When the Nazis Criminalized Gay Men

A story of persecution in ‘The Men with the Pink Triangle’ by Heinz Heger

In Der Mann mit dem rosa Winkel, Heinz Heger (Hans Neumann’s pen name) anonymously shared the account of an Austrian man (Josef Kohout) who had been persecuted by the Nazis for being gay. It was published by Merlin Verlag in 1972 and later translated by David Fernbach as The Men with the Pink Triangle and published by Gay Men’s Press in London in 1980. I have a 1986 printing by Alyson Publications in Boston. You may also see the original title given as Die Männer mit dem rosa Winkel.

The translator, Fernbach—who published his own book, The Spiral Path: A Gay Contribution to Human Survival, in 1981—wrote an introduction to The Men with the Pink Triangle that gives helpful context.

What Happened When Germany Criminalized Gay Men

Germany criminalized male homosexuality in 1871 in what was known as Paragraph 175. (There was no such explicit crime for women.) From the turn of the century, Magnus Hirschfeld campaigned to overturn the law, and by 1929 the Reichstag committee supported overturning it, but they received right-wing pushback. The Nazis took power in 1933 and increased the persecution of gay men. One of the early Nazi leaders, Ernst Röhm, was gay, and…