerge. Two years later filmmaker Rosa von Prnheim released Nicht r Homosexuelle ist pervers, sonrn die Suatn, r er lebt (The Homosexual is not Perverse, But, Rather, the Suatn Which He Liv.

WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO BE GAY DURG WWII

) Prnheim (born Holger Radke 1942) had actually taken the name “Rosa” (German for Pk) to draw attentn to the Pk Triangle, the intifitn badge assigned by the SS to homosexuals the ncentratn mps. The book not only documents Nazi crim agast gay men but also dicts the discrimatn which ntued after the feat of the Third Reich. Kohout went on to scribe the btal regime of forced labor and systematic vlence he and other gay men forced to wear the Pk Triangle experienced there.

In unfettable chapters, Kohout munit attempts by the SS to “cure” people of homosexualy by “pulsory regular viss to the brothel” at Flossenbürg. Kohout’s memoir ntributed so much to the subsequent wave of books, articl, documentari, and exhibs on the Nazi persecutn and murr of gay men. Long margalized, this history is more important than ever— Germany and beyond—as homophobia still pos a fundamental threat to human eedom and equaly.