“I’m living proof,” said Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim when I visited him for the first time in Germany, “that Hitler didn’t win. I’m aware of that every day.” At the age of 88, he is a charming gay old man, celebrating his birthday twice a year. ‘You never know’ he says.
One hardly can imagine the story of his suffering: Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim was arrested during a police raid on private homes in Lübeck in 1937, as were 230 gay men that same night. He was kept in prison for ten months, released, rearrested and given the “alternative” between the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, or castration. He submitted to forced castration and was released. In 1943 he again was arrested and sent to a satellite camp of Neuengamme. He survived. It took until the early 90’s that he started to tell his story.
Why did it take nearly 50 years, before he and other gay Holocaust survivors came forward to testify about what they suffered in the camps? That gay men had been prisoners in the camps and were marked with a special marking, the pink triangle, was common knowledge immediately after the liberation of the camps, documented in reports by liberators and testimonies of survivors. But due to ongoing persecution first under the Allied military government of Germany and later and more systematically under German authorities, former gay inmates of the camps were forced to keep silent.
Within Holocaust reserach, gay men did belong for a long time to the so-called group of forgotten victims: Forgotten victims – an euphemism (because it takes more than a sloppy and passive state of mind to extract these victims from our memory) – functions as an abbreviation or catch-word for all those victim groups and individual victims who for a long time were (and mostly still are) not acknowledged as such: mentally and physically handicapped, gay men and lesbian women, prostitutes, alcoholics, the victims of forced sterilization, blacks, all those who were labelled as asocial or “alientated to the people'” under the Nazi regime.
ONGOING PERSECUTION AFTER 1945
Gay Holocaust survivors like Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim or Karl Gorath, a survivor of Neuengamme, Auschwitz and Mauthausen, were legally never acknowledged as victims of the Nazi regime. They were excluded from any reparations. For them, the fear was not over. They were afraid of being rearrested. Some of them were treated as repeat offenders after the war, under the same Nazi sodomy law 175.
The West German Supreme court reaffirmed the Nazi anti-gay law from 1935 in 1957. The main argument was that anti-gay laws and homophobia existed before 1933 and therefore couldn’t be seen as particular to Nazi ideology. Of course, we know that anti-semitism, special laws against gypsies, and discussions within the medical establishment about sterilization as well as other policies directed against the disabled predated 1933 but were changed completely once they were incorporated into Nazi ideology and Nazi persecution. The supreme court decision, which is still valid today, also invoked the protection of the German people as a second argument for reaffirming the Nazi anti-gay law 175.
Until 1969 persecution of gay men in West Germany was therefore based on the 1935 Nazi anti-gay law 175 which originated in Nazi ideals of protecting a future ‘Aryan race’ and of ‘race improvement’.
THE END OF THE FIRST GAY AND LESBIAN MOVEMENT
There had been a sodomy law on the books since German unification in 1871, but it specifically targeted sodomy (anal intercourse), and due to the delicate matter of finding evidence, numbers of sentenced homosexuals stayed low until 1933. And in 1929 it seemed as if the gay and lesbian movement had reached one of their most important goals, the abolishment of the sodomy law 175. While rewriting the moral code, a majority within the parliamentary commission voted against the continuation of 175. But due to the growing influence of the Nazi party, the commission’s endorsement was never introduced to the parliament.
After Hitler’s rise to power, both the Gestapo and SS pressed hard to broaden the old and “inefficient” sodomy law to an extent where evidence was not needed anymore. Homosexuality, so went the argument, was not just a criminal offense, but a danger to the future Aryan race. The Nazi party incorporated anti-gay laws into their ideology of racial hygiene and population politics. In 1935, the same year when the Nuremberg laws*[furthered legal exclusion of persons considered alien from German life, drawing a distinction between so-called Aryans and so-called non-Aryans. The term “non‑Aryan” applied to all non-Germanic peoples, but was applied to, and implemented primarily against Jews, Gypsies, and Afro-Germans. The Nuremberg Laws removed their citizenship and defined them and prohibited them from engaging in sexual relations with Germans.] were published, the revised law 175 was put on the books (june 28, 1935). Already the suggestion of homosexual intent was grounds for arrest. The numbers of sentenced gay men rose immediately.
The legal changes came as no surprise; as early as the mid-1920’s the Nazis had made clear that in a future Aryan Reich, there wouldn’t be a place for homosexuals. In the ‘Golden twenties’ a visible gay and lesbian culture had – albeit cautiously -flourished in urban areas and a network of gay and lesbian organisations, publisher houses, journals, famous festivities and social groups had developped. In Berlin alone, close to 100 bars served their gay and lesbian customers.
Soon after taking office, Hitler banned all gay and lesbian organisations. Meanwhile, storm troopers raided the institutions and gathering places of the gay and lesbian community. In the famous book-burning in Berlin in May 1933, many books came from the looting of the “Institute for sexual science” which was founded by the Jewish homosexual Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld. His institute was the first of its kind and world-famous for its collection and documentation on the field of sexology. Starting his work at the turn of the century, his work and his institute had been the centerpiece of the first gay and lesbian movement in Germany. Being Jewish and gay, he became an early symbol within Nazi propaganda for the ‘decay’ of the Weimar Republic. Only the lucky coincidence that he was on a world tour in 1933 prevented his murder.
In 1934, the SS chief, Heinrich Himmler created a special police department to combat male homosexuality. As early as December of that year, gay men were subjected to systematic criminal persecution. In 1936 the Federal Security Office for combating abortion and homosexuality was established, signalling the close connection between National Socialist population politics, race improvement and homophobia.
LESBIAN WOMEN
It is only partially helpful to compare the experiences of lesbian women with that of gay men in Nazi Germany. Within the strongly gender-biased society that Nazi Germany became, the persecution of gay men became the focus of anti-gay Nazi politics. Nazi ideology defined male homosexuals as “enemies of the state,” and the Nazi‑led beauracracy enforced the persecution of gay men relentlessly; this is aptly illustrated through the revision of sodomy law 175 in 1935 (criminalizing only male homosexuality) and the anti-gay actions of the police apparatus. Comparing the persecution of gay men and lesbian women, we mostly end up with knowing a lot about gay men and practically nothing about lesbian women.
Of course, lesbian women were forced like gay men to go underground; according to the few testimonies we have, many married to protect themselves, often to their gay friends. Throughout the 30’s and early 40’s, Nazi officials were engaged in discussions about whether lesbianism was not to be included into law 175. Despite many supporters of expanding the law, three arguments prevented a systematic persecution of lesbian women: Lesbianism was seen by many Nazi officials as “essentially alien” to the nature of the German woman; women in general were excluded from power positions and the “threat of a lesbian conspiracy” within high Nazi circles was not considered likely in the same way that it was with gay men. But the most influential and cynical Nazi argument was that lesbian “Aryan” women could be used as breeders despite their own feelings, and reproduction was the most urgent goal of Nazi population politics.
There are very few documented cases of lesbian women in the camps who were incarerated solely because of their sexual orientation. We don’t have historical evidence that lesbian women were marked with pink triangles or black triangles despite two disputing survivor testimonies. Nonetheless, we do know more about lesbian relationships in the camps through the autobiographical accounts of Jewish and political prisoners who survived the camps.
The lives of lesbian women were shaped by the state-sponsored homophobia encouraged in Nazi propaganda and policies, but a more significant factor in their lives was the general marginalisation of women and contempt for female sexuality in Nazi Germany. They were effected differently than heterosexual “Aryan” women were by the Nazi propaganda that exalted motherhood, marriage, and the ideal German woman as the breeder of a future “Aryan” race. So far, we lack sufficient research about how “Aryan” women in general were effected by gender-biased Nazi policies, not to mention the difficult position of lesbian women in Nazi Germany.
THE PINK TRIANGLE
Police raids and mass arrests of gay men had become common since the end of 1934, when many arrested homosexuals were imprisoned in concentration camps. The uniforms sometimes bore an identifying mark, like the letter ‘A’ (for ass-fucker). Later, this mark was replaced by a pink triangle.
Only in the 80’s and early 90’s has research allowed for the first time a clearer picture of the Nazi persecution of gay men, leaving many of the most essential questions open: At first research provided us with an estimation of 10.000 to 15.000 men with the pink triangle imprisoned in concentration camps, but a systematic survey of the number of male homosexuals in different camps is lacking, as is research on the reasons for the high percentage of gay prisoners in certain camps, an example of which are the smaller Emsland-camps. In addition, insufficient research has been done on the regular practice of special slave-labor squads for homosexuals and the medical experiments that were performed on them.
A pink triangle meant harsher treatment in the camps: In comparison with other relatively small victim groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and political prisoners, the mortality rate of gays was much higher. The men with the pink triangle couldn’t count on a support network within the camps and often were viewed and treated with contempt by their fellow-prisoners. Many of them died within a few months of arrival because they often were given the hardest work. Sometimes gay men were segregated in special 175-barracks.
There is very little documentation on the treatment of Jewish camp inmates who were marked with a pink triangle. However, some testimonies suggest that there was a pattern of special brutality during police raids towards gay men if they were discovered to be Jewish as well.
Despite the pink triangle being the symbol of the gay and lesbian community, we today still know very little about the individual fate of those who suffered wearing it. The Nazi invention of the pink triangle was able to become an international symbol of gay and lesbian pride because we are not haunted by concrete memories of those who were forced to wear them in the camps. No names, no faces… an empty memory. We don’t have a record of more than 10‑15 stories from individual gay Holocaust victims and survivors.
When gay survivors were liberated from the camps, they thought like everyone else that they would have the chance to at least try to start a new life. They soon realized that they wouldn’t get the sympathy and moral support they had hoped for. Facing ongoing persecution, they were especially vulnerable to the rather active police raids in post-war Germany because their camp imprisonnement was filed as a previous conviction in their police record. The numbers of convicted homosexual men in the 50’s and 60’s were as high as they had been in Nazi Germany. Having survived the camps, some gay men didn’t survive a second persecution: We know of different cases of former camp inmates who were charged for violation of law 175 again after the war (still the same Nazi law) and committed suicide either in prison or before the trial. Escape into marriage or complete isolation became common.
To be a “survivor” reflects the individual and collective experience of those who escaped the camps, but it also connotes social and collective recognition from the outside world and the feeling of dignity expressed in the memory-culture of the Holocaust. The men with the pink triangle never received this recognition nor were they included in the memory-culture of the Holocaust. Seen as criminals and perverts, they didn’t regain their dignity in post-war society. In that sense, they are not “survivors”, they survived.
Their exclusion from the memory of the Holocaust influenced their individual memories: They are very reluctant to be interviewed; they stop themselves, telling their story with doubts “that no one is interested to hear that anyway.” They have never been participants in gatherings of survivors or remembrances.
Because they didn’t get any moral or financial support after 1945 (not from the government, not from Holocaust researchers, nor from the fragile gay and lesbian community), some gay Holocaust survivors internalized Nazi persecution as their own fault, blaming themselves for not having been smarter in hiding their life. “It all happened because we stupid queens didn’t hide our address books,” one survivor told me, putting the blame and responsibility for what happened even today on himself. Others – astonishingly courageous – tried several times after the war to be recognized as victims of the Nazi regime, but their demands were declined by court decisions.
Karl Gorath was 26 when his jealous lover denounced him in 1939 to the Gestapo. He was forced to sign a confession with an SS-guard standing next to him and pointing a gun at his head. He never saw a court or judge and was brought to the concentration camps of Neuengamme and later Wittenberge (Elbe) in 1940. When he refused to shorten the bread rations for Soviet Prisoners of war, he was sent on a penal transport to Auschwitz in 1942. On the transport, he managed to switch his pink trianle with a red one which probably saved his life. On january 8th, 1945, shortly before Auschwitz was liberated, he and all other inmates were sent to the camp Mauthausen. They were later “evacuated” to the camp Melk and finally Ebensee where he was liberated by the U.S. army. He nearly died of cholera. In 1949, he was sentenced again for violation of law 175 for four years. He later married to protect himself. Mr. Gorath asked for reparations from the German government in 1953 and in 1960. Both times it was declined: In the eyes of the German government homosexuals were not victims of the Nazi regime. Today, Mr. Gorath lives in Germany, at the age of 81.
THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
It’s still hard for Karl Gorath to believe that he is acknowledged for the first time as a “survivor” and that his story is documented in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His story is one of nine that are documented in the museum’s unique ID card project. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the first major Holocaust institution that makes a concerted effort to integrate the experience of homosexuals into its exhibits and educational programs. Until today, gay Holocaust survivors have not been recognized in any Holocaust museums or exhibitions on the site of former concentration camps. And according to a recent survey commissioned by the American Jewish Committee, only about half of adults in Britain, and a mere quarter of adults in the United States, know that Gays were victims of the Nazi Holocaust.
There are several thousand testimonies given by survivors of the Holocaust in the collections of archives throughout the United States, but none have been given by a gay or lesbian survivor. There is an abundance of excellent Holocaust research literature, but there is only one American publication on the men with the pink triangle. Homophobia has never been discussed within Holocaust studies as an important part of Nazi propaganda, racism and population politics.
It has taken a long time for a museum-memorial to officially recognize the truth. It will take longer still for us to counteract the damage inflicted by fifty years of official, scholarly, and societal neglect of the history of gays and lesbians in the Holocaust. The Men with the Pink Triangle offers a glimpse of a seldom discussed and barely explored history; a memory almost forgotten.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCE ARTICLE
Klaus Mueller: Introduction to Heinz Heger: The Men with the Pink Triangle. The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps. Boston, Alyson Publications, 1994.