L'appartenance réelle ou supposée au troisième sexe

Nous avons été d'autant plus surpris de lire voici quelque temps, dans ce même journal [Il Borghese], un article d'Eugenio Dollman intitulé "Le triangle rose" où, après avoir rappelé quelques affaires d'homosexualité en Suisse et critiqué la condamnation à dix mois de prison prononcée contre un certain Rinaldi, italien, qui avait étouffé son "corrupteur", après avoir noté qu'il semble que l'on veuiller noyer "le troisième sexe" dans un mer de sang, il met en relief, à propos de l'affaire de Sir Jan-Douglas Harvey, la tendance à briser la carrière de ceux qui pratiquent des amours non-conformistes. "Alfred Krupp, fils du roi des canons, fut conduit à un suicide prématuré par une campagne sans précédent partie de Capri et menée, en style de chantage, par un journaliste napolitain. La social-démocratie allemande saisit au bond l'affaire et, après avoir monstrueusement déformé les faits, utilisa pour ses fins démagogiques l'envers du décor érotique du capitaliste Krupp à Capri".

Le Troisième Reich à son tour se servit impitoyablement de l'homosexualité, réelle ou supposée, dans sa lutte pour le pouvoir. On cite le cas du général-baron Von Fritsch, qui est l'un des chapitres les plus troubles et les plus honteux des temps du règne nazi. Ce général était le dernier obstacle que l'Armée opposait aux prétentions de Hitler de devenir l'unique commandant en chef. C'était un personnage gênant, et Himmler et Goering ne négligèrent rien pour le rendre suspect à Hitler et pour le faire éliminer.

Comme jadis pour Krupp, on se servit du fait que le général appartenait au "troisième sexe". On s'assura le concours d'un repris de justice, qui soutint avoir eu des rapports intimes avec Von Fritsch (voir également texte contradictoire sur von Fritsch de John Toland sur ce site). Malgré la parole d'honneur du général et un procédure menée aussitôt par Goering, qui conclut en le lavant de toute accusation, malgré une scène dramatique avec Hitler, la démission de Von Fritsch était inévitable. Sa "réhabilitation" ultérieure, grâce à laquelle il fut appelé à commander à la suite son ancien régiment d'artillerie, ne modifia pas beaucoup les choses. Le Troisième Reich s'était servi, avec succès, de la diffamation sur l'appartenance, réelle ou peut-être seulement inventée, au "troisième sexe".

Dès lors, la R.S.H.A. (la Gestapo commandée par Heydrich) employa sans retenue cette arme contre ses ennemis internes et externes. Ces malheureux avaient, dans les camps de concentration, un quartier particulier et portaient, cousu au bras, un triangle rose. Le meilleur expert en la matière, le professeur Kogon, écrit à ce propos dans son livre L'Etat SS : "Contre les homosexuels, les SS procédaient comme contre les juifs, probablement parce que l'homosexualité, au début, était très répandue dans les milieux militaires prussiens et, ensuite, dans les SA et les SS, de sorte qu'il fallait la proscrire et l'exterminer sans pitié." Himmler n'hésita pas à faire "liquider" ainsi son propre neveu Hans Himmler au camp de Dachau.

Et Hitler ? Les bruits selon lesquels le futur Führer dans ses années de famine à Vienne, aurait été en contacts trop étroits avec le problème du "troisième sexe", ne sont pas encore apaisés. Et l'on ne peut pas continuer à nier que Hitler était exactement informé de l'appartenance indéniable à cette "association" de son chef d'état-major des SA, le lieutenant-colonel Röhm, mais qu'il ne se servit de cet argument contre lui que lorsque Röhm, avec ses ambitions personnelles, devint trop dangereux.


Source : Nouvelles d'Italie, Maurizio Bellotti, Arcadie, no. 71 (novembre 1959), p. 644-646.

Photo : Carte postale représentant Ernst Röhm lors d'un rassemblement à Dortmund en 1933 (orig : USHM)

The stepping up of prosecutions

With the support of new legal definitions of crime, a tightly knit national police and security apparatus, and a public opinion manipulated by propaganda and demagogy, the rate of prosecutions greatly increased after 1936. Whereas just a thousand people were convicted in 1934, there were already 5,310 in 1936.

Two years later, the statistics referred to 8,562 legally valid convictions. The police and prosecution departments, in the words of a regular commentary on crime figures, acted 'with ever growing vigour' against 'these moral aberrations which are so harmful to the strength of the Volk. And Prosecutor-General Wagner stressed what one could not have expected to be otherwise after all the investment in propaganda and police searches: 'the public, through its increased level of reporting, also [supports...] the fight against these offenses. Broadly speaking, no more homosexual acts were committed [ ...] than before, but they were recorded and prosecuted on a much larger scale than before.

Whereas between 1931 and 1933 a total of 2,319 persons were put on trial and found guilty of offences under §l75 of the Penal Code, this figure rose nearly tenfold in the first three years after the tougher redefinition of offenses. In the years from 1936 to 1938 the number convicted came to 22,143. No reliable data are available for the war years after 1943, so that the total number of convictions for homosexuality in the 'Third Reich' can only be estimated - roughly 50,000 men according to Wuttke. But the Gestapo or the Reich Office had considerably more on record as suspects or as presumed partners. Between 1937 and 1940 there were more than 90,000 men and youths.

Alongside this numerical increase there was also a qualitative toughening of prosecution policy. After 1933 the number of acquittals continually declined and by 1936 was down to a mere quarter of the figure for 1918 (the year with the most verdicts of 'not guilty'). The same trend is apparent in the fines handed down by courts, in comparison with which there was a marked increase in sentences of imprisonment or penal servitude. Men with previous convictions were treated with particular severity - above all so-called corrupters of youth, but also young men considered to be 'rentboys'.

At the instigation of the Reich Offfice special mobile units of the Gestapo carried out operations in a number of towns. The reasons could be quite varied: from the eradication of 'centres of the epidemic' in day or boarding schools to denunciations with a real or alleged political background.

There is no evidence of a sudden nation-wide 'clampdown' comparable to the attacks on Jews in the pogrom night of 1938. But the offensive was certainly coordinated in a number of ways. This was particularly true of actions with a clear political motivation: e.g., the arrests of thousands of priests, religions brothers and lay persons during the staged 'cloister trials' against the Catholic Church or the targeting of the activities of the Bund Youth that had already been banned in 1934, where special prominence was given to the trial of the Nerother Wandervogel in 1936.

The ultimately arbitrary nature of the Nazis' practice, especially that of Heinrich Himmler as architect of their anti-homosexual policy, is illustrated by the special regulation approved in October 1937 for actors and artists. Under the pretext of 'Reichization'- that is, of applying uniform norms throughout the Reich - the rules on preventive detention and police supervision that had been issued three years before were made tougher still at the end of 1937.

Now anyone who fitted the completely arbitrary criteria for an 'experienced' or 'habitual' male homosexual had to reckon that, after serving his term of imprisonment or penal servitude, he would be deported for 're-education' in a concentration camp.

Source: Hidden Holocaust ?, Günter Grau, Cassell, 1995. Translated from German by Patrick Camiller.

"Protective custody" and "Preventive custody" for homosexuals

Homosexuals in the Third Reich were persecuted with particular vehemence and way beyond the existing provisions of the criminal law code. They were not only subject to "protective custody" but to "preventive custody" as well. Both led to imprisonment in a concentration camp. Male homosexuality was seen as a threat to the "people's community" (Volkgemeinschaft) and was incompatible with the principles of racial population policies. The widespread prejudices against homosexuality were also used by the National Socialist leadership for propaganda purposes: in 1934, when Röhm was murdered; in 1936/1937, during the staged "moral trials" of Catholic priests and members of the religious orders; and in 1938 when General von Fritsch was deprived of his high command of the Army.

In 1936, a "Central Reich Agency to fight Homosexuality and Abortion" was established in the Prussian State Office of the Criminal Police; and as early as 1934, a "Special Department for Homosexuality" had been created within the Secret State Police Office. From 1939 on, both institutions belonged to the Reich Security Main Office. In 1935, Article 175 of the criminal code was expanded, with more severe provisions added to it. Thousands of homosexuals -- there are no precise figures -- were imprisoned in concentration camps. These "men with the pink triangle" were subject to special harassment on the part of the guards; their death rate was markedly higher than that of other categories of prisoners.


A report of March 11, 1935 by SS First Lieutenant Carl Marks, pertaining to a raid made by Gestapo and SS on homosexuals in Berlin.

Carl Marks SS First Lieutenant Liebstandarte SS Adolf Hitler 11th Company [Sturm] Berlin-Lichterfelde, March 11, 1935 Report! On March 9, 1935 the company under my command provided 20 men for a commando to support officers of the Gestapo during a raid on homosexuals. The commando departed from the barracks in two trucks at 9:15 p.m and reported as ordered to Chief Inspector Kanthak at 10 p.m. In addition to our commando, 10 to 12 police officers had been assigned to participate in the raid. Some of them were appointed to make sure beforehand that the execution [of the raid] would proceed as planned. A few of them returned before our deployment began. Meanwhile Chief Inspector Kanthak briefed me on the operation. At 10:45 p.m. we departed from Gestapo headquarters and rode in several trucks to the restaurant "Weinmeister Klause" on Weinmeisterstrasse where many persons with homosexual tendencies were believed to hang out. According to prior arrangements, two of our men sealed off the exits of the restaurant; they had been given orders not to allow anybody to leave but to admit everybody who wanted to come in. Eight men, previously designated, blocked off the space in front the bar from the other part of the restaurant. Two men searched the toilets. Chief inspector K. and his officers removed all suspicious looking persons from the tables and ordered them to join those who had been previously told to line up in front of the bar. Then they were loaded onto the trucks and, guarded by our men, were taken to Gestapo headquarters. Among those arrested was also a woman who was said to in posession of inflammatory Soviet-Russian pamphlets. From the courtyard of the Gestapo headquarters those arrested were taken, again under guard, to the hallway on the fourth floor and to the sections that handled such cases. Here they had to line up in alphabetical order and guarded by our men, with their faces to the wall, wait for their interrogation. The interrogation began at once, conducted by most of the previously mentioned police officers. After these men had been interrogated they were moved to another part of the hallway where they had to wait for the decisions regarding their guilt or innocence. Once the interrogation of those first arrested had started, Chief Inspector K. and some of his men not immediately needed for interrogations resumed the raid, accompanied by the rest of our men.
[...]


Joseph Meisinger (1899-1947), around 1940. Joseph Meisinger, a Bavarian Criminal Police official, worked from 1934 on in the Secret State Police Office in Berlin. His special assignment was to monitor activities within the National Socialist Party and its various organizations (for example corruption). In addition, he was also in charge of Section II S, which handled homosexual matters, and from 1936 on headed the "Central Reich Agency to fight Homosexuality and Abortion". In 1939 he became Deputy Commander of Special Unit IV, and in April 1940 was appointed Commander of Security Police and Security Service in Warsaw. In October 1940 he was assigned in Tokyo as a police attaché. There he was arrested by the Americans in 1945, was extradited to Poland in 1946 and executed in Warsaw in 1947 because of crimes he committed while commanding the Security Police there.

The Secret State Police Office (Gestapo)

Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8, April 26, 1933, Prime Minister Hermann Göring set up the "Secret State Police Office". Separated from the general police force and re-established as an independent agency, the Secret State Police was soon removed from the Ministry for Home Affairs and made directly answerable to the Prime Minister. As of May 1933, the Secret State Police Office was located at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8. The establishment of State Police branch offices throughout the Prussian government districts was directed from here. Having gradually taken charge of almost all of the political police forces in the non-Prussian states, in April 1934, Heinrich Himmler became "Inspector" and thus the de facto head of the Secret State Police. He appointed Reinhard Heydrich head of the Secret State Police in Berlin.

Following his appointment as "Chief of the German Police" on June 17, 1936, Himmler re-organised the entire police force. The Security Police Main Office now comprised the Gestapo and the Criminal Investigation Division (Head: Reinhard Heydrich); the Order Police comprised the municipal, rural and local police forces (Head: Kurt Daluege).

In 1933, between two and three hundred people worked for the Secret State Police Office; by 1942, the agency employed more than 1,100 people, 477 of whom were working directly on the Prinz Albrecht Terrain.


Source: Topography of Terror - Gestapo, SS and Reichssicherheithauptamt on the "Prinz-Albrecht-Terrain" - A documentation, edited by Reinhard Rürup, Verlag Willmuth Arenhövel, 1989. Translated from German by W.T. Angress.

Click here to visit the Website of the Prinz-Albrecht-Terrain Memorial in Berlin.

Denunciations, arrests and convictions

The police work of tracking down suspected homosexuals depended largely on denunciations from ordinary citizens. Nazi propaganda that labeled homosexuals "antisocial parasites" and "enemies of the state" inflamed already existing prejudices. Citizens turned in men, often on the flimsiest evidence, for as many reasons as there were denunciations. Reflecting on the dramatic rise of legal proceedings against homosexuals since 1933, Josef Meisinger of the Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion proudly remarked in April 1937: "We must naturally also take into account the greater public readiness to report [homosexuality] as a result of National Socialist education."

Acting on the basis of these informants, the Gestapo and Criminal Police arbitrarily seized and questioned suspects as well as possible corroborating witnesses. Those denounced were often forced to give up names of friends and acquaintances, thereby becoming informants themselves. Where criminal proceedings once required a proved act, now a suggestive accusation sufficed.

During the Nazi era, some 100,000 men were arrested on violations of Paragraph 175. Of these, nearly 78,000 were arrested during the three years between Heinrich Himmler's appointment as chief of German police in 1936 and the outbreak of World War II in 1939. The Gestapo and Criminal Police worked in tandem, occasionally in massive sweeps but more often as follow–up to individual denunciations.

Most victims were from the working class. Less able to afford private apartments or homes, they found partners in semi–public places that put them at greater risk of discovery, including by police entrapment.

As reports of the massive arrests spread, mostly by word of mouth, a pervasive atmosphere of fear enveloped Germany's homosexuals. Just as the state desired, the physical repression of a minority of homosexual men served to limit activities of the vast majority.

Of the estimated 100,000 men arrested under Paragraph 175 between 1933 and 1945, half were convicted of violating the law. Just as arrests rose precipitously after the 1935 revision of Paragraph 175, so, too, did conviction rates, reaching more than ten times those of the last years of the Weimar Republic and peaking at more than 8,500 in 1938. Prison sentences, the most common punishment in the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, varied with the sexual act involved and the individual's prior history.

For many, imprisonment meant hard labor, part of the Nazi "re–education" program. Conditions in German prisons, penitentiaries, and penal camps were notoriously wretched, and those incarcerated under Paragraph 175 faced both the brutality of the guards and the hatred of their fellow inmates.

In a small number of cases, medical experts testified that some homosexuality constituted a serious mental illness and danger to society. Under Paragraph 42b of the Reich Criminal Code, some men were institutionalized, a fate that could have disastrous consequences (including death) during the war.

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Online Exhibition

Pictures: (left) A couple photographed in Berlin in 1926; (top) mug shot of Ernst Lieder, a Berlin bartender held in protective custody in 1933 for violating Paragraph 175.

Police bans, raids and arrests: 1933 to 1935

A few days after the Reichstag Fire (27 February 1933), the Prussian Minister of the Interior issued three decrees for the combating of public indecency. The first was directed against prostitution and venereal diseases. The second concerned the closure of bars which 'are misused for the furtherance of public indecency'. Included in this definition were public houses solely or mainly frequented by persons who engage in unnatural sex acts', and proceedings were to be immediately started to revoke their licence. The third decree prohibited kiosks and magazine stands, in hire libraries and bookshops, from trading in books or other publications which, 'whether because they include nude illustrations or because of their title or contents, are liable to produce erotic effects in the beholder'- the penalty being a fine, revocation of the hire agreement or withdrawal of the trading licence.

Although neither those affected nor the public at large were initially aware of it, these decrees already betokened a policy that would assume a clearer shape over the following months and years: a policy of arbitrary measures designed to deter and to eradicate through terror, and of coercive measures to cure the 'scourge' of homosexuality.

In the next few months, most of the bars known as meeting-places for homosexual men and women were closed down in all the big towns of Germany.

The few which escaped for whatever reason would later serve the police and the Gestapo as places where the 'scene', and what was considered as such, could be more easily kept under observation. Public and hire libraries and bookshops were purged of writings that now counted as 'indecent'- in effect, all literary, popular and scientific works published since the turn of the century, and especially since the First World War, which dealt with the theme of homosexuality and 'the love without a name'. Magazines of the homosexual liberation movement - for example, Blätter für Menschenrecht, Die Insel or Der Kreis - had to abandon publication. Publishing houses such as Adolf Brand's (which printed Der Eigene, among others) underwent searches and had part of their stock confiscated, so that in the end there remained nothing other than bankruptcy.

On 6 May 1933 Magnus Hirschfeld's Sexual Science Institute, renowned well beyond the limits of Berlin, was destroyed, and on 10 May Hirschfeld's writings were publicly burned together with those of Moll, Ellis, Freud and many others. The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, the political organization which had fought since 1897 to repeal §l75 of the Penal Code, was forced to give up its work.

A year later, in February 1934, followed the edicts of the Prussian Minister of the Interior on the preventive detention of 'professional criminals' and the regular surveillance of those still 'running free', as it put it. The concepts of professional criminal and habitual sex offender were arbitrarily defined and then reintroduced into legal terminology.

The ensuing operations especially affected homosexual paedophile men, a category which before 1933 had accounted for the majority of those sentenced under sections 174 to 176 of the Penal Code. In the second half of 1934, allegedly in connection with the events surrounding the so-called Röhm Putsch, a special section was set up at Gestapo Headquarters to deal with cases involving homosexuality. At the end of the year all Regional Criminal Police Bureaux were asked for lists of persons who had been homosexually active in the past, especial interest being expressed in their membership of Nazi organizations. lt has not so far been possible to ascertain whether and to what extent this registration served as the foundation for nation-wide actions against homosexual men.

In Berlin a number of pubs were raided in March 1935. According to a tabular survey drawn up for the Reichsführer-SS, 413 of the 1770 men held in 'preventive detention' were identified in June 1935 as 'homosexuals', 325 of them interned in the infamous concentration camp al Lichtenburg. The brutal proceedings led four gay men to turn for help to Reich Bishop Müller and General Keitel, while remaining anonymous for fear of the consequences. Parallel to these drastic arbitrary measures devoid of any legal basis, efforts were intensified to develop a new penal code for the 'Third Reich'. In October 1933, on Hitler's orders, Reich Minister of Justice Gürtner hooked the members of an official Criminal Law Commission and made Wenzeslaus Graf von Gleispach, the Viennese conservative theorist of criminal law, responsible for the 'sex offences' rubric. While the Commission discussed how the criminal law should be adapted to the ideology of the Nazi state and whether this required a tightening of §l75, a trial al the Weimar Court caused a great stir in April 1935. For the verdict, which sentenced several people to terms of imprisonment for offences under §l75, drove a coach and horses through previous interpretation of the law. The judge's opinion warned that in future any homosexual activity would be punished. And the case never got as far as the Reichsgericht [Supreme Court], which should evidently have been brought in at that stage to give a higher ruling. In late June 1935 the Sixth Amendment to the Penal Code, containing crucial changes in the criminalization of homosexuality, was adopted to widespread surprise.


Source: Hidden Holocaust ?, Günter Grau, Cassell, 1995. Translated from German by Patrick Camiller.

Picture : The Reichstag on fire (27 February 1933)

"En 1939, Karl a 26 ans. Alors qu'il ne se doute de rien, la Gestapo vient l'appréhender chez lui. Plus tard, les fonctionnaires lui apprennent que quelqu'un l'aurait dénoncé pour infraction à l'article 175. Karl B. est mis en détention par la Gestapo. Quelques jours plus tard, un officier SS le force, sous la menace d'un revolver, à signer des aveux. Au bout de quelques semaines, sans même qu'il comparaisse devant un tribunal, il est transféré comme "triangle rose" dans le camp de concentration que l'on construit depuis décembre 1938 à Neuengamme, tout juste à trente kilomètres à l'est de Hambourg."

Texte : La déportation des homosexuels. Onze témoignages, Allemagne 1933-1945, Lutz van Dijk, Editions H&O, 2000.

Photo : Photo anthropométrique de Karl B., prise lors de son arrivée à Auschwitz. (orig : Editions H&O)

"Lorsque sur dénonciation de voisins ou d'informateurs de la police, la Gestapo nourrissait des soupçons à l'encontre d'un invidu, elle faisait fouiller sa maison ou son appartement. Parmi les pièces à conviction saisies lors de ces perquisitions, on trouve essentiellement des lettres personnelles, des photos d'amis ou de simples cartes postales. Tout pouvait servir de preuve. Lors du procès, les pièces à conviction réunies par la police étaient livrées en pâture à un public hostile."

Texte : Exposition en ligne d'HOSI WIen : "Lost Lives : Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals in Vienna, 1938-45"

Photo : Rapport de perquisition de la Gestapo. Dossier 1400/1939. Première cour régionale de Vienne. (Hausdurchsuchungsbericht der Gestapo. Aus dem Akt 1400/1939 des Ersten Wiener Landgerichtes.) Bestand des Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchives.

"Pour débusquer les homosexuels, les policiers ne se contentaient pas d'attendre les dénonciations. La police et la Gestapo étaient à l'affût et épiaient les individus. On pouvait obtenir des preuves sur un suspect en interceptant son courrier. Les lettres d'amour confisquées étaient lues en plein tribunal et livrées en pâture au public, comme tous les autres éléments de la vie privée de l'accusé."

Texte : Exposition en ligne d'HOSI WIen : "Lost Lives : Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals in Vienna, 1938-45"

Photo : Rapport de police relatif à une interception de courrier. Dossier 768/1942. Première cour régionale de Vienne. (Polizeibericht. Aus dem Akt 768/1942 des Ersten Wiener Landgerichtes.) Bestand des Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchives.

"En Autriche, la législation permettant de poursuivre les homosexuels, le paragraphe 129b qui réprimait les "relations sexuelles entre personnes du même sexe", demeura en vigueur de 1852 à 1971. Seuls la sévérité des condamnations et le nombre des jugements augmentèrent de façon spectaculaire après l'arrivée des nazis au pouvoir. Au cours des procès, les détails les plus intimes de la vie des accusés, obtenus avec zèle par la police et la Gestapo au terme d'enquêtes souvent déclenchées par des dénonciations, étaient livrés à un public avide de sensations fortes."

Texte : The Nazi persecution of homosexuals in Vienna, Hosi Wien.

Photo : Un groupe de jeunes Autrichiens "contre nature" profite des derniers beaux jours avant l'orage nazi. (orig : HOSI Wien)