Gay Prisoners in Concentration Camps as Compared with Jehovah's Witnesses and Political Prisoners" By Ruedilger Lautmann, Sociologist
Nizkor FTP file: holocaust/homosexual/homosexual.002
_________________________________________________________________
Archive/File: holocaust/homosexual homosexual.002
Last-Modified: 1995/01/24
"Gay Prisoners in Concentration Camps as Compared with Jehovah's
Witnesses and Political Prisoners
Ruediger Lautmann
Historians in Germany argue about how universal the historical
character of national socialism was. One conservative faction
would like to view the communist system as responsible for fascism.
Because Marxism was victorious in Russia, the Fascist parties were
able to win in Italy and Germany. This speculation claims that the
destruction of social class distinctions by the Bolsheviks prepared
the way for racial murders of the Nazis. The extermination of the
Jews is presented as a distorted copy of a previous model, rather
than as a unique occurrence. Other social scientists have
protested against viewing Nazi crimes in such a relativistic way.
They see an aura of normality being created and fear that the basic
anti fascist consensus in the Federal republic might end. They are
also apprehensive about the analogy to current politics and warn
against a restoration by means of history.
The dispute concerns the question: Is the Holocaust continuous with
the rest of European history, or does it represent a unique event,
a break in the continuum of history? Such exciting and dangerous
speculation belongs to a sort of metaphysical thinking that has a
long tradition in German historiography. As a sociologist, I would
like to take a more modest starting point: Is what the Nazis did to
their internal enemies unique or totally surprising?
Investigating concentration camps from a sociological perspective,
one does not confront a phenomenon that is singular and
interesting, while at the same time ordinary and banal. No special
attention is given to the "actors of history." Investigation into
the structure and procedures of the concentration camps inevitably
leads to comparison with other institutionS and some form of
differentiation. A morsel of normality is discovered in the
atrocities, without in the least belittling them.
Regarding Nazi atrocities in this way has its price; it represses
emotion. It focuses on details, rather than on the Holocaust as a
whole. Understanding the preconditions of a terror means studying
its construction, develop ment, and operation in detail. In this
essay, I would like to consider the aims of the terror and
concentrate on the non-Jewish categories of prisoners, using
homosexuals as an example.
Extermination or Reeducation? The concentration camp was one
weapon in the campaign to bring state and society into conformity
with fascism. If physical extermination formed the most frightful
instrument of that policy, it was not the only one. A range of
attempts were made to isolate people and to use fear to inhibit
"undesirable" behavior. Whatever the reasons for imprisonment, all
incarcerations were the result of Nazi ideology and posed a danger
to the prisoner's life. The categories of prisoners differed from
one another in how they were selected and treated. Those groups
whom the Nazis deemed inimical but not racially undesirable were
not completely rounded up, but taken only in random samples They
also fared differently within the camps. Homosexuals, political
prisoners, and Jehovah's Witnesses are among the groups who were
sent to the concentration camps for reeducation. They were
supposed to renounce their particular orientation. The very fact
of their incarceration restrained their ideological comrades
outside the camps from becoming active in the struggle against
Nazism.
Democratic freedom makes pluralism possible. In democracies,
deviations from the norm concern not only criminality but also
sexuality, ethnicity, religion, and attitudes toward work. The
Nazi system was concerned with deviations in all these areas. It
classified political, sexual, religious, and working-attitude
deviations in separate categories. In all probability, the
Hitlerian state required these definitions of the enemy and was, in
its own terms, correct in its choice of these groups. Within a
society, minority and separationist groups represent a seedbed of
possible revolt. Homosexuality has always and everywhere existed.
Hitler considered homosexuality as a predisposition that could not
be changed. It was assumed that a homosexual orientation could not
be eliminated, that only its manifestations could be blocked.
Thus, the pink triangle worn by the homosexual in the concentration
camp represented the Nazis' intention to reeducate him. Severe
measures were in fact intended only as behavioristic conditioning:
a way to cause unlearning through aversion.
No credence was placed in a simple change of opinion by
homosexuals, such as was granted to Jehovah's Witnesses, who were
not taken entirely seriously, or even to political prisoners. Two
categories were seen among homosexuals: the constitutionally
hard-boiled homosexual and the occasional offender. Since in
neither case was the Aryan status of the homosexual in doubt, all
could remain alive. If necessary, homosexuals were to be
castrated, but they were permitted to continue to work. As a
matter of policy, extermination was therefore restrained. In
practice there were other contrary impulses on the part of the SS,
and those who wore the pink triangle met an unusually harsh fate.
The social controls directed at homosexuals within the camp
represented a continuation and an intensification of social
controls imposed by society at large.
Continuity of Social Control At the beginning of this essay, I
mentioned the questionable attempt of some historians to deny the
uniqueness of the Third Reich, to historicise it and to externalize
responsibility. This approach has nothing to do with the
connection I would like to establish here between society as a
whole and society inside the camps. This continuity remains within
the German context and does not seek its origins outside the
frontiers of the Reich. The concentration camp was an extreme
instance of social control. It mixed ordinary and singular
characteristics of social regulation. For example, it was and is
"normal" to categorize and stigmatize people; it is "singular" to
ascribe total uselessness to a certain group. It is "normal" to
organize the life of an inmate; it is "singular" to view the life
of a prisoner as being of almost no value. It is "normal" to
devalue homosexual activities and to impose certain disadvantages
on those who engage in them; it is "singular" to impose this
devaluation by physical force and without constitutional
procedures. It is "normal" (up to the present day) to stigmatize
homosexuals; it is "singular" to attempt to eliminate homosexual
life-styles and to destroy the subculture completely by organizing
police raids.
The closer a prisoner's category was to the heart of Nazi ideology,
the more dangerous his circumstances in the camp. Furthermore, the
more repressively a group was controlled in society, the harder the
fate of its members within the camp. Increasing the number of
those sentenced, and imposing stricter rules in the military and
party organizations, was followed by an increased death rate in the
camp. The more marginal the social position of a group, the more
marginal their position was within the camp.
The prisoners with the pink triangle had certainly shown "precamp"
qualities of survival, but they did not get a chance to apply these
qualities in the camp. Because their subculture and organizations
outside had been wantonly destroyed, no group solidarity developed
inside the camp. Since outside the concentration camp homosexuals
were regarded as effete, they were given no tasks of
self-administration inside the camps. Since every contact outside
was regarded as suspicious, homosexuals did not even dare to speak
to one another inside (as numerous survivors have reported in
interviews). Since homosexuals were generally regarded as
worthless, their fellow prisoners had a lower regard for them.
Thus, few accounts of the pink triangles exist, and those that do
exist have a spiteful flavor.
Differences between Prisoner Categories To regard the prisoners
according to their categories means distinguishing between major
and minor sufferings. Is that permissible? We could even ask: Is
social science still possible after Auschwitz? Nevertheless,
various developments have virtually given a positive answer to
these questions. After 1945 differences in the fate of different
groups of prisoners have been recognized by differences in
compensation. Research, too, has given varying degrees of
attention to the different groups of victims. The color of the
assigned triangle (i.e., the prisoner category) was the basis for a
collective fate.
In my empirical research, I have sifted all extant documents to
examine the names and data on all concentration camp prisoners
registered as being homosexual.' I found the data for about 1,500
homosexuals (This is a complete survey of the quite incomplete
documents). I chose as control groups Jehovah's Witnesses (about
750) and political prisoners (200). Each category of prisoner
seemed to possess a characteristic social profile. If we look at
the distribution according to age upon committal to a camp, the
Jehovah's Witnesses predominate in the somewhat older age group
(from 35), and the homosexuals in the second somewhat younger one
(20-35). Committal figures have regular curves, which are quite
different for the three groups. For homosexuals the year 1942
marks the peak (with a quarter of all committals), and for
Jehovah's Witnesses the years 1937 and 1938 (half of all
committals) are the peaks. The committal figures for the
politicals remain at the same level, with a slight rise toward the
year 1944. The death rate for homosexual prisoners (60 percent)
was one and a half times as high as for political prisoners (41
percent) and Jehovah's Witnesses (35 percent). Some background
variables, such as professional status, [continued after table
20.1]
TABLE 20.1
Death Rate According to Category and Professional Status
-----------------------------------------------------------
Lower Lower Middle All
Classes Middle and Above (%)
(%) (%) (%)
Homosexuals 54.6 52.6 50.1 53.0
(328) (114) (219) (661)
Jehovah's 34.5 36.6 34.6 34.7
Witnesses (374) (52) (81) (507)
Politicals 40.2 38.9 42.9 40.5
(122) (18) (28) (168)
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Figures in parentheses are based on social groups of a
prisoner category, insofar as its fate is known (dead, liberated,
or released).
marital status, and number of children, have been considered. Thus
far, the individual variables tested do not cancel the connection
between the victim group and the risk of death. Reading the many
reports and asking the prisoners' committees (which still exist
today) about the prisoners with the pink triangles, one repeatedly
learns that they were there, but nobody can tell you anything about
them. Quantitative analysis offers a sad explanation for the
extraordinary lack of visibility: the individual pink-triangle
prisoner was likely to live for only a short time in the camp and
then to disappear from the scene. After four months, one in four
had left; after a year, one in two. It was otherwise for the
Jehovah Witnesses and politicals: after a year four out of five and
two out of three, respectively, were still in the camp. This
thinning out is due to deaths: three out of four deaths among the
homosexuals occurred within the first year after their committal.
In comparison with the red and violet triangles, the pink triangle
seems to signify a category of less value. The destinies of Jews
and homosexuals within the camp approximate each other. In the
concentration camp, both groups found themselves at the bottom of
the current hierarchy below the non-Jewish racially defined groups
of prisoners.
The collective devaluation of the wearers of certain triangles
supports the idea of a connection between internal camp treatment
of the marginal groups and the sociostructural control they were
subjected to in society at large. With regard to the homosexuals,
there were many reports of how the SS deliberately treated them
brutally and how the other prisoners looked [continued after
tables]
TABLE 20.2
Survival Rate According to Category and Marital Status
------------------------------------------------------------------
Married Single, Divorced, Widowed
(%) (%)
Homosexuals 51.4 47.7
(74) (451)
Jehovah's 66.2 66.3
Witnesses (361) (146)
Politicals 65.4 52.4
(81) (84)
-------------------------------------------------------------
Note Figures in parentheses are based on social groups of a
prisoner category, insofar as its fate is known (dead, liberated,
or released).
TABLE 20. 3
Survival Rate According to Category and Number of Children
-----------------------------------------------------------
With Childless
Children
(%) (%)
Homosexuals 56.6 49.2
(69) (366)
Jehovah's Witnesses 62.9 59.8
(240) (179)
Politicals 60.3 56.9
(78) (72)
------------------------------------------------------------
Note Figures in parentheses are based on social groups of a
prisoner category, insofar as its fate is known (dead, liberated,
or released).
down upon them. This contrasts with reports stating that Jehovah's
Witnesses were admired outside the camp or that politicals were
full of respect for one another's activities. Analytical
scientific literature also draws the connection between the
prestige of a triangle and the treatment of the victim category
concerned. Insofar as the pink triangle appears at all in the
historical literature, the tendency is in the direction of
antihomosexual prejudice. There is a tendency of the literature to
associate the pink triangle with the criminal green. The few
surviving pink-triangle wearers were treated similarly by state and
society after 1945, when cautious attempts toward compensation were
finally and definitely rejected. Interviews with such survivors
revealed that for many years they never told anyone they had been
in a concentration camp. The extreme devaluation was accepted as a
self-evaluation. Gay interest groups arose again only in the
1950s, and the movement as a whole took until the 19705 to return
to the position it had held in 1932. Noticeably often, ex-wearers
of the pink triangle report that they subsequently got
married."(Berenbaum, 200-206)
NOTES
1. See my book Seminar: Gesellschaft und Homosexualitaet
(Frankfurt am Main, i 1977), chap. 8, especially pp. 325-65. For
some descriptive results, see my | article "The Pink Triangle: The
Homosexual Males in Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany," Journal
of Homosexuality 6 ( 1981):141-60. This is reprinted in Salvatore
J. Licata and Robert P. Peterson, ed ., Historical Perspectives
on a Homosexuality (New York, 1981).
Work Cited
Berenbaum, Michael, Ed. A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted
and Murdered by the Nazis. New York: New York University Press,
1990
_________________________________________________________________
[ holocaust/homosexual ]
The Nizkor Project
[email protected]
Director: Ken McVay OBC
HTML: Jamie McCarthy
March 31, 1996
[url= http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/lautmann.html]The Nizkor Project[/url]
