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Röhm scandal

The Röhm scandal resulted from the public disclosure of Nazi politician Ernst Röhm's homosexuality by anti-Nazis in 1931 and 1932. As a result of the scandal, Röhm became the first known homosexual politician.

Ernst Röhm in 1924

Röhm was an early member of the Nazi Party and was close to party leader Adolf Hitler. Röhm was homosexual, although he tried to separate his personal and political life. In the late 1920s, he lived in Bolivia where he wrote letters to a friend, Karl-Günther Heimsoth, in which he candidly discussed his sexual orientation. Röhm's double life began to fall apart when he returned to Germany in 1930 and was appointed leader of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazi Party's original paramilitary wing. Although the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Communist Party of Germany supported the repeal of Paragraph 175, the German law criminalizing homosexuality, both parties used homophobia to attack their Nazi opponents and inaccurately portrayed the Nazi Party as dominated by homosexuals. Their goal was to prevent or delay the Nazi seizure of power, which ultimately occurred in early 1933.

Beginning in April 1931, the SPD newspaper Münchener Post published a series of front-page stories about alleged homosexuality in the SA, which turned out to be based on forgeries. SPD leaders set out to obtain authentic evidence of Röhm's sexuality and, if possible, convict him under Paragraph 175. Röhm was tried five times, but never convicted. During the German presidential election in March 1932, the SPD released a pamphlet edited by ex-Nazi Helmuth Klotz [de] with Röhm's letters to Heimsoth. This second round of disclosures sparked a plot by some Nazis to murder Röhm, which fell through and resulted in additional negative press for the party.

The scandal came to national attention as a result of the beating of Klotz by Nazi deputies in the Reichstag building on 12 May 1932 as revenge for his publication of Röhm's letters. Many Germans saw this attack on democracy as more important than Röhm's personal life. The Nazis' electoral performance was not affected by the scandal, but it affected their ability to present themselves as the party of moral renewal. Hitler defended Röhm during the scandal. The latter became completely dependent on Hitler due to loss of support in the Nazi Party. Hitler had Röhm and his friends murdered in 1934, citing both his homosexuality and alleged treachery. After the purge, the Nazi government systematically persecuted homosexual men.

Background

 
Eldorado (pictured in 1932), the most famous gay establishment in Germany,[1] frequented by Röhm

Ernst Röhm (1887–1934) was one of the early leaders of the Nazi Party and built up its paramilitary wing, the Sturmabteilung (SA), which violently attacked communists and other perceived enemies of the German people.[2] He was a friend of later German dictator Adolf Hitler and in 1923 he was convicted of treason for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch.[3] After he was elected to the Reichstag and went to live in Berlin in 1924, he frequented homosexual establishments, including the Eldorado club.[4] In 1929, Röhm joined the homosexual association Bund für Menschenrecht (League for Human Rights)[4][5] and became known to many figures in Berlin's homosexual community.[6][2] Röhm resented having to conceal his sexual orientation[4] and was as open about it as it was possible to be without stating it.[7] In 1925, a man he had hired as a prostitute robbed him; Röhm reported the man to the police. Although Hitler found out about this incident, he did not take action.[8][5][4]

Röhm–Heimsoth letters

In 1928, the homosexual, nationalist physician Karl-Günther Heimsoth wrote a letter to Röhm questioning a passage in the latter's autobiography, Die Geschichte eines Hochverräters ("The Story of an Arch-Traitor").[9][10] As part of a denunciation of conservative, bourgeois morality, Röhm had written, "The struggle against the cant, deceit and hypocrisy of today's society must take its starting point from the innate nature of the drives that are placed in men from the cradle … If the struggle in this area is successful, then the masks can be torn from the dissimilation in all areas of the human social and legal order."[6][11][12] He blamed bourgeois morality for causing suicide.[13][14] Röhm's arguments about morality found little support among other Nazis.[15][16]

Heimsoth asked if Röhm intended this passage as a criticism of Paragraph 175, the German law prohibiting sex between men. Röhm replied, stating "You have understood me completely!"[6][10] He told Heimsoth that he had initially intended to be more explicit, but toned the passage down on the advice of friends.[17][18] Röhm and Heimsoth befriended each other and spent time together at homosexual meeting places in Berlin.[6][19] They corresponded while Röhm was in Bolivia, where he had emigrated in 1928 to work as a military advisor.[9] Both men saw their homosexuality as compatible with Nazism; Heimsoth hoped that Röhm could lead the Nazi Party to become accepting of homosexuality.[20] In his letters, Röhm discussed his sexual orientation in unambiguous language, once describing himself as "same-sex orientated" (gleichgeschlechtlich) and saying he had an aversion to women.[21][22][23]

Political views of homosexuality

In 1928, the Nazi Party responded negatively to a questionnaire about their view of Paragraph 175, declaring "Anyone who even thinks of homosexual love is our enemy."[24] Nazi politicians regularly railed against homosexuality, claiming that it was a Jewish conspiracy to undermine the German people. They promised to have homosexuals sterilized if they took power.[25] The majority of Nazis held traditional moral beliefs and found Röhm and his associates, some of whom were homosexual, intolerable.[26] At this time any civil servant or officer whose homosexuality was discovered would have been dismissed, regardless of whether a violation of Paragraph 175 could be proven. The SA's tacit tolerance of homosexuals in its own ranks was in contrast to this.[27][28] This tolerance was dependent on remaining discreet and certainly not publicly known, lest it bring the SA's hypermasculine image into question.[29] Röhm tried to separate his private and political life, but historian Laurie Marhoefer writes that "most Nazis considered supposedly private matters like sexuality intensely public and political".[30][31] Biographer Eleanor Hancock [de] comments, "If Ernst Röhm was at all revolutionary, he was revolutionary in his demand that National Socialism and German society accept him as he was—a man who desired other men."[32]

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Communist Party of Germany (KPD) were the primary supporters of repealing Paragraph 175, but they opportunistically used accusations of homosexuality against political opponents.[33][34][35] Contemporaries noted the hypocrisy of this approach.[36] Confronted with the rise of Nazism, they exploited a stereotype associating homosexuality with militarism that had been established during the Eulenburg affair. In 1927, SPD deputies heckled Nazi deputy Wilhelm Frick, shouting "Hitler, heil, heil, heil. Heil Eulenburg!" after Frick called for harsh penalties for homosexuality.[37] The SPD initiated the Röhm scandal in an effort to prevent or delay the Nazi seizure of power at a time when the defenders of the Weimar Republic's democracy sensed that they were running out of options.[38][39]

Development of the scandal

Röhm's return to Germany

 
"Unemployed SA men" in Tiergarten, Berlin, 1932

Röhm returned to Germany at Hitler's request in November 1930, and was officially appointed chief of staff of the SA on 5 January 1931.[40][41] This appointment was seen by many as the second most powerful office in the Nazi movement,[41] but Röhm's position was weakened by his homosexuality and he was dependent on Hitler's personal support.[42] His predecessor, Franz von Pfeffer, wrote that Röhm had been appointed "probably, also because of his inclinations ... [which] offered a useful point of attack at any time".[8]

Röhm's appointment was opposed from the beginning by some in the SA who saw it as cementing the subordination of the SA to the Nazi Party's political wing. His homosexuality was seized upon by those who disagreed with the organizational reforms but could not openly criticize Hitler without breaking with Nazism, because of the Führer principle.[41] Hitler said that the personal life of a Nazi was only a concern for the party if it contradicted the fundamental principles of Nazism.[43][44] The leader of the Berlin SA, Walther Stennes, rebelled against the SA leadership and declared that he and his followers would "never serve under a notorious homosexual like Röhm and his Pupenjungen (male prostitutes)".[45] On 3 February,[44] Hitler dismissed Stennes's objection, stating, "The SA is not a girls' boarding school."[46][47] Röhm's appointment of old friends to powerful positions in the SA invoked the ire of his opponents, but contrary to popular perceptions, not all these men were homosexual and they were appointed due to perceived loyalty rather than sexuality.[48]

The internal opposition to Röhm intensified in February 1931 when Hitler replaced Stennes by Paul Schulz, who promoted two suspected homosexuals, Edmund Heines and Karl Ernst, within the Berlin SA. Rumor had it that Ernst was only promoted because of an intimate relationship with Paul Röhrbein [de], a friend of Röhm's who was not a member of the party or SA. Many Berlin SA personnel disagreed with these appointments, complaining about the "Röhm-Röhrbein-Ernst Triple Alliance", which was perceived as a homosexual clique. It was incorrectly claimed by Röhm's opponents that "large circles of Berlin party comrades are informed about the gay clubs",[26] and these rivals noted with satisfaction that the perceived homosexual cliques were exposed in the left-wing media. On the night of 26 June, a Nazi named Walter Bergmann was arrested at a Berlin pub where he had found Ernst and Röhrbein together. Bergmann shouted, "Look at these parasites on the party, these Pupenjungen, these damned ass-fuckers who let the party's reputation go to hell."[26] Although Röhm asserted in one of his letters to Heimsoth that the party had become "accustomed to my criminal idiosyncrasy",[18][42] Marhoefer concludes that this "was wild optimism or self-delusion".[42]

Röhm's double life became unsustainable in the face of his higher profile and the rising popularity of the Nazi Party.[49][50] He became more circumspect than before, avoiding homosexual clubs. His friend Peter Granninger procured young men between 16 and 20 years old and brought them to apartments owned by Granninger and Karl Leon Du Moulin-Eckart [de] for sexual encounters.[8] When an unemployed waiter in Munich, Fritz Reif, tried to blackmail him in April 1931, it was reported in the press.[39][49][50] By the beginning of 1931, newspapers started to allude to his homosexuality, leading Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to write in his diary on 27 February that the Nazi Party was seen as "the Eldorado of the 175-ers".[49][50]

The 1931 press campaign

On 14 April 1931, the SPD newspaper Münchener Post began reporting a series of front-page stories on the "hair-raising depravity in the Section 175 sense" that it argued was rampant in the Nazi Party.[49][51][52] The first story claimed that Röhm and Heines were part of a homosexual clique in the SA and that they walked arm-in-arm with Hitler, citing an unnamed former Nazi (possibly Otto Strasser).[53][54] The second article, published on 23 April, reported on Röhm's dalliances with a male prostitute.[55][56] The third accused the Nazis of hypocrisy for condemning homosexuality in public but turning a blind eye to homosexuals in its own ranks, reporting that Hitler had ignored various reports of Röhm's homosexuality.[55][57] The Münchener Post claimed without evidence that German youth were endangered by Röhm's homosexuality[58] and coined the word Röhmisch to describe the alleged moral dissolution of the SA.[59] Other SPD and KPD newspapers repeated the reports.[55]

One of the main sources for the stories were alleged letters between Röhm and the former Nazi Eduard Meyer.[55] Röhm wrote in the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter that Meyer's letters were forged[60] and sued the Münchener Post for libel. The investigation confirmed that Meyer had forged the letters; Meyer was arrested for forgery and killed himself in prison before the trial could begin. Coverage of the scandal in the left-wing media diminished, but the rumors persisted.[61][54] Röhm's homosexuality was cited as part of a broader pattern in which it was argued that the Nazis did not "possess the moral qualities" requisite for leadership. In September 1931 the SPD's Hamburger Echo [de] brought up "the gay (schwul) captain Röhm" in response to a Nazi political poster calling for "a clean Germany, a true family life".[62]

Trials against Röhm, 1931-1932

Observing the Meyer debacle, SPD leaders decided to find authentic evidence of Röhm's homosexuality to charge him under Paragraph 175. The Berlin police, under the jurisdiction of Prussian interior minister Carl Severing (SPD), often declined to enforce this law but opened an investigation against Röhm based on the testimony of waiter Fritz Reif. The police confiscated the letters between Röhm and Heimsoth and interrogated both men.[63][64] Under interrogation, Röhm admitted to bisexuality and said that he had masturbated with other men, but never violated Paragraph 175.[27][7] On 6 June 1931, a trial against Röhm opened. Reif testified that he and a friend, hotel employee Peter Kronninger, had participated in mutual masturbation with Röhm in late 1930 in a hotel room. Reif said that when he did not receive the money he was promised, he ended up going to the police. Röhm and Kronninger denied the incident. The trial was eventually dropped for lack of evidence.[64] In all, Röhm was unsuccessfully tried five times in 1931 and 1932, but the prosecution was never able to prove that he had violated Paragraph 175.[7][65] It was especially difficult to obtain evidence for a crime committed in private.[66]

Helmuth Klotz's pamphlet (March 1932)

The SPD decided to publish the Röhm–Heimsoth letters during the 1932 German presidential election in which Hitler was running against incumbent Paul Hindenburg.[63][67] The former Nazi turned anti-fascist publicist Helmuth Klotz [de] prepared a 17-page pamphlet titled Der Fall Röhm (The Röhm Case) that contained facsimiles of three letters.[68][69] In early March 1932, the SPD printed and mailed 300,000 copies of the pamphlet to important Germans including politicians, army officers, doctors, teachers, and notaries.[70][45] In the pamphlet, Klotz argued: "This fish stinks from its head. Decay reaches deep into the ranks of the NSDAP" (Nazi Party).[51][71] He asserted that a party that tolerated homosexuality in its highest echelons must intend to "poison the Volk [,] … destroy [its] moral strength" and would lead to the decline of Germany similar to the decline of ancient Rome.[70][45] Klotz claimed that leaving Röhm in his position would make the Nazis complicit in "crimes of having knowingly and intentionally furthered the seduction of German youths into becoming homosexual minions".[66] In his pamphlet, Klotz claimed that "By publishing the Röhm letters, I make no value judgment against homosexuals", but he did not notice or care that the campaign against Röhm stirred up hatred of homosexuals as well as Nazis.[72]

Röhm sued in an attempt to stop the distribution of the letters, but the lawsuit was thrown out of court as he did not assert that the letters were fakes. The court ruled that there was no illegality in the publication of genuine letters.[73][62] Röhm admitted to other Nazis that he had written them.[73] The court cases attempting to halt the distribution of the pamphlet regularly featured in the Hamburger Echo for months.[62] SPD newspapers soon picked up on Klotz's pamphlet, publishing excerpts of the letters.[73][74] The allegations against Röhm found their way into election posters and stickers.[71] The campaign did not target Röhm as much as Hitler and the entire Nazi movement, smearing them as ridden with homosexuality and suggesting that German youth were morally endangered.[75]

 
Hitler and Röhm at the Nuremberg rally, 1933

On 6 April, four days before the second round of the presidential election, Hitler defended Röhm and declared that he would remain the SA chief of staff.[76][77][78] Röhm later told the Nazi Franz von Hörauf [de] that he had offered his resignation, but Hitler had refused it.[79] Many Nazis were astonished that Hitler had not broken with Röhm, both because of their own prejudices and because they thought he harmed the party's chances of gaining political power.[80][77] Konstantin Hierl worried the scandal would "break the faith of the masses in the strength and purity of the National Socialist Movement" and hurt the party among conservative voters that Hitler needed to poach from Hindenburg.[73][81] Historian Andrew Wackerfuss argues that Hitler supported Röhm because of a combination of personal affection, Röhm's professional competence, and a defensive support for his own appointment.[66][82]

In an effort to protect the Nazi Party from the scandal, in March 1932 Walter Buch put ex-Nazi Emil Danzeisen [de] in charge of a plot to murder Röhm. The plan called for killing Röhm, du Moulin-Eckart, and Röhm's press officer Georg Bell [de] at the Brown House and framing the KPD. Danzeisen engaged the unemployed architect Karl Horn as a hitman, but Horn told the intended victims and the plan fell through. Röhm tried to put an end to the plot quietly by telling Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, while du Moulin-Eckart and Cajetan Graf von Spreti reported it to the Munich police.[79][83][84] The plot became public knowledge when covered by the Münchener Post on 8 April.[84] Danzeisen, but not Buch, was tried and convicted for his role in the plot,[85][79] generating additional negative press coverage for the Nazi Party into late 1932.[81]

Although most media did not report on the scandal until May 1932,[86] Marhoefer argues that knowledge of the scandal was widespread before then.[87] The scandal was unpleasant for the Nazi Party,[45][36] but it did not affect their electoral performance.[88][36] Although Hindenburg won the election on the second ballot, Hitler obtained 37 percent of the vote.[88] Historian Larry Eugene Jones [de] writes, "At the very least, the revelations about Röhm were an unwelcome distraction [for Hitler's campaign] ... at worst a damaging blow to the Hitler's credibility as a worthy claimant to the high office of Reich president".[89] On 4 March, the Minister President of Prussia, Otto Braun (SPD), asked Chancellor Heinrich Brüning to bring the Röhm–Heimsoth letters to Hindenburg's attention.[90] Hindenburg remarked privately that in the Kaiserreich, a man in Röhm's situation would have been given a pistol to shoot himself.[73][38][91] The scandal made it more difficult for Hindenburg to appoint Hitler chancellor as the latter requested on a meeting on 13 August, accompanied by Röhm and Frick.[38][92] Hindenburg found it "downright disgusting" to have to meet Röhm and "shake hands with the Hinterlader (faggot)".[93]

Assault of Helmuth Klotz in the Reichstag (May 1932)

 
Reichstag building, c. 1900

On 12 May 1932, Klotz visited the Reichstag café to meet SPD chairman Otto Wels.[94] After Wels was called away to a vote, Klotz was recognized by Heines, who had entered the café with a group of Nazi deputies. Heines shouted something to the effect of "You're the hoodlum who published the pamphlet!" and slapped him across the face. The Nazis subsequently assaulted him with their fists and a chair, but fled when a waiter and other deputies intervened. Two policemen appeared at the scene and offered to escort Klotz outside so he could identify his attackers. Klotz agreed, but outside the café they were set upon by dozens of Nazis who assaulted them. Multiple witnesses reported hearing someone shout, "I'll beat him to death."[95] Someone called Klotz's wife and told her to come to the Reichstag "to collect his bones".[52]

Since parliament was in session at the time of the attack, Reichstag president Paul Löbe (SPD) ordered the maximum suspension (30 days) of Heines, Hans Krause [de], Fritz Weitzel, and Wilhelm Stegmann [de] for assaulting Klotz. He announced that he had called the police to restore order and arrest the four Nazis, who refused to leave. At this news, the entire Nazi Reichstag delegation, 107 men, shouted, "Heil Hitler!"[96][97][98] Dozens of policemen under the command of Bernhard Weiß entered the plenary, but were heckled by antisemitic slurs directed at Weiß, who was Jewish. The police struggled to identify the Nazis that they were trying to arrest, although they ultimately succeeded. The ensuing chaos was such that Löbe had to discontinue the parliament's session.[94][99][100] A brawl between Nazi and SPD deputies in the plenary was narrowly avoided. The Reichstag never met again before the July 1932 German federal election.[101]

The attack and subsequent trial made the headlines of widely read national newspapers.[102][88][65] On 14 May, Krause was acquitted; Heines, Stegmann, and Weitzel were convicted and sentenced to three months in jail.[97][103] The judge condemned the Nazi deputies for their hooliganism in the Reichstag building, a holy site of democracy, when they could have chosen non-violent methods of resolving their dispute with Klotz.[104] As a result of the attack on Klotz, the Röhm scandal was widely covered on the front pages of German newspapers, although the nature of the scandal was not always specified in the press coverage. Nevertheless, the scandal did not significantly affect the July election.[105][106][107] The scandal had not died out by 11 January 1933, when the Münchener Post published an article speculating that Hitler would dismiss Röhm.[108]

Press coverage

The Nazi press responded to the scandal mostly by ignoring it and sometimes by denying nonspecific allegations against Röhm, claiming that they were fabrications by socialists and Jews.[63][16][44] It also exaggerated Röhm's military activities in Bolivia, falsely claiming that he was offered the position of Chief of Staff of the Bolivian Army.[109] Marhoefer argues that even convinced Nazi opponents did not necessarily use Röhm's sexuality to attack the party, and argues that this was a success of the homosexual movement in convincing Germans that private sexuality was not their concern: "It is difficult to imagine the national media in the 1930s in a country other than Germany reacting to a homosexual sex scandal about a leading politician with such restraint."[110] Some conservatives and Nazi sympathizers who opposed homosexual emancipation nevertheless portrayed Röhm's sexuality as a matter not of public concern, and Marhoefer argues that this is a sign of acceptance that homosexuality did not necessarily entail expulsion from public life.[111] Nevertheless, she states, "The highly public, persuasive allegations about Röhm's sexuality made it tough for the NSDAP to campaign as a party of moral renewal."[86]

After the Klotz attack, the main message in press coverage was the exposure of the Nazis' violent methods, their "rule of fists" (Faustrecht) as opposed to the rule of law, and antipathy for democracy. Röhm's homosexuality was an issue of secondary or tertiary importance. This was the case for those as far left as the SPD and as far right as the German National People's Party (DVNP).[112] A wide range of conservatives and liberals blamed Klotz for bringing up the issue of Röhm's sexuality.[113] While a considerable number of right-wing papers were hostile to democracy and justified the attack on Klotz, others were uneasy with what they saw as Nazi thuggishness.[114] The Nazi-sympathizing Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger held that "above all the Reichstag building is not the right place to take revenge or vengeance with a series of ear-boxings", although it also condemned Klotz's pamphlet.[115] Far-right Erich Ludendorff published a pamphlet titled "General Ludendorff Says: Let's Get Out of This Brown Swamp!" in which he attacked Hitler for supporting Röhm.[87][116] The title alluded to the ancient German practice of drowning homosexuals in swamps. Ludendorff's pamphlet was favorably covered by the left-wing media.[116]

The general tenor of the coverage by the SPD was to appeal to homophobia in order to discredit Nazism, and portray homosexuality as embedded in the Nazi Party. For example, Vorwärts appealed to the "healthy people's sentiment [de]" using Nazi terminology, and implied that any boy or young man joining the Hitler Youth or SA was in danger of homosexual predation.[117] Antifascist papers frequently tied together the Nazis' alleged homosexuality with their violence and murder. In October 1932, the Hamburger Echo published a satirical letter from the point of view of a young stormtrooper who does not realize he is the subject of homosexual advances, positing that the SA seduced innocent youth into homosexuality, radical politics, and militarism.[118] Although the KPD had declined to publish the Heimsoth letters, after the scandal broke it responded inconsistently. In the KPD newspaper Welt am Abend [de] it was argued that Röhm abused his position of power to take advantage of economically vulnerable workers. Die Rote Fahne argued that the NSDAP was a breeding ground for homosexuality and Röhm was unsuitable as a youth leader.[119][107] Only a few leftists criticized the outing.[120] One of these was Kurt Tucholsky, who wrote in Die Weltbühne, "We oppose the disgraceful Paragraph 175 wherever we can; therefore we must not join the choir of those among us who want to banish a man from society because he is homosexual."[120][121][122]

In contrast to the left-wing press, homosexual activists emphasized the hypocrisy of the Nazi Party.[51] While homosexual associations such as the League of Human Rights and the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (WhK) opposed Nazism, they condemned the outing, arguing that Röhm's private life should remain private. Both the WhK and Friedrich Radszuweit, the leader of the League of Human Rights, criticized the SPD for exploiting homophobia to attack the Nazi Party.[123][124][125] Although the WhK, whose leadership was dominated by Jews and leftists, understood the existential threat of Nazism, they nevertheless rejected outing as a tactic. Radszuweit wrote that the Nazis' dispute was with the Jews rather than homosexuals, and argued that Röhm's political survival suggested that the Nazis would soon drop their support for Paragraph 175.[126][36] Bisexual activist Adolf Brand wrote, "when someone ... would like to set in the most damaging way the intimate love contacts of others under degrading control—in that moment his own love-life also ceases to be a private matter".[127] Brand warned that homosexual SA men were "carrying their hangman's rope in their pockets".[128] In the edition of his memoirs published in late 1933, Röhm condemned the scandal, calling it "a large-scale moral campaign ... unprecedented in its shamelessness and meanness".[129][130]

Aftermath and legacy

Röhm developed even more enemies within the party as a result of the disclosure of his homosexuality and became increasingly isolated.[131][132] In 1932, he admitted that he had become personally dependent on Hitler, telling Kurt Lüdecke: "My position is so precarious. I can't be too exigent ... I stick to my job, following him blindly, loyal to the utmost—there's nothing else left me."[8] In April 1933, one of Hitler's conservative backers, Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht, deplored Röhm and his "homosexual clique" to which he attributed great political power.[133] Röhm was appointed Reich minister without portfolio in Hitler's cabinet in December 1933 and reluctantly confirmed by Hindenburg, thus becoming "probably the first previously known homosexual in a German government" according to historian Michael Schwartz [de].[134][135] No other Weimar political party had a known homosexual in its leadership.[136] In 1934, Schulz reflected that any other party in the Weimar Republic would have gotten rid of Röhm within an hour.[77] Marhoefer argues that Röhm became the world's "first openly gay politician" as a result of the scandal.[21] Although the Nazis were willing to temporarily tolerate Röhm and some other homosexuals within its ranks as long as they were useful, the party never adopted this as a general principle or changed its views on homosexuality.[137][138]

The homosexual–Nazi stereotype

The Röhm scandal fueled the persistent but false notion that the Nazi Party was dominated by homosexuals, a recurring theme in 1930s left-wing propaganda.[139][20][44] In the aftermath of the scandal, leftist paramilitaries began to taunt the SA with shouts of, "Hot Röhm" (Geil Röhm), "Heil Gay" (Schwul Heil) or "SA, Trousers Down!" (SA, Hose runter!), which almost always started a fight.[52][140][141] Anti-Nazi jokes alluded to Röhm's homosexuality, such as the following on the ideal German: "Blond like Hitler, tall like Goebbels, slim like Göring, and chaste like Röhm."[142] Sopade reports prepared in 1934 indicated that many Germans had heard of the Röhm scandal before 1933 and associated it with the SPD.[143]

The worldwide bestseller The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror (1933)—a brainchild of KPD politician Willi Münzenberg—claimed that Röhm's assistant Bell, who was murdered in early 1933 in Austria, had been his pimp and had procured Reichstag arsonist Marinus van der Lubbe for Röhm.[144][145][146] The book claimed that a clique of homosexual stormtroopers led by Heines set the Reichstag fire; van der Lubbe remained behind and agreed to accept the sole blame because of his desperation for affection; Bell was killed to cover it up. There was no evidence for these claims,[147][148] and in fact Heines was several hundred kilometers away at the time.[149] Wackerfuss states that Reichstag conspiracy appealed to antifascists because of their preexisting belief that "the heart of the Nazis' militant nationalist politics lay in the sinister schemes of decadent homosexual criminals".[147] In 1933, the persistent scandal around Röhm and other homosexual Nazis was one of the motivations for the criminalization of homosexuality in the Soviet Union—homosexuality was claimed to be a danger to the state and a fascist perversion.[150] Soviet writer Maxim Gorky asserted, "If you just root out all the homosexuals—then fascism will vanish!"[151]

Röhm purge

 
Kurheim Hanselbauer in Bad Wiessee, where Röhm was arrested on 30 June 1934

In mid-1934, Hitler had Röhm, along with most of his close political friends, killed during what he termed the "Night of the Long Knives".[152][153] Nazi propaganda claimed that Hitler had recently discovered Röhm's homosexuality, and that the murders were a defense against a coup by the SA to overthrow the government.[87][154][155] The stereotype of homosexual men as treacherous conspirators connected these justifications.[156][157] Hitler's explanation was widely accepted by the German public.[158] Wackerfuss argues that, "By deploying public panic against homosexuality, Hitler and the Nazi media won support for their illegal murders and laid further foundations for unchecked state violence."[152] Anti-fascists echoed the Nazis in emphasizing homosexuality as a reason for the purge; Münzenberg claimed that the Nazis killed the SA leadership to eliminate the witnesses to the Nazis' perpetration of the Reichstag fire.[159]

After the purge, homosexual men in Nazi Germany were systematically persecuted.[160] According to Werner Best, Himmler believed that the capture of the state by homosexuals had been narrowly averted. Himmler became determined to hunt down and eradicate homosexual cliques in the Nazi security apparatus.[161] By 1945, Nazi leaders were praising Röhm's ideas about reforming the army and ultimately blaming his homosexuality (rather than their murder of him) for the failure to put these ideas into practice, which they held responsible for the loss of World War II. Goebbels claimed that if Röhm had not been "a homosexual and an anarchist ... in all probability some hundred generals rather than some hundred SA leaders would have been shot on 30 June".[162][163]

In 1950s West Germany, during the Cold War, the Federal Ministry of Justice cited the Röhm affair as an example of what they called the "danger of homosexual subversion", to justify retention of the Nazis' more punitive revision of Paragraph 175.[164]

References

  1. ^ Whisnant 2016, p. 92.
  2. ^ a b Whisnant 2016, p. 206.
  3. ^ Marhoefer 2015, p. 150.
  4. ^ a b c d Marhoefer 2015, p. 151.
  5. ^ a b Schwartz 2019, p. 166.
  6. ^ a b c d Marhoefer 2015, p. 153.
  7. ^ a b c Hancock 1998, p. 628.
  8. ^ a b c d Hancock 1998, p. 631.
  9. ^ a b Marhoefer 2015, pp. 150, 153.
  10. ^ a b Hancock 1998, pp. 624–625.
  11. ^ Schwartz 2019, pp. 162–163.
  12. ^ Hancock 1998, pp. 623–624.
  13. ^ Schwartz 2019, p. 167.
  14. ^ Hancock 1998, p. 623.
  15. ^ Zinn 2018, pp. 246–247.
  16. ^ a b Hancock 1998, p. 634.
  17. ^ Schwartz 2019, pp. 166–167.
  18. ^ a b Hancock 1998, p. 625.
  19. ^ zur Nieden 2005, p. 155.
  20. ^ a b Marhoefer 2015, p. 154.
  21. ^ a b Marhoefer, Laurie (19 June 2018). "Queer Fascism and the End of Gay History". NOTCHES. from the original on 28 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
  22. ^ Marhoefer 2015, pp. 151, 154.
  23. ^ Hancock 1998, p. 626.
  24. ^ Marhoefer 2015, pp. 151–152.
  25. ^ Marhoefer 2015, p. 152.
  26. ^ a b c Zinn 2018, p. 248.
  27. ^ a b Herzer 1995, p. 214.
  28. ^ Wackerfuss 2015, pp. 93–94.
  29. ^ Wackerfuss 2015, pp. 93–94, 185.
  30. ^ Marhoefer 2015, p. 170.
  31. ^ Hancock 1998, pp. 624, 635.
  32. ^ Schwartz 2019, p. 184.
  33. ^ Oosterhuis 1995, p. 228.
  34. ^ Whisnant 2016, p. 33.
  35. ^ Tamagne 2007, p. 290.
  36. ^ a b c d Hancock 1998, p. 630.
  37. ^ Dillon 2018, p. 390.
  38. ^ a b c zur Nieden 2005, p. 173.
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  40. ^ Marhoefer 2015, pp. 150–151.
  41. ^ a b c Wackerfuss 2015, p. 175.
  42. ^ a b c Marhoefer 2015, p. 155.
  43. ^ Schwartz 2019, p. 163.
  44. ^ a b c d Zinn 2018, p. 247.
  45. ^ a b c d Schwartz 2019, p. 169.
  46. ^ Schwartz 2019, pp. 169–170.
  47. ^ Wackerfuss 2015, pp. 175–176.
  48. ^ Wackerfuss 2015, p. 176.
  49. ^ a b c d Marhoefer 2015, p. 156.
  50. ^ a b c zur Nieden 2005, p. 165.
  51. ^ a b c Oosterhuis 1995, p. 230.
  52. ^ a b c Dillon 2018, p. 391.
  53. ^ Marhoefer 2015, p. 157, fn 64.
  54. ^ a b zur Nieden 2005, p. 169.
  55. ^ a b c d Marhoefer 2015, p. 157.
  56. ^ Zinn 2007, p. 44.
  57. ^ Oosterhuis 1995, p. 229.
  58. ^ Zinn 2007, p. 45.
  59. ^ Dillon 2018, pp. 390–391.
  60. ^ zur Nieden 2005, pp. 166–167.
  61. ^ Marhoefer 2015, pp. 157–158.
  62. ^ a b c Wackerfuss 2015, p. 180.
  63. ^ a b c Marhoefer 2015, p. 158.
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  65. ^ a b Whisnant 2016, p. 207.
  66. ^ a b c Wackerfuss 2015, p. 184.
  67. ^ Schwartz 2019, p. 168.
  68. ^ Göllnitz 2021, p. 227.
  69. ^ Jones 2016, p. 297.
  70. ^ a b Marhoefer 2015, pp. 158–159.
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  91. ^ Schwartz 2019, p. 182.
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  93. ^ Schwartz 2019, pp. 182–183.
  94. ^ a b Angress 1998, p. 59.
  95. ^ Marhoefer 2015, pp. 146–147.
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  98. ^ "Reichstagsprotokolle, 1930/32,3". from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
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  102. ^ Siemens 2017, p. 173.
  103. ^ Döring 2001, p. 311.
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  121. ^ Woods 2017, p. 198.
  122. ^ Tamagne 2007, p. 289.
  123. ^ Crouthamel 2011, p. 124.
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  164. ^ Schwartz 2019, p. 210.

Sources

Books

Chapters

  • Angress, Werner T. (1998). "Bernhard Weiß — A Jewish Public Servant in the Closing Years of the Weimar Republic". Jews in the Weimar Republic. Mohr Siebeck. pp. 49–63. ISBN 978-3-16-146873-5.
  • Dillon, Christopher (2018). "Masculinity, Political Culture, and the Rise of Nazism". The Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Political Culture in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 379–402. ISBN 978-1-137-58538-7.
  • Göllnitz, Martin (2021). "Homophobie und Revolutionsangst. Die politische Dramaturgie des 30. Juni 1934" [Homophobia and fear of revolution. The political dramaturgy of June 30, 1934]. Revolution in Kiel – Revolutionsangst in der Geschichte [Revolution in Kiel – fear of revolution in history] (PDF). Kieler Schriften zur Regionalgeschichte: Band 8 (in German). Wachholtz Verlag [de]. pp. 209–234. (PDF) from the original on 16 January 2022. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  • Knoll, Albert (2017). "'Es muß alles versucht werden, um dieses widernatürliche Laster auszurotten': Homosexuelle Häftlinge in den frühen Konzentrationslagern" ["Everything must be tried to eradicate this unnatural vice": Homosexual prisoners in the early concentration camps]. ... der schrankenlosesten Willkür ausgeliefert: Häftlinge der frühen Konzentrationslager 1933-1936/37 [... at the mercy of the most unrestrained arbitrariness: prisoners of the early concentration camps 1933-1936/37] (in German). Campus Verlag. pp. 221–246. ISBN 978-3-593-50702-6.
  • zur Nieden, Susanne (2005). "Aufstieg und Fall des virilen Männerhelden. Der Skandal um Ernst Röhm und seine Ermordung" [The rise and fall of the virile male hero. The Ernst Röhm scandal and his murder]. Homosexualität und Staatsräson. Männlichkeit, Homophobie und Politik in Deutschland 1900–1945 [Homosexuality and raison d'état. Masculinity, homophobia and politics in Germany 1900–1945] (in German). Campus Verlag. pp. 147−192. ISBN 978-3-593-37749-0.

Journal articles

  • Brand, Adolf (1992). "Political Criminals: A Word About the Röhm Case (1931)". Journal of Homosexuality. 22 (1–2): 235–240. doi:10.1300/J082v22n01_26. PMID 1816298.
  • Crouthamel, Jason (2011). "'Comradeship' and 'Friendship': Masculinity and Militarisation in Germany's Homosexual Emancipation Movement after the First World War". Gender & History. 23 (1): 111–129. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0424.2010.01626.x. S2CID 143240617.
  • Hancock, Eleanor (1998). "'Only the Real, the True, the Masculine Held Its Value': Ernst Röhm, Masculinity, and Male Homosexuality". Journal of the History of Sexuality. 8 (4): 616–641. ISSN 1043-4070. JSTOR 3840412. PMID 11620476.
  • Hancock, Eleanor (2011). "The Purge of the SA Reconsidered: 'An Old Putschist Trick'?". Central European History. 44 (4): 669–683. doi:10.1017/S0008938911000689. ISSN 0008-9389. JSTOR 41411643. S2CID 145365617.
  • Hancock, Eleanor (2012). "Ernst Röhm versus General Hans Kundt in Bolivia, 1929–30? The Curious Incident". Journal of Contemporary History. 47 (4): 691–708. doi:10.1177/0022009412451287.
  • Herzer, Manfred (1995). "Communists, Social Democrats, and the Homosexual Movement in the Weimar Republic". Journal of Homosexuality. 29 (2–3): 197–226. doi:10.1300/J082v29n02_08. PMID 8666755.
  • Oosterhuis, Harry (1995). "The 'Jews' of the Antifascist Left: Homosexuality and the Socialist Resistance to Nazism". Journal of Homosexuality. 29 (2–3): 227–257. doi:10.1300/J082v29n02_09. PMID 8666756.
  • Rabinbach, Anson (2008). "Staging Antifascism: 'The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror'". New German Critique. 35 (103): 97–126. doi:10.1215/0094033X-2007-021. ISSN 0094-033X. JSTOR 27669222.
  • Schwartz, Michael (2021). "Homosexuelle im modernen Deutschland: Eine Langzeitperspektive auf historische Transformationen" [Homosexuals in Modern Germany: A Long-Term Perspective on Historical Transformations]. Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (in German). 69 (3): 377–414. doi:10.1515/vfzg-2021-0028.

Further reading

  • Herbert Heinersdorf (pseudonym of Richard Linsert) (January–March 1932). "Akten zum Falle Röhm" [Files on the Röhm case]. Mitteilungen des Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitees (in German) (32): 383–396.
  • Herbert Heinersdorf (April–August 1932). "Akten zum Fall Rohm (II. Teil)" [Files on the Röhm case (part 2)]. Mitteilungen des Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitees (in German) (33): 387–396.
  • Herbert Heinersdorf (September 1932 – February 1933). "Akten zum Fall Rohm (III. Teil)" [Files on the Röhm case (part 3)]. Mitteilungen des Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitees (in German) (34): 419–428.
  • Klotz, Helmuth (March 1932). Der Fall Röhm (PDF) (in German) – via the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

röhm, scandal, resulted, from, public, disclosure, nazi, politician, ernst, röhm, homosexuality, anti, nazis, 1931, 1932, result, scandal, röhm, became, first, known, homosexual, politician, ernst, röhm, 1924röhm, early, member, nazi, party, close, party, lead. The Rohm scandal resulted from the public disclosure of Nazi politician Ernst Rohm s homosexuality by anti Nazis in 1931 and 1932 As a result of the scandal Rohm became the first known homosexual politician Ernst Rohm in 1924Rohm was an early member of the Nazi Party and was close to party leader Adolf Hitler Rohm was homosexual although he tried to separate his personal and political life In the late 1920s he lived in Bolivia where he wrote letters to a friend Karl Gunther Heimsoth in which he candidly discussed his sexual orientation Rohm s double life began to fall apart when he returned to Germany in 1930 and was appointed leader of the Sturmabteilung SA the Nazi Party s original paramilitary wing Although the Social Democratic Party of Germany SPD and the Communist Party of Germany supported the repeal of Paragraph 175 the German law criminalizing homosexuality both parties used homophobia to attack their Nazi opponents and inaccurately portrayed the Nazi Party as dominated by homosexuals Their goal was to prevent or delay the Nazi seizure of power which ultimately occurred in early 1933 Beginning in April 1931 the SPD newspaper Munchener Post published a series of front page stories about alleged homosexuality in the SA which turned out to be based on forgeries SPD leaders set out to obtain authentic evidence of Rohm s sexuality and if possible convict him under Paragraph 175 Rohm was tried five times but never convicted During the German presidential election in March 1932 the SPD released a pamphlet edited by ex Nazi Helmuth Klotz de with Rohm s letters to Heimsoth This second round of disclosures sparked a plot by some Nazis to murder Rohm which fell through and resulted in additional negative press for the party The scandal came to national attention as a result of the beating of Klotz by Nazi deputies in the Reichstag building on 12 May 1932 as revenge for his publication of Rohm s letters Many Germans saw this attack on democracy as more important than Rohm s personal life The Nazis electoral performance was not affected by the scandal but it affected their ability to present themselves as the party of moral renewal Hitler defended Rohm during the scandal The latter became completely dependent on Hitler due to loss of support in the Nazi Party Hitler had Rohm and his friends murdered in 1934 citing both his homosexuality and alleged treachery After the purge the Nazi government systematically persecuted homosexual men Contents 1 Background 1 1 Rohm Heimsoth letters 1 2 Political views of homosexuality 2 Development of the scandal 2 1 Rohm s return to Germany 2 2 The 1931 press campaign 2 3 Trials against Rohm 1931 1932 2 4 Helmuth Klotz s pamphlet March 1932 2 5 Assault of Helmuth Klotz in the Reichstag May 1932 3 Press coverage 4 Aftermath and legacy 4 1 The homosexual Nazi stereotype 4 2 Rohm purge 5 References 5 1 Sources 5 1 1 Books 5 1 2 Chapters 5 1 3 Journal articles 6 Further readingBackground Edit Eldorado pictured in 1932 the most famous gay establishment in Germany 1 frequented by RohmErnst Rohm 1887 1934 was one of the early leaders of the Nazi Party and built up its paramilitary wing the Sturmabteilung SA which violently attacked communists and other perceived enemies of the German people 2 He was a friend of later German dictator Adolf Hitler and in 1923 he was convicted of treason for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch 3 After he was elected to the Reichstag and went to live in Berlin in 1924 he frequented homosexual establishments including the Eldorado club 4 In 1929 Rohm joined the homosexual association Bund fur Menschenrecht League for Human Rights 4 5 and became known to many figures in Berlin s homosexual community 6 2 Rohm resented having to conceal his sexual orientation 4 and was as open about it as it was possible to be without stating it 7 In 1925 a man he had hired as a prostitute robbed him Rohm reported the man to the police Although Hitler found out about this incident he did not take action 8 5 4 Rohm Heimsoth letters Edit In 1928 the homosexual nationalist physician Karl Gunther Heimsoth wrote a letter to Rohm questioning a passage in the latter s autobiography Die Geschichte eines Hochverraters The Story of an Arch Traitor 9 10 As part of a denunciation of conservative bourgeois morality Rohm had written The struggle against the cant deceit and hypocrisy of today s society must take its starting point from the innate nature of the drives that are placed in men from the cradle If the struggle in this area is successful then the masks can be torn from the dissimilation in all areas of the human social and legal order 6 11 12 He blamed bourgeois morality for causing suicide 13 14 Rohm s arguments about morality found little support among other Nazis 15 16 Heimsoth asked if Rohm intended this passage as a criticism of Paragraph 175 the German law prohibiting sex between men Rohm replied stating You have understood me completely 6 10 He told Heimsoth that he had initially intended to be more explicit but toned the passage down on the advice of friends 17 18 Rohm and Heimsoth befriended each other and spent time together at homosexual meeting places in Berlin 6 19 They corresponded while Rohm was in Bolivia where he had emigrated in 1928 to work as a military advisor 9 Both men saw their homosexuality as compatible with Nazism Heimsoth hoped that Rohm could lead the Nazi Party to become accepting of homosexuality 20 In his letters Rohm discussed his sexual orientation in unambiguous language once describing himself as same sex orientated gleichgeschlechtlich and saying he had an aversion to women 21 22 23 Political views of homosexuality Edit In 1928 the Nazi Party responded negatively to a questionnaire about their view of Paragraph 175 declaring Anyone who even thinks of homosexual love is our enemy 24 Nazi politicians regularly railed against homosexuality claiming that it was a Jewish conspiracy to undermine the German people They promised to have homosexuals sterilized if they took power 25 The majority of Nazis held traditional moral beliefs and found Rohm and his associates some of whom were homosexual intolerable 26 At this time any civil servant or officer whose homosexuality was discovered would have been dismissed regardless of whether a violation of Paragraph 175 could be proven The SA s tacit tolerance of homosexuals in its own ranks was in contrast to this 27 28 This tolerance was dependent on remaining discreet and certainly not publicly known lest it bring the SA s hypermasculine image into question 29 Rohm tried to separate his private and political life but historian Laurie Marhoefer writes that most Nazis considered supposedly private matters like sexuality intensely public and political 30 31 Biographer Eleanor Hancock de comments If Ernst Rohm was at all revolutionary he was revolutionary in his demand that National Socialism and German society accept him as he was a man who desired other men 32 The Social Democratic Party of Germany SPD and Communist Party of Germany KPD were the primary supporters of repealing Paragraph 175 but they opportunistically used accusations of homosexuality against political opponents 33 34 35 Contemporaries noted the hypocrisy of this approach 36 Confronted with the rise of Nazism they exploited a stereotype associating homosexuality with militarism that had been established during the Eulenburg affair In 1927 SPD deputies heckled Nazi deputy Wilhelm Frick shouting Hitler heil heil heil Heil Eulenburg after Frick called for harsh penalties for homosexuality 37 The SPD initiated the Rohm scandal in an effort to prevent or delay the Nazi seizure of power at a time when the defenders of the Weimar Republic s democracy sensed that they were running out of options 38 39 Development of the scandal EditRohm s return to Germany Edit Unemployed SA men in Tiergarten Berlin 1932Rohm returned to Germany at Hitler s request in November 1930 and was officially appointed chief of staff of the SA on 5 January 1931 40 41 This appointment was seen by many as the second most powerful office in the Nazi movement 41 but Rohm s position was weakened by his homosexuality and he was dependent on Hitler s personal support 42 His predecessor Franz von Pfeffer wrote that Rohm had been appointed probably also because of his inclinations which offered a useful point of attack at any time 8 Rohm s appointment was opposed from the beginning by some in the SA who saw it as cementing the subordination of the SA to the Nazi Party s political wing His homosexuality was seized upon by those who disagreed with the organizational reforms but could not openly criticize Hitler without breaking with Nazism because of the Fuhrer principle 41 Hitler said that the personal life of a Nazi was only a concern for the party if it contradicted the fundamental principles of Nazism 43 44 The leader of the Berlin SA Walther Stennes rebelled against the SA leadership and declared that he and his followers would never serve under a notorious homosexual like Rohm and his Pupenjungen male prostitutes 45 On 3 February 44 Hitler dismissed Stennes s objection stating The SA is not a girls boarding school 46 47 Rohm s appointment of old friends to powerful positions in the SA invoked the ire of his opponents but contrary to popular perceptions not all these men were homosexual and they were appointed due to perceived loyalty rather than sexuality 48 The internal opposition to Rohm intensified in February 1931 when Hitler replaced Stennes by Paul Schulz who promoted two suspected homosexuals Edmund Heines and Karl Ernst within the Berlin SA Rumor had it that Ernst was only promoted because of an intimate relationship with Paul Rohrbein de a friend of Rohm s who was not a member of the party or SA Many Berlin SA personnel disagreed with these appointments complaining about the Rohm Rohrbein Ernst Triple Alliance which was perceived as a homosexual clique It was incorrectly claimed by Rohm s opponents that large circles of Berlin party comrades are informed about the gay clubs 26 and these rivals noted with satisfaction that the perceived homosexual cliques were exposed in the left wing media On the night of 26 June a Nazi named Walter Bergmann was arrested at a Berlin pub where he had found Ernst and Rohrbein together Bergmann shouted Look at these parasites on the party these Pupenjungen these damned ass fuckers who let the party s reputation go to hell 26 Although Rohm asserted in one of his letters to Heimsoth that the party had become accustomed to my criminal idiosyncrasy 18 42 Marhoefer concludes that this was wild optimism or self delusion 42 Rohm s double life became unsustainable in the face of his higher profile and the rising popularity of the Nazi Party 49 50 He became more circumspect than before avoiding homosexual clubs His friend Peter Granninger procured young men between 16 and 20 years old and brought them to apartments owned by Granninger and Karl Leon Du Moulin Eckart de for sexual encounters 8 When an unemployed waiter in Munich Fritz Reif tried to blackmail him in April 1931 it was reported in the press 39 49 50 By the beginning of 1931 newspapers started to allude to his homosexuality leading Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to write in his diary on 27 February that the Nazi Party was seen as the Eldorado of the 175 ers 49 50 The 1931 press campaign Edit On 14 April 1931 the SPD newspaper Munchener Post began reporting a series of front page stories on the hair raising depravity in the Section 175 sense that it argued was rampant in the Nazi Party 49 51 52 The first story claimed that Rohm and Heines were part of a homosexual clique in the SA and that they walked arm in arm with Hitler citing an unnamed former Nazi possibly Otto Strasser 53 54 The second article published on 23 April reported on Rohm s dalliances with a male prostitute 55 56 The third accused the Nazis of hypocrisy for condemning homosexuality in public but turning a blind eye to homosexuals in its own ranks reporting that Hitler had ignored various reports of Rohm s homosexuality 55 57 The Munchener Post claimed without evidence that German youth were endangered by Rohm s homosexuality 58 and coined the word Rohmisch to describe the alleged moral dissolution of the SA 59 Other SPD and KPD newspapers repeated the reports 55 One of the main sources for the stories were alleged letters between Rohm and the former Nazi Eduard Meyer 55 Rohm wrote in the Nazi newspaper Volkischer Beobachter that Meyer s letters were forged 60 and sued the Munchener Post for libel The investigation confirmed that Meyer had forged the letters Meyer was arrested for forgery and killed himself in prison before the trial could begin Coverage of the scandal in the left wing media diminished but the rumors persisted 61 54 Rohm s homosexuality was cited as part of a broader pattern in which it was argued that the Nazis did not possess the moral qualities requisite for leadership In September 1931 the SPD s Hamburger Echo de brought up the gay schwul captain Rohm in response to a Nazi political poster calling for a clean Germany a true family life 62 Trials against Rohm 1931 1932 Edit Observing the Meyer debacle SPD leaders decided to find authentic evidence of Rohm s homosexuality to charge him under Paragraph 175 The Berlin police under the jurisdiction of Prussian interior minister Carl Severing SPD often declined to enforce this law but opened an investigation against Rohm based on the testimony of waiter Fritz Reif The police confiscated the letters between Rohm and Heimsoth and interrogated both men 63 64 Under interrogation Rohm admitted to bisexuality and said that he had masturbated with other men but never violated Paragraph 175 27 7 On 6 June 1931 a trial against Rohm opened Reif testified that he and a friend hotel employee Peter Kronninger had participated in mutual masturbation with Rohm in late 1930 in a hotel room Reif said that when he did not receive the money he was promised he ended up going to the police Rohm and Kronninger denied the incident The trial was eventually dropped for lack of evidence 64 In all Rohm was unsuccessfully tried five times in 1931 and 1932 but the prosecution was never able to prove that he had violated Paragraph 175 7 65 It was especially difficult to obtain evidence for a crime committed in private 66 Helmuth Klotz s pamphlet March 1932 Edit The SPD decided to publish the Rohm Heimsoth letters during the 1932 German presidential election in which Hitler was running against incumbent Paul Hindenburg 63 67 The former Nazi turned anti fascist publicist Helmuth Klotz de prepared a 17 page pamphlet titled Der Fall Rohm The Rohm Case that contained facsimiles of three letters 68 69 In early March 1932 the SPD printed and mailed 300 000 copies of the pamphlet to important Germans including politicians army officers doctors teachers and notaries 70 45 In the pamphlet Klotz argued This fish stinks from its head Decay reaches deep into the ranks of the NSDAP Nazi Party 51 71 He asserted that a party that tolerated homosexuality in its highest echelons must intend to poison the Volk destroy its moral strength and would lead to the decline of Germany similar to the decline of ancient Rome 70 45 Klotz claimed that leaving Rohm in his position would make the Nazis complicit in crimes of having knowingly and intentionally furthered the seduction of German youths into becoming homosexual minions 66 In his pamphlet Klotz claimed that By publishing the Rohm letters I make no value judgment against homosexuals but he did not notice or care that the campaign against Rohm stirred up hatred of homosexuals as well as Nazis 72 Rohm sued in an attempt to stop the distribution of the letters but the lawsuit was thrown out of court as he did not assert that the letters were fakes The court ruled that there was no illegality in the publication of genuine letters 73 62 Rohm admitted to other Nazis that he had written them 73 The court cases attempting to halt the distribution of the pamphlet regularly featured in the Hamburger Echo for months 62 SPD newspapers soon picked up on Klotz s pamphlet publishing excerpts of the letters 73 74 The allegations against Rohm found their way into election posters and stickers 71 The campaign did not target Rohm as much as Hitler and the entire Nazi movement smearing them as ridden with homosexuality and suggesting that German youth were morally endangered 75 Hitler and Rohm at the Nuremberg rally 1933On 6 April four days before the second round of the presidential election Hitler defended Rohm and declared that he would remain the SA chief of staff 76 77 78 Rohm later told the Nazi Franz von Horauf de that he had offered his resignation but Hitler had refused it 79 Many Nazis were astonished that Hitler had not broken with Rohm both because of their own prejudices and because they thought he harmed the party s chances of gaining political power 80 77 Konstantin Hierl worried the scandal would break the faith of the masses in the strength and purity of the National Socialist Movement and hurt the party among conservative voters that Hitler needed to poach from Hindenburg 73 81 Historian Andrew Wackerfuss argues that Hitler supported Rohm because of a combination of personal affection Rohm s professional competence and a defensive support for his own appointment 66 82 In an effort to protect the Nazi Party from the scandal in March 1932 Walter Buch put ex Nazi Emil Danzeisen de in charge of a plot to murder Rohm The plan called for killing Rohm du Moulin Eckart and Rohm s press officer Georg Bell de at the Brown House and framing the KPD Danzeisen engaged the unemployed architect Karl Horn as a hitman but Horn told the intended victims and the plan fell through Rohm tried to put an end to the plot quietly by telling Hitler and Heinrich Himmler while du Moulin Eckart and Cajetan Graf von Spreti reported it to the Munich police 79 83 84 The plot became public knowledge when covered by the Munchener Post on 8 April 84 Danzeisen but not Buch was tried and convicted for his role in the plot 85 79 generating additional negative press coverage for the Nazi Party into late 1932 81 Although most media did not report on the scandal until May 1932 86 Marhoefer argues that knowledge of the scandal was widespread before then 87 The scandal was unpleasant for the Nazi Party 45 36 but it did not affect their electoral performance 88 36 Although Hindenburg won the election on the second ballot Hitler obtained 37 percent of the vote 88 Historian Larry Eugene Jones de writes At the very least the revelations about Rohm were an unwelcome distraction for Hitler s campaign at worst a damaging blow to the Hitler s credibility as a worthy claimant to the high office of Reich president 89 On 4 March the Minister President of Prussia Otto Braun SPD asked Chancellor Heinrich Bruning to bring the Rohm Heimsoth letters to Hindenburg s attention 90 Hindenburg remarked privately that in the Kaiserreich a man in Rohm s situation would have been given a pistol to shoot himself 73 38 91 The scandal made it more difficult for Hindenburg to appoint Hitler chancellor as the latter requested on a meeting on 13 August accompanied by Rohm and Frick 38 92 Hindenburg found it downright disgusting to have to meet Rohm and shake hands with the Hinterlader faggot 93 Assault of Helmuth Klotz in the Reichstag May 1932 Edit Reichstag building c 1900On 12 May 1932 Klotz visited the Reichstag cafe to meet SPD chairman Otto Wels 94 After Wels was called away to a vote Klotz was recognized by Heines who had entered the cafe with a group of Nazi deputies Heines shouted something to the effect of You re the hoodlum who published the pamphlet and slapped him across the face The Nazis subsequently assaulted him with their fists and a chair but fled when a waiter and other deputies intervened Two policemen appeared at the scene and offered to escort Klotz outside so he could identify his attackers Klotz agreed but outside the cafe they were set upon by dozens of Nazis who assaulted them Multiple witnesses reported hearing someone shout I ll beat him to death 95 Someone called Klotz s wife and told her to come to the Reichstag to collect his bones 52 Since parliament was in session at the time of the attack Reichstag president Paul Lobe SPD ordered the maximum suspension 30 days of Heines Hans Krause de Fritz Weitzel and Wilhelm Stegmann de for assaulting Klotz He announced that he had called the police to restore order and arrest the four Nazis who refused to leave At this news the entire Nazi Reichstag delegation 107 men shouted Heil Hitler 96 97 98 Dozens of policemen under the command of Bernhard Weiss entered the plenary but were heckled by antisemitic slurs directed at Weiss who was Jewish The police struggled to identify the Nazis that they were trying to arrest although they ultimately succeeded The ensuing chaos was such that Lobe had to discontinue the parliament s session 94 99 100 A brawl between Nazi and SPD deputies in the plenary was narrowly avoided The Reichstag never met again before the July 1932 German federal election 101 The attack and subsequent trial made the headlines of widely read national newspapers 102 88 65 On 14 May Krause was acquitted Heines Stegmann and Weitzel were convicted and sentenced to three months in jail 97 103 The judge condemned the Nazi deputies for their hooliganism in the Reichstag building a holy site of democracy when they could have chosen non violent methods of resolving their dispute with Klotz 104 As a result of the attack on Klotz the Rohm scandal was widely covered on the front pages of German newspapers although the nature of the scandal was not always specified in the press coverage Nevertheless the scandal did not significantly affect the July election 105 106 107 The scandal had not died out by 11 January 1933 when the Munchener Post published an article speculating that Hitler would dismiss Rohm 108 Press coverage EditThe Nazi press responded to the scandal mostly by ignoring it and sometimes by denying nonspecific allegations against Rohm claiming that they were fabrications by socialists and Jews 63 16 44 It also exaggerated Rohm s military activities in Bolivia falsely claiming that he was offered the position of Chief of Staff of the Bolivian Army 109 Marhoefer argues that even convinced Nazi opponents did not necessarily use Rohm s sexuality to attack the party and argues that this was a success of the homosexual movement in convincing Germans that private sexuality was not their concern It is difficult to imagine the national media in the 1930s in a country other than Germany reacting to a homosexual sex scandal about a leading politician with such restraint 110 Some conservatives and Nazi sympathizers who opposed homosexual emancipation nevertheless portrayed Rohm s sexuality as a matter not of public concern and Marhoefer argues that this is a sign of acceptance that homosexuality did not necessarily entail expulsion from public life 111 Nevertheless she states The highly public persuasive allegations about Rohm s sexuality made it tough for the NSDAP to campaign as a party of moral renewal 86 After the Klotz attack the main message in press coverage was the exposure of the Nazis violent methods their rule of fists Faustrecht as opposed to the rule of law and antipathy for democracy Rohm s homosexuality was an issue of secondary or tertiary importance This was the case for those as far left as the SPD and as far right as the German National People s Party DVNP 112 A wide range of conservatives and liberals blamed Klotz for bringing up the issue of Rohm s sexuality 113 While a considerable number of right wing papers were hostile to democracy and justified the attack on Klotz others were uneasy with what they saw as Nazi thuggishness 114 The Nazi sympathizing Berliner Lokal Anzeiger held that above all the Reichstag building is not the right place to take revenge or vengeance with a series of ear boxings although it also condemned Klotz s pamphlet 115 Far right Erich Ludendorff published a pamphlet titled General Ludendorff Says Let s Get Out of This Brown Swamp in which he attacked Hitler for supporting Rohm 87 116 The title alluded to the ancient German practice of drowning homosexuals in swamps Ludendorff s pamphlet was favorably covered by the left wing media 116 The general tenor of the coverage by the SPD was to appeal to homophobia in order to discredit Nazism and portray homosexuality as embedded in the Nazi Party For example Vorwarts appealed to the healthy people s sentiment de using Nazi terminology and implied that any boy or young man joining the Hitler Youth or SA was in danger of homosexual predation 117 Antifascist papers frequently tied together the Nazis alleged homosexuality with their violence and murder In October 1932 the Hamburger Echo published a satirical letter from the point of view of a young stormtrooper who does not realize he is the subject of homosexual advances positing that the SA seduced innocent youth into homosexuality radical politics and militarism 118 Although the KPD had declined to publish the Heimsoth letters after the scandal broke it responded inconsistently In the KPD newspaper Welt am Abend de it was argued that Rohm abused his position of power to take advantage of economically vulnerable workers Die Rote Fahne argued that the NSDAP was a breeding ground for homosexuality and Rohm was unsuitable as a youth leader 119 107 Only a few leftists criticized the outing 120 One of these was Kurt Tucholsky who wrote in Die Weltbuhne We oppose the disgraceful Paragraph 175 wherever we can therefore we must not join the choir of those among us who want to banish a man from society because he is homosexual 120 121 122 In contrast to the left wing press homosexual activists emphasized the hypocrisy of the Nazi Party 51 While homosexual associations such as the League of Human Rights and the Scientific Humanitarian Committee WhK opposed Nazism they condemned the outing arguing that Rohm s private life should remain private Both the WhK and Friedrich Radszuweit the leader of the League of Human Rights criticized the SPD for exploiting homophobia to attack the Nazi Party 123 124 125 Although the WhK whose leadership was dominated by Jews and leftists understood the existential threat of Nazism they nevertheless rejected outing as a tactic Radszuweit wrote that the Nazis dispute was with the Jews rather than homosexuals and argued that Rohm s political survival suggested that the Nazis would soon drop their support for Paragraph 175 126 36 Bisexual activist Adolf Brand wrote when someone would like to set in the most damaging way the intimate love contacts of others under degrading control in that moment his own love life also ceases to be a private matter 127 Brand warned that homosexual SA men were carrying their hangman s rope in their pockets 128 In the edition of his memoirs published in late 1933 Rohm condemned the scandal calling it a large scale moral campaign unprecedented in its shamelessness and meanness 129 130 Aftermath and legacy EditRohm developed even more enemies within the party as a result of the disclosure of his homosexuality and became increasingly isolated 131 132 In 1932 he admitted that he had become personally dependent on Hitler telling Kurt Ludecke My position is so precarious I can t be too exigent I stick to my job following him blindly loyal to the utmost there s nothing else left me 8 In April 1933 one of Hitler s conservative backers Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht deplored Rohm and his homosexual clique to which he attributed great political power 133 Rohm was appointed Reich minister without portfolio in Hitler s cabinet in December 1933 and reluctantly confirmed by Hindenburg thus becoming probably the first previously known homosexual in a German government according to historian Michael Schwartz de 134 135 No other Weimar political party had a known homosexual in its leadership 136 In 1934 Schulz reflected that any other party in the Weimar Republic would have gotten rid of Rohm within an hour 77 Marhoefer argues that Rohm became the world s first openly gay politician as a result of the scandal 21 Although the Nazis were willing to temporarily tolerate Rohm and some other homosexuals within its ranks as long as they were useful the party never adopted this as a general principle or changed its views on homosexuality 137 138 The homosexual Nazi stereotype Edit Further information Gay Nazis myth The Rohm scandal fueled the persistent but false notion that the Nazi Party was dominated by homosexuals a recurring theme in 1930s left wing propaganda 139 20 44 In the aftermath of the scandal leftist paramilitaries began to taunt the SA with shouts of Hot Rohm Geil Rohm Heil Gay Schwul Heil or SA Trousers Down SA Hose runter which almost always started a fight 52 140 141 Anti Nazi jokes alluded to Rohm s homosexuality such as the following on the ideal German Blond like Hitler tall like Goebbels slim like Goring and chaste like Rohm 142 Sopade reports prepared in 1934 indicated that many Germans had heard of the Rohm scandal before 1933 and associated it with the SPD 143 The worldwide bestseller The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror 1933 a brainchild of KPD politician Willi Munzenberg claimed that Rohm s assistant Bell who was murdered in early 1933 in Austria had been his pimp and had procured Reichstag arsonist Marinus van der Lubbe for Rohm 144 145 146 The book claimed that a clique of homosexual stormtroopers led by Heines set the Reichstag fire van der Lubbe remained behind and agreed to accept the sole blame because of his desperation for affection Bell was killed to cover it up There was no evidence for these claims 147 148 and in fact Heines was several hundred kilometers away at the time 149 Wackerfuss states that Reichstag conspiracy appealed to antifascists because of their preexisting belief that the heart of the Nazis militant nationalist politics lay in the sinister schemes of decadent homosexual criminals 147 In 1933 the persistent scandal around Rohm and other homosexual Nazis was one of the motivations for the criminalization of homosexuality in the Soviet Union homosexuality was claimed to be a danger to the state and a fascist perversion 150 Soviet writer Maxim Gorky asserted If you just root out all the homosexuals then fascism will vanish 151 Rohm purge Edit Kurheim Hanselbauer in Bad Wiessee where Rohm was arrested on 30 June 1934In mid 1934 Hitler had Rohm along with most of his close political friends killed during what he termed the Night of the Long Knives 152 153 Nazi propaganda claimed that Hitler had recently discovered Rohm s homosexuality and that the murders were a defense against a coup by the SA to overthrow the government 87 154 155 The stereotype of homosexual men as treacherous conspirators connected these justifications 156 157 Hitler s explanation was widely accepted by the German public 158 Wackerfuss argues that By deploying public panic against homosexuality Hitler and the Nazi media won support for their illegal murders and laid further foundations for unchecked state violence 152 Anti fascists echoed the Nazis in emphasizing homosexuality as a reason for the purge Munzenberg claimed that the Nazis killed the SA leadership to eliminate the witnesses to the Nazis perpetration of the Reichstag fire 159 After the purge homosexual men in Nazi Germany were systematically persecuted 160 According to Werner Best Himmler believed that the capture of the state by homosexuals had been narrowly averted Himmler became determined to hunt down and eradicate homosexual cliques in the Nazi security apparatus 161 By 1945 Nazi leaders were praising Rohm s ideas about reforming the army and ultimately blaming his homosexuality rather than their murder of him for the failure to put these ideas into practice which they held responsible for the loss of World War II Goebbels claimed that if Rohm had not been a homosexual and an anarchist in all probability some hundred generals rather than some hundred SA leaders would have been shot on 30 June 162 163 In 1950s West Germany during the Cold War the Federal Ministry of Justice cited the Rohm affair as an example of what they called the danger of homosexual subversion to justify retention of the Nazis more punitive revision of Paragraph 175 164 References Edit Whisnant 2016 p 92 a b Whisnant 2016 p 206 Marhoefer 2015 p 150 a b c d Marhoefer 2015 p 151 a b Schwartz 2019 p 166 a b c d Marhoefer 2015 p 153 a b c Hancock 1998 p 628 a b c d Hancock 1998 p 631 a b Marhoefer 2015 pp 150 153 a b Hancock 1998 pp 624 625 Schwartz 2019 pp 162 163 Hancock 1998 pp 623 624 Schwartz 2019 p 167 Hancock 1998 p 623 Zinn 2018 pp 246 247 a b Hancock 1998 p 634 Schwartz 2019 pp 166 167 a b Hancock 1998 p 625 zur Nieden 2005 p 155 a b Marhoefer 2015 p 154 a b Marhoefer Laurie 19 June 2018 Queer Fascism and the End of Gay History NOTCHES Archived from the original on 28 December 2021 Retrieved 28 December 2021 Marhoefer 2015 pp 151 154 Hancock 1998 p 626 Marhoefer 2015 pp 151 152 Marhoefer 2015 p 152 a b c Zinn 2018 p 248 a b Herzer 1995 p 214 Wackerfuss 2015 pp 93 94 Wackerfuss 2015 pp 93 94 185 Marhoefer 2015 p 170 Hancock 1998 pp 624 635 Schwartz 2019 p 184 Oosterhuis 1995 p 228 Whisnant 2016 p 33 Tamagne 2007 p 290 a b c d Hancock 1998 p 630 Dillon 2018 p 390 a b c zur Nieden 2005 p 173 a b Gollnitz 2021 p 226 Marhoefer 2015 pp 150 151 a b c Wackerfuss 2015 p 175 a b c Marhoefer 2015 p 155 Schwartz 2019 p 163 a b c d Zinn 2018 p 247 a b c d Schwartz 2019 p 169 Schwartz 2019 pp 169 170 Wackerfuss 2015 pp 175 176 Wackerfuss 2015 p 176 a b c d Marhoefer 2015 p 156 a b c zur Nieden 2005 p 165 a b c Oosterhuis 1995 p 230 a b c Dillon 2018 p 391 Marhoefer 2015 p 157 fn 64 a b zur Nieden 2005 p 169 a b c d Marhoefer 2015 p 157 Zinn 2007 p 44 Oosterhuis 1995 p 229 Zinn 2007 p 45 Dillon 2018 pp 390 391 zur Nieden 2005 pp 166 167 Marhoefer 2015 pp 157 158 a b c Wackerfuss 2015 p 180 a b c Marhoefer 2015 p 158 a b Tamagne 2007 p 288 a b Whisnant 2016 p 207 a b c Wackerfuss 2015 p 184 Schwartz 2019 p 168 Gollnitz 2021 p 227 Jones 2016 p 297 a b Marhoefer 2015 pp 158 159 a b Hancock 1998 p 629 Wackerfuss 2015 pp 183 184 a b c d e Marhoefer 2015 p 159 zur Nieden 2005 p 171 zur Nieden 2005 p 172 Gollnitz 2021 pp 227 228 a b c zur Nieden 2005 p 175 Jones 2016 p 275 a b c Hancock 1998 p 633 Gollnitz 2021 p 228 a b zur Nieden 2005 p 174 Zinn 2007 p 49 Zinn 2018 p 250 a b Dornheim 1998 p 119 Dornheim 1998 p 125 a b Marhoefer 2015 p 148 a b c Marhoefer 2015 p 165 a b c Marhoefer 2015 p 160 Jones 2016 pp 297 298 zur Nieden 2005 pp 172 173 Schwartz 2019 p 182 Schwartz 2019 p 171 Schwartz 2019 pp 182 183 a b Angress 1998 p 59 Marhoefer 2015 pp 146 147 Marhoefer 2015 p 147 a b Rott 2010 p 89 Reichstagsprotokolle 1930 32 3 Archived from the original on 12 January 2022 Retrieved 12 January 2022 Marhoefer 2015 pp 147 148 Schwartz 2019 p 172 Austermann 2020 p 149 Siemens 2017 p 173 Doring 2001 p 311 Marhoefer 2015 p 167 Marhoefer 2015 pp 148 163 164 Schwartz 2019 pp 172 173 a b Oosterhuis 1995 p 232 Hancock 1998 pp 629 630 Hancock 2012 p 706 Marhoefer 2015 pp 148 173 Marhoefer 2015 p 161 Marhoefer 2015 pp 166 167 Marhoefer 2015 pp 168 169 Marhoefer 2015 pp 167 168 Marhoefer 2015 p 168 a b Wackerfuss 2015 p 181 Oosterhuis 1995 pp 230 232 Wackerfuss 2015 pp 181 182 Schwartz 2019 pp 170 171 a b Schwartz 2019 p 170 Woods 2017 p 198 Tamagne 2007 p 289 Crouthamel 2011 p 124 Marhoefer 2015 pp 171 172 Tamagne 2007 p 80 Marhoefer 2015 pp 170 171 Brand 1992 p 235 Wackerfuss 2015 p 185 Schwartz 2019 pp 167 168 zur Nieden 2005 p 148 Gollnitz 2021 p 230 Siemens 2017 p 160 Schwartz 2019 p 160 Schwartz 2021 p 185 Siemens 2017 p 159 Hancock 1998 p 617 Hancock 1998 p 635 Knoll 2017 p 227 Whisnant 2016 p 208 Wackerfuss 2015 p 182 Siemens 2017 p 174 Schwartz 2019 p 186 Marhoefer 2015 p 166 Gollnitz 2021 p 229 Rabinbach 2008 pp 110 112 Wackerfuss 2015 pp 147 248 a b Wackerfuss 2015 p 248 Rabinbach 2008 p 112 Schwartz 2019 p 197 Schwartz 2019 pp 197 198 Wackerfuss 2015 p 183 a b Wackerfuss 2015 p 301 Hancock 2011 pp 669 679 683 Siemens 2017 p 172 Schwartz 2019 p 173 Marhoefer 2015 pp 165 166 Schwartz 2019 p 192 Wackerfuss 2015 p 305 Wackerfuss 2015 p 307 Schwartz 2021 p 386 Schwartz 2019 p 205 Schwartz 2019 pp 207 208 Woods 2017 p 195 Schwartz 2019 p 210 Sources Edit Books Edit Austermann Philipp 2020 Der Weimarer Reichstag Die schleichende Ausschaltung Entmachtung und Zerstorung eines Parlaments The Weimar Reichstag The creeping elimination disempowerment and destruction of a parliament in German Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht ISBN 978 3 412 51986 5 Doring Martin 2001 Parlamentarischer Arm der Bewegung die Nationalsozialisten im Reichstag der Weimarer Republik Parliamentary arm of the movement the National Socialists in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic in German Droste Verlag de ISBN 978 3 7700 5237 0 Dornheim Andreas 1998 Rohms Mann furs Ausland Politik und Ermordung des SA Agenten Georg Bell Rohm s man for abroad Politics and the murder of the SA agent Georg Bell in German LIT Verlag ISBN 978 3 8258 3596 5 Jones Larry Eugene 2016 Hitler versus Hindenburg The 1932 Presidential Elections and the End of the Weimar Republic Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 02261 4 Kershaw Ian 2008 Hitler A Biography W W Norton amp Company ISBN 978 0 393 06757 6 Marhoefer Laurie 2015 Sex and the Weimar Republic German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis University of Toronto Press ISBN 978 1 4426 1957 9 Rott Joachim 2010 Ich gehe meinen Weg ungehindert geradeaus Dr Bernhard Weiss 1880 1951 Polizeivizeprasident in Berlin Leben und Wirken in German Frank amp Timme de ISBN 978 3 86596 307 9 Schwartz Michael 2019 Homosexuelle Seilschaften Verrat Ein transnationales Stereotyp im 20 Jahrhundert Homosexuals Political Cliques and Betrayal A 20th Century Transnational Stereotype in German De Gruyter ISBN 978 3 11 063650 5 Siemens Daniel 2017 Stormtroopers A New History of Hitler s Brownshirts Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 23125 0 Tamagne Florence 2007 A History of Homosexuality in Europe Vol I amp II Berlin London Paris 1919 1939 Algora Publishing ISBN 978 0 87586 357 3 Wackerfuss Andrew 2015 Stormtrooper Families Homosexuality and Community in the Early Nazi Movement Harrington Park Press ISBN 978 1 939594 06 8 Whisnant Clayton J 2016 Queer Identities and Politics in Germany A History 1880 1945 Columbia University Press ISBN 978 1 939594 10 5 Woods Gregory 2017 Homintern How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 23499 2 Zinn Alexander 2007 1997 Die soziale Konstruktion des homosexuellen Nationalsozialisten zu Genese und Etablierung eines Stereotyps The social construction of the homosexual Nazi the genesis and establishment of a stereotype Cultpress ISBN 978 3 631 30776 2 Zinn Alexander 2018 Aus dem Volkskorper entfernt Homosexuelle Manner im Nationalsozialismus Removed from the national body Homosexual men under National Socialism in German Campus Verlag de ISBN 978 3 593 50863 4 Chapters Edit Angress Werner T 1998 Bernhard Weiss A Jewish Public Servant in the Closing Years of the Weimar Republic Jews in the Weimar Republic Mohr Siebeck pp 49 63 ISBN 978 3 16 146873 5 Dillon Christopher 2018 Masculinity Political Culture and the Rise of Nazism The Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Political Culture in Europe Palgrave Macmillan UK pp 379 402 ISBN 978 1 137 58538 7 Gollnitz Martin 2021 Homophobie und Revolutionsangst Die politische Dramaturgie des 30 Juni 1934 Homophobia and fear of revolution The political dramaturgy of June 30 1934 Revolution in Kiel Revolutionsangst in der Geschichte Revolution in Kiel fear of revolution in history PDF Kieler Schriften zur Regionalgeschichte Band 8 in German Wachholtz Verlag de pp 209 234 Archived PDF from the original on 16 January 2022 Retrieved 14 January 2022 Knoll Albert 2017 Es muss alles versucht werden um dieses widernaturliche Laster auszurotten Homosexuelle Haftlinge in den fruhen Konzentrationslagern Everything must be tried to eradicate this unnatural vice Homosexual prisoners in the early concentration camps der schrankenlosesten Willkur ausgeliefert Haftlinge der fruhen Konzentrationslager 1933 1936 37 at the mercy of the most unrestrained arbitrariness prisoners of the early concentration camps 1933 1936 37 in German Campus Verlag pp 221 246 ISBN 978 3 593 50702 6 zur Nieden Susanne 2005 Aufstieg und Fall des virilen Mannerhelden Der Skandal um Ernst Rohm und seine Ermordung The rise and fall of the virile male hero The Ernst Rohm scandal and his murder Homosexualitat und Staatsrason Mannlichkeit Homophobie und Politik in Deutschland 1900 1945 Homosexuality andraison d etat Masculinity homophobia and politics in Germany 1900 1945 in German Campus Verlag pp 147 192 ISBN 978 3 593 37749 0 Journal articles Edit Brand Adolf 1992 Political Criminals A Word About the Rohm Case 1931 Journal of Homosexuality 22 1 2 235 240 doi 10 1300 J082v22n01 26 PMID 1816298 Crouthamel Jason 2011 Comradeship and Friendship Masculinity and Militarisation in Germany s Homosexual Emancipation Movement after the First World War Gender amp History 23 1 111 129 doi 10 1111 j 1468 0424 2010 01626 x S2CID 143240617 Hancock Eleanor 1998 Only the Real the True the Masculine Held Its Value Ernst Rohm Masculinity and Male Homosexuality Journal of the History of Sexuality 8 4 616 641 ISSN 1043 4070 JSTOR 3840412 PMID 11620476 Hancock Eleanor 2011 The Purge of the SA Reconsidered An Old Putschist Trick Central European History 44 4 669 683 doi 10 1017 S0008938911000689 ISSN 0008 9389 JSTOR 41411643 S2CID 145365617 Hancock Eleanor 2012 Ernst Rohm versus General Hans Kundt in Bolivia 1929 30 The Curious Incident Journal of Contemporary History 47 4 691 708 doi 10 1177 0022009412451287 Herzer Manfred 1995 Communists Social Democrats and the Homosexual Movement in the Weimar Republic Journal of Homosexuality 29 2 3 197 226 doi 10 1300 J082v29n02 08 PMID 8666755 Oosterhuis Harry 1995 The Jews of the Antifascist Left Homosexuality and the Socialist Resistance to Nazism Journal of Homosexuality 29 2 3 227 257 doi 10 1300 J082v29n02 09 PMID 8666756 Rabinbach Anson 2008 Staging Antifascism The Brown Book of the Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror New German Critique 35 103 97 126 doi 10 1215 0094033X 2007 021 ISSN 0094 033X JSTOR 27669222 Schwartz Michael 2021 Homosexuelle im modernen Deutschland Eine Langzeitperspektive auf historische Transformationen Homosexuals in Modern Germany A Long Term Perspective on Historical Transformations Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte in German 69 3 377 414 doi 10 1515 vfzg 2021 0028 Further reading EditHerbert Heinersdorf pseudonym of Richard Linsert January March 1932 Akten zum Falle Rohm Files on the Rohm case Mitteilungen des Wissenschaftlich humanitaren Komitees in German 32 383 396 Herbert Heinersdorf April August 1932 Akten zum Fall Rohm II Teil Files on the Rohm case part 2 Mitteilungen des Wissenschaftlich humanitaren Komitees in German 33 387 396 Herbert Heinersdorf September 1932 February 1933 Akten zum Fall Rohm III Teil Files on the Rohm case part 3 Mitteilungen des Wissenschaftlich humanitaren Komitees in German 34 419 428 Klotz Helmuth March 1932 Der Fall Rohm PDF in German via the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Rohm scandal amp oldid 1154380727, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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