Persecutions of Siniti and Roma, Hereditary Ills, Asocials and Homosexuals
Source: M. Burleigh and W. Wippermann, The Racial State, Germany 1933-1945 (Oxford, 1991), pp.113-122, 136-156, 167-176, 182-192.
Judging by what is know of the physical condition of those arrested, and by the nature of the work they had to carry out in the camps, it seems that the "cure" Greifelt ironically spoke of was intended to be lethal. This seems to be confirmed by the large number of fatalities among the "asocial" inmates of Buchenwald. This apparently, contradictory result can be explained by the fact that the arrests and detentions in concentration camps were designed to terrify those not arrested ΓÇô and indeed the working population as a whole ΓÇô into renewed efforts on behalf of the economy. Anyone contemplating dropping out was well advised to think again.
The measures taken against the "asocial" were solely based upon Himmler's decree on crime prevention of 14 December 1937. There was never a formal law on the "asocial". However, there were various attempts from 1940 onwards to pass what in the Nazis' hyper-German speech was called a Community Aliens Law ( Gemeinschaftsfremdengesetz ). 68 These plans ran into difficulties with the Ministry of Justice, which wished to defend its areas of competence from Himmler's ever-expanding security empire. What this law would have entailed can be seen from a draft classificatory system on the "asocial", prepared on a postcard by a Munich law professor, Mezger, for a conference on this issue, and from an advanced draft of the projected law, produced by the printing workshop in the prison at Tegel.
Dr Edmund Mezger
Professor of Law in the University
Munich 25 March 1944
Kaulbachstr. 89
Ministerial Director Grau
Ministry of Justice
Berlin
Wilhelmstrasse 65
Dear Ministerial Director
In the question of the "classification" of criminals under discussion, I have decided on the following scheme:
Situation Criminals
Criminals by virtue of conflict
Criminals by virtue of development
Criminals by virtue of opportunity
Character Criminals
Criminals by virtue of inclination
Criminals by virtue of tendency
Criminals by virtue of condition
Yours faithfully
Heil Hitler
Your loyal
Dr Mezger
The experience of decades has shown, that the criminal fraternity is continuously replenished from inferior clans. The individual members of these clans always mate with individuals from equally bad clans. This means that inferiority is transmitted from generation to generation, quite often intensifying into criminality. Most of these people are neither willing to join, nor capable of joining, the national community. They lead a life which is alien to the ideas of the community, have no feelings for society, are often incapable if not hostile to a life within the community, and are in any case community aliens.
It is an old demand of those organisations entrusted with the public welfare that community aliens (asocials) be compulsorily maintained; because of their inability to become part of the community they become a permanent burden on society. Up to now, existing welfare legislation only recognises custody in cases of proven helplessness or of voluntary committal... The social order will need a legal basis for taking community aliens into compulsory custody, beyond the inadequate possibilities of existing welfare legislation.
The governments of the time of the system [i.e. in the Weimar Republic] failed in the case of community aliens. They did not make knowledge of eugenics and criminal biology the basis of sound welfare and criminal policies. Liberalistic thinking only saw the "rights" of the individual, and was more concerned with the protection of rights vis a vis the power of the state than with the wellbeing of the community.
In National Socialism the individual does not count as far as society is concerned.
Measures introduced by the Reich Criminal Police after the seizure of power, based upon a gradually developing National Socialist police law against community aliens, developed from this principle. It was increasingly recognised that the treatment of community aliens was a matter not so much for the welfare authorities as for the police. According to National Socialist thinking, welfare can only be accorded to people who are not just needy but also worthy of it. Community aliens who only harm the national community do not need welfare, but rather compulsion based on action by the police, designed either to retrieve them as worthwhile members of the national community or to prevent their causing further harm. Protection of the community is therefore the first priority.
The draft law concerning treatment of community aliens must fulfil these requirements, in so far as it incorporates existing police measures, refashions them, and creates a legal basis for further judgements in criminal cases involving community aliens, as well as for the [...]
The Persecution of Homosexuals
A homosexual recalls 1933:
Then came the thunderbolt of the 30 January 1933, and we knew that a change of the political climate had taken place. What we had tried to prevent, had taken place.
Over the years, more and more of my political friends disappeared, of my Jewish and of my homosexual friends. Fear came over us with the increasingly co-ordinated pressure of the Nazis. For heaven's sake not to attract attention, to exercise restraint. 1933 was the starting-point for the persecution of homosexuals. Already in this year we heard of raids on homosexual pubs and meeting places. Maybe individual, politically uneducated homosexuals who were only interested in immediate gratification did not recognise the significance of the year 1933, but for us homosexuals who were also politically active, who had defended the Weimar Republic, and who had tried to forestall the Nazi threat, 1933 initially signified a reinforcing of our resistance.
In order not to mutually incriminate ourselves, we decided to no longer recognise each other. When we came across each other in the street, we passed by without looking at one another. There were certainly possibilities for us to meet, but that never happened in public.
For a political homosexual, visiting places, which were part of the homosexual subculture was too dangerous. Friends told me that raids on bars were becoming more frequent. And someone had written on the wall of the subway tunnel of the Hamburg S-Bahn between Dammtor station and the main station, "Street of the Lost". That was some sort of film or book title. We found this graffiti very amusing, for most of us tried to cope with the thing by developing a sort of gallows humour. 75
Homosexuals were not recognised as victims of Nazi persecution in either post-war German State. 76 This is despite the fact that those who were forced to wear the pink triangle in concentration camps were particularly harshly treated by guards and fellow inmates alike. There are several reasons for this unsatisfactory state of affairs. Firstly, it is a reflection of widespread continuing prejudice against homosexuals, and of the natural reticence of the victims to publicise persecution posited upon sexual preference. Secondly, it is a consequence of the fact that the Nazis' harsher 1935 interpretation of paragraph 175 of the 1871 Reich Criminal Code, criminalising "acts of indecency" as well as sexual intercourse between to men, was not repealed until 1969. Concretely, this meant that men who had been sent to concentration camps because of their sexual preferences could be punished after 1945 under the same law. In East Germany, the Nazis' emendations to the law were partially abrogated in 1950, and homosexual acts between consenting adults of eighteen years of age or over were legalised in 1968. However, in the GDR too, homosexuals were not numbered among Hitler's victims. Neither post-war German state has a distinguished record in this area. In a recent election contest in Schleswig-Holstein, the CDU incumbent candidate tried to smear his SPD rival with the charge that his party advocated sex with minors. Thadvent of Aids has also become a means to collect votes and percentage points on the pretext of restoring "traditional morality". Although in the GDR there were real efforts to demystify homosexual activities and to "normalise" homosexual partnerships, foreigners determined to be HIV positive were simply deported. 77 This fact received less attention than the regime's well-publicised investment in research on Aids.
For most of the medieval and early modern periods, the penalty for homosexual acts was death. Under the impact of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, certain German states, beginning with Bavaria in 1813, decriminalised homosexuality. The significant exception was Prussia, whose benighted legislation concerning the issue was carried over in 1871 on to the Reich as a whole.
Text of Paragraph 175 of the 1871 Reich Criminal Code:
A male who indulges in criminally indecent activity with another male, or who allows himself to participate in such activity, will be punished with imprisonment.
If one of the participants is under the age of twenty-one, and if the offence has not been grave, the court may dispense with the sentence of imprisonment. 78
Since it was difficult in practice to prove what had taken place in private between two men, before the turn of the century convictions under Paragraph 175 amounted to on average 500 per annum. This does not mean that homosexuals had an easy time of it. While the number of successful prosecutions may have been limited, the opportunities for "informal" prosecution were immense. During the Kaiserreich, homosexuals were particularly vulnerable to blackmailers, known as Chanteure on the homosexual scene. Blackmail, and the threat of public exposure, resulted in frequent suicides or suicide attempts. Nonetheless, gradually a recognisable homosexual subculture developed, particularly in the big cities, which afforded individuals some degree of anonymity. During the First World War, Berlin alone had about forty homosexual meeting places, ranging from elegant bars to ordinary pubs, all largely staffed by homosexuals. In Berlin there were also spectacular homosexual dances, where men were (temporarily) allowed to dance freely with other men. Otherwise, there were a number of homosexual meeting places, notably the "queers' way" in the Tiergarten, or in Hamburg the "Tabakgaertchen", as well as private baths and less salubrious places. 79 Most homosexuals, however, seem to have preferred small circles of the like-minded, where they could talk and socialise in the privacy of their own homes.
The beginnings of a homosexual rights movement in Germany are closely associated with Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935). 80 Through an association called the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, founded in 1897, Hirschfeld sought to enlighten the public about homosexuality and to bring about the repeal of Paragraph 175. A petition to this effect was supported by, inter alia , Gerhart Hauptmann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Karl Kautsky, Max Liebermann and the socialist leader August Bebel, the only leader of a German political party ever to bother to find out at first hand about the life of homosexuals in that country. He was also the first person publicly to reveal the existence of "pink lists", on which the police recorded the names of homosexuals regardless of whether they had been convicted of homosexual activities or not.
This is not to claim that the political Left had a monopoly of virtue on this subject. The correspondence of Marx and Engels contains periodic aspersions against homosexuals ΓÇô as it does against Poles and Jews ΓÇô and in the 1890s German Social Democrats sought to make political capital out of a number of homosexual scandals involving prominent persons. This was so in the cases of Friedrich Krupp, Prince Phillip zu Eulenburg, and Kuno von Moltke, all close associates of the Kaiser himself. In 1902, for example, the SPD's Vorwaerts ran an article under the headline "Krupp auf Kapri", revealing that the Italian police had brought charges against the industrialist. 81
The Weimar Republic brought an initial liberalisation of the climate of opinion, but not changes in the law. Homosexual meeting places and magazines proliferated, while books and films appeared which dealt with the subject in a comparatively open way. In 1919 Hirschfeld founded the Institute for Sexual Science, devoted to the scientific discussion of marital problems, sexually transmitted diseases, laws relating to sexual offences, abortion, and homosexuality. Greater openness concerning homosexuality resulted in an attempt by the conservative governmental coalition in 1925 to tighten up the law. Operating under the assumption that a minority of "Ur-Homos" were using the new climate to propagate their sexual preference among heterosexual men, a group of civil servants drafted an amendment to the law known as E 1925. This attempt to turn the clock back resulted in counter-proposals from Hirschfeld's Scientific-Humanitarian Committee concerning the reform of all laws pertaining to sexual matters. The first reading of E 1925 took place in the Reichstag on 22 June 1927. The Catholic Centre, German People's Party (DVP), and German National People's Party (DNVP) coalition received vocal support from the fourteen Nazi deputies, with Wilhelm Frick claiming, Naturally it is the Jews, Magnus Hirschfeld and his racial comrades, who have taken the lead and are trying to break new ground, just as in general the whole of Jewish morality has ruined the German people.' Despite the opposition of the SPD and KPD, the draft went through to committee stage. Following a leftwards change in the political composition of the Reichstag, the committee eventually met on 16 October 1929. Conservative committee members claimed that sexuality was not a private matter and that the object of legislation should be to maintain the generative "powers of the nation". They were outvoted, however, fifteen to thirteen, by representatives of the SPD, KPD, and DDP, who recommended the legislation of homosexual acts among consenting adults. The advent of the Nazi regime soon nullified this considerable achievement. This had been made clear in an article in the Voelkischer Beobachter on 2 August 1930 which said, We congratulate you, Herr Kahl and Herr Hirschfeld, on this success! But don't you believe that we Germans will allow such a law to exist for one day when we have succeeded in coming to power.' Like the conservative press in general, Nazi newspapers contained denunciations of Hirschfeld as "the big boss of the perverts" and alarmist articles whenever we happened to speak about reform of Paragraph 175 in schools. 82
References:
68.See Peukert, Arbeitslager und Jugend-KZ', p. 415; Wagner, Das Gesetz ueber die Behandlung Gemeinschaftsfremder', pp. 80ff.
69.BA Koblenz R 22/944, pp. 228f., cited by Norbert Frei, Der Fuehrerstaat (Munich, 1987), pp. 203ΓÇô8.
70.See also Diemut Majer, Fremdvoelkische' im Dritten Reich (Boppard, 1981).
71.Letter from Reich Justice Minister Thierack to Bormann dated 13 October 1942, cited by Bruno Blau, Das Ausnahmerecht fuer die Juden in Deutschland (Duesseldorf, 1954), p. 116.
72. Richterbrief' , 1 June 1943, cited by Heinz Boberach (ed.), Richterbriefe. Dokumente zur Beeinflussung der deutschen Rechtsprechung 1942 bis 1944 (Boppard, 1975).
73. Richterbriefe', 1 January 1943 and 1 June 1943, cited in ibid..
74.Runderlass des Reichsministers des Innern 18.7.1940, ΓÇ£Richtlinien fuer die Beurteilung der ErbgesundheitΓÇ¥', Ministerialblatt des Reichs- und Preussischen Ministers des Innern , 5 (4 July 1940), p. 1591.
75.Interview with an anonymous subject, published in Hans-Georg Stuemke, Rudi Finkler, Rosa Winkel, Rosa Listen. Homosexuelle und Gesundes Volksempfinden' von Auschwitz bis heute (Hamburg, 1981), p. 238. See also Burkhard Jellonek, Homosexuelle unter dem Hakenkreuz. Verfolgung von Homosexuellen im Dritten Reich (Paderborn, 1990) for a regional study of the persecution of homosexuals.
76.For an informed discussion of the issue of compensation, see Hans-Georg Stuemke, Homosexuelle in Deutschland. Eine politische Geschichte (Munich, 1), pp. 132ff. See also S. Romey, Zu Recht verfolgt? Zur Geschichte der ausgebliebenen Entschaedigung', Projektgruppe fuer die vergessenen Opfer des NS-Regimes in Hamburg e.V. (eds.), Verachtet ΓÇô Verfolgt ΓÇô Vernichtet. Zu den vergessenen Opfern des NS-Regimes (Hamburg, 1986), pp. 220ΓÇô45.
77.Stuemke, Homosexuelle in Deutschland , pp. 166ff.; H. W. Wieland, Realer Sozialismus: DDR integriert Homosexuelle', Du & Ich , 19 (1987), pp. 71ΓÇô3.
78.Reprinted in Richard Plant, The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against Homosexuals (Edinburgh, 1987), p. 206.
79.For these remarks on the homosexual scene' see Stuemke, Homosexuelle in Deutschland , pp. 22ff. and the catalogue Eldorado'. Homosexuelle Frauen und Maenner in Berlin 1850ΓÇô1950 (Berlin, 1984).
80.On Hirschfeld see Charlotte Wolff, Magnus Hirschfeld: A Portrait of a Pioneer in Sexology (London, 1986).
81.Stuemke, Homosexuin Deutschland , pp. 40ff.. See also B. Engelmann, Krupp, Legenden und Wirklichkeit (Frankfurt, 1970); for the Eulenburg affair see also E. Ebermayer, Glanz un d Gloria verblasst. Der Fall Fuerst Philipp zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld', Der neue Pitaval , Vol. 14: Skandale (Munich, 1967), pp. 115ΓÇô64.
82.For attempts to reform paragraph 175 see Stuemke, Homosexuelle in Deutschland , pp. 53ff. and Stuemke, Finkler, Rosa Winkel, Rosa Listen , pp. 39ff.
