Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"Last night the Fuhrer talked for a long time about the plague of homosexuality. We have to go after this with ruthless severity, he said, because there is a certain time in youth when the sexual feelings of a boy can easily be influenced in the wrong direction; it is precisely boys in this age group whom homosexuals seduce. And a homosexual will generally seduce a whole host of boys, so that homosexuality really is as infectious and dangerous as the plague. "--August 19, 1941, Nazi memorandum |
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In the 1920s, homosexual people in Germany, particularly in Berlin, enjoyed a higher level of freedom and acceptance than anywhere else in the world. However, upon the rise of Adolf Hitler, gay men and, to a lesser extent, lesbians, were two of the numerous groups targeted by the Nazi Party and were ultimately among Holocaust victims. Beginning in 1933, gay organizations were banned, scholarly books about homosexuality, and sexuality in general, were burned, and homosexuals within the Nazi Party itself were murdered. The Gestapo compiled lists of homosexuals, who were compelled to sexually conform to the "German norm."
Between 1933–45, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals, of which some 50,000 were officially sentenced. Most of these men served time in regular prisons, and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of those sentenced were incarcerated in concentration camps. It is unclear how many of the 5,000 to 15,000 eventually perished in the camps, but leading scholar Ruediger Lautman believes that the death rate of homosexuals in concentration camps may have been as high as 60%. Homosexuals in the camps were treated in an unusually cruel manner by their captors, and were also persecuted by their fellow inmates. This was a factor in the high death rate for homosexuals, compared to other groups.
After the war, the treatment of homosexuals in concentration camps went unacknowledged by most countries, and some men were even re-arrested and imprisoned based on evidence found during the Nazi years. It was not until the 1980s that governments began to acknowledge this episode, and not until 2002 that the German government apologized to the gay community. This period still provokes controversy, however. In 2005, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Holocaust which included the persecution of homosexuals.
See also
- Albrecht Becker
- Leo Clasen (who wrote under the pseudonym L. D. Classen von Neudegg)
- Heinz Dörmer
- Karl Gorath
- Wilhelm Heckmann
- Heinz Heger, the pen-name of Hans Neumann, who transcribed the experiences of Josef Kohout, an Austrian gay man who was imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, in the 1972 biography The Men With the Pink Triangle.
- Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim
- Karl Lange
- Kurt von Ruffin
- Ernst Röhm
- Pierre Seel
- Il Rosa Nudo (Naked Rose), a film by Giovanni Coda based on Pierre Seel's autobiography.
- Gad Beck (last Gay Holocaust survivor; died in 2012)
- Sydney Gay and Lesbian Holocaust Memorial
- Historikerstreit
- Homomonument
- Homosexuality in Germany
- LGBT history
- List of Holocaust memorials and museums
- Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism
- Nazi eugenics
- Paragraph 175
- Paragraph 175 (film)
- Racial hygiene
- Richard Plant
- Sexuality of Adolf Hitler
- SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger
- Gay fascism