Homosexuals, victims of the Nazis

As part of the Nazis' attempt to purify German society and propagate an "Aryan master race", they condemned homosexuals as "socially aberrant." Soon after taking office on January 30, 1933, Hitler banned all homosexual and lesbian organizations. Brownshirted storm troopers raided the institutions and gathering places of homosexuals. Greatly weakened and driven underground, this subculture had flourished in the relative freedom of the 1920s, in the pubs and cafes of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Bremen, and other cities.

On May 6, 1933, Nazis ransacked the "Institute for Sexual Science" in Berlin; four days later as part of large public burnings of books viewed as "un-German", thousands of books plundered from the Institute's library were thrown into a huge bonfire.

The institute was founded in 1919 by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935). It sponsored research and discussion on marital problems, sexually transmitted diseases, and laws relating to sexuals offenses, abortion and homosexuality.

The author of many works, Hirschfeld, himself a homosexual, led efforts for three decades to reform laws criminalizing homosexuality. (In 1933 Hirschfeld happened to be in France, where he remained until his death.)

In 1934, a special Gestapo (Secret State Police) division on homosexuals was set up. One of its first acts was to order the police "pink lists" from all over Germany. The police had been compiling these lists of suspected homosexual men since 1900.

On September 1, 1935, a harsher, amended version of Paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code, originally framed in 1871, went into effect, punishing a broad range of "lewd and lascivious" behavior between men.

In 1936 Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler created a Reich Central Office for the Combatting of Homosexuality and Abortion: Special Office (II S), a subdepartment of Executive Department II of the Gestapo. The linking of homosexuality and abortion reflected the Nazi regime's population policies to promote a higher birthrate of its "Aryan" population.

On this subject, Himmler spoke in Bad Tölz on February 18, 1937, before a group of high-ranking SS officers on the danger both homosexuality and abortion posed to the German birthrate.

Under the revised Paragraph 175 and the creation of Special Office II S, the number of prosecutions increased sharply, peaking in the years 1937-1939. Half of all convictions for homosexuality under the Nazi regime occured during these years. The police stepped up raids on homosexual meeting places, seized address books of arrested men to find additional suspects, and created networks of informers to compile lists of names and make arrests.

An estimated 1.2 million men were homosexuals in Germany in 1928. Between 1933-45, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals and of these, some 50,000 officially defined homosexuals were sentenced. Most of these men spent time in regular prisons, and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of the total sentenced were incarcerated in concentration camps.

How many of these 5,000 to 15,000 "175ers" perished in the concentration camps will probably never be known. Historical research to date has been very limited. One leading scholar, Ruediger Lautmann, believes that the death rate for "175ers" in the camps may have been as high as sixty percent.

All prisoners of the camps wore marks of various colors and shapes, which allowed guards and camp functionaries to identify them by category. The uniforms of those sentenced as homosexuals bore various identifying marks, including a large black dot and a large "175" drawn on the back of the jacket. Later a pink triangular patch (rosa Winkel) appeared.

Conditions in the camps were generally harsh for all inmates, many of whom died from hunger, disease, exhaustion, exposure to the cold, and brutal treatment. Many survivors have testified that men with pink triangles were often treated particularly severely by the guards and inmates alike because of widespread biases against homosexuals.

As was true with other prisoner categories, some homosexuals were also victims of crual medical experiments, including castration. At Buchenwald concentration camp, SS physician Dr. Carl Vaernet performed operations designed to convert men to heterosexuals: the surgical insertion of a capsule which released the male hormone testosterone. Such procedure reflected the desire by Himmler and others to find a medical solution to homosexuality.

The vast majority of homosexual victims were males; lesbians were not subjected to systematic persecution. While lesbian bars were closed, few women are believed to have been arrested. Paragraph 175 did not mention female homosexuality. Lesbianism was seen by many Nazi officials as alien to the Aryan woman. In some cases, the police arrested lesbians as "asocials" or "prostitutes."

One woman, Henny Schermann, was arrested in 1940 in Frankfurt ans was labelled "licentious lesbian" on her mug shot; but she was also a "stateless Jew", sufficent cause for deportation. Among the Jewish inmates at Ravensbrück concentration camp selected for extermination, she was gassed in the Bernburg psychiatric hospital, a "euthanasia" killing center in Germany in 1942.

Homosexuality outside Germany (and incorporated Austria and other annexed territories) was not a subject generally addressed in the Nazi ideology or policy; the concern focused on the impact of homosexuality on the strength and birthrate of the Aryan population.

During the war years, the Nazis did not generally instigate drives against homosexuality in German-occupied countries. Consequently, the vast majority of homosexuals arrested under Paragraph 175 were Germans or Austrians. Unlike Jews, men arrested as homosexuals were not systematically deported to Nazi-established ghettos in eastern Europe. Nor were they transported in mass groups of homosexual prisoners to Nazi extermination camps in Poland.

It should be noted that Nazi authorities sometimes used the charge of homosexuality to discredit and undermine their political opponents. Charges of homosexuality among the SA (Storm Trooper) leadership figured prominently among justifications for the bloody purge of SA chief Ernst Röhm in June 1934. Nazi leader Hermann Göring used trumped-up accusations of homosexual improprieties to unseat army supreme commander Von Fritsch, an opponent of Hitler's military policy, in early 1938.

Finally, a 1935 propaganda campaign and two show trials in 1936 and 1937 alleging rampant homosexuality in the priesthood, attempetd to undercut the power of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, an institution which many Nazi officials considered their most powerful potential enemy.

After the war, homosexual concentration camps prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution, and reparations were refused. Under the Allied Military Government of Germany, some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment, regardless of the time spent in concentration camps. The 1935 version of Paragraph 175 remained in effect in the Federal Republic (West Germany) until 1969, so that well after liberation, homosexuals continued to fear arrest and incarceration.

Research on Nazi persecution of homosexuals was impeded by the criminalization and social stigmatization of homosexuals in Europe and the United States in the decades following the Holocaust. Most survivors were afraid or ashamed to tell their stories. Recently, especially in Germany, new research findings on these "forgotten victims" have been published, and some survivors have broken their silence to give testimony.


Source: Homosexuals, victims of the Nazis (1933-1945), plaquette du United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.- United States Holocaust Memorial.

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."

Erasure from History

As part of its agenda to preserve an "Aryan master race," Nazism indicted homosexuals as "socially aberrant" and persecuted them. Between 1933 and 1945, it is estimated that more than 100,000 men were arrested on homosexual charges, and half of these were officially sentenced.

Most of the convicted men were jailed in regular prisons, but between 5,000 and 15,000 of the men who were sentenced for homosexual offenses were incarcerated in concentration camps.

In spite of this well-documented persecution, research on the Nazi war against homosexuals long remained a taboo subject, hindered by the discrimination and social stigma that homosexuals endured in Europe and the United States even in the decades following the Holocaust.

Most survivors of the persecution were afraid or ashamed to tell their stories. Homosexual victims of the Nazi Holocaust have until recently been left out of commemorations of the tragedy and have been erased from the collective memory surrounding this historical event.

Earlier historians of the Holocaust, especially those who asserted that the Holocaust was a historical experience unique to the Jewish people, have contributed to the erasure of homosexual suffering from history, dismissing as unworthy of mention the "prostitutes, homosexuals, perverts, and common criminals" incarcerated by the Nazis.

Nazi Objections to Homosexuality

At the base of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals were a number of legislative and violent actions against homosexuals, motivated by Nazi ideology, which found homosexuality anathema to their eugenic theories.

During the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), glbtq people had created a vibrant subculture in Germany's major cities. Through a proliferation of specialized bars, publications, and political and social organizations, they had become an increasingly visible part of urban life.

However, they were viewed by Nazis as decadent and undesirable. Confirmed male homosexuals in particular were regarded as diseased, degenerate creatures who could weaken the German Volk by spreading contagion, especially by seducing youth and by failing to contribute to the population growth necessary to sustain Nazi imperial ambitions.

Nazi Actions against Homosexual Organizations

Soon after Hitler's rise to power in 1933 the new government instituted a systematic program for destroying gay and lesbian institutions and eliminating homosexual visibility.

In February 1933, police began raiding and shutting down gay and lesbian bars and clubs. Publications with homosexual content were seized and destroyed. Citizens were invited to "denounce" or turn in homosexuals as "asocial parasites."

On May 6, 1933 the Nazis raided the "Institute for Sexual Science" in Berlin, home of the major organization that crusaded for glbtq rights, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee. A few days later, it burned thousands of books from the Institute's library, undoubtedly the largest archive of glbtq material then in existence.

Founded in 1919 by Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935), the Institute conducted research and discussion on marital problems, sexually transmitted diseases, and laws relating to sexual offenses, abortion, and homosexuality. The author of several studies, Hirschfeld, himself a homosexual, had actively campaigned to reform laws criminalizing homosexuality.

The Purge of the SA

On June 30, 1934, Ernst Röhm and almost three hundred other members of the SA, the Nazi party "Brown Shirts" who helped bring Hitler to power, were slaughtered by members of Heinrich Himmler's rival SS, or Gestapo. The purge was undoubtedly spurred by internal rivalries within the Nazi hierarchy, but the justification for the murders was the homosexuality of Röhm, an early ally of Hitler.

Röhm's homosexuality had been an issue during the electoral campaigns of 1930, much to the embarrassment of the Nazis. The day after the assassinations, Hitler addressed the nation and defended the murders as necessary to protect the nation against degeneracy.

Nazi leaders routinely used allegations of homosexual behavior as a means of attacking enemies and rivals. Hermann Göring, for example, accused the supreme military commander Von Fritsch of homosexuality when he removed him in 1938. Officials of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly Franciscan Friars, were also accused of corrupting Aryan youth.

Paragraph 175

In 1935, Germany's sodomy law, the infamous Paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code, originally passed in 1871, was strengthened.

The paragraph read:

A male who commits lewd and lascivious acts with another male or permits himself to be so abused for lewd and lascivious acts, shall be punished by imprisonment. In a case of a participant under 21 years of age at the time of the commission of the act, the court may, in especially slight cases, refrain from punishment.

Whereas the old law punished only anal intercourse, the new law criminalized all "lewd and lascivious acts." Moreover, the law was interpreted to encompass homosexual "intent" as well as acts. Kissing, holding hands, and mutual masturbation were all deemed illegal under the new law. Not surprisingly, the conviction rates for homosexual offenses vastly increased.

Enforcement

In 1936 Himmler created a Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion: Special Office (II S). The linking of homosexuality and abortion reflected the Nazi regime's concern with population growth. Himmler considered homosexuality a social illness that could divert millions of men from reproducing.

Under the revised Paragraph 175 and the creation of Special Office II S, the number of prosecutions increased steadily, peaking in the years between 1937 and 1939. Half of all convictions for homosexual activity under the Nazi regime occurred during these years. The police intensified attacks on homosexual meeting places, studied carefully the address books of arrested men to find additional suspects, and created rings of informers to compile more lists of names.

Between 1937 and 1939 almost 100,000 men were arrested by the Gestapo on suspicion of homosexuality. Not all of those who were arrested came to trial and not all those who were tried were convicted; nevertheless, even being questioned about homosexuality could be a traumatic experience. The persecution no doubt had the desired effect of not only stifling the homosexual subculture, but also of drastically reducing the incidence of male homosexual activity.

The vast majority of homosexuals arrested under the Paragraph 175 were "Aryans," especially citizens of present or future provinces of the Reich: Germans, Austrians, Alsatians, Dutch, and Czechs. Non-Aryans and homosexuals in other countries conquered by Germany were not persecuted as homosexuals. Indeed, Himmler argued that homosexuality among subject peoples would hasten their demise.

In spite of Himmler's belief that "we must exterminate these people root and branch . . . . the homosexual must be eliminated," there was never a systematic program for homosexual elimination, as there was the "final solution" for the "Jewish problem." Nazi policy distinguished between individuals considered "homosexual by nature," who were apparently irredeemable, and those who may have been seduced into experimentation. The latter, it was believed, could be reclaimed for the nation and were subject to less severe punishment.

Incarceration

Homosexuals incarcerated in concentration camps suffered far more severely than those sentenced to regular prisons. All prisoners of the camps had clothes marked with distinctive colors and shapes so that guards and functionaries could identify them by category. The uniforms of those sentenced as homosexuals bore various identifying marks, including, in the early years, a large black dot and a large "175" drawn on the back of the jacket.

Later, homosexuals were identified by a pink triangular patch (rosa Winkel), which has since become an international symbol of gay and lesbian liberation.

Conditions in the camps were harsh for all prisoners, many of whom did not have to wait for the gas chamber to die. However, many survivors have testified that gay men were treated particularly severely by guards and inmates alike because of widespread biases against homosexuals. Many homosexual prisoners, used as slave labor, were worked to death; others were beaten to death.

Homosexuals in the concentration camps had a significantly lower rate of survival than comparable groups.

Lesbians in Concentration Camps

Most homosexual victims were males; lesbians were not subjected to systematic persecution. Few women are believed to have been arrested, and Paragraph 175 did not mention female homosexuality. Lesbianism was seen by many Nazi officials as alien to the nature of the Aryan woman. Nevertheless, in some cases, the police arrested lesbians as "asocials" or "prostitutes," so that in concentration camps lesbians bore the asocials' black triangle.

Medical Experimentation

As was true with other prisoner categories, some homosexuals were also victims of cruel medical experiments, including injection with typhus in order to observe the disease's natural progress.

Homosexuals were also often castrated, believing that such treatment would eradicate homosexual desire.

At the Buchenwald concentration camp, Dr. Carl Vaernet carried out experiments intended to convert men to heterosexuality. Believing that homosexuality might be caused by a deficiency of the male hormone testosterone, Vaernet implanted into his victims a capsule that released large doses of the hormone.

Legacy of Nazism

For German homosexuals, the legacy of Nazism persisted for a very long time: the 1935 version of Paragraph 175 was not repealed in the Federal Republic until 1969 and in Austria until 1971. (Indeed, prosecutions and convictions under Paragraph 175 in the first 12 years of the Federal Republic exceeded those during the twelve years of the Third Reich.) More than twenty years after the fall of Hitler, homosexuals in Germany and Austria continued to fear arrest and incarceration.

In the years immediately following the war, homosexual concentration camp prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution. Reparations were refused, and under the Allied Military Government of Germany, homosexuals found in concentration camps remained imprisoned and their testimony silenced. Their incarceration by the Nazis was considered justified.

In 1957 the West German Federal Constitutional Court even ruled that the Nazi version of Paragraph 175 was constitutional because it "did not interfere with the free development of the personality" and it "contained nothing specifically National Socialist." The court stated explicitly that homosexual acts "unquestionably offended the moral feelings of the German people," thus reiterating the Nazi accusation that homosexual acts were against volkisch values.

Homosexuals murdered by the Nazis received their first public commemoration in a May 8, 1985 speech by West German President Richard von Weizsäcker. The speech marked the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War II.

Four years after re-unification in 1990, Germany abolished Paragraph 175. In May 2002, the German parliament passed legislation that pardoned all homosexuals convicted under Paragraph 175 during the Nazi era.

Homosexualization of Nazism

Paradoxically, and sadly given the historical record, homosexuality was used following the war and the demise of the Nazi regime to discredit the regime itself. In popular post-war representations, Nazism is often homosexualized.

Homosexuality became such a distinguishing trait of Nazi leaders in the popular imagination that Hitler himself was sometimes portrayed as gay. For example, Roberto Rossellini's Neo-Realist film Roma, Città Aperta (1945) very clearly portrays the Nazi commander and his female aide as a gay male and a lesbian.

Even an event such as the murder of Ernst Röhm has been made the subject of titillation. In Luchino Visconti's film The Damned (1969), the event is fictionalized as taking place in the middle of a homosexual orgy. Andrea Slane has documented how Hollywood representations of Nazism also frequently link it with homosexuality.

Popular works such as these have contributed to the erasure of the gay and lesbian Holocaust from the collective cultural and historical memory. As Martha Sturken points out, "memory provides the very core of identity." Yet acts of remembrance are necessarily selective and can never be a copy of the historical experience. Therefore, memory becomes "a form of interpretation" and all memories are created together with a process of forgetting of the past. Such forgetting is often highly organized and strategic, as in the forgetting of the Nazis' persecution of homosexuals.

Recent Developments

As late as 1997, Kai Hammermeister lamented the absence of a gay Holocaust literature. He cited Martin Sherman's play Bent (1979) as an important exception. The first documentary film on gay victims of the Holocaust that received a decent circulation was Paragraph 175 (1999) by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman.

Recently, however, historians of the Holocaust have begun to acknowledge the homosexual victims of the Holocaust. In 2003, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum presented a major traveling exhibit entitled "The Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, 1933-1945." A version of the exhibit is on-line at the museum's website.

The Schwules Museum in Berlin has also commemorated the victims of Nazism. The persecution of homosexuals by the Nazis was the immediate impetus for Amsterdam's Homomonument.

Source : Nazism and the Holocaust, Luca Prono, An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture, 2002-2004, glbtq, Inc.

La police des moeurs

La sexualité ne fut longtemps considérée en France que comme une gaudriole. La Science est intervenue pour nous avertir qu'elle méritait d'être traitée sérieusement.

L'Allemagne est la première des nations chrétiennes qui se soit avisée d'y porter quelque lumière. Le Dr Magnus Hirschfel[d] avait fondé, ces temps derniers à Berlin, un Institut des sciences sexuelles.

Depuis l'avènement d'Hitler, cet Institut a été détruit, ses documents brûlés, son fondateur exilé.

Des gens, chez nous, en applaudissent Hitler, et voudraient nous voir, à son exemple, jeter au feu tout ce qui n'est pas d'une lecture strictement édifiant. (...)

Ce qu'il faut voir, dans le geste d'Hitler, c'est un retour aux âges d'ignorance et de barbarie. Qu'en résultera-t-il ? Ce n'est pas la première fois qu'un législateur, en Allemagne, a essayé d'y épurer les moeurs. Charles V y condamnait les homosexuels à être brûlés vifs. Il n'a pas reussi à en exterminer la graine (si j'ose ainsi parler) pas plus que ne l'a pu faire, depuis, l'article 175 du Code allemand édictant contre eux des peines sévères.

Aussi bien, il est à considérer, que c'est dans les pays, où la législation le réprime, que ce vice exerce le plus des ravages. Le peuple allemand en est la preuve, qui n'est pas moins demeuré, malgré tout, l'un des peuples des plus prolifiques et des plus vigoreux.

Ce n'est pas du jour au lendmain que des moeurs si invétérées puissent se corriger si, toutefois, elles sont corrigeables par la seule crainte du châtiment. J'ai bien peur que les mesures d'Hitler n'arrivent à faire régner, chez ses concitoyens, l'hypocrisie plutôt que la vertu. C'est d'ailleurs, moins ces moeurs elles-mêmes que de leur exhibitionisme qu'il réprouve, puisqu'il les tolère chez son ami, le ministre d'Etat Röhm, au risque d'en être suspecté lui-même, mais pourquoi s'en formaliserait-il ? Ce ne serait pas la première fois qu'un Chancelier allemand serait dit non-conformiste, si j'en crois les révélations du procès Eulenbourg, et ce n'est pas ce que l'on trouverait de pire à lui reprocher.

Quoi qu'il en soit, brûler les livres ne suffit pas pour étouffer les vérités qu'ils contiennent, et qui finissent toujours par s'imposer, tôt ou tard. Ce qui ressortait des documents rassemblés par le Dr Hirschfeld, c'est que l'homosexualité est le résultat d'une constitution de nature.


Texte : La police des moeurs, Ernest Reynaud, Société Française d'Editions Littéraires et Techniques, Paris, 1934 ; p. 137-138.

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)

Un mythe bien préservé

En mai 1933, les nazis mettent à sac l'Institut Hirschfeld de Berlin : dix mille livres brûlés, cinquante ans de recherches détruits, et l'exil de M. Hirschfeld, la déportation de Kurt Hiller, son bras droit; 1933, c'est aussi l'incendie du Reichstag et l'accusation portée contre van der Lubbe d'en être l'homosexuel incendiaire. Van der Lubbe, "agent du complot bolchevique dans la presse nazie, il est un trouble homosexuel, tenu par d'obscurs chantages, aux yeux des communistes et des démocrates", rapporte Guy Hocquenghem dans Race d'Ep ! qui souligne que l'accusé "subit la loi de l'échange entre les propagandes dont les homosexuels sont à l'époque les victimes".

Quelques mois plus tard, le 30 juin 1934, c'est la Nuit des longs Couteaux, l'assassinat de deux cents SA, dont Röhm.Les mesures qui suivront seront sévères : le 22 février la prostitution est interdite, le 23 mars les bars et les hôtels homosexuels sont fermés, le 3 mars la pornographie est interdite. Durant le mois de mars de la même année commence la campagne contre les homosexuels, les juifs, les noirs et les jaunes. Une loi est votée imposant la stérilisation de tous les homosexuels, schizophrènes, épileptiques, drogués, hystériques, aveugles et malformés de naissance. En 1935, rapporte Victor Norton, "cinquante-six mille personnes furent ainsi traitées". C'était l'anéantissement des mouvements homosexuels, la chape de plomb nazie s'étendait complètement sur l'Allemagne. Un an plus tard, Hitler ouvrait les Jeux Olympiques avec la participation des puissances occidentales...Qu'en est-il de cette fameuse légende "homosexualité et fascisme", si propice au silence permanent ? Röhm le nazi, chef des SA, l'homosexuel notoire, fut même soutenu par Hitler lorsqu'il eut l'audace en 1925 d'intenter un procès à un gigolo qui l'avait volé. On dit même qu'il tenta de s'opposer au paragraphe 175. Sans doute y avait-il de nombreux homosexuels parmi les SA, mais après tout si des chefs nazis étaient homosexuels, "le théoricien officiel du racisme nazi, Rosenberg, était bien juif... Mais on n'a jamais pensé à le reprocher au peuple d'Israël", écrit fort justement Hocquenghem dans Race d'Ep !. Les déclarations du parti nazi et celles d'Hitler qui suivirent la Nuit des longs couteaux sont révélatrices des véritables sentiments d'Hitler. Ainsi, quand l'armée de Röhm atteindra plusieurs centaines de milliers d'hommes en 1932, Hitler y verra une réelle menace, d'autant que les idées de Röhm ne correspondaient pas à celles des gros bailleurs de fonds du parti. Il tentera de faire assassiner Röhm par l'intermédiaire du juge du parti, Walter Buch. Le complot échoue, mais aboutira deux années plus tard à Bad Wessee, le 30 juin 1934, la Nuit des longs couteaux.

Les personnes ou les groupes qui reprennent cette légende ne font que perpétuer les premières attaques menées contre les homosexuels. Les nazis avaient trouvé que l'Internationale était noyautée par les juifs. Les soviétiques des années trente verront beaucoup d'homosexuels dans la rangs nazis. C'est l'époque - 1933 - où Maxime Gorki écrit dans l'Humanisme Prolétarien : "Dans les pays fascistes, l'homosexualité ruine la jeunesse et fleurit sans punition (...) Il y a déjà un slogan qui circule en Allemagne : Eliminez les homosexuels et le fascisme disparaîtra." Les potentats du Kremlin nouvelle mouture appliquent la formule efficacement. En mars 1934, une violente campagne anti-homosexuelle est lancée, dirigée par Kalinine qui assimile les homosexuels à des criminels sociaux. Un décret est signé par Kalinine lui-même, rendant les rapports intimes entre individus de sexe masculin passibles d'une peine de prison de trois à huit ans. Une grande rafle est dirigée à travers tout le pays, la police secrète arrête les homosexuels à Moscou, Odessa, Leningrad, Kharkov et dans d'autres grandes villes, et les déporte en Sibérie. Trois mois plus tard, Hitler organise la Nuit des longs couteaux comme pour se laver des accusations de la présence d'homosexuels dans les rangs nazis; de la même manière les campagnes antisémites se déclencheront en URSS. Communistes ou non communistes reprennent encore cette thèse plus ou moins inconsciemment, du lien entre homosexualité et fascisme, entretenant en cela le silence qui frappe toujours les déportés au Triangle Rose.

Source: Histoire d'un génocide oublié, Jean-Pierre Joecker, éditions Persona, Paris, 1980.

The Eldorado Nightclub

Located at the corner of Motzstraße and Kalckreuthstraße in Berlin's Schöneberg district, the Eldorado was a popular destination during the 1920s and early 1930s for lesbians, homosexual men, transvestites of both sexes and slumming tourists. The nightclub featured cabaret shows, dancing and drinking in a stylish atmosphere.

One of the most famous destinations for queer nightlife in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, the Eldorado merited several pages in Ruth Margarete Roellig's 1928 book Berlins lesbische Frauen ("The Lesbians of Berlin") and was the setting for a major watercolor by expressionist painter Otto Dix.

The Eldorado was one of the first homosexual establishments padlocked by the police when Hitler came to power -- several weeks before the sacking of Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science. In what was no doubt an act of deliberate sarcasm, the Nazis transformed the Eldorado into a Party propaganda center.

The photo on the left shows the facade of the Eldorado hung with enormous swastikas and banners urging "Vote for the Hitler Ticket" -- undoubtedly as part of the Nazi campaign in the March 1933 parliamentary elections that Hitler called to consolidate his power shortly after being named Chancellor.

A similar photo was published in the May 1933 issue of the Viennese magazine Die Notschrei as part of a montage showing "a string of immoral bars" ordered closed by Berlin's Nazi police chief. (The Notschrei photo depicts a slightly wider view. As in the photo shown here, the street is rain-slicked, but the police officers are not present.)

The Motzstraße area survived the bombing of Berlin during World War II and is now one of the most concentrated enclaves of gay male life in the city -- a neighborhood that is home to several gay bars and shops and to the Mann-O-Meter gay information and referral center. The premises of the Eldorado have been converted into a local supermarket ; the building that housed the famed club is again the location of a gay bar (see picture below).

Text: Gerard Koskovich

Pictures: (top) The Eldorado as it looked during its heyday around 1930. Reproduced from Andreas Sternweiler, et al. (eds), Goodbye to Berlin? 100 Jahre Schwulenbewegung (Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel, 1997), page 127; (middle, left) The club as it appeared around February-March 1933, after it was closed by the new Nazi government. Reproduced from Claudia Schoppmann, Days of Masquerade: Life Stories of Lesbians During the Third Reich (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), page 3; (bottom, right) The Eldorado today: a local supermarket. (Additional pictures by Gerard Koskovich and Franck Dennis.)

The Institute for Sexual Science

The institute was housed in a lovely building (right) that had belonged to Prince Hatzfeld prior to the revolution. It was one of the finest palaces in Berlin. Hirschfeld purchased it with his own money and endowed it with his considerable collection of scientific material.

In his speech to the scholars, doctors, and politicians who attended the opening in July 1919, Hirschfeld called it "a child of the revolution" -- not only of the uprising that swept Berlin on November 9, 1918, but also of the "great spiritual revolution" that had begun decades earlier with the first stirrings of the homosexual rights movement.

The Institute fo Sexual Science was a repository for all kinds of biological, anthropological, statistical, and ethnological data and documentation relating to sexology. It became a kind of university for sex science, with regular classes on a variety of relevant subjects. It was the first institute of his kind anywhere in the world. It was truly a forerunner of the Kinsey Intitute for Sex Research.

The Scientific Humanitarian Committee, while remaining organizationally independent of the Institute, set up offices in two rooms on the second floor. The building thus became an international center not only for sexual science but for the gay liberation movement.

Medical advice at the Institute was free and lectures by the Institute's specialists were open to the public. In 1919, a marriage counseling bureau was also opened at the Institute. It was consulted by thousands of people, and was so successful that it served as a pattern for similar endeavors in many other countries.

The procession of scientists and politicians who visited the Institute was long and numerous. Scores of persons at a time, representing various political groups, including a number of socialist youth groups and parties, would seek it out as a way of informing themselves on the subject of homosexuality and related questions. Every German who crossed its threshold was given an opportunity to sign the petition against Paragraph 175.

One such delegation to visit the Institute arrived on January 21, 1923. It consisted of Russian doctors, and was headed by the people's commissar of health. Here is what the Committee had to say about their visit in the 1923 issue of its Yearbook:

"On January 21, 1923, the film "Anders als die Andern" was shown to the Russian doctors after they especially requested it. After seeing it, these gentlemen expressed their surprise that a film of such serious and decent content should arouse any scandal at all and that it could be banned. The Herr Minister of Health in conclusion stated how pleased he was that in the new Russia, the former penalty against homosexuals had been completely abolished. He also explained that no unhappy consequences of any kind whatsoever have resulted from the elimination of the offending paragraph, nor has the wish that the penlaty in question be reintroduced been raised in any quarter." (The tsarist antihomosexual law was abolished by decree in December 1917. A decade after this visit by the people's commissar of health, Stalin reintroduced it.)

For fourteen years, the Institute's unique collection of exhibits, its research work, its archives, and its library won for it an international reputation that attracted many foreign scientists and writers. Its brief life came to an abrupt end with the rise of Nazism.

Source: The Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935), John Lauritsen and David Thorstad, Times Change Press, New York, 1974.

Pictures: (top) The Institute in Berlin ; (middle) Magnus Hirschfeld ; (bottom) Rooms at the Institute.

Le Paragraphe 175 (Jean-Pierre Joecker)

Avant-propos :

En Allemagne, le paragraphe 175 a été à la base de la pénalisation de l’homosexualité de 1871 à 1994. Il ne concernait que les hommes, mais on connaît quelques cas de lesbiennes déportées sous l’Allemagne nazie. Le paragraphe 175 a été introduit en 1871 dans le code pénal Allemand avec la création de l’Empire Germanique par Bismarck. Il s’agit d’un texte de loi existant depuis 1794 en Prusse. Il concerne les actes sexuels entre hommes (sans limite d’âge) et entre hommes et animaux. Il prévoyait le retrait des droits civiques ainsi qu’une peine de prison, pouvant aller de un jour à six mois. En 1897, la pétition de Magnus Hirschfeld pour l’abolition du § 175 réussit à réunir 6000 signatures. Elle est présentée en 1898 au Reichstag (le parlement allemand) mais n’aboutit pas. La première guerre mondiale empêche le gouvernement de réaliser son projet d’étendre le paragraphe 175 aux femmes. Plus tard, en 1933, les nazis arrivent au pouvoir alors que le Reichstag parle d’abroger le § 175 ; le 28 juin 1935 le § 175 est renforcé. Les modifications sont les suivantes : (1) Le paragraphe 175 passe du statut d’infraction (Vergehen) à celui de crime (Verbrechen), faisant passer la durée de détention maximale de 6 mois à 5 ans. (2) Le qualificatif “contre nature” (widernatürliche) disparaît, élargissant le champ des actes répréhensibles. Concrètement, l’acte sexuel, voir même le contact physique, n’étaient plus nécessaires pour une condamnation. (3) Des cas aggravants sont ajoutés à la loi, via le nouveau paragraphe 175a, qui était en fait prévu depuis 1925. Il comprend : les menaces et la violence, l’abus de position dominante, l’abus sur des hommes de moins de 21 ans (bien que la majorité soit fixée à 18 ans), et la prostitution. Cette nouvelle version du paragraphe 175 ne poursuit toujours pas les actes sexuels entre femmes, même si dans la pratique les lesbiennes n’étaient pas mieux loties que les gays. Par contre le sens de la loi a fortement changé : on ne condamne plus des pratiques sexuelles spécifiques, mais le fait d’être homosexuel. Ce “détail” permettra d’envoyer en camp de concentration des hommes sur de simples “présomptions” : courrier amoureux, dénonciation, etc... En 1935, le code pénal est modifié pour permettre la castration “volontaire” des délinquants sexuels condamnés au titre du Paragraphe 175, puis le 20 mai 1939, le Reichsführer-SS Himmler autorise la castration forcée des délinquants sexuels. -- Stéphane Tréboux - Projet Personnel en Humanités (PPH) - 2004/2005.


A la fin du XIXe siècle, on légifère en matière de sexualité. Alors qu'en France, le crime de sodomie disparaît avec la Révolution et échappe au code Napoléon jusqu'aux lois de Pétain, toujours en vigueur en 1981, l'Angleterre vote une loi anti-homosexuelle, l'Amendement Labouchère, dès 1885.

Le nouvel Empire allemand, dynamique et centralisateur, avait devancé la moralité victorienne en 1871 par l'adoption du code prussien, dont le "paragraphe 175", punissant d'une peine de prison pouvant aller jusqu'à cinq ans les rapports contre nature entre hommes. Des individus comme Ulrichs s'étaient battus en Allemagne contre de paragraphe 175. Son combat fut repris par Brand qui créa en 1891 le premier journal homosexuel, Der Eigene, et surtout par le célèbre docteur Magnus Hirschfeld.

L'aube du XXe siècle, c'est le développement du mouvement homosexuel, l'Allemagne des années folles. Le "Comité Humanitaire et Scientifique" (WHK) - la première organisation de défense des homosexuels - créé par Hirschfeld en 1897 regroupe soixante-dix membres en 1900 et cinq mille en 1910. On imprime alors 320 publications homosexuelles et Berlin possède en 1905 plus de quarante bars homosexuels. Le mouvement homosexuel prend de l'ampleur, la pétition lancée par le comité contre le paragraphe 175 recueille (...) six mille signatures, parmi lesquelles celles des leaders sociaux-démocrates Bebel, Kautsky, Bernstein et celles de Thomas Mann, Lou Andréas Salomé, Rilke, Einstein... Freud et Adler participent à la revue de Magnus Hirschfeld, l'Annuaire des différences intersexuelles dans laquelle il développe sa théorie du troisième sexe.

Période contradictoire par ailleurs, où le monde homosexuel explose en dépit des arrestations au nom du paragraphe 175 (deux à trois cents par an) et des scandales de 1907 qui ont touché les hommes en place, le maire de Berlin von Moltke et le conseiller du Kaiser von Eulenburg. La presse reconnaît les nouveaux pervers, désignés d'une certaine manière par les travaux médicaux de Hirschfeld. Le gouvernement tentera même, en 1910 (la loi faillit passer), d'élargir le paragraphe 175 aux femmes, sans résultat, et les mouvements de protestation renforcèrent les liens entre le mouvement homosexuel et les mouvements féministes. En 1915, Hirschfeld crée l'Institut des Sciences Sexuelles à Berlin.

C'est aussi l'époque où le mouvement homosexuel reçoit le soutien des communistes allemands, l'URSS vient en effet d'abolir en 1917 toute législation anti-homosexuelle. Batkis, le sexologue officiel du PCUS, affirme, au congrès international pour la réforme sexuelle, légitime tout plaisir sexuel avec un partenaire consentant.

§ 175 (texte de 1935)

(1) Un homme qui se livre ou se prête à des actes de débauche contre-nature avec un autre homme est passible d’une peine d’emprisonnement.

(2) Envers l’un des prévenus, dans le cas où celui-ci est âgé de moins de 21 ans au moment des faits, et à condition que les faits qui lui sont reprochés soient de nature particulièrement bénigne, le tribunal peut renoncer à prononcer une peine.

§ 175 a

Est passible d’une peine de réclusion pouvant aller jusqu’à 10 ans, ou d’une peine de détention d’un minimum de 3 ans en cas de circonstances atténuantes :

(1) Un homme qui contraint un autre homme à se prêter ou à se livrer à des actes de débauche contre-nature par la violence ou en exerçant une menace effectivement susceptible de porter atteinte à l’intégrité physique ou à la vie de ce dernier.

(2) Un homme qui convainc un autre homme de se prêter ou de se livrer à des actes de débauche contre-nature en abusant des liens d’autorité, de dépendance contractuelle ou de supériorité hiérarchique qui l’unissent à ce dernier.

(3) Un homme âgé de plus de 21 ans qui détourne une personne de sexe masculin de moins de 21 ans en tant qu’il se livre ou se prête avec cette personne à des actes de débauche contre-nature.

(4) Un homme qui se livre ou se prête à des fins vénales à des actes de débauche contre-nature, ou qui racole à cette fin.

Source : Histoire d'un génocide oublié, Jean-Pierre Joecker, éditions Persona, Paris,1980.

Illustrations : Ce croquis publié dans Die Freundschaft fait allusion aux suicides causés en 1950-51 à Francfort par les poursuites judiciaires engagées pour infraction au Paragraphe 175. (Orig. : Schwules Museum, Berlin.); Première édition de "Der Eigene", une des premières revues homosexuelles, publié par Adolf Brand en 1896.

"Le Dr Magnus Hirschfeld, photographié dans les années 1920, fondateur du Comité Scientifique et Humanitaire.

M. Hirschfeld devint le défenseur le plus visible d'Allemagne de la tolérance envers les homosexuels. "Son Institut de la Science Sexuelle sera mis à sac par les nazis le 6 mai 1933 .

La principale revendication du mouvement d'Hirschfeld concerne l'abrogation du paragraphe 175."

Texte : De l'Eldorado au IIIe Reich, conférence de Gerard Koskovich (lire).

Photo : Photo dédicacée de Magnus Hirschfeld. (orig : Schwules Museum, Berlin)

"L'Institut de la Science Sexuelle fut inauguré le 6 juillet 1919 au 10 In den Zelten /3 Beethoven Strasse. Le bâtiment avait été acheté par le Dr Hirschfeld pour la somme de 400 000 marks. Le 14 juin 1933, l'institut fut confisqué sans compensation par les nazis sur la base d'une ordonnance datée du... 2 février 1933.

Jusqu'en 1938, les locaux abritèrent divers instituts et organisations nazis. En 1938, l'Institut d'Hirschfeld fut réaménagé pour accueillir des associations médicales luttant contre les maladies vénériennes, dispensant des cours d'hygiène raciale et de politique démographique."

Texte : Online exhibition by the Magnus Hirschfeld Institute.

Photo : l'Institut de la Science Sexuelle de Magnus Hirschfeld, au 10 In den Zelten/3 Beethoven Strasse (orig : Online exhibition by the Magnus Hirschfeld Institute.)

Cours à l'Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, l'institut du Dr Magnus Hirschfeld.

C'est le premier institut de "sexologie" au monde. On y traite de tous les sujets relatifs à la sexualité et à la psychopathologie. Abordant des thèmes sulfureux pour l'époque, les travaux d'Hirschfeld sont souvent décriés, tournés en dérision ou repris comme motifs d'incitation à la haine.

Texte : Webmaster

Photo : Cours à l'Institut de la Science Sexuelle. Sur l'estrade, Karl Giese. (orig : Online exhibition by the Magnus Hirschfeld Institute.)

Bibliothèque de l'Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, l'institut du Dr Magnus Hirschfeld.

Une bibliothèque très complète, comprenant des photos, des archives, des fiches, etc. Tous les cas sont envisagés.

Vers la justice par la science (Per scientiam ad justitiam). Pour Hirschfeld, la banalisation et la dépénalisation de l'homosexualité passent par la démonstration scientifique de son innocuité sociale.

Les nazis saccageront l'essentiel de cette documentation.

Texte : Webmaster

Photo : Séance d'étude dans la bibliothèque. (orig : Online exhibition by the Magnus Hirschfeld Institute.)

"C'était très tôt le matin. Véhiculés par camions et accompagnés d'un orchestre de cuivres, une centaine d'étudiants firent une razzia sur l'Institut. Ils brisèrent la porte et se précipitèrent à l'intérieur de l'immeuble. Ils passèrent la matinée à renverser de l'encre sur les tapis et les manuscrits. Ils remplirent les camions de livres de la bibliothèque ainsi que des ouvrages qui n'avaient rien à voir avec la sexualité : des travaux historiques, des revues d'art, etc. Dans l'après-midi, une troupe de SA arriva. Les Chemises brunes se mirent à faire des recherches minutieuses. Ils donnaient l'impression de savoir ce qu'ils cherchaient."

Texte : Christopher and his kind, Christopher Isherwood (1976)

Photo : Raid d'étudiants nazis sur l'Institut de la Science Sexuelle de Magnus Hirschfeld, le 6 mai 1933. (orig : société Magnus Hirschfeld)

"Dès leur arrivée au pouvoir au début de l'année 1933, les nazis entreprirent rapidement de transformer cette idéologie en politique nationale et d'élaborer les stratégies permettant de définir les homosexuels comme des êtres inférieurs et le désir homosexuel comme une menace pour la société. Ces objectifs se dessinent nettement à travers une série d'actions entreprises entre 1933 et 1936, qui se soldèrent par l'anéantissement des mouvements homosexuels et de la culture homosexuelle florissante."

Texte : De l'Eldorado au IIIe Reich, conférence de Gerard Koskovich.

Photo : Etudiants nazis devant l'Institut de la Science Sexuelle de Magnus Hirschfeld, le 6 mai 1933. (orig : société Magnus Hirschfeld)

"En 1930, le §175 faillit être supprimé, sous l'effet d'une pétition [due au médecin Magnus Hirschfeld] à laquelle s'associèrent d'éminents mouvements pour les droits de l'homme et du citoyen et presque toute l'élite intellectuelle et artistique de la République de Weimar. Mais la montée du nazisme l'en empêcha et la loi fut même fortement durcie en 1935, pour punir de prison la simple présomption d'homosexualité, ce qui ouvrait tout grand la porte à la délation."

Texte : La déportation homosexuelle, Mario Kramp.

Photo : Etudiants nazis devant l'Institut de la Science Sexuelle de Magnus Hirschfeld, le 6 mai 1933. (orig : société Magnus Hirschfeld)

"Les étudiants en médecine se sont portés volontaires pour le "nettoyage" de ce lieu qui, subventionné par le gouvernement, trônait honteusement au milieu de la capitale.

Quelques années auparavant, des dignitaires nazis avaient consulté chez le Dr Hirschfeld et redoutaient sans doute que l'on puisse utiliser des dossiers révélant leur homosexualité."

Texte : Les Oubliés de la Mémoire, Jean Le Bitoux, Editions Hachette, avril 2002.

Photo : Etudiant allemand et membre de la SA fouillant les archives de l'Institut de la Science Sexuelle de Magnus Hirschfeld, le 6 mai 1933. (orig : USHM)

"La destruction du mouvement homosexuel et de l'imagerie homosexuelle débuta le 6 mai par l'irruption d'une centaine d'étudiants nazis dans l'Institut de la Science Sexuelle de Magnus Hirschfeld, qu'un théoricien du parti qualifia plus tard de "dépotoir et de terreau à vermine sans équivalent". Les étudiants détruisirent tout ce qui leur tomba sous la main. Ils confisquèrent plus de 12000 livres et la précieuse collection de photographies archivées dans le centre."

Texte : De l'Eldorado au IIIe Reich, conférence de Gerard Koskovich.

Photo : L'Institut de la Science Sexuelle de Magnus Hirschfeld mis à sac par les nazis. (orig : Magazine Voilà, édition du 1er juillet 1933)

"Dans la nuit du 10 mai, la bibliothèque et les archives de l'Institut allèrent rejoindre les livres "non-allemands" sur le gigantesque bûcher allumé devant l'Opéra de Berlin."

Texte : De l'Eldorado au IIIe Reich, conférence de Gerard Koskovich.

Photo : Le bûcher des livres non-allemands allumé devant l'Opéra de Berlin.