Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany

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.

[6] One theory holds the Nazis' rise to power was fueled by a conservative backlash against perceived immorality, but according to historian Laurie Marhoefer, this was not a significant factor.

On 23 February of that year the Prussian Ministry of the Interior ordered Berlin police to shut down any remaining establishments catering to "persons who indulge in unnatural sexual practices".

In Hamburg police targeted both prostitutes and homosexual spaces, including the main train station, public toilets, and gay bars, leading to a more-than-sixfold increase in indictments under Paragraph 175 by 1934.

[26][27] For example, in October 1933 Clemens August Graf von Galen, the Bishop of Münster, wrote approvingly of the Nazis' efforts to "eradicate" the "open propaganda for godlessness and immorality".

[36] After the 1933 revolution, Hitler began to see Röhm as a threat to his power and the SA as a liability due to their random acts of violence, which detracted from the Nazis' desired image as the party of law and order.

[38] Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, leaders of the SS (a rival of Röhm's SA), supported the purge to assert their control over the Nazi police state.

[42] Many men accused of homosexuality would admit to acts that were not punishable under Paragraph 175, expecting to be released;[10] instead, they were mistreated and incarcerated in Columbia-Haus, Lichtenburg, or Dachau concentration camp.

[10] The new version of the law punished all homosexual acts, defined broadly; "objectively when a general sense of shame is harmed and subjectively when there exists the lustful intention to excite either of the two men or a third party".

[49][50] Prosecutors, judges, and others involved in the cases increasingly cited Nazi ideology to justify harsh punishment, adopting the regime's rhetoric of "stamping out the plague of homosexuality".

[57] In anticipation of the outbreak of war, at the end of August 1939, Heydrich ordered the Gestapo to transfer most homosexual cases to the Kriminalpolizei (criminal police or Kripo) to free up resources for the persecution of opposition groups.

[62] Under the manpower requirements of war, it was felt necessary to recruit all available men;[61] it was also a concern that rejecting homosexuals from military service could open a loophole for draft evaders.

[79] Although prosecutions increased dramatically during the German occupation,[80] the police focused their efforts on breaking up male prostitution rings rather than homosexual relationships between Czechs.

[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.

[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.

[41] A considerable number of those persecuted for homosexuality were also targeted for other reasons, for example being Romani, disabled, a sex worker, accused of other criminal offenses, a political opponent of the Nazis, or a deserter.

[101] With a conviction, the victim could expect a complete life breakdown, often including loss of home and job, expulsion from professional organizations, and revocation of awards and doctorates.

[115] Torture was regularly used to extract confessions and the use of "enhanced interrogation" (verschärfte Vernehmung) was explicitly approved of by Josef Meisinger, head of the Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion.

[105][118] During the Nazi era, the regime considered extending the policy of involuntary castration that was previously applied to child molesters and other sex offenders to homosexuals but such a law was never passed.

[123] On 12 July 1940 the Reich Security Main Office formalized this policy, decreeing "in future, all homosexuals who seduced more than one partner shall be taken into preventive custody by the police after their release from prison".

[56] According to research in some parts of Germany, non-aggravated homosexuality, as a rule, was not punished with concentration camp imprisonment, which was mostly reserved for those who were considered "youth seducers", or had been convicted of male prostitution or child molestation.

[127] Along with Jews, homosexuals were often assigned to segregated labor details and had to perform especially dirty and backbreaking work, and endured worse conditions than the rest of the camp.

Homosexuals were disadvantaged in both of these aspects; some younger, more attractive men could obtain advantages from a sexual relationship with a kapo (prison functionary) or SS guard.

[56][123] The chances of survival depended on which camp the men were incarcerated in; Neuengamme was considered less harsh for homosexual prisoners than Buchenwald, Dachau, or Sachsenhausen.

The best-known experiments involving homosexual men were attempts by endocrinologist Carl Vaernet to change prisoners' sexual orientations by implanting a pellet that released testosterone.

[141] After learning of Hitler's remark, Himmler drafted a decree mandating the death penalty to any member of the SS or police who was found guilty of engaging in a homosexual act.

[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.

[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 [de] movie theaters, and by cruising in places such as Alexanderplatz and the Friedrichstrasse in Berlin.

[171] In 1985 the Nazi persecution of homosexuals was officially recognized for the first time in a speech [de] by West German president Richard von Weizsäcker.

Memorials to Nazi persecution of homosexuals have also been constructed in Amsterdam, Bologna, Turin, Barcelona, San Francisco, New York, Montevideo, Sydney, and Tel Aviv [he].