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The Pink Swastika

Thom Hartmann wrote, "first Hitler came for queer people. A year before Nazis began attacking union leaders and socialists, a full five years before attacking Jewish-owned stores on Kristallnacht, the Nazis came for the trans people at the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin.

"In 1930 the Institute had pioneered the first gender-affirming surgery in modern Europe. It’s director, Magnus Hirschfeld, had compiled the largest library of books and scientific papers on the LGBTQ+ spectrum in the world and was internationally recognized in the field of sexual and gender studies.Being gay, lesbian, or trans was widely tolerated in Germany, at least in the big cities, when Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, and the German queer community was his first explicit target. Within weeks, the Nazis began a campaign to demonize queer people — with especially vitriolic attacks on trans people — across German media.

"German states put into law bans on gender-affirming care, drag shows, and any sort of “public display of deviance,” enforcing a long-moribund German law, Paragraph 175, first put into the nation’s penal code in 1871, that outlawed homosexuality. Books and magazines telling stories of gay men and lesbians were removed from schools and libraries.

"Thus, a mere five months after Hitler came to power, on May 6, 1933, Nazis showed up at the Institute and hauled over 20,000 books and manuscripts about gender and sexuality out in the street to burn, creating a massive bonfire. It was the first major Nazi book-burning and was celebrated with newsreels played in theaters across the nation. It wouldn’t be the last: soon it spread to the libraries and public high schools."

Homosexuality had long been common in the German army. At the beginning of the century, it became even a fashion, since the Kaiser himself (who was personally "not one of those") liked to surround himself with subjects whom he called "Byzantines" and valued their artistic abilities; among them were the ambassadors, one Prussian prince, several generals.

The persecution of homosexuals in the Third Reich, although it took place quite a specific way, but was not a phenomenon inherent only in National Socialism. Persecution of homosexuals took place long before 1933. Their traces can be found even in the early Middle Ages. In 1871, homosexuality became a criminal offense in Germany. This was stated in Article 175 of the Criminal Code of the German Empire. Relying on Nazi terminology, the Second Reich actively used both the police apparatus and justice to combat homosexuality.

Primarily gay men were persecuted, as the Nazis believed their inability to contribute to population growth was a threat to the state's ideology. Lesbian women were not as systematically targeted but could still face persecution for other reasons, such as being labeled "asocial." Between 1933 and 1945, approximately 100,000 men were arrested under Article 175, with around 50,000 convicted.

So the National Socialists started their homophobic policy far from scratch, they already had certain developments. Hitler and Himmler did not have to come up with new laws to regulate this issue. They did not need to create a specific mechanism for prosecution. The Nazis only had to come to power and carry out everything they actively propagated: the formation of society in accordance with popular ideals. Those who tried to resist this policy or wanted to avoid its influence were subjected to "eradication" or "re-education". The campaign against homosexuals was only an integral part of this political line. "Sanitary cleaning of the body of the people", "continuation of the family", "balance in the family" - were the slogans of this activity.

But still it was not enough to explain the readiness of society to fully support these extremist measures. At the beginning of the century, only narrow circles of lawyers, doctors and representatives of certain public organizations conducted discussions about the solution of the so-called "homosexual issue". At first glance, these people seemed strange oddballs. Moreover, given that during the Weimar Republic, the penalties for homosexuality were virtually abolished. But the way offered by lawyers and doctors did not take into account, even in part, the opinions of influential parties. And they demanded by no means a cancellation, but, on the contrary, a toughening of punishment on the 175th article of the Criminal Code. The proposals of the politicians were very different: isolate the "sex offenders" from society, subject them to compulsory treatment, or sterilize them.

In the Soviet Union there was a stereotype that Germany was the homeland of homosexuality, which was perceived by many as a German disease. The conclusion from this was the assertion that Nazism is the product of homosexuality. The most striking expression of this idea was found in Maxim Gorky's article "Proletarian Humanism," published in Pravda on May 23, 1934: "Not tens, but hundreds of facts speak of the destructive, disintegrating influence of fascism on the youth of Europe. To enumerate facts is disgusting, and memory refuses to be loaded with dirt, which the bourgeoisie is ever more diligently and abundantly fabricating. I point out, however, that in a country where the proletariat manages courageously and successfully, homosexuality that corrupts young people is recognized as socially criminal and punished, and in the "cultural country" of great philosophers, scientists, musicians, it acts freely and with impunity. There was already a sarcastic saying: "Destroy homosexuality - fascism will disappear!"

Hans Blucher in 1917 stressed that in the "unions of men" there was always a homoerotic element of the relationship. During the First World War, heroism and the cult of the "union of men" associated with it got a second wind and reached its culmination in the era of the Third Reich. Just like during the Renaissance and Napoleon, superhuman efforts became the object of inspiration, which basically had a hidden homoerotic subtext.

The generation that survived the First World War "deliberately abandoned the civil form of love" and chose a new orientation for itself. A grown-up cult of a man "did not need a beautiful woman as an object of adoration", he stylized the "borderline situation of open military violence as an orgasmic and sexual manifestation."

It is no exaggeration to say that the most famous homosexual of the Third Reich was Ernst Röhm, the chief of the SA. For the sake of some brazen bravado, Röhm selected young men of rare physical beauty in his retinue. His entourage, not excluding the chauffeur and batman, was homosexual. In their essence, the NSDAP, SS, SA and Hitler Youth were classic "male unions". In the opinion of the National Socialists, in the case of the SA, the problems of private life and the moral attitudes of individual storm troopers gradually turned into social and even political problems.

The paradox was that the Nazi programmatic declaration during the election campaign of 1928 said: "Those who admit love between men or between women are our enemies, because such behavior weakens the nation and deprives it of courage." Of course, Hitler knew about the homosexuality of the leader of the storm troopers, but while he was needed, he defended him against the attacks of the anti-fascist press, saying: "His private life does not interest me."

The brutality with which the massacre took place on June 30, 1934, was justified by the National Socialist press as the necessity of harshly suppressing homosexuality. After suppressing the "coup of Röhm", the brown elite realized perfectly well how easy it is to neutralize political opponents if they are accused of homosexuality. Two years later, the Nazi regime in the same way tried to break the resistance of the Catholic Church.

After the "coup of Röhm", the public began to have the impression that this youth organization was almost a "homosexual incubator". Parents refused to send their children to the "Hitler Youth", preferring other youth organizations. 1936 was a turning point in the issue of persecution of homosexuals. If in 1934, according to Article 175, only 1,000 people were convicted, then two years later it passed 5.5 times more. In 1938, statistics showed almost 9 thousand criminal trials.

With the Gestapo, special teams were created that were supposed to liquidate the "hotbeds of the epidemic" in schools, boarding schools and other places. Denunciations began to flow into the secret political police. Like the "crystal night", which became a moral precedent for the extermination of Jews, the Nazis needed something similar to deal with homosexuals.

In June 1920 Rudlolph Hess joined the NSDAP and took part in the unsuccessful coup de etat on 9th November 1923 in Munich, which had the aim to overthrow the Bavarian government. Together with Adolf Hitler he was imprisoned at Landsberg prison when they were locked up together for about six months. Hess had a very romanticised and emotional attachment to Hitler.

On his release from prison he became Hitler's private secretary and accompanied him on most of his political travels throughout Germany. When the Nazis came into power, in 1933, he was elevated to the rank of a minister and became a member of Hitler's cabinet and at the same time became Hitler's dedicated deputy.

In one of the most startling events of WWII Rudolf Hess made his famous solo airplane flight in a ME 110 to Scotland and arrived unexpectedly in May 1941. On landing he was immediately taken as a prisoner of war by the British, but he demanded to see the Marquess of Clydesdale. Hess claimed his mission was to seek a peace between Germany and Britain so that jointly they could wage war against the Soviet Union. The relationship between Hitler and Hess was so close and intimate that one can logically assume that Hess would not have undertaken such an important step in the middle of a war without first informing Hitler.

There is ample evidence that Rudolf Hess, Hitler´s deputy in the Nazi party, was gay. Hitler forced him to marry. Hitler was closely associated with Ernst Rohm and Rudolf Hess, two homosexuals who were among the very few people with whom he used the familiar du. But one cannot conclude that he therefore shared his friends sexual tastes. Hess was known for his dress-up attire as “Black Bertha” in the gay bars of pre-war Berlin.

In 1936, the Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion was established to prevent acts that lowered the birth rate. Commenting on German developments, the New York Times (September 15, 1935) reported: "'Perfect Man' Aim of Nazi Eugenists."

The European Jews were the primary victims of the Nazis. In 1933 nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed. But Jews were not the only group singled out for persecution by Hitler's Nazi regime. One-half million Gypsies, 250,000 mentally or physically disabled persons, and more than three million Soviet prisoners-of-war also fell victim to Nazi genocide. Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, partisans, trade unionists, and Polish intelligentsia were also victims of the hate and aggression carried out by the Nazis.

The exact number of homosexual individuals killed during the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler's regime is not definitively known, but estimates suggest that between 5,000 and 15,000 homosexual men were sent to concentration camps. Many of them were marked with the pink triangle badge, a symbol now reclaimed by the LGBTQ+ rights movement. The mortality rate for homosexual men in concentration camps was particularly high, with estimates suggesting that up to 60% of those imprisoned under this category died due to harsh treatment, forced labor, starvation, and executions. While the suffering of homosexual individuals under the Nazi regime is an essential part of Holocaust history, the total number is a fraction of the broader atrocities committed, which claimed the lives of 6 million Jews and millions of others, including Romani people, disabled individuals, political dissidents, and more.