Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany
Before 1933, male homosexual acts were illegal in Germany under Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code. The law was not consistently enforced, however, and a thriving gay culture existed in major German cities. After the Nazi takeover in 1933, the first homosexual movement's infrastructure of clubs, organizations, and publications was shut down. After the Röhm purge in 1934, persecuting homosexuals became a priority of the Nazi police state. A 1935 revision of Paragraph 175 made it easier to bring criminal charges for homosexual acts, leading to a large increase in arrests and convictions. Persecution peaked in the years prior to World War II and was extended to areas annexed by Germany, including Austria, the Czech lands, and Alsace–Lorraine.
This article is about the persecution of homosexual men. For lesbians, see Lesbians in Nazi Germany.
The Nazi regime considered the elimination of all manifestations of homosexuality in Germany one of its goals. Men were often arrested after denunciation, police raids, and through information uncovered during interrogations of other homosexuals. Those arrested were presumed guilty, and subjected to harsh interrogation and torture to elicit a confession. Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals; around 50,000 of these were sentenced by civilian courts, 6,400 to 7,000 by military courts, and an unknown number by special courts. Most of these men served time in regular prisons, and between 5,000 and 6,000 were imprisoned in concentration camps. The death rate of these prisoners has been estimated at 60 percent, a higher rate than those of other prisoner groups. A smaller number of men were sentenced to death or killed at Nazi euthanasia centres. Nazi Germany's persecution of homosexuals is considered to be the most severe episode in a long history of discrimination and violence targeting sexual minorities.
After the war, homosexuals were initially not counted as victims of Nazism because homosexuality continued to be illegal in Nazi Germany's successor states. Few victims came forward to discuss their experiences. The persecution came to wider public attention during the gay liberation movement of the 1970s, and the pink triangle was reappropriated as an LGBT symbol.
Nazi views of homosexuality[edit]
The Nazis were influenced by earlier ideas conflating homosexuality, child molestation, and the "seduction of youth".[42] Before the Nazis' rise to power, there was a widespread belief among Germans that homosexuality is not inborn but instead could be acquired and spread.[83] The Nazis were particularly concerned that their all-male organizations such as the Hitler Youth, SS, and SA must not be seen as hotbeds of homosexual "recruitment".[36] Based on the theories of Karl Bonhoeffer and Emil Kraepelin,[84] the Nazis believed homosexuals seduced young men and infected them with homosexuality, permanently changing their sexual orientation. Rhetoric described homosexuality as a contagious disease[85] but not in the medical sense. Rather, homosexuality was a disease of the Volkskörper (national body), a metaphor for the desired national or racial community (Volksgemeinschaft).[86]
The Nazis, especially Himmler, held conspiratorial beliefs about homosexuals, believing they were more loyal to each other than to the Nazi Party and Germany.[87][88] After the Röhm purge, he told Gestapo personnel they had narrowly avoided the capture of the state by homosexuals.[42] In 1937 a headline in the SS magazine Das Schwarze Korps declared homosexuals "enemies of the state", explaining they must be eradicated because "... they form a state within a state, a secret organization that runs counter to the interests of the people."[42][87] The newspaper argued only two percent of those who engaged in homosexual acts were committed homosexuals and the rest could be turned away from homosexuality.[57] Forty thousand homosexuals were considered capable of "poisoning" two million men if left to roam free.[56] Homosexual men were also considered to be shirking their duty to repopulate the German nation after World War I and create sons who could be drafted into the military to fight Hitler's planned wars of aggression.[89] On 18 February 1937 Himmler gave a speech about homosexuality in Bad Tölz that was based on the 1927 book Eroticism and Race by Herwig Hartner, which claimed homosexuality was a Jewish plot against Germany.[87][90] According to Himmler, homosexuality could lead to the end of Germany and cause depopulation by reducing the number of men who were available for reproduction.[91][92][93]
The Nazis distinguished between congenital homosexuals who would require permanent imprisonment and others who had engaged in homosexuality but were thought to be curable with a short stay in a concentration camp or psychiatric treatment. Distinguishing between these categories was a difficulty that preoccupied the Nazis, especially after many cases of homosexuality surfaced in the supposedly racially pure SS. Succumbing to a homosexual act once, especially when drunk, was not necessarily considered evidence of homosexual inclination.[94][86] The Göring Institute offered treatment to homosexuals referred by the Hitler Youth and other Nazi organizations; by 1938 it claimed to have changed the sexual orientation in 341 of 510 patients and by 1944, it claimed to have eliminated homosexuality in more than 500 men. The institute intervened to reduce sentences in some cases.[95] The converse of the Nazis' persecution of homosexuality was their encouragement of heterosexual relations, including extramarital sex, for racially desirable people.[96]
After 1934, homophobia became a regular theme in Nazi propaganda;[39] most Germans came into contact with this homophobic propaganda.[97] Although one of the Nazi regime's goals was to eliminate all manifestations of homosexuality in Germany,[98] there was never a Nazi policy of exterminating all homosexuals in the way the Final Solution targeted Jews.[98][99]
Methods[edit]
Identification and arrest[edit]
Homosexuals were more difficult to round up than other groups the Nazis targeted.[100] Police were given detailed instructions on spotting homosexuals; they were instructed to look for flamboyant men, those who avoided women or were seen walking arm-in-arm with other men, and anyone who rented a double room at a hotel. Hairdressers, bathhouse attendants, hotel receptionists, railway station porters, and others were asked to report suspicious behavior. Complicating the Nazis' efforts, many homosexual men did not fit these stereotypes and many effeminate men were not homosexual.[55]
According to one estimate, denunciations resulted in 35 percent of arrests of homosexuals.[101] Men were denounced by neighbors, relatives, coworkers, students, employees, or even ex-boyfriends seeking to settle grievances, passers-by who overheard suspicious conversation, and Hitler Youth and other Nazi supporters who voluntarily acted as the morality police. State employees working in youth welfare and rail stations, Nazi functionaries in the German Labor Front (DAF), the SA, the SS, and the Hitler Youth brought cases to the attention of the authorities.[102] A disproportionate number of denunciations concerned child abuse or "youth seduction" because there was an injured party to complain.[103] Some men were falsely denounced as homosexual by other Germans.[104] The snowball method involved arresting one man, interrogating him, and searching his belongings to find additional suspects;[42] this method accounted for thirty percent of arrests.[101] Some men were observed before their arrests or temporarily released in hopes they would lead the police to additional suspects. Some were shown photograph albums of other suspected homosexuals; male prostitutes were often willing to identify other homosexuals this way.[105] Another ten percent of victims were arrested in police raids, which were often conducted in parks, public toilets, and areas frequented by male prostitutes.[101][102] In Hamburg the police watched restaurants that served a mixed heterosexual and homosexual clientele as well as the most-trafficked public toilets.[50] Entrapment was also used to ensnare homosexuals.[89]
Charges of homosexuality were sometimes deployed against people who were not guilty.[89][106] Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels commented: "When Himmler wants to get rid of someone, he just throws §175 at him."[89] About 250 Catholic clergy were charged with same-sex activity in the mid-1930s. Many of the charges, which included sexual abuse of minors and consensual homosexual sex, were true, but others were probably invented. The trials were of limited efficacy in their intended purpose of discrediting the Catholic Church.[89][107][108] Catholic authorities alternated between reprimanding the guilty and covering up the scandal.[109]
Continued existence[edit]
Historian Alexander Zinn estimates about one quarter of German homosexual men were investigated during the Nazi era, and that up to one tenth of those were imprisoned. According to Zinn, this rate is evidence of indifference among the general German population towards homosexuality; denunciation of consensual homosexual relations was less common.[103] Zinn said that while all homosexuals in Nazi Germany suffered from the indirect effects of criminalization, their lives cannot be reduced to fear of arrest, and they retained a limited degree of personal freedom.[149] Even before 1933, many homosexual men married women, and the Nazis' rise to power provided an added incentive, although such marriages were usually unhappy. Homosexual desires did not go away; some men sought homosexual contact outside of marriage, risking denunciation by an unhappy wife. Some men organized lavender marriages with lesbians they had known before 1933.[150] Although nearly all homosexuals tried to avoid the attention of the authorities,[101] men continued to find sexual partners at Kreuzberg bathhouses and Münzstrasse movie theaters, and by cruising in places such as Alexanderplatz and the Friedrichstrasse in Berlin. Many suffered from disrupted relationships, loneliness, or loss of self-esteem.[151] A significant number of homosexual and bisexual men, including 25 percent of those persecuted in Hamburg, committed suicide.[112][134]
According to historian Manfred Herzer, homosexual men and women who avoided persecution "belonged to the willing subjects and beneficiaries of the Nazi state just like other German men and women".[151] The likelihood of being persecuted was lower for those who suppressed their sex lives or served the higher goals of Nazism.[152] Some German homosexuals joined the Nazi Party or fought for Germany during World War II.[151] War and armed service provided an opportunity for sexual encounters with other men, both civilians and members of the armed services. There were also opportunities for non-consensual sex with other soldiers, subordinates, people from occupied countries, and prisoners. Both types of sex might be practiced by men who did not identify as homosexual. During the last years of the war, there were increased opportunities for sexual encounters in bombed-out cities.[153]
In October 1937, Himmler ordered that actors and artists should only be detained for homosexual acts with his authorization, unless they were caught in the act.[154][65][155]