1930s Germany and the Origin of the Holocaust

From 1919 to 1933, the German government was known as the Weimar Republic. During this time, a rather avant-garde culture flourished in fields such as theater, art, and architecture, and included Einstein's physics and Heidegger's philosophy. An off-shoot of this culture was a decadent nightlife in the major cities, particularly Berlin, where open homosexuality was tolerated. There was even an attempt to reform laws against homosexual acts. However, the coming of the depression brought political unrest and new fears that included a growing homophobia. According to a 1995 article by Raphael Lev in the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review:

The early and mid-30's brought bar closings, surveillance, beatings, censorship, and tough anti-gay legislation. From the mid-30's on, the campaign escalated, with stricter sentences, registration of homosexuals,.....

Paragraph 175

- a provision of the German Criminal Code. It made homosexual acts between males a crime.

Rise of the Nazis
In 1935, the Nazis expanded Paragraph 175 so that the courts could pursue any "lewd act" whatsoever, even one involving no physical contact, such as masturbating next to each other. Convictions multiplied by a factor of ten to about 8,000 per year. The Gestapo could transport suspected offenders to concentration camps without any legal justification at all (even if they had been acquitted or already served their sentence in jail).

The following chart contains numbers from the official Gestapo statistics and unpublished reports of the Federal Security Office for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality.





Pink Triangles
An estimated 10,000 homosexual men were forced into concentration camps, where they were identified by the pink triangle. The majority of them died there.

Play time period
The time period of the play is also different from most other Holocaust literature. Rather than being set during World War II, the story begins in 1934 when Hitler’s purge of his Storm Troopers (SA) coincidentally led to the persecution of gays since the head of the SA was gay and his fall provided an excuse for going after other homosexuals. The play continues into 1936, when most of the world still had no idea that any concentration camps existed.

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