woman Schüler-Springorum, for two decades, the Bundestag commemorates the end of January of the Holocaust victims. On the occasion of the Holocaust remembrance day is on 27. January. However, it was never reminded explicitly of the of the Nazi persecution of Homosexuals. A Petition is now calling for the first time, a private memorial service for the homosexual victims of national socialism in the Bundestag, also you have signed. It must be remembered because each victim group individually?
In any case, and this is a common practice, successively, of the individual victim groups in the Bundestag to commemorate. It has already been to the Communist prisoners, Roma and Sinti, the forced laborers reminded recently of the euthanasia victims. That was very impressive. Of course, it is based on the tracking of the categories of the national socialists, which is quite a Problem. On the other hand, and the idea prevails – it is the commemoration for the recognition of these victim groups is very important, which is often remained for decades. And you learn also something about the tracking mechanisms of the Nazi state.
How?
It comes to the question of how and why the Nazi state has followed certain groups. We take the example of homosexual men. Behind the pursuit of the image of a certain military masculinity. That was also part of the upgrade and the radicalisation of the German society, with clear gender images. The downside: In the Camps, those men were beaten and tortured, which corresponded in some way to the stereotype of an effeminate man. This could then homosexuals meet or Jews, who corresponded to this stereotype. The Jew’ was always referred to as a panty-waisted man, the images overlap at this point.
they say the memory is for the group itself is important. What are the reasons that play a role in the case of Homosexuals?
Because they were persecuted after 1945 in the Federal Republic of Germany. There were 50,000 in judgments on the basis of the paragraph 175 until 1945, and again 40,000 to 1969. We know from the continuity in the judiciary, we can assume that it was the same judges. Among those who have experienced the persecution, there were in the sixties and seventies, the feeling that For us nothing has changed. Of the Bundestag in the year 2002, as he has, except the judgments of the NS-time to reverse the judgments of the Federal Republic of Germany.
It has taken until 2017 in the Federal Republic of persecuted homosexuals were sexual rehabilitated.
Apparently, we need decades, this bitter reality. The prejudices against homosexuals are widespread. We may have a homosexual foreign Minister and mayor, this is associated with glitz and Glamour. But in many Parts of the company that looks completely different, the best-known example of the football.
President of the Bundestag, Schäuble refuses to date, a memorial service for the homosexual victims of the Nazi regime. How do you explain that?
Honestly, I can’t explain. But you should bear in mind that this means not only for the now-deceased victims, but also for their living family members quite a humiliation to be, once again, not a memorial worthy of classified.
Stefanie Schüler-Springorum is a historian and, since 2011, Director of the center for antisemitism research at the Technical…photo: private
the German historiography has a hard time with the subject. Usually it is in the hands of individual gay and lesbian scholars, and queer history. Why is this so?
This has from my point of view, not least, with the prejudices or contact the historians themselves fears to do, which are also part of our society. This is reflected in their choice of topics.
Now, dealing with the subject, even within the LGBT Community is controversial. There are gay historians that deny lesbian women to be victims in the Nazi time been – because of the Clause have criminalized 175 only male homosexuality. How are you?
It is true that there was no law. But lesbian women were: an idiosyncratic path in life, maybe even some moving in the subculture of the large cities and did not correspond at all to the image of women of the national socialists as a heterosexual companions, and especially as mothers. Therefore, they could well come into the mills of Nazi persecution, especially in the group of the so-called ‘ anti-social‘. Today, it is for the lesbian Community is important to their memory. We must be clear about the fact that our current culture of remembrance is always based on the needs of the generations to come. Therefore, it is entirely legitimate to commemorate the fates of persecuted lesbians in the Camps. I am, therefore, quite clear that there should be in the former ravensbrück concentration camp, a memorial ball, which was negotiated by Activists from the scene.
When it comes to the history of marginalized groups, need to work a lot with self-certificates. On the other hand, these are not known testimonies often, precisely because these groups were made invisible. How do you as a historian with this Dilemma?
This is very difficult. My colleague Annette Leo has written in the past year, a book about a persecuted Sinto-young. There are no written sources, the point of view of the Persecuted. Then you would have to rely on Oral History. In the NS-time Homosexual victims of the is no longer but practically, because the witnesses are no longer living. You can manage just by trying to read the perpetrators or authorities documents against the grain, or by making analogies from the experiences of others on the experience less. But it is clear: We write, it is mainly the story of those who can Express themselves in writing and do – because you have an I-consciousness and a sense of identity, you are encouraged to communicate their own destiny.
The 1920s are often seen as the first flowering of the queer emancipation movement: the Institute for sexual science by Magnus Hirschfeld, with the struggle against paragraph 175. In a new book she edited, will be placed in the Thesis, then, is the same as a counter-movement was the basis for homophobic discourses put up today to stop. Can you elaborate on that?
In the Empire of what masculinity means in the Public unchallenged. Because there was no counter-images to that of the strong man. This changes in the Weimar years, and that is exactly what produced this reaction. This mechanism we know today: The right is not fixed at the moment, not without reason, greatly to the so-called gender issues.
The Homosexual memorial in Berlin’s Tiergarten is regularly desecrated. Why generates so much hatred reminiscent of marginalized groups?
Since various rages: homophobia, of course, but also to be the envy of the attention that these groups allegedly. And: You don’t want to be constantly reminded of his own history, but must have a positive identification with the ,proper‘ English. The aggression factor can be observed in the case of the AfD wonderful. And then there are the existing resentments. Let’s not forget that Gays and lesbians were in Berlin, in 2017, the most commonly attacked group.
click here to read a Text by Lutz van Dijk, Initiator of the Petition to the Bundestag, commemoration, on the subject.
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