History 200
Everyday Life in
the Third Reich
Paper # 1
NAZISM AND HOMOSEXUALITY
History of an Overlooked Persecution
Sam Smith
February 4, 2012
The
Nazi regime, easily labeled and commonly regarded as the classic symbol of
evil, victimized many minority groups during its time in power between 1933 and
1945. Ruling over Germany for those twelve years, the Nazis persecuted
non-Aryans from a massive array of religious and racial backgrounds. Accounting
for at least half of its victims were the Jewish people- over 6 million killed.
Other groups included communists, blacks, Romanis, the physically and mentally
handicapped, Jehovah's Witnesses and of course political dissenters and
opponents from all imaginable backgrounds. One group that was heavily
persecuted under the Third Reich stands out, for, they were not a racial or
religious minority, nor did they suffer from a mental or physical disorder.
They were deemed non-typical and eventually declared enemies of the state simply
for loving members of the same gender. As they have been throughout several
periods of European and world history, homosexuals, particularly men, were
intensely persecuted and victimized by Hitler’s regime. This paper will examine
the roots of anti-gay persecution within Nazi Germany, focusing on the shift
within the Nazi party originally containing many openly gay men. The paper will
chronicle the early arrests and imprisonment of homosexuals and eventually
examine life for homosexuals in concentration and death camps. While the
persecution of homosexuals under the Third Reich is often “neglected by
researchers” and “little known to the public”, it was exceptionally widespread
and remains of tremendous importance in understanding the policies and practices
of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.[i]
Homosexuality
within the Nazi Party and Nazi Identity
Many historians
have stressed the tremendous prevalence of homosexuality not only within the
Nazi party, but also in the identity of Nazism itself. A “high incidence of
homosexuals in the early SA” made for what many researchers have identified as
a “surprisingly large homosexual element with the macho world” of the Nazi
party.ii Moreover, the “homosexual camaraderie
of the SA” has led many historians to charge that “Nazism was itself deeply
defined by a militaristic homo-eroticism.”[ii]
Martyn Whittock details how close relationships and personalized favors gave
early Nazi leadership this image of a homosexual brotherhood:
“Ernst was nicknamed ‘Frau
Rohrbein’, due to his intimate friendship with Paul Rohrbein, Berlin’s first SA
commander. Ernst had first met Rohbein at the El Dorado, a favourite meeting
place of Berlin’s homosexual community and, in 1931, Rohrein had introduced
Ernst to an old comrade: Rohm, the overall commander of the SA. By April of
that same year, Ernst was promoted to a command within the SA and, by 1932, was
elected to the Reichstag as a Nazi deputy. Such string-pulling gave the SA the
reputation of being a homosexual fraternity.”[iii]
Other historians have argued that homosexuality was
not as prevalent as it was exaggerated to be in early Nazi leadership. Dagmar
Herzog argues in his book Sexuality and German Fascism that the
sharp condemnation of homosexuality arose very early in Nazi Germany, stating
that historians who suggest that homosexuality flourished within the ranks of
the SS and SA are being “sensationalistic” and “exaggerating greatly.”[iv]
Herzog details how Heinrich Himmler, the Chief of the German Police and the
Minister of the Interior, despised homosexuality and made this very clear
immediately during his time in power. Himmler’s speeches “dealt more
obsessively with homosexuality than did those of any other Nazi leader.”[v]
However, Herzog does state that the actual disciplining of suspected
homosexuals in the SS and other organizations under Himmler’s control was “far
from uniform or consistent” and his treatment of suspected homosexuals was
“flexible”, allowing for the scaling back of arrests of homosexuals during the 1936
Berlin Olympics.iv Still, Herzog is firm in
his denial of Whittock’s argument that homosexuality was of high incidence in
early Nazi leadership, suggesting that this argument’s roots come from an
attempt to “vilify the Nazi movement by painting it as riddled with
homosexuals.”iv Herzog argues that even
today, gays and lesbians around the world are faced with the “pernicious myth
that homosexuals themselves had formed the backbone of the Nazi movement.”[vi]
Moreover, Herzog states that the so-called “homosexual camaraderie” of Nazi
policeman and troops is a myth and that the Nazis “shunned the soft, emotional,
feminine underside of such relationships”[vii]
It is clear that
the prevalence of homosexuality within the Nazi party and the identity of
Nazism in relation to homoeroticism and homosexual camaraderie is a topic of
great debate among historians. It is also clear that whether or not the
incidences of homosexual men in Nazi leadership were high, these men did exist,
and in many ways, they are tremendously connected to the roots of the
persecution of homosexuals under the Nazis.
Roots and Beginnings of the
Persecution
Homosexuality was
first condemned by the Nazis in 1928, as the “central reason” for the Nazi
persecution of homosexuals was made clear.[viii]
This reason was that homosexuals would not “contribute to the Nazis drive for
expanding the German population.”[ix]
However, Hitler’s position had been to tolerate homosexuality. This was in line
with his general approach toward “ignoring Nazi members’ personal lives, so
long as they did not cause him trouble.”ii
However, when Hitler felt he needed to revise his increasingly rigid and
heavily propagated image of a leader “upholding public morality”, he determined
that the firing of Ernst Rohm would be justified under the “condemnation of
rowdiness and disorder, venal corruption and homosexuality.”ix The public knew Rohm to be a
bad-mannered heavy-drinker and since anti-homosexual policy was “embraced by
the majority of the population”, it was easy for Hitler to link his unruly and
disruptive personality with his homosexuality.[x]
Hitler’s hatred of the non-typical/abnormal identified homosexuality as
“deviant.”viii As historian Ian
Kershaw puts it, by condemning homosexuality within the Nazi party, Hitler was
seen to be “signaling a triumph for values associated with normality.”ix
Signifying the
beginning of a widespread and systematic persecution of homosexual men within
Nazi Germany, the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders known
as the "Night of the Long Knives.” During a meeting between Hitler and
Mussolini in Venice on June 15, 1934, Mussolini upbraided Hitler for tolerating
homosexuality within the SA, which Mussolini stated was ruining Hitler's good
reputation all over the world.[xi]
In response, Hitler took action to eliminate gay men from the Nazi party. He
claimed that his execution of homosexual or otherwise deviant Nazi leaders put
an end to "homosexuality, debauchery, drunkenness, and high living"
in the SA.[xii] “The Night
of Long Knives” was thus carried out between June 30th and July 2nd
of 1934. Members of the SA who were exposed for the homosexual activity or were
known to be homosexual were executed. Most of the 85 killings were carried out
by the SS and the Gestapo, the regime's secret police.
Before
“The Night of Long Knives”, on March 2nd, 1933 the Prussian Minister
of the Interior issued three decrees for the combating of public indecency, one
of which addressed those who engaged in “unnatural sex acts.”[xiii]
As sodomy was deemed unnatural, all known homosexuals were targeted. While many
Germans were unaware of these decrees, they symbolized the beginning of a
homophobic policy that were designed, Gunter Grau argues, to “deter and
eradicate through terror, and of coercive measures to cure the ‘scourge’ of
homosexuality.”xii As a result of the
decrees, most of the bars known to be meeting-places for gays and lesbians were
shut down in Berlin and other big cities and towns in Germany. Books featuring
unnatural sex acts as well as books that featured sex outside of marriage or
prostitution were banned. “All literary, popular and scientific works published
since the turn of the century, and especially since the First World War, which
dealt with the theme of homosexuality” were destroyed, often burnt.xii
In the second half
of 1934, a special section was set up at Gestapo Headquarters to deal with
homosexuality. Moreover, an institution was set up under the terms of Himmler’s
secret directive, known as the “Reich Office for the Combating of Homosexuality
and Abortion.”[xiv] At the end
of the year all police officers were asked for lists of persons who had been
homosexually active in the past. The small-scale arrests of homosexual men
ensued, with “325 of the 1770 men held in ‘preventive detention’” in 1934
identified as homosexuals by 1935.[xv]
Finally, in June of 1935 the sixth amendment to the Nazis Penal Code, which
revised Paragraph 175 of the Criminal code, which already made homosexuality
illegal, “expanded the definition of criminal acts, increased police powers and
led to the arrest of about 100,000 homosexual men, of whom 50,000 were
imprisoned.”viii By compiling the
fullest possible register of homosexual men and requiring all local police
authorities to report on suspected violations of the criminal code, the Nazis
“opened the fold-gates for an unprecedented wave of public denunciations and
for arbitrary actions on the part of the Criminal Police and the Gestapo.”xiv Reference to the arrests and
imprisonment of gay Germans can be found in Eric A Johnson and Karl-Heinz
Reuband’s What We Knew. In their
interview with Karl Meyer, he states that “[The Gestapo] just put me in a cell
with a lot of homosexuals they had rounded up at that time.” Meyer, who was
deemed a political opponent, was considered an “enemy of the state” much like
Jews and homosexuals were.[xvi]
In March of 1937
Himmler endorsed even harsher treatment of homosexuals by encouraging the
Ministry of Justice to change the sentence for homosexuality from prison to
penitentiary terms. However, by the time the ministry had completed a draft for
a new penal code, the Second World War had broken out, and Hitler, concerned
about the national morale, judged this “an inopportune moment to introduce more
heavily punitive measures.”xvii
The Death Penalty for
Homosexuals in the SS and Police
Adolf Hitler
issued the official edict prescribing the death penalty for SS and police
members found guilty of homosexuality by a judge. The edict was put into effect
on November 15, 1941. According to Herzog, “no single case or surge in offenses
had provoked it.”[xvii] The law
specified that “less serious cases” of homosexuality might result in a prison
or penitentiary sentence but that any and all members of the SS or Gestapo who
commits “indecency with another man or allows himself to be abused in an
indecent manner with be punished with death.”[xviii]
Herzog argues that the reasoning behind Hitler’s decision to institute the
death penalty came from a combination of fears and prejudices that arose during
his conversation with Joseph Goebbels on August 18, 1941 which was described in
detail in Goebbels diary. These fears and prejudices were as follows: “the
potential for a homosexual conspiracy to take over the state, the alleged
predilections of homosexuals for young boys, the infectious disese metaphor and
the need to keep the Wehrmacht and party unsullied.”xvii On this same night, August 18th
Hitler made his fateful declaration:
“Especially in the Party and its
various organizations, as well as in the Wehrmacht, it is necessary to act with
ruthless severity against any case of homosexuality that appears in its ranks.
If this is done the state apparatus will remain clean, and it must remain
clean.”
-
Adolf Hitler
And in signing the
death penalty on November 15, 1941, Hitler made this declaration official.
“A member of the SS and Police who
commits unnatural acts with another man or lets himself be abused for unnatural
acts shall be punished with death”
-
Adolf Hitler
Gunter Grau gives
the impression that the introduction of the death penalty for homosexual
offenses in the SS and police meant that such punishments subsequently became
the norm, and therefore Himmler succeeded in “cleansing” the SS.[xix]
George Moose goes to the other extreme and states that “no executions actually
took place; suspected homosexuals were expelled or retired from the SS
instead.”[xx] Dagmar
Herzog argues a hybrid: that “death sentences were carried out, but the new
ruling was applied rarely and inconsistently.””xvii
Gays and Lesbians in the Camps
Of the 50,000
homosexual men who were sentenced to prison in 1935, most of them served time
in regular prisons. Approximately 15,000, however, were incarcerated in Nazi
concentration camps. They were differentiated by a pink triangle sewn onto their
uniforms. According to Whittock, “they were particularly targeted for abuse and
a number were also castrated.”viii Many
homosexual men were victims of crude medical experiments conducted within the
camps. These experiments were designed to “cure them of their sexual
orientation. Targeted by both guards and other prisoners the death rate amongst
homosexual prisoners was “very high.”viii
Buchenwald
concentration camp, which started operating in 1937, began admitting homosexual
men that same year, becoming the first concentration camp to do so. By the end
of 144, 189 prisoners were wearing the pink triangle. They made up well under
1% of the prisoners, making it easy for other prisoners to target them. The
homosexuals at Bushenwald were isolated from their friends and family and never
allowed to be honored with a funeral after their death. Homosexual prisoners
were also isolated from other homosexual men, as the Nazis did not want them to
engage romantically or become “bound together by anything more than their
sexual orientation.”[xxi]
Claustrophobic conditions of internment, heavy labour in the underground
galleries and a “generally poor state of health” brought death to most
homosexual prisoners in Bushenwald.xxi
Furthermore, reports of fellow prisoners confirmed that most of the homosexuals
deported to Buchenwald were castrated. It has also become known that they were
used for excruciating typhus fever experiments. In some camps, gay men could be
castrated as the price of release, but in Bushenwald, castrated men were forced
to remain prisoners following their castrations.
Lesbians under Nazi rule
Because women were
driven from the few influential public domains and leadership positions which
they had won for themselves in 1920s Germany, the Nazis had succeeded in
creating a state devoid of any lesbian conspiracy for power and none were
executed during the “Night of Long Knives.” Lesbians were not targeted in the
Third Reich’s anti-gay laws. Women who were lesbian were infrequently perceived
as “dangerous to society” and thus simply forced to behave heterosexually[xxii].
While some lesbians were killed during the Nazis time in power, they were not
seen as a serious threat and thus were not victimized to the extent that gay
men were.
Lesbians were
exempt from penal sanctions and thus the registration and prosecution bodies
set up within the Gestapo and Criminal Police in the wake of “The Night of Long
Knives” concentrated almost entirely on male homosexual enemies of the state.
Still, some women were persecuted and put in concentration camps for having
engaged in same-sex sexual activity. As Grau argues, it is “not clear how many
women had to undergo the horror of a concentration camp because of their
homosexuality; most lesbians were spared that fate if they were prepared to
conform.”[xxiii]
The Death Toll
The most widely
accepted death toll relating to the total number of gays killed during the
Holocaust is 9,000, although estimates range and the exact number cannot be
known.[xxiv]
The death rate among the estimated 15,000 gay men deported to concentration
camps is commonly regarded to be around 60%. 9,000 is 60% of 15,00, making it
the most commonly accepted toll.
While homosexuals
were only one minority group victimized by Hitler’s regime, they were an
important one. By identifying gays as abnormal and subversive deviants, the
Nazis solidified the homophobic nature of much of Europe during the twentieth
century and paved the way for the future
of anti-gay laws, bans and crimes. In conclusion, the persecution and
execution of homosexuals leading up to and during the Holocaust symbolizes not
only the Nazi’s obsession with rigid and twisted standards of perfection, but
the continent and worldwide discrimination against gay and lesbian people and
the view that they are wrong for being who they are.
[iii] Whittock, Page 59
[v] Herzog, Page 257
[vi] Herzog, Page 322
[vii] Herzog, Page 260
[viii] Herzog, Page 258
[ix] Whittock, Page 138
[xi] Wheeler-Bennett, John. The Nemesis of Power: The
German Army in Politics 1918–1945.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan,1967. Page 202
[xiii] Grau, Page 26
[xiv] Grau, Page 87
[xv] Grau, Page 27
[xvii] Herzog, Page 265
[xviii] Herzog, Page 266
[xix] Grau, Page 182
[xx] Moose, George. The Image of Man: The Creation of
Modern Masculinity. New York: Harper
Collins, 1996. Page 75
[xxi] Grau, Page 265
[xxii] Grau, Page 8
[xxiii] Grau, Page 15
[xxiv] Hezog, Page 271
Bibliography
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Grau, Gunter. Hidden Holocaust? Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1995.
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Whittock, Marytn. The Third Reich. London: Constable & Robinson, 2011.
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Herzog, Dagmar. Sexuality and German Fascism. New York: Berghahn Books, 2005.
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Wheeler-Bennett, John. The Nemesis of Power: The
German Army in Politics 1918–1945. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan,1967.
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Kershaw, Ian. Hitler: 1889–1936. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.
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Johnson, Eric & Reuband, Karl-Heinz. What We
Knew. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2005.
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Moose, George. The Image of Man: The Creation of
Modern Masculinity. New York: Harper
Collins, 1996.
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Kershaw, Ian: “The Hitler Myth.” Bell & Howell
Information and Learning Company (2000)
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