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Homosexuals & Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany was not a good place for a large
majority of the population to be. However, things were particularly rough
for the homosexuals. At one point Berlin was considered to be a highly liberal
area - and the city was very accommodating to the gay community. Of course,
this was all before the Third Reich came along - and by then it was too late
for the gay community to get out and save themselves. As the Nazi party rose
to power all the freedoms that were known by the homosexuals soon were removed
and life would become unimaginable.
According to the Nazi beliefs, homosexuality
was not compatible to the National Socialism Party because gays were unable
to reproduce. Thus, homosexuality stopped the formation of the master race
and therefore, it was unacceptable. Throughout history there have been similar
arguments to the need for stopping homosexual activity, though all have proven
to be equally as useless.
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The comical fact of the matter is that there were
at least two men in Hitler's Army that were homosexual. Hitler kept it quiet
in the case of Ernst Röhm - and in other cases when it suited his needs.
Despite Hitler originally protecting these men, during the night of purging
he saw to it that some of them were murdered. For the ones that died he released
news of their homosexuality to justify his actions. Once this was over the
majority of gay men would end up wearing pink triangles and living out life
in a concentration camp.
Hitler made all gay men enemies of the state
and charged them with corrupting the public morality levels, as well as posing
a threat to the birth rate of German children. Out of the millions that suffered
at the hands of the Nazi's about one million of them were homosexuals. Although
- compared to the homosexuals fare - some may think the other groups had
an easy time. Gay men, especially German gay men, were part of the Master
Race and rather than admit these men to be gay the Nazi's wanted to force
them into heterosexuality. For those men who could not become what the Nazi's
wanted they would be sent to one of the concentration camps and would be
exterminated through the work campaign.
Gay men were forced to suffer in a number of
ways. Many of them were charged with breaking anti-gay laws. When this happened
over 100,000 were arrested, at least half of which went to prison. Many of
these men also ended up being committed to a mental institution. Hundreds
more men were forced to suffer castration in addition to imprisonment or
the mental hospital.
In the concentration camps the homosexual male
had nowhere to turn. The SS were extremely cruel to these men, and,
unfortunately, so were many of the prisoners. It was not uncommon to hear
about a gay prisoner being beat to death by one or more of the other prisoners.
Of course, in addition to camp beatings there were doctors, which used gay
men as guinea pigs for experiments in order to cure future Aryan children
of the gay gene should they have one.
Pierre Seel, is one of the many amazing Holocaust
survivors that eventually came out and told his story. Living in the area
of Mulhouse he arrived at the police station when ordered - as did many other
homosexual men. A good majority of these men were beaten at the police station.
If they put up a fight the SS pulled their fingernails out.
This was a cakewalk compared to what happened
to the other men. Some of them were raped with rulers. These men had to deal
with punctured bowels, and the internal and external bleeding that occurred
as a result. Pierre Seel recalls some very vivid moments that no man should
have had to ever handle in his life, one of which involved watching his lover
publicly executed by German Shepherds that were trained to maul homosexuals
to their deaths.
Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, over
60% of the homosexual population in Nazi Germany died in the concentration
camps they were sent to. Women, on the other hand, were generally forced
into heterosexuality as it was easier to rape a woman and make her marry,
or bare children, than it would have been a man. However, lesbians that refused
to go along with the flow of the plans for Nazi Germany were considered to
be anti-social. They would be forced to wear a black triangle and often sent
to the camps as well.
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