Gay Men unr the Nazi Regime | Holot Encyclopedia

Contents:

• ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• THE NAZIS TOLERATED GAYS. THEN EVERYTHG CHANGED
• TOP SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE: HLER USED GAY SOLDIERS BEE THEY HAD ‘NO LIMS’
• THE U.S. NAVY HAS CHRISTENED A SHIP NAMED AFTER SLA GAY RIGHTS LEAR HARVEY MILK

ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI

A man  make-up and pearls nmng transgenr people may seem untertuive, but Milo Yiannopoulos is hardly the first gay reactnary.

The se of Ernst Röhm, the hight-rankg gay Nazi, prents an tertg study the nstctn and ntament of masculy by the right. Röhm opposed his party’s stand on Paragraph 175 of the German penal , which ma male homosexual acts illegal. This ma some German homosexuals thk he might ultimately tone down the Nazi stance.

(Earlier, the Social Democrats, one of the few parti to mpaign for the repeal of Paragraph 175, showed self willg to gay-ba Röhm. As Eleanor Hanck explas, Röhm, his face srred om war wounds, strsed a hyper-masculy to unteract ntemporary views of homosexualy as feme.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

Röhm suggted that the le between homosocial and homosexual, however, was potentially fluid. Hanck says that Röhm “challenged the privilegg of heterosexual over homosexual masculi. His open homosexualy may have threatened the psychologil secury of some other Natnal Socialists, creatg a form of ‘male homosexual panic.

THE NAZIS TOLERATED GAYS. THEN EVERYTHG CHANGED

'” 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.

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. It is important to note that not all of the men arrted and nvicted unr Paragraph 175 intified as gay. However, the Nazi mpaign agast homosexualy and the regime’s zealo enforcement of Paragraph 175 ma life Nazi Germany dangero for gay men.

Gay men Germany were not a monolhic group, nor did the Nazi regime view them as such. For example, gay men active anti-Nazi polil movements risked beg arrted as polil opponents. Already the mid- to late-neteenth century, there were ditns of nascent and growg gay muni Germany.

TOP SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE: HLER USED GAY SOLDIERS BEE THEY HAD ‘NO LIMS’

Among the terms were “gleichgchlechtlich” (“same-sex oriented”) and “homosexuell” (“homosexual”).

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

THE U.S. NAVY HAS CHRISTENED A SHIP NAMED AFTER SLA GAY RIGHTS LEAR HARVEY MILK

The newer slang word “schwul” (often translated to English as “gay”) was also creasgly popular among certa groups. Gay muni and works Germany ntued to grow and velop durg the Weimar Republic (1918–1933). 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.