THE NAZI PERSECUTION of HOMOSEXUALS: GAY MEN and EVERYDAY LIFE in the THIRD REICH a Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Californi
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THE NAZI PERSECUTION OF HOMOSEXUALS: GAY MEN AND EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE THIRD REICH A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Fullerton ____________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in History ____________________________________ By Jim Park Thesis Committee Approval: Cora Granata, Department of History, Chair Nancy Fitch, Department of History Robert McLain, Department of History Spring, 2018 ABSTRACT Nazi Germany took great measures to establish a homogenous society at the cost of human life and suffering. Seeking to create a racially pure nation, the leaders of National Socialism envisioned communal solidarity in political ideals, race, and even sexual orientation. In an attempt to create this “utopia,” the Nazis tried eradicating perceived “outsiders” through the concentration camp system either through death, enslavement, and/or “reeducation.” Among the groups targeted were homosexual men. Homosexuals had choices to either avoid or become released from concentration camps by demonstrating sexual intercourse with prostitutes or by agreeing to castration. Homosexuals were also released from concentration camps to serve in the German military during the Second World War. My research explores the everyday lives of homosexual men living under the Third Reich by utilizing the approach known as Alltagsgeschichte. I analyze the persecution of homosexuals by examining the memoirs of four survivors spanning from the closing years of the Weimar Republic to the end of the Third Reich. Alltagsgeschichte is invaluable by revealing the grey areas, taboo topics, and contradictions which structural history often times fails to address. By the utilization of my method, I conclude that gay men experienced different circumstances during the Nazi period due to a variety of factors including what area of the Third Reich they came from, reasons for arrests, where they were imprisoned, and cultural/religious background. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................. iv Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 2. CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD: HOMOSEXUALITY IN BERLIN DURING THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC ................................................................................. 18 3. HEINZ HEGER: GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMP LIFE AS AN AUSTRIAN HOMOSEXUAL INMATE ............................................................. 38 4. PIERRE SEEL: FROM FASHIONABLE ALSATIAN ZAZOU TO ANTI- PARTISAN SOLDIER IN THE SERVICE OF THE THIRD REICH ................ 55 5. GAD BECK: HOMOSEXUALTY AND THE UNDERGROUND JEWISH RESISTANCE MOVEMENT .............................................................................. 71 6. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 86 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................... 92 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to my thesis committee: Dr. Cora Granata, Dr. Nancy Fitch, and Dr. Robert McLain, for guiding my research. Both as an undergraduate and graduate student at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF), I enjoyed taking their courses. Their lectures and discussions were most enlightening and entertaining. I knowingly chose these professors held in the highest esteem among students of European studies at CSUF. Thanks to three additional professors who I also owe my success to as a student at Fullerton: Dr. “Wendy” Scheinberg, Dr. Kristine Dennehy, and Dr. Allison Varzally. Dr. Wendy influenced my appreciation and curiosity for US and California histories. As our undefeated champion who headed the university’s Welebaethan journal, Dr. Wendy has churned out superb writers and editors. The university therefore owes part of its academic reputation to Dr. Wendy. Dr. Dennehy has been another influential professor who taught me about my heritage in Korean and Japanese history courses. I had great fun visiting museums, attending book clubs, and going out finding interesting places to eat with Dr. Dennehy. Last, but certainly not least, Dr. Varzally furthered my education in US history in regards to race relations and patterns of immigration. Dr. Varzally employed me in a few important jobs at the university, as a graduate assistant and a recording transcriber, which allowed me to gain career experience and financial sustenance while undergoing my studies as a graduate student at CSUF. Dr. Varzally was like a mother and angelic figure to me, and I owe my deepest gratitude. iv The Geisel and Doheny libraries at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Southern California, respectively, housed the majority of the books used in my thesis. Both are located in ideal campuses. I thank my co-worker, Mike Perez, for being a peer, colleague, and friend. Mike has contributed to my research by being attentive to our scholarly and political debates held during the night shift amongst fellow employees. I wish Mike great success in the pursuit of a master’s degree in Sociology. Indeed, I respect Mike, who is destined to go far in life. And thanks to my nephew, Noah, who is my biggest inspiration of all. You will always be loved and remembered. v 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Homosexual persecution in Germany began in 1871 with the adoption of Paragraph 175, which lasted in West Germany until 1994 after reunification. Even though the penal code outlawed “lewd” sexual conduct between males, gays nevertheless enjoyed a sense of progress and liberty before Hitler’s rise to power. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries an emerging gay rights movement led to the creation of two schools that challenged Paragraph 175. While the first organization led by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld argued for a biological basis as the source of homosexuality, the latter movement under Adolf Brand tried to instill among Germans an appreciation for same-sex love through homoerotic art and literature. In 1929 a committee from the German Worker’s Party attempted to repeal Paragraph 175 to become replaced with a proposal for Paragraph 297, reducing the condemnation of homosexuality to the lesser criminalization of gay male prostitution. When the Nazis took control, however, Paragraph 175 became expanded so that the charges of inappropriate sexual relations could become prosecuted without valid proof. With the advent of new anti-homosexual regulations, the National Socialists disbanded the two-main gay rights organizations, and closed gay bars and clubs. With the elimination of the means for homosexual solidarity, gays needed to avoid detection or face deportation to concentration camps. If caught and 2 deported to these camps men charged with homosexuality became subject to medical experiments, “re-education,” torture, and many, but not all, ultimately perished. Almost three decades after the fall of the Third Reich few gay survivors stepped forward to give testimonies about their experiences, with Heinz Heger becoming one of the first to publish his memoir detailing concentration camp imprisonment as a homosexual in 1972. A decade later Heger’s work eventually inspired a second survivor named Pierre Seel to publish his memory of incarceration and subsequent military conscription in April of 1982. As late as 1999 a half-Jewish Holocaust survivor, Gad Beck, became one of the last known memoirists formerly persecuted under National Socialism for both homosexuality and antisemitism. Although they comparatively qualified among the so-called “forgotten victims” for the lacking amount of scholarly attention they received, the West German government following the Nazi era certainly did not forget the homosexual victims who lived and suffered its predecessor’s extermination campaign of perceived “undesirables.” With West Germany’s refusal to retract the Nazi version of Paragraph 175 until 1957, some of the previously condemned were thrown back into prison immediately after liberation of the concentration camps. This continued persecution made most homosexuals reluctant to come out and publicly discuss what happened to them due to the stigma of their sexual orientation. Social pressures also contributed to their feelings of shame beyond the discontinuation of the anti-homosexual statute. With the lack of eyewitness accounts from victimized gay men, historians of the late 1970s to the 1990s relied mainly on concentration camp records, letters and ordinances stemming from high ranking Nazis, and official government documents. 3 Due to the scarcity of firsthand accounts by homosexuals and witnesses, but with the availability of sources from top Nazi leaders and other official records, much of the scholarship regarding homosexuality and the Third Reich began with the events surrounding the murder of the early Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) paramilitary leader, Ernst Röhm. Most notable for his early contribution to the insight of Röhm’s murder was the late medical historian, sexologist, and gay rights advocate, Vern L. Bullough, who in 1979, wrote a survey of the history of homosexuality from Ancient Greece to the contemporary gay liberation movement up to the 1970s. Bullough maintained that Hitler initially tolerated homosexuality but ordered the murder of his loyal