Pink Propositions

The Experience of in Third Reich Concentration Camps

Broc Gantt 1

Broc Gantt

HIST:407

Dr. Phillips

April 17, 2019

Introduction

Hoards of scholarship exists on the Nazi regime and their sadistic concentration and extermination camps, but nevertheless one group seemed to fall through the cracks and go largely unnoticed by academia in the years since the camps were liberated. The men with the have been repeatedly looked over and seen by many, it seems, as a group whose history of oppression under this tyrannical regime was something to be whisked aside rather than confronted head on. This practice would be deeply unfair to any group marginalized by such an evil regime, but it is even more unfair that history has focused so little on the experiences of the men who bore pink triangles, given that these men were often treated with a special brand of disgust and contempt by the Nazis.

The men who were forced to wear pink triangles were, of course, those identified by the Nazis as “homosexuals”.1 In a system devised by the regime to categorize prisoners based on their alleged offenses, the homosexuals occupied one of the lowest rungs of the ladder; they were beneath violent criminals, political adversaries to the regime, immigrants, “Gypsies”, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and “asocials”.2 Based on

1 , The men with the pink triangle: the true life-and-death story of homosexuals in the Nazi death camps (Los Angeles: Alyson Books, 1980), 31.

2 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 31. 2 observations of how the men were treated in the Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg camps, it seems as though they were situated on a similar level with the Jews,3 and even that is a questionable assessment, with much evidence suggesting that the Jews were not treated quite as horribly as the homosexuals. It is not difficult to imagine how men who engaged in sex with other men would come to be targeted by a political apparatus which so clearly cherished its assessment of masculinity as a strictly defined, superior trait which all German men should strive to embody and exude.

Despite the fact that the Nazis were the ones who began rounding up these men for the sake of imprisoning and (if not converting) exterminating them on account of their , the legal parameters that helped facilitate these transgressions were not put in place by the Nazi regime. of the German Criminal Code had been in place since 1871,4 which outlawed sexual contact between males, and between humans and animals. Even though this law had been in place, it wasn’t strictly enforced for the sake of condemning homosexual conduct between consenting adults.5 In fact,

Berlin was seen as a sexually progressive haven in the late Weimar period,6 and there was growing support through social movements for the removal of Paragraph 175 from the penal code.7

However, when the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, much of the anti-

Paragraph 175 movement was brought to a halt. Prominent members of these

3 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 43.

4 Craig Kaczorowski, “Paragraph 175.” GLBTQ Encyclopedia (2004), 1.

5 Kaczorowski, “Paragraph 175”, 1.

6 Kaczorowski, “Paragraph 175”, 1.

7 Kaczorowski, “Paragraph 175”, 1. 3 campaigns were jailed,8 and their voices silenced by censorship from the Nazi- controlled government.9 The motivation for the Nazis’ animosity towards homosexuals stems, in large part, from their obsessive view of masculinity. For many Nazi leaders, the concept of sex between men was incompatible with their definitions of masculinity on account of the fact that gay sex, by nature, involves one man being penetrated by another which they saw as inherently passive, feminine, and weak.10 As such, the notion of a man willingly subjecting himself to penetration by another man was seen as harmful, not only to that man’s masculinity, but to the concept of masculinity in general, and therefore the stability of the Reich.

Efforts to end such practices based on Paragraph 175 were put into place, which gradually increased until the late 1930s, at which time the (Hitler’s paramilitary police organization, also referred to as SS men) were conducting investigations to identify and out men who had sex with other men. Subsequently the outed men were placed in concentration camps. It is at this point that the story begins for a young man, whom shall simply be referred to as “Jörg”. Jörg was gracious enough to offer an account of his experience under the Nazi Regime on the condition of anonymity, and his is one of the only accounts available today from a gay man who spent years imprisoned by the Nazis and survived to tell his story.

One of the most remarkable elements of Jörg’s story is that not only did he survive two of the Nazis’ sadistic oppression and extermination apparatuses, the

8 "Kurt Hiller, Victim of Nazi ‘’, in Serious Condition, Paper Reveals." Jewish Daily Bulletin (New York: October 16, 1933), 3.

9 “Kurt Hiller”, Jewish Daily Bulletin, 3.

10 Richard Plant, The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1986), 89—91. 4

Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg concentration camps, but that he was able to maintain more influence in these situations than many of his fellow prisoners. A variety of factors led Jörg to find himself in positions where, despite the atrocities he endured, he was able to maintain enough of his own willpower and agency to secure more favorable conditions for himself in the camp, gain favor with some of the guards, and ascend to a position of power over some of his fellow prisoners.11 It is imperative to note that despite the advantages Jörg had that other prisoners did not, he was very much still a prisoner and a victim in this situation, subject to the commands and sadistic whims of the SS men. Given this, Jörg’s ascension to the role of Capo (a prisoner selected to lead a group of fellow prisoners during daily activities and work assignments)12 is an even more remarkable feat, especially when one remembers his placement at the bottom of the constructed caste system.

This paper seeks to highlight the instances where a person’s sexuality would have played a key role in shaping a their experience, and to note the differences between the experiences of general prisoners and those of gay prisoners. Given the general lack of scholarship on the experiences of same sex-attracted men in the , there has been seemingly no work done by historians to examine how a man like Jörg could rise to the position of a Capo—this paper will specifically hone in on this question, seeking to identify which factors helped establish the course of this man’s remarkable experience to become a Capo.

11 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 90.

12 Nikolaus Wachsmann, Kl: a history of the Nazi concentration camps (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2015), 18. 5

The “Homosexual” KL Experience

Initial Arrest, Prison Sentence, and Transport

Jörg’s experience began with his arrest in 1939, where he had been summoned to the Gestapo Headquarters, without being given any information regarding the reason for his summoning. Upon his arrival, he was ushered into a room to meet with a cold, impatient man referred to as Herr Doktor, who questioned Jörg and accused him of being “a dirty queer”.13 Jörg denied these accusations, but was presented with evidence in the form of a love letter written on the back of a photograph of he and his lover Fred.

Unable to further deny his involvement with Fred, he admitted to having been romantically and sexually involved with him, and was placed under arrest by the now content Herr Doktor. Fred happened to be the son of a prominent Nazi Party member, and Jörg suspects that this is how the Gestapo was able to procure the photograph. He also suspected that Fred’s father was able to utilize his influence to ensure his son’s safety, though this is never confirmed.14

Upon his arrest, he was given an unusually hasty trial, and within two weeks he was on his way to serve a six month prison sentence in .15 It is important to note that Jörg described his overall experience in the Vienna prison as being structured but not unkind. He notes that the guards treated the prisoners “with perfect correctness”.16

The most impactful event of Jörg’s initial sentence occurs on his first night in custody;

13 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 21.

14 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 24.

15 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 25.

16 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 25. 6 he endures an experience that will shape his beliefs in the upcoming years and provide a lens through which he will interpret the events happening around himself.

The two men with whom Jörg shared a jail cell had heard that he was sentenced for violating Paragraph 175 and made sexual advances towards him, apparently expecting him to reciprocate their interest based on his sexuality.17 Upon Jörg’s angry refusal of their propositions, they insulted him and “the whole brood of queers” who they believed were beneath themselves, and they went on to proclaim their disgust that “the authorities should have put a subhuman such as this in the same cell as two relatively decent people”.18 Later that night, Jörg was appalled when these same two men decided to have sex with one another in the cell. Jörg was outraged by the hypocrisy of these prisoners who apparently understood their actions to be “an emergency outlet, with nothing queer about it”,19 somehow excusing themselves from the merciless volley of insults they had aimed at Jörg only hours before. This particular instance is one that comes back to Jörg in the coming months and years, and it heavily influences his understanding of human nature in regards to sexuality and self-understanding.

On the last day of Jörg’s six month sentence in Vienna, he was informed that the guards had been ordered to keep him in custody. He was then informed that he would be transferred to a concentration camp the next day. He was understandably devastated by this news, and fell into a sort of panic and despair, wondering “what does

17 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 23.

18 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 23.

19 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 23. 7 it say about the world we live in, if an adult man is told how and whom he should love?”20

The next day, Jörg and a group of other prisoners were loaded onto freight cars for a several day long journey and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in

Oranienburg, Germany. The true horrors of the what lay ahead began to make themselves known immediately, from the beginning of the prisoners’ transportation to

Sachsenhausen. On the journey, they experienced outrageous conditions, with a single bucket to be used as a latrine, and only small amounts of food and water.21 Even worse,

Jörg is subjected to physical violence and oral rape at the hands of other prisoners

(straight men imprisoned for murder, he is careful to note)22 during their transport.

Welcome Week in Hell

Upon their arrival at Sachsenhausen, the atrocities ensued when SS men took a role call, heinously beating each inmate during the process, and being particularly brutal towards those who were there on charges of violating Paragraph 175. After this, they were ordered to stand completely naked in the freezing cold weather for hours, while their clothes lay in a neat pile in front in them on the snow covered ground, and then they were forced to take showers in freezing cold water; Jörg notes that several prisoners collapsed during this time.23 After this, they were subjected to even further

20 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 26.

21 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 27.

22 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 28.

23 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 33. 8 humiliation when they were taken to another room to have their heads shaven with little care taken to avoid cutting the scalp, and many men being left with severe wounds afterwards. In this instance we see another example of how the “homosexuals” were subjected to even harsher treatment—Jörg explains that the gay men were also forced to have their pubic hair shaved as an even more extensive method of humiliation.24 The new batch of prisoners’ first week was characterized by the endless beatings they sustained and the work they were forced to do (a pointless job of carrying snow from one side of the street to the other with their bare hands, and then moving it all back after they had accomplished the first task).25 Jörg remarked that by the end of their first week, they “had become dumb and indifferent slaves of the SS”.26 The prisoners would soon receive more permanent work assignments.

The concentration camp experience was one characterized by endless, impossibly difficult, dangerous work, and this was an even more stark reality for men who had been branded as “homosexuals”. Despite the fact that all of the prisoners in the Nazis’ concentration camps were there because they supposedly represented a threat to the stability and security of the reich, gay men were treated more horribly than most in a variety of ways. Specifically in regards to the reputation of Sachsenhausen,

Jörg recalled that “up until 1942, it was the ‘Auschwitz’ for homosexuals”.27 A hallmark of the Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg (the second camp to which Jörg is later transferred, after a relatively short amount of time at Sachsenhausen) camps is that

24 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 33.

25 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 36.

26 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 36.

27 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 36. 9 they both were located near stone quarries which were used to supply the building materials for Hitler’s extravagant architectural projects in Berlin.28 These quarries were the primary place of work for gay prisoners (including Jörg), because the mining and masonry jobs were among the most brutal and dangerous occupations to be had at these camps, and the SS men liked to reserve such jobs for the most “repulsive criminals”.29 Because Sachsenhausen was a flagship plant and the SS men had agreed to an impossibly tight schedule for masonry production, “guards and Kapos drove prisoners with a brutality unusual even for a KL”,30 and countless prisoners died at this site from exhaustion, abuse, and suicide.31

Torture and Punishment

When not facing the exhaustive and brutal horrors of the granite quarries, Jörg faced other terrors that were specific to his status as a pink-triangled prisoner. The SS men had many special punishments and rules specifically for gay prisoners which served to torment them and satisfy the sadistic urges of the SS men. At night, all of the

“homosexuals” were separated into their own barracks (a practice utilized at

Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg, but at other camps it is known that gay prisoners would be randomly assigned to barracks, integrated with the rest of the camps’ populations).32 In these segregated barracks, the lights were left on all night to prevent

28 Wachsmann, Kl, 163.

29 Wachsmann, Kl, 164.

30 Wachsmann, Kl, 167.

31 Wachsmann, Kl, 167.

32 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 68. 10 the prisoners from having the privacy to engage in any sort of sexual activity.33 Jörg also noted that the prisoners in these barracks were required to keep their hands outside the blankets all night long (despite the freezing temperatures) because the SS men had ordered them to, screaming “you queer assholes aren’t going to start jerking off here!”.34

Despite their efforts to discourage , they had also taken definitive steps to tempt the prisoners by prohibiting them from wearing any sort of pants to bed.35 If during a nightly check any prisoner was caught with his hands under his blanket, whether masturbating or not, he would be taken outside to have several bowls of water poured over himself, and left to stand there in the freezing temperatures for an hour or so.36

Jörg notes that few men survived this punishment, and those that did often ended up with an ailment such as bronchitis which would earn them a trip to the sick bay.37 The sick bay was practically a death sentence for pink-triangled prisoners, because they were prioritized for medical experiments which usually proved painful and fatal. These “experiments” frequently centered around the theme of “correcting” their sexuality, and consisted of such horrors as penile hormone injections38, castration39, and even compulsory visits to a brothel where the men were forced to rape women.40

33 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 68.

34 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 34.

35 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 34.

36 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 34.

37 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 34.

38 Günter Grau, ed. Hidden Holocaust? Gay and Persecution in Germany 1933-1945 (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1993), 281.

39 Grau, ed. Hidden Holocaust?, 254.

40 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 98. 11

One of the most disturbing instances of torture on the basis of a prisoner’s sexuality comes near the end of Jörg’s time in Flossenbürg. While sitting in a holding cell after getting in trouble for mistakenly using the term Osterreich instead of Ostmark

(Hitler’s new branding of Austria since the Anschluss), he witnesses two drunk SS men mercilessly torturing another gay inmate. They had strung the poor man up against a wall by his wrists so that his feet could not touch the ground, and then proceeded to tickle him with goose feathers. Next, they decided to dip his testicles in alternating batches of scalding hot and freezing cold water until there were “bits of skin hanging visibly down from his scalded scrotum”.41 Finally, one of the SS men proclaimed “he’s a butt-fucker, isn’t he, let’s let him have what he wants”, and they proceeded to anally rape him with a broom handle while calling him a “filthy queer”.42 At this point, the man’s ability to cry, sob, and scream had finally left him, he was instead thrashing at his chains and gurgling. They then let the man down, and smashed his skull with a wooden stool.

The horrific events Jörg witnessed this night sent him into a deep depression.

While the SS men in these camps specialized in creating heinous new methods of punishment and torture for the pink-triangled prisoners, it is also useful to examine them in comparison with the official punishment system devised for use in the camps. It was common for prisoners to be denied food rations as punishment, or for more serious transgressions, they would be physically beaten or executed. The executions were often made to be a spectacle. Jörg’s accounts from Flossenbürg recall examples where men were hung in the square for days around a Christmas tree as a sort of grizzly

41 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 84.

42 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 85. 12 decoration.43 Firing squad executions were also utilized, with one case existing where so many men were executed that the blood from the dozens of bodies ran into a nearby stream, and was so potent in the water that citizens in the town downstream complained to the SS of the blood polluting the water.44 In regards to the physical beatings, most common were whippings where prisoners would be tied shirtless over a wooden bench of sorts, and then endure anywhere from five to twenty five lashes. During such occasions, it was common for the SS men to give the prisoner some sort of menial task to complete during the torture such as counting as the lashes were administered, and then using it as an excuse to restart if they miscount or don’t say the number loudly enough.45 These sadistic punishments were one of the most disgusting elements of the concentration camp experience, in large part due to how the SS men seemed to relish the occasions. On several accounts, Jörg notes that the particularly vile and sadistic camp commander Karl Fritzsch (the man who had first suggested the use of Zyklon B as a means of killing prisoners in gas chambers at Auschwitz)46 who would often go to great lengths to specifically target the gay prisoners (whom he referred to as___, and even required that they identify themselves with a slur and their prisoner number, such as “Queer Asshole #0001” )47, and would look for any excuse to punish them, such as the collection of dust underneath the bunks in their barracks.48 On more than one

43 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 87.

44 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 79.

45 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 54.

46 Wachsmann, Kl, 268.

47 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 70.

48 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 68. 13 occasion, this repugnant commander (who was universally disliked and referred to as

“Commander Dustbag” by prisoners and SS men alike, for his obsession with finding dust in the pink-triangled prisoner barracks)49 could be observed with his hand in his trousers, masturbating wildly and to completion while watching the prisoners be whipped for their supposed transgressions.50

It is impossible to comprehend the insatiable thirst the Nazis had for violence, and the absolute contempt and hatred they had for gay prisoners. Instances like these helped to clarify to all who witnessed them the Nazis believed that “homosexuals”, like

Jews, were subhuman. Gay men’s position at the bottom of the concentration camp caste system is formalized by the fact that their badges, the pink triangles, were made to be twice as large as all the other triangles, so that they could be easily identified at a distance.51 This decision was made so that not only the SS men could pick them out from far away and torment them, but also so that the other prisoners would be driven to segregate themselves, furthering marginalizing the prisoners forced to wear this symbol.

49 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 68.

50 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 55.

51 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 67. 14

The Question of the First Pink-Triangled Capo

Sexual Coercion as a Means of Survival

The question of how a gay prisoner could come to hold any position of authority in a system so clearly designed to oppress him is one that deserves our attention. The answer to this question has a few components, and they are not pretty, inspiring stories of the downtrodden overcoming adversity.

One of the primary means through which Jörg was able to protect himself and eventually gain a little more agency was participating in sexual activity with his superiors. It is critical to understand that while Jörg did make the choice to participate in these affairs, they were not consensual and must be considered rape. While he wasn’t physically forced to participate, choosing to resist would have had a series of consequences ranging from a lack of favor with some of the guards who eventually came to be quite protective over him, to outright beating or execution on the spot, it really was not an option to refuse the guard’s propositions.

Jörg’s first encounter with a guard who makes a sexual advance towards him occurs rather early in his experience. One day during his brief imprisonment at

Sachsenhausen, he is ordered to work on constructing a firing range for the SS men to use for target practice. Shortly after the construction began, the guards prematurely began using the range, while the prisoners were still constructing it, in many cases aiming for the prisoners instead of the targets.52 After having been fortunate enough to survive the first few days, one of the green triangle bearing Capos offered Jörg a much safer job, if he would agree to have sex with him. Jörg agreed with only slight pause,

52 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 44. 15 deciding that his “will to live was stronger than his commitment to human decency”.53 It also proved to be a beneficial arrangement for Jörg because the Capo saw to it that he received extra rations, and he was able to maintain decent health and physical shape.

When this arrangement came to an end as a result of Jörg’s transfer to Flossenbürg, he recalls that he shook the Capo’s hand and thanked him for what he had considered “a relationship of convenience on both sides”. 54

Almost immediately upon his arrival at Flossenbürg, it became clear to Jörg that sexual arrangements between guards and prisoners were not exactly a rare phenomenon. On his very first day, he was lined up with a group of other pink triangle bearing transfers from Sachsenhausen, and thoroughly examined by a group of eight to ten SS men and Capos who were looking to find fresh young men to invite into their bedrooms.55 Jörg compares this situation with a slave-boy market in ancient Rome,56 though he also notes that he was pleased to have been the center of attention (he attributes this to the fact that he was in relatively good physical shape as a result of the extra rations he received from the Sachsenhausen Capo, as well as the fact that he looked younger than his age of nearly twenty three because he could not yet grow a beard). Jörg describes his relationship with this Capo very favorably, crediting him with saving his life in more than ten specific instances, and for being generous and considerate towards him with extra food rations and easier work assignments.57

53 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 44.

54 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 45.

55 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 47.

56 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 47.

57 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 48. 16

Through various circumstances, Jörg ends up having a handful of Capo’s with whom he has this type of arrangement throughout his experience (though none simultaneously), as a result of one after another being given new positions or moved to other camps and therefore terminating the arrangement. His prior arrangement with the

Sachsenhausen Capo had clearly put him in a position to enter into another such arrangement, and he does so enthusiastically when a proposition is made by another green triangle bearing Capo. Jörg had developed a reputation among the Capos, and there were even instances where Capos would argue and fight over who would get to adopt him as their new lover when the Capo who had previously claimed him relinquished his claim for one reason or another.58

Again, it is essential to remind oneself that despite the seemingly consensual nature of the arrangements between Jörg and these men, it must be considered sexual assault because of the massive power imbalance, wherein refusing the Capos’ proposition would have almost certainly led to death for Jörg, and all parties were well aware of this dynamic when the relationship was established.59

Jörg’s survival up until this point is obviously essential to his ability to become a

Capo, and the arrangements he had with Capos prepared him to become one in a variety of ways. After having been put in positions where he could become familiar with the role and build alliances with other Capos, when his opportunity to reclaim a bit of his agency came, he was in an optimal position to use this to his advantage.

58 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 62.

59 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 61. 17

Sexual Coercion as a Means of Upward Mobility

The ultimate answer of how a gay man like Jörg would have been able to attain any sort of power in the concentration camp system is through sexual coercion and moral compromise. Jörg notes his initial moral preoccupations with the concept of having sex with someone in exchange for food, favors, and protection, but ultimately he decides (as almost anyone would, when placed in such a high-stakes situation), that he values his life enough to overlook the negative moral connotations of the arrangement being offered to him.

Towards the end of his time in Flossenbürg, Jörg had had several guards and

Capos with whom he had had relationships defined by sexual coercion. As a result of this and the fact that his original abuser had ascended to the role of a camp senior and still kept a protecting hand over Jörg, he was assigned to the roll of Capo, and given command over a block of more than twenty five prisoners.60 This was unprecedented in the camp’s history, and as far as Jörg could tell, it hadn’t occurred at any camp before.61

Naturally, Commander Fritzsch was outraged, and hardly stopped insulting Jörg or looking for excuses to punish him and the men in his work detail, though Jörg’s new status and relationship with other guards and Capos offered insulation from the threats of “Commander Dustbag”, who also noted that he had never before seen “a queer as

Capo”.62

60 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 90.

61 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 97.

62 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 91. 18

At this point, the distinction between perpetrator and victim begins to blur slightly, even despite the coercion that led to Jörg’s appointment as a Capo. While many Capos were known for their brutality and cruelty, which they often exercised in order to safeguard their own positions, Jörg received glowing reviews from prisoners and camp leaders, alike, with some describing him as “less like a Capo to them and more like an elder comrade”.63

There were numerous occasions where Jörg went out of his way to protect the prisoners he was charged with leading, and when he could he would also help them establish the same sorts of “convenient” relationships with Capos and camp seniors that had helped him survive the camps.64 It became increasingly clear to Jörg that the secret arrangements between prisoners and guards were hardly secret at all. In fact, there was even an instance where Jörg met with a camp senior to explain how many of the young men in his block who had recently gotten involved with Capos understood it as an excuse not to do any work. Fearing this could lead to the collapse of their underground system, the camp senior called a meeting with the other Capos and some SS men who had “dolly-boys” in Jörg’s work detachment, instructing them to make sure that their boys understood what was expected of them, saying:

“Okay, then, lads, you tell your boys this, and give them a good tanning so that

they know what’t the matter. Otherwise they’ll put us all in danger and our

position in the camp. Go back to your boys and knock some sense into them.

63 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 94.

64 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 94. 19

Box their ears first, make love afterward,” he joked, and the others had a good

laugh with him.65

Even Commander Fritzsch had some degree of awareness of the relationships between guards and prisoners; he tried to investigate the matter further in order to find a confession that would finally incriminate Jörg of a punishable offense so that he could rid the camp of such a scandal. Walking around to prisoners in Jörg’s block and lifting up their jackets, he would ask “who does this nice piece of ass belong to, then, your

Capo, I suppose?” But the prisoners were as uncooperative as they could be without endangering themselves (this turned out to be quite uncooperative, as all of their Capo and SS men “lovers were present and laughing at the commander).66 Having had no success and after having been thoroughly embarrassed in front of the other SS men, he demanded that from then on, Jörg should refer to his group as “butt-fuckers’ detachment”.67

Clearly, having been complicit with the guards who first made sexual propositions turned out to offer Jörg a great deal of protection in the long run, as well as give him the platform he needed to help protect other prisoners. This point just serves to highlight the disgusting injustices of the system the Nazis had created, wherein the only way a gay prisoner could help themselves to survive was to allow themselves to be raped by the men who had imprisoned them for their in the first place.

65 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 94.

66 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 96.

67 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 96. 20

Conclusion

Much more scholarship could be done to examine the depths of the Nazis’ hypocrisy as it relates to their condemnation of homosexuality. It is clear that these men had some of their own preoccupations with sexuality, as much of their treatment of homosexual prisoners seems to indicate. The aforementioned punishments clearly show that the Nazis had an obsession with sexuality as it related to the stability of their organization, but the intensely personal nature of the punishments also seem to indicate that these men likely had more internal conflicts with their own understanding of themselves and their own sexual attractions. Pull back the curtain, and it becomes even clearer that these men who were regularly raping male prisoners out of “convenience” seemed to be dealing with their own demons.68

This is not to excuse the horrendous treatment of gay men by the Nazis, but rather to offer a possible explanation for why they felt compelled to treat them so cruelly in the first place. It seems likely that they were especially terrible to gay men as a method of casting aside any doubt that may have been had about their own sexuality on a personal level. There is plenty of evidence that shows that the men throughout the

Nazi Party were engaging in the same pleasures as the men they were imprisoning, and the particular contempt they had for gay men seemed to be rooted, in part, as a way to safeguard their own masculinity. As evidenced by the Ernst Röhm debacle,69 wherein a high-ranking Nazi Party member was outed and executed for his sexual exploits, just being a part of the organization was not enough to protect you from such allegations.

68 Heger, The men with the pink triangle, 45.

69 Plant, The Pink Triangle, 68. 21

Jörg’s experience offers an immeasurably valuable look into the experience of gay men in Nazi concentration camps. From the stomach turning punishments and tortures they were forced to endure to the horrible working conditions, this insight into what made the experience of gay prisoners different from that of others is insightful yet horrifying. Even more interesting is how it allows us to understand the power dynamics at play in the concentration camps and how they had to be carefully navigated with a degree of discretion by prisoners and guards alike. The previously unheard of accomplishment of a gay prisoner becoming a Capo was a thorn in the side of the vicious “Commander Dustbag”, but could serve as a beacon of hope for other young gay prisoners in Flossenbürg who may have looked up to Jörg as a role model of someone doing the best they could amidst impossible circumstances and nearly unbeatable odds.

Indeed, one of the most notable things one could take away from learning about experiences like Jörg’s and those of other victims of the Third Reich is the incredible amount of will power and resilience some of these individuals had, even when almost all of their agency had been stripped away from them. This is especially remarkable in the cases of homosexual prisoners like Jörg who found themselves at the bottom of the

Nazis’ caste system, and yet were constantly reminded of the double standards and hypocrisy that was so intimately involved with their experiences.

In the name of concluding on an uplifting note, let us recognize that Jörg was liberated from Flossenbürg in 1945, and while the experience undoubtedly altered the course of his life immeasurably, he was able to reunite with his mother after just a few short months. However he does explain that despite having been liberated, he never 22 received any sort of compensation for the horrors he endured, and pink-triangled prisoners still (at the time of his interview) had not been recognized as victims, but were instead widely considered to be perverts and criminals. Even despite these continual disappointments after liberation, Jörg’s perseverance and will to live were inspiring, and rather than a story of a man who had all of his agency torn away from him and his life forever ruined, his story should be remembered as one of a great triumph over persecution. 23

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