Death penalty for homosexual offenders

Himmler remained adamant that harsh punishment should be meted out to presumed homosexuals, as a deterrent to spreading this "plague." It is virtually certain that Himmler himself was behind the November 1941 introduction of a mandatory death penalty for homosexual offenses in the ranks of the police and the SS. Hitler promptly and decisively sabotaged the full thrust of the ordinance, which was quite evidently one of deterrence by means of the threat of the death sentence, at the moment he signed it.

He told Hans-Heinrich Lammers, the head of the Reich Chancellery, that it should on no account be made public, either in the press or any official gazette, because its release would give the whole world the impression that homosexual offenses were so prevalent in the SS and police that "such draconian measures" were positively required to bring the problem under control.

Whereupon Lammers very sensibly pointed out that potential offenders needed to know in advance that the death penalty awaited them. Why would they be more readily deterred from the crime if they did not know that the law now treated it as a capital offense? Hitler's response was that this was Himmler's problem. He could figure out how to get the message across to all current and future SS and police members "in an appropriate fashion."

Himmler's solution was that all SS men were now meant to sign a declaration, confirming that this delicate question had been explained adequately to them, and that they would not engage in any such acts. The form would be kept in their personnel file, and brandished at them if they later claimed ignorance. The statement read:

I have been instructed that the Führer has decreed in his order of 15 November 1941, in order to keep the SS and the police clean of all vermin of a homosexual nature, that a member of the SS or police who commits an indecent act with another man, or allows himself to be indecently abused by him, will be put to death without consideration of his age.

Hitler's 1941 decree itself was meant to be read out in full to the SS man at the time of signing. He was also ordered to report any "immoral advances" even if they involved a superior officer (which in a sense broke his SS oath of unswerving loyalty and absolute obedience). The existence of so few of these forms in personnel files suggests that this was far from standard procedure. Several SS NCOs later charged with homosexuality claimed quite plausibly never to have heard of the Führer's order in the first place.[...]

While it may be true that the warnings about homosexuality were not always read out as prescribed in some Nazi organizations, it can hardly have escaped the notice of a single policeman in Germany that homosexuality was a serious offense. But again one has to wonder whether the ordinary policeman on the beat knew about the subtleties of the vague law as interpreted by the Supreme Court in 1935, a change that thereafter made mere mutual masturbation punishable with a prison sentence.

Source: Why bother about homosexuals? Homophobia and Sexual Politics in Nazi Germany, Geoffrey J. Giles, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., August 2002.

The Destruction of the Hirschfeld Sexual Science Institute

A reliable witness who, although not himself attached to the Institute, was able to see and hear exactly what occurred, has made the following deposition as to the destruction of this scientific institute, which is known throughout the world:

“On the morning of May 6th, the Berliner Lokalanzeiger reported that the cleansing of Berlin libraries of books of un-German spirit would be begun that morning, and that the students of the Gymnastic Academy would make a start with the Sexual Science Institute. This institute was founded by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld in 1918, in the house formerly occupied by Prince Hatzfeld, and was shortly afterwards taken over by the Prussian Government as an institution of public importance. Its unique collection of exhibits, its research work, its archives and its library won for it an international reputation and international connections. Many foreign scientists, doctors and writers came to Berlin for the purpose of working at the institute.

“On the publication of the press notice referred to, an attempt was made to remove for safe-keeping some of the most valuable private books and manuscripts; but this proved to be impossible, as the person removing the books was arrested by a guard which had evidently been placed round the institute during the night. At 9:30 a.m. some lorries drew up in front of the institute with about one hundred students and a brass band. They drew up in military formation in front of the institute, and then marched into the building with their band playing. As the office was not yet open, there was no responsible person there; there were only a few women and one man. The students demanded admittance to every room, and broke in doors of those which were closed, including the office of the World League for Sexual Reform. When they found that there was not much to be had in the lower rooms, they made their way up to the first floor, where they emptied the ink bottles over the manuscripts and carpets and then made for the book-cases. They took away whatever they thought was not completely unobjectionable, working for the most part on the basis of the so-called ‘black list.' But they went beyond this, and took other books also, including for example a large work on Tutankhamen and a number of art journals which they found among the secretary's private books. They then removed from the archives the large charts dealing with intersexual cases, which had been prepared for the International Medical Congress held at the Kensington Museum in London in 1913. They threw most of these charts through the windows to their comrades who were standing outside.

“They removed from the walls other drawings and photographs of special types and kicked them around the room, leaving it strewn with torn drawings and broken glass. When one of the students pointed out that this was medical material, another replied that it was of no importance, that they were not concerned with the confiscation of a few books and pictures, but that they were there to destroy the Institute. A long speech was then made, and a life-sized model showing the internal secretion process was thrown out the window and smashed to pieces. In one of the consulting rooms they used a mop to smash a pantostat used in the treatment of patients. They also took away a bronze bust of Dr. Hirschfeld, and a number of other statues. On the first occasion they only seized a few hundred books out of the library of the Institute.

“The staff was kept under observation during the whole of the proceedings, and the band played throughout, so that a large crowd of inquisitive people gathered outside. At 12 o'clock the leader made a long speech, and then the gang left, singing a particularly vulgar song and also the Horst-Wessel song.

“The people in the Institute assumed that this concluded the robbery proceedings, but at three o'clock in the afternoon a number of lorries filled with storm troopers appeared and explained that they would have to continue the work of confiscation, as the men who had been there in the morning had not had time to make a proper clearance. This second troop then proceeded to make a careful search through every room, taking down to the lorries basket after basket of valuable books and manuscripts -- two lorry-loads in all. It was clear from the oaths used that the names of the authors whose books were in this special library were well known to the students. Sigmund Freud, whose photograph they took from the staircase and carried off, was called ‘that Jewish sow Freud'; Havelock Ellis was called ‘that swine.' Other English authors wanted by them were Oscar Wilde, Edward Carpenter and Norman Haire; and also the works of Judge Lindsay, the American juvenile judge, Margaret Sanger, and George Silvester Viereck; and of French writers, the works of André Gide, Marcel Proust, Pierre Loti, Zola, etc. The sight of the works of the Danish doctor Leunbach also made them break out into oaths. Many bound volumes of periodicals were also removed. They also wanted to take away several thousand questionnaires which were among the records, but desisted when they were assured that these were simply medical histories. On the other hand, it did not prove possible to dissuade them from removing the materials belonging to the World League for Sexual Reform, the whole edition of the journal Sexus and the card index. In addition, a great many manuscripts, including unpublished ones, fell into their hands.

“They repeatedly enquired when Dr. Hirschfeld would be returning; they wanted, as they expressed it, to be given the tip as to when he would be there. Even before the raid on the Institute, storm troopers had visited it on several occasions and asked for Dr. Hirschfeld. When they were told that he was abroad, owing to an attack of malaria, they replied: ‘Then let's hope he'll die without our aid: then we shan't have to hang him or beat him to death.'

“On May 7th, the Berlin and foreign press reported the attack on the Sexual Science Institute, and the Executive Committee of the World League for Sexual Reform sent a telegraph of protest, pointing out that a considerable portion of the material was foreign property, and asking that it should at least not be burnt. No attention was paid to this telegram, which was addressed to the Minister of Education, and three days later all the books and photographs, together with a large number of other works, were burnt on the Opera square. More than ten thousand volumes from the special library of the Institute were destroyed. The students carried Dr. Hirschfeld's bust in their torchlight procession and threw it on the fire.”

The Nazi report described this “deed of culture” in the following terms:

Energetic Action Against a Poison Shop

German Students Fumigate the Sexual Science Institute

Detachment X of the German student organization yesterday occupied the ‘Sexual Science Institute,' which was controlled by the Jew Magnus Hirschfeld. This institute, which tried to shelter behind a scientific cloak and was always protected during the fourteen years of Marxist rule by the authorities of that period, was an unparalleled breeding-ground of dirt and filth, as the results of the search have proved beyond question. A whole lorry-load of pornographic pictures and writings as well as documents and registers have been confiscated.... The criminal police will have to deal with a part of the material found; another part of it will be publicly burnt.”-- (Angriff , May 6th, 1933.)

Source: The Brown Book of the Hitler Terror and the Burning of the Reichstag, Prepared by the World Committee for the Victims of German Fascism (London, Victor Gollancz, 1933), pp. 165-169.

Pictures: "Students and a brass band drew up in military formation in front of Dr.Hirschfeld's institute, then marched into the building with their band playing."

L'homosexualité : un crime social

L'idée largement européenne d'un retour à la nature, celle d'une liberté loin des usines et du carnage de 1914-1918 ont également fait leur chemin jusqu'à Saint-Pétersbourg. L'Europe "qui bouge" en ce début de XXe siècle, et qui souhaite socialement et culturellement bouleverser la culture et revendiquer les mêmes modernités, passe moins par des interpellations populaires que par l'influence des milieux culturels au fait de l'évolution des espaces de liberté dans les capitales européennes.

Outrance héroïque de la liberté, dès 1917 et jusqu'en 1923, des manifestations révolutionnaires ont lieu, où des marcheurs et des marcheuses se dénudent pour défiler en tenue d'Adam et Eve, pour dire la simple vérité des corps. Des militants nudistes d'il y a un siècle surgissent de la sorte, en pleine rue à Moscou mais aussi à Petrograd, à Odessa ou à Saratov. Comme le commente Alain Sanzio : "Les manifestants s'y dévêtaient de toutes les hardes de l'ancien régime : haillons élimés des pauvres, oripeaux clinquants des nobles, ils jetaient aux quatre vents les popes, les Raspoutine, les corvées, la famille ancestrale, l'asservissement domestique des femmes." Pris de vertige, Lénine bloque, ne comprend plus, s'emporte. Il écrit en 1920 : "La révolution ne tolère pas de débordements orgiaques comme ceux qui sont chose normale pour les héroïnes et les héros décadents de d'Annunzio. Le dérèglement de la vie sexuelle est bourgeois, c'est une manifestation de la décadence (1)."

Une chape de plomb va vite retomber sur ce peuple en effervescence. Critique sur l'évolution des événements, Léon Trotski note dans La Révolution trahie : "Le motif le plus impérieux du culte actuel de la famille est sans nul doute le besoin qu'éprouve la bureaucratie d'une stable hiérarchie des rapports sociaux, et d'une jeunesse disciplinée par quarante millions de foyers servant d'appui à l'autorité et au pouvoir." Va être rétablie la répression homosexuelle et réhabilitée la version gréco-latine de la décadence par l'homosexualité, un mythe désormais partagé par Adolf Hitler et Joseph Staline. L'homosexualité signerait donc la fin des civilisations les plus emblématiques. La faiblesse théorique en la matière de la part des artisans d'un monde nouveau n'y résistera pas. Complice de ces amalgames, dans son célèbre ouvrage L'Origine de la famille, de la propriété privée et de l'Etat, Friedrich Engels expédie la question en deux ligne définitives, invoquant l'antique civilisation gréco-latine : "L'avilissement des femmes eut sa revanche dans celui des hommes, jusqu'à les faire tomber dans la pratique répugnante de la pédérastie, se déshonorant eux-mêmes et déshonorant leurs dieux (2)".

En 1933, l'homosexualité redevient un crime. Deux ans plus tard, l'avortement est à nouveau interdit, la famille réhabilitée. Le crime d'homosexualité se paie désormais d'environ cinq ans d'internement (3). Comme, depuis un décret du 27 juin 1929, tous les détenus condamnés à des peines supérieures à trois ans sont automatiquement transférés dans les camps de travail, les homosexuels "dépravés" rejoignent à la suite de gigantesques rafles les autres victimes des purges. Ils y retrouvent les artistes dissidents et leurs amis, les femmes trop libres ou les artistes trop impudiques, sans parler d'une jeunesse trop sensible aux choix culturels d'une vie urbaine influencée par les orientations "perverses et bourgeoises" d'un Occident jugé par trop "décadent". Contrairement à une idée convenue, ces purges des années trente sont majoritairement dirigées contre ceux et celles qui ont adopté des valeurs culturelles et des modes de vie contraires à la "nouvelle société". Les politiques y sont très largement minoritaires. Comme le note Nicolas Werth, les "contre-révolutionnaires" ne représentent que 28% des détenus entre 1936 et 1939 (4). Les autres sont des citoyens ordinaires, simplement allergiques aux nouvelles conditions de travail ou au contrôle social des comportements.

Quant à Joseph Staline, il n'a pas bougé quand Adolf Hitler a déporté en priorité les membres du Parti communiste allemand. Par contre, sur le dossier homosexuel, ils se sont retrouvés. Il est loin le temps de la grande encyclopédie soviétique de 1930 qui remarquait : "Il faudrait résorber l'isolement des homosexuels dans une nouvelle collectivité." Apologue de "l'humanisme prolétarien" et chantre d'un régime qui se durcit de toutes parts, l'écrivain officiel Maxime Gorki fait un état des lieux concernant la jeunesse soviétique en 1937 : "Ce n'est pas par dizaines mais par centaines que l'on peut compter les faits confirmant l'influence destructrice et corruptrice du fascisme sur la jeunesse de l'Europe. Il est répugnant de citer tous les faits dans lesquels la bourgeoisie patauge de plus en plus volontiers. D'ailleurs, la mémoire se refuse à plonger dans cette boue." Après un couplet sur son antifascisme et son aversion pour l'antisémitisme, Gorki se fait soudainement saignant sur les homosexuels : "Dans les pays fascistes, l'homosexualité, ruineuse pour la jeunesse, fleurit partout impunément." On croit entendre Heinrich Himmler. Les homosexuels se retrouvent à nouveau dans le rôle du paillasson de l'Histoire. Satisfait de son analyse, Maxime Gorki conclut : "Dans les pays où le prolétariat s'est hardiment emparé du pouvoir, l'homosexualité a été déclarée crime social et sévèrement punie. Une histoire humoristique dit : "Exterminez les homosexuels, et le fascisme disparaîtra"." (5)

(1) Histoire de l'Homosexualité en Europe, Florence Tamagne, Seuil, Paris, 2000. (2) F. Engels, Editions sociales, 1971. (3) Une loi fédérale du 17 décembre 1933 fixe la réclusion pour homosexualité entre trois et huit ans. (4) Les Années de Tourmente, de Munich à Prague, Nicolas Werth, Flammarion, Paris, 1995. (5) Gai Pied, été 1980, dossier sur l'URSS.

Illustrations : (en haut, à gauche) Lénine ; (au milieu) Joseph Staline ; (en bas, à gauche) l'écrivain Maxime Gorki.

Texte : Les Oubliés de la Mémoire, Jean Le Bitoux, Hachette Littératures, Paris, 2002.