1. Introduction Homosexuals were not immediately persecuted more after Hitler rose to power, but that would change with the Röhm-Putsch on June 30, 1934, when the openly homosexual leader of the SA (Sturmabteilung), Ernst Röhm, as well as other leading SA officials and opponents of the state were imprisoned, with Röhm being executed on July 1, 1934. The stated objective to the public was to eradicate homosexuality from the National Socialist ranks, (Jellonnek, 1990, p. 96), and this justification found immense support from the German public, who "were relieved to see that the Führer was ready to eliminate homosexuality within the ranks of his most loyal followers" (Moeller, 2010, p. 523). This support from the public enabled the revision of §175 in 1935, a law that had prohibited sexual relations between men since the …show more content…
24). This gave way to a "revival of a homosexual male subculture in many West German cities" (Moeller, 2010, p. 530), a clear indicator that homosexual men thought the tides would turn. This hope was undermined by the inclusion of §175 in its 1935 state into the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) by the newly founded Federal German Republic (Whisnant, 2012, p. 25). Even though the Allies suspended most other laws of the Nazi era, they left the decision over §175 to the West German government (Moeller, 2010, p. 530) who saw it fit for inclusion, because it was considered "consistent with a "democratic political order"" (Moeller, 1994, p. 428). This development spelled the end of that short period of freedom for gay men after the war, who came to the conclusion that their country would not change much for them under a new democratic rule (Whisnant, 2012, p.
In the 1930's, Germany was overruled by an a tyrannical regime known as the Nazis. The Nazis believed solely in the racial superiority of Normadic-Germans, and used control over the flow of information through the country to keep these harmful views relevant and accepted. They did this by limiting allowed media intake and censoring any non-propaganda content. Anyone who spoke out against them or their philosophies was captured and killed or tortured. Despite rejecting these intentions, many citizens of Germany were forced to stay quiet for these reasons.
The government denied the idea that homosexuals were just like everyone else. Homosexuality, during that time, was considered a mental illness not to mention the fact that laws were rewritten to target gay people. For example the Sodomy Laws—which is a law that defines certain sexual acts as crimes.—were specifically aimed at gay people. People were scared of gay people, the majority of the community believed that gay people were worse than communist not to mention the fact that people protested to not allow gay people to have rights—which is kind of dumb because every human being has unalienable Rights.—and don't even get me started with the church. The church thought that the gay community were an abomination, that they wanted to convert their children and that all of them, from the gay community, were going to go to hell and lastly gay people, back in the day, couldn't raise kids.
He encouraged all Germans to keep their bodies pure of any intoxicating or unclean substance. A main Nazi concept was the notion of racial hygiene. New laws banned marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans, and deprived "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship. Hitler's early “selective breeding” policies targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities, and later authorized an euthanasia program for disabled
Human beings are reactive in nature. Throughout history, this fact had both aided and hurt us. Matthew Shepard was a case in which this tendency hurt us. On the night of October 6th, 1998, Matthew Shepard was kidnapped, brutally beaten, and robbed, tied to a fence and left to die. Once Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay, the town of Laramie reacted, mostly with love and support.
The U.S. government was scared that homosexuals were working with communist countries. As a result, thousands of homosexuals lost their jobs. “President Dwight D. Eisenhower that year declared homosexuals a threat
Castration, electroshock therapy, and hypnosis were popular medical treatments as “cures” for homosexuality. In an interview with a Stonewall riot veteran, Roy McCarthy, he said, “We were tired of gay people getting locked up in psychiatric hospitals and getting tortured! We had our own Auschwitzes and Dachaus! And we were just pissed off about all of that! And it had to end!”
Hilter said that homosexual’s were enemies of the state. Nazis believed that homosexuality was a sickness to be cured so they designed policies to “cure” homosexuals, but it was just humiliating. The Nazis used the “Pink List” to hunt down many homosexuals who were either hiding or they escaped. They knew homosexuals as unlikely to decrease the population of producing
The 1960’s and before was a miserable time for the LGBT+ community, with simply expressing love being illegal. Police stormed into gay clubs to arrest said “criminals,” which is exactly what happened on June 28, 1969. The community was already fed up with the past - this just fueled the fire. Danny Garvin, a Stonewall rioter, said, “Something snapped. It’s like, this is not right.”
In Jonathan Alter’s “Degrees of Discomfort” (published March 12,1990), he determines whether or not homophobia is equivalent to racism. That is one question that can be debated all day long by individuals. Some people believe that homophobia is equal to racism, while others believe that homophobia is worse than racism. Instead of arguing for one of these sides, Alter explores why homophobia was considered less serious than racism. Alter writes about both sides of the argument, while he keeps his thoughts neutral.
Joking about communism, complaining or speaking ill of the country, not showing respect to authority figures, or merely looking strange could lead to one being arrested as a political prisoner. This means that practically anyone could be falsely arrested and “The Nazis persecuted non-Jewish German opponents both real and perceived” (Political Prisoners). Not only were people of different religious backgrounds being taken away left
People who were homosexual were also treated unequal at the time
The Nazis tried to cure homosexuality by conducting medical experiments on some gay concentration camp inmates (“Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals”). The personnels in charge of work detail usually gave the homosexuals deadly
Also, the racial status was inherited by children and grandchildren. Furthermore, the Law for Protection of German Blood and German Honor had been placed to banned marriage between a Jew from marrying a non-Jew German. The law had also “...criminalized sexual relations between them…” (“Nuremberg Laws”).
In 1933, the ‘Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring’ was passed, ordering forced sterilization of those who were considered to be Disabled. These people included those with deafness, blindness, physical deformities, epilepsy, schizophrenia, etcetera. (“Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases”). Hitler backdated his order to September 1st, 1939, the day World War II began, to make it appear as if this was a wartime measure. The individuals were taken to supposed “Eugenics Court” where doctors and lawyers loyal to Hitler reviewed the cases.
Germany’s Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses, or Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased offspring, considered vague and poorly defined criteria like “Congenital Mental Deficiency” as entirely valid criteria for forced sterilization (Miller, 193). However, while America’s largest eugenics-based atrocities mostly are restrained to sterilization, Nazi Germany had no such limitations. After making efforts to sterilize those that were seen as Die Untermenschen, or “sub-humans”, Germany expanded their efforts to remove those human elements that were seen as more useful alive than dead. Championing an Aryan “master race”, Nazi Germany opened exterminations camps and systematically murdered those were who were not only seen as racially inferior, but socially useless.