Parliament to Abolish Paragraph 175. They Organized Thousands of Public Lectures Held

Although prejudice and legal discrimination against homosexuals existed prior to Hitler’s rise to power, Nazi authorities embraced a particularly virulent form of homophobia which aimed to eradicate homosexuality from German society. Homosexuals became prime targets of Nazi persecution almost immediately after Hitler took office on January 30, 1933. The Nazis condemned homosexual activity as "socially aberrant" behavior and viewed homosexuality as a crime of degeneracy. Along with other targeted groups—criminals, vagrants, the disabled, and the insane—homosexuals were labeled as "asocial" degenerates who posed a threat to the health and survival of the Aryan race. Background When the German Empire was adopting a unified criminal code, the expert opinion was delivered by the Royal Prussian Scientific Deputation for Medical Affairs . Under the leadership of Rudolf Virchow, they stated that “…we are not in a position to offer any reasons why…those between two males should be punishable by law.” However, in May 1870, the Reichstag approved the new criminal code, which included Paragraph 175, which continued to penalize homosexuality with imprisonment. The German Empire thus wrote in legislation against homosexuality. The 1871 Reich Criminal Code’s Paragraph 175 outlawed homosexual acts, but was vague in its definition of what those acts were. The so-called anti-sodomy law declared “unnatural indecency” between men to be “punishable by imprisonment” for up to two years. The law did not define “indecency” nor made mention of homosexual acts between women. The only clarity came in 1877 when the German Supreme Court of Justice defined “unnatural indecency” as an “intercourse-like act,” but this still left a wide room for interpretation. Up until 1935, only penetrative intercourse (anal or oral) would bring a court conviction, with other acts, including mutual masturbation, being permitted. But this law wasn’t truly enforced, as Berlin had an open and flourishing gay community that made it one of Europe’s great cultural centers. During the Weimar Republic, the government did not pay much attention to the law. As a result numerous gay bars and over 30 gay magazines and journals were active in Germany. By the early 1930s, some 350,000 homosexual men and women lived among Berlin’s four million inhabitants. In the whole of Germany there are believed to have been around four million homosexuals at the time. The Scientific Humanitarian Committee In May 1897 in Berlin, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee was formed as the first gay rights organization. The Committee not only provided support for others but also committed itself to the political struggle for gay equality. Its two leading founders and organizers were publisher Max Spohr and the physician Magnus Hirschfeld. The Committee aimed to undertake research to defend the rights of homosexuals and to repeal Paragraph 175. Homosexuals were offered legal and medical advice, as well as representation in court. But it was essentially a political group that lobbied the German parliament to abolish Paragraph 175. They organized thousands of public lectures held throughout Germany, published and distributed informational pamphlets, wrote newspaper and magazine articles, and by 1907 they managed to gather over 6,000 signatures from prominent Germans for a petition to overturn Paragraph 175, including Albert Einstein, Hermann Hesse, and Thomas Mann. Adolf Brand, though, was more radical. He began to publish the world’s first gay magazine, Der Eigene ( “the peculiar”), in 1898. Its subject was gay art and gay life, but Brand also was willing to use the publication to “out” well-known politicians who publicly proclaimed anti-gay positions while privately practicing homosexuality. In 1904, he claimed in print that Friedrich Dasbach, a member of the Reichstag, consorted with male prostitutes. Brand went so far as to publish a leaflet in 1907 claiming that German Chancellor Franz von Bulow was a homosexual. To support his publication, and as a symbol of his disagreement with the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, Brand founded the group Gemeinschaft der Eigenen (Community of its Own) in 1903 as a private club of authors and artists. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, meanwhile, set up the Institute of Sexual Science in Berlin in 1919 for studying homosexuality. He became known as the "Einstein of Sex" for his pioneering work in the field of sexual science. He conducted many studies on homosexuality to prove it was not abnormal. Hirschfeld aimed to make people conscious of their sexuality and allow people to live their sexual lives as they wanted, not just according to rules that were dictated by society, and thus argued that homosexuality was “neither an illness nor a crime.” In 1929, Hirschfeld said, “I do not cultivate and propagate homosexuality. I only open the eyes of those who are homosexually inclined about themselves and endeavor to struggle against their social ostracization.” Hirschfeld also wrote and directed a film entitled Different from the Others (1919), which explicitly pleaded for tolerance. Different from the Others set the standard for liberal tolerance for homosexuals. Showings of Hirschfeld's film were regularly disrupted by the fascists. In one such incident in Vienna in 1923 they shot and wounded several members of the audience. Hirschfled decided to take his public awareness informational tour abroad. From 1930 - 1932 he traveled around the world, introducing the new science of sexology in public lectures from New York and San Francisco to Tokyo, Shanghai, Manila, Calcutta, Cairo, Tel Aviv, and Athens. But the largest homosexual organization was the League of Human Rights, which was started in 1923 by Friedrich Radszuweit. By 1929, the League had over 48,000 members. Like the Committee, it became involved in the campaign against Paragraph 175. Rise of the Nazis But as Hitler’s Nazi party was gaining strength in the late 1920s, opposition to homosexuals increased. In May 1928, a Nazi Party response said: “[The] German nation... can only fight if it maintains its masculinity. It can only maintain its masculinity if it exercises discipline, especially in matters of love. Free love and deviance are undisciplined. Therefore, we reject you, as we reject anything which hurts our people. Anyone who even thinks of homosexual love is our enemy. We reject anything which emasculates our people and makes them a plaything for our enemies.... We therefore reject any form of unnatural sexuality, above all homosexuality.” Wilhelm Frick, Nazi Party deputy to the Reichstag, added in 1929, “Our view…is that these §175 people…should be prosecuted with all severity because such vices will lead to the downfall of the German nation.” When Hitler took over in January 1933, persecution of homosexuals became policy. They set upon dismantling the gay subculture of Berlin in a broad attack on “public indecency.” Nearly 100 clubs and cafes, political organizations, publishing houses, and bookshops were closed down by the police or forced to dissolve themselves. In February 1933, during the “Campaign for a Clean Reich,” the first decrees were issued against gay and lesbian bars, gay organizations, and publications and scholarly works about homosexuality. On May 6, 1933, Nazi student groups and sympathizers ransacked Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute of Sexology, Berlin's most visible symbol of sexual reform. Four days later, on May 10 th , much of the institute's unique library was destroyed as part of a public book burning in Berlin to destroy the "un–German spirit." Hirschfeld himself saw the destruction of his life's work in a newsreel in a Paris movie theater. The institute was closed and reopened as a Nazi office building. Hirschfeld, then in Paris at the end of a three–year world tour, became an exile as his German citizenship was revoked. Unable to return to Germany, he died in French exile in Nice. His Scientific–Humanitarian Committee and other sexual rights organizations stopped their work in Germany. German men who, the state asserted, carried a "degeneracy" that threatened the "disciplined masculinity" of Germany. Hitler believed that homosexuality was "degenerate behavior" that threatened the "masculine discipline” of the German nation. Gay men were denounced as "antisocial parasites" and as "enemies of the state," and charged with corrupting public morality. As an “infection,” it was also feared that it could become an “epidemic,” especially within the all-male Nazi Party and armed forces and among Germany’s male youth, which pedophiles were said target. Homosexuality was also accused of being a factor in the declining birthrate that threatened to leave Germany unable to sustain itself. Homosexuality, the Nazis charged, weakened Germany in several ways. It was accused of being a factor in the declining birthrate that threatened to leave the nation unable to sustain itself. National strength depended on the growth of the German population, but since World War I, German birthrates had been declining, due in part to the deaths of two million men in the war. Heinrich Himmler, SS chief, said, “Roughly 7-8% of men in Germany are homosexual. If that’s how things remain, our nation will fall to pieces because of that plague. Those who practice homosexuality deprive Germany of the children they owe her.” It was also feared as an "infection" that could become an "epidemic," particularly among the nation's vulnerable youth. It was thought that it could give rise to a dangerous state– within–the–state since homosexuals were believed to form self–serving groups. It endangered public morality and contributed to the decline of the community. Therefore, for the good of the state, the Nazis asserted, homosexuality had to be eradicated. Rudolf Diels, the founder of the Gestapo, in 1934 lectured his colleagues on how homosexuals had caused the downfall of ancient Greece. He recorded some of Hitler's personal thoughts on the subject: "He lectured me on the role of homosexuality in history and politics.

Load more