All language subtitles for Paragraph 175 2000 1080p kanopy WEB-DL AAC2.0 H.264-cfandora_Track03

(uneasy music)

(planes buzzing)

(tanks rumbling)

(conversing in foreign language)

(uneasy music)

- [Narrator] The Berlin
Wall is only memory now.

The wartime generation
is fading away.

The country seems
determined to create

a shining vision of the future.

But a culture is also
constructed of memories.

Some loom large.

Others are hidden.

Half a century ago,
the Nazi regime set out

to rid the German
nation of homosexuality.

Close to 100,000
men, most of them

from German Christian
families, were arrested.

An estimated 10,000 to 15,000

were sent to
concentration camps.

Today, fewer than 10 of these
men are known to be alive.

(uneasy music)

(tapping)

- You have to imagine,
I grew up in Germany,

and I never ever heard
of the persecution

of homosexuals in Nazi Germany.

I did not know anything
about the generation

of my grandfathers,
my gay grandfathers,

and that I could be
raised in a country where,

two generations ago,
they were persecuted,

they were sent to
concentration camps,

and many of them were killed.

And I did not know
anything about it.

I did not have a past at all.

And ...

took a long time
before I realized that

still must be alive.

It's a little bit
too late, in a way,

coming now after 50 years
and telling them suddenly

that their story
is very important

and we would like to hear it

and it's very valuable
and we recognize them.

I mean, they're at
the end of their life,

and suddenly they're
suppose to believe that,

verse all their
life they are told,

"Whatever you went through,
we don't want to hear it"?

I don't think so.

(uneasy music)

(conversing in foreign language)

(soft flute music)

(frenetic music)

- I think in all of
Berlin you were free.

You could do what you wanted.

We had three very
well known clubs.

One was in the north, where
proletarian girls came,

usually in their
Sunday best costume,

their smoking costume.

I was a bit scared, I must say.

If you have never seen ...

boyish and masculine lesbians,
and such a heap of them.

Surprised, I had
to get used to it.

And funnily enough,
I saw one woman

which looked a little bit
like Marlene Dietrich.

I don't know.

Anyway, I wanted
to get to know her,

but she didn't care for
me, of course. (chuckling)

I was a silly little girl.

But she is the one I saw
occasionally later on

who saved my life,
because she was the one

who sent me this permit.

She went to England before.

(romantic music)

♪ Falling in love again ♪

♪ Never wanted to ♪

♪ What am I to do ♪

♪ I can't help it ♪

♪ Love's always been my game ♪

♪ Play it how I man ♪

♪ I was made that way ♪

♪ I can't help it ♪

- [Narrator] By the 1920s,
Weimar Berlin had become known

throughout the world
as a homosexual Eden.

Berliners largely
ignored Paragraph 175,

Germany's anti-sodomy
law, enacted in 1871.

But as long as the law existed,

so did the threat of
blackmail and prison.

(applauding)

A movement arose to
abolish Paragraph 175,

led by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld,

a scientist and pioneer
in sex research.

He was also a socialist,
a Jew, and a homosexual.

Hirschfeld's Institute for
Sexual Science in Berlin

drew international acclaim.

Growing numbers
joined his campaign

for homosexual
emancipation in Germany.

It seemed that a new era
of freedom was dawning.

(gentle music)

- Well I'm born 1906

in a small little German
town in the mountains.

My father had baker shop.

And on a very lovely spring day,

I walked near a river,
and I met a very old man.

He was 45 years.

I was 18, and he was 45.

I was very happy, and I went
for three days in his home

and lived with him, and we'd
make, of course, love together.

And I lived with him
for about 10 years.

(cheerful music)

(clocks ticking)

(conversing in foreign language)

- He was born downstairs.

And he had his little room.

There's this little
room in the entrance.

It's very small.

In this little room,
everything happened

with this, with the other boys.

(chuckling)

(singing in a foreign language)

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] For decades,
the Youth Movement

beckons to restless
young Germans.

From nudists to
socialists, from Zionists

to German nationalists,
thousands answer the call.

Far from prying adult eyes
and Prussian discipline,

they proclaimed a romantic
vision of the world,

celebrating nature,
friendship, and the human body.

Some vowed abstinence.

Others gloried in
their sexuality.

(conversing in foreign language)

- [Man] Since Heinz
was 12 years old,

he had sexual relationship
with other boys.

All the time when he was
in the boy scout groups.

He had sex with other boys

and with some of the
leaders which were 20 or 21.

And later on he was a leader.

(trumpet playing)

- [Narrator] The
Nazi Party, founded

after Germany's
downfall in World War I,

had its own plans
for German youth.

Aryan purity would
rescue the fatherland

from the shame of defeat and
unveil a glorious future.

The Nazis set out to
transform the nation

into a unified fighting force.

(marching)

- We call it the
Yom Kippur Jews.

They ...

were not very
religious, my family.

But we did hold
the holy holidays.

That's we we call ourselves
the Yom Kippur Jews.

The time was very bad.

People couldn't get work.

And the inflation
was a horrible thing.

At first we didn't believe it.

We laughed about him.

That such a person like Hitler,

that the people would
stay behind him.

Promises, promises.

They believed it.

(troubling music)

(shouting in foreign language)

(camera snapping)

(conversing in foreign language)

(laughing)

- Who's that?
- That's me.

Look at this.

That's me.

That is my friend from New York.

He was my first exotic over.

(laughing)

I went to see him
1934, in New York.

When I came back, the
Nazis reigned at that time,

and there was an officer.

His name was ???.

He was a homosexual man.

Everybody knew it.

But ...

the homosexual people were

quite sure that
nothing would happen,

because one of the
government men was like them.

(troubling music)

- [Narrator] Ernst Rohm
had been Hitler's ally

from the beginning.

In the early 1920s, Rohm
built an unruly band

of street fighters and
embittered veterans into the SA.

The Storm Troopers.

A private militia to
provide the raw muscle

behind Hitler's grand vision.

Opponents eager to
denounce the Nazis

publicize Rohm's homosexuality.

Hitler stood by Rohm.

Hitler's defense of
Rohm was the exception.

The Nazi Party had
always forcefully

condemned homosexuality.

On January the 30th, 1933,
Adolph Hitler became Chancellor,

with the strong support
of German voters.

Within a month,
the Nazis ordered

most of Berlin's homosexual
and lesbian nightclubs,

dance halls, and bars closed.

Four days later, on
February the 27th,

the German legislative building,

the Reichstag,
burst into flames.

Hitler blamed the Communists.

The Communists blamed the Nazis

and spread false rumors
that the man arrested

was Ernst Rohm's secret lover.

Taking advantage of the
crisis, Hitler demanded,

and received, emergency
powers from the government.

Within a month, the first
of many concentration camps

began to receive prisoners
near the town of Dachau.

10 days afterwards, Hitler
declared a nationwide boycott

of Jewish businesses
and services.

On May the 6th, Dr.
Magnus Hirschfeld's

Institute for Sexual
Science was destroyed.

Hirschfeld was abroad
and escaped arrest.

He would die in exile.

Four days later, the Nazis
burned Hirschfeld's library,

as well as thousands
of books by Jews,

intellectuals, leftists, and
other so-called degenerates,

in massive bonfires
throughout Germany.

On July the 14th, 1933, six
months after coming to power,

the Nazi Party became
the only legal party.

Most homosexuals saw
themselves as Germans first

and thought their national
identity would protect them.

(soft piano music)

- [Narrator] By 1934,
Hitler had forged

powerful alliances with
industry and the military.

Ernst Rohm's ambition to
further strengthen the SA

at the expense of the
army had become a threat.

On June the 28th, Hitler
ordered the execution of Rohm

and 300 suspected
enemies of the Reich.

This massacre, the Nazi's first,

would be called the
Night of the Long Knives.

One week later, Hitler
cited Rohm's homosexuality

as further justification
for his murder,

and vowed to cleanse the entire
Nazi Party of homosexuals.

The German opposition once again

branded the Nazis as homosexual.

The Nazis did more than
denounce homosexuals;

they stepped up persecution.

Gestapo headquarters
established a special department

for the crime of homosexuality.

(troubling music)

In 1935, on the anniversary
of Rohm's murder,

the Nazis rewrote Paragraph 175

to broaden the definition of
illegal homosexual behavior.

Party leaders consider
including lesbians in the law

but decided against it.

They viewed lesbianism as a
temporary and curable condition.

Women were seen as
vessels of reproduction.

A new government
agency was formed:

The Reich Office
for the Combating

of Abortion and Homosexuality.

(gentle music)

- I have a very good intuition.

And I had a feeling something
horrible is going to happen.

I made a decision I go off
in the country, and I did.

When I was on the
farm, what did we do?

We were singing.

Hebrew. (chuckles)

Hebrew songs.

We were invaded by the
Nazis and brought to prison.

But not all Germans were ...

aggressive and nasty.

The wife of the policeman left
the doors open on purpose.

And we all escaped.

The farm was partly burned down.

I went in and ...

A miracle.

I found my passport in
this muddle and glass,

without hurting myself.

I went on the bicycle, and
off I tried to go to Berlin.

And this is where it happens

that the postman came on the
bicycle from the other side

and said, "Fraulein, I have
a love letter for you."

I opened it, and there
was the English papers

which let me come
over to England.

I could hardly believe it.

Had I ever missed this letter,

then I would have gone with
my parents to Auschwitz.

(soft music)

- [Narrator] Lesbians
were spared mass arrest.

Researchers have uncovered
no more than five cases

of lesbians who were sent
to concentration camps.

But the social world they
had created was destroyed.

Some chose exile.

Others married homosexual men.

Most quietly disappeared
from public view.

While lesbians seemed
to pose no threat,

the Nazis saw male homosexuality
as a contagious disease

that corrupted and weakened
the blood of the German people.

- When I got the first
time to the police,

and they asked, "You
are a homosexual man?"

And I said, "Yes, I am,
everybody knows it."

I never said I am not.

I had a affair with
three or four students.

And I was the bad man who
seduced these students.

I was 28.

The students were 19.

20.

18, 19, 20.

Youngsters, in their opinion.

Of course, they are really men.

(uneasy music)

- [Narrator] Under the Nazi
version of paragraph 175,

gossip and innuendo
became evidence.

Men could be arrested
as homosexual

for simply a touch,
a gesture, a look.

No one knew who
long he'd be held

or where his arrest
would lead him:

to prison or a
concentration camp.

- [Narrator] A pink
triangle for homosexuals.

A green triangle for criminals.

Red for political prisoners.

Black for asocials.

Brown for Roma and Sinti,
the so-called Gypsies.

Purple for Jehovah's Witnesses.

And for Jews, a yellow triangle
with the Star of David.

By 1942, the Final
Solution marked Jews

throughout Europe
for extermination.

Transports began to death
camps in occupied Poland.

The official policy
for homosexuals

Since most were
German Christians,

almost all were spared
the gas chambers.

Instead, the Nazis selected
them for slave labor,

surgical experiments,
or castration.

Almost two-thirds
perished in the camps.

(uneasy music)

- [Interviewer] And
then, what happened

once you got out of prison?

- I went back in
the same village,

the same shops, the same people.

And the shop where I worked,
there are only women.

I didn't see any men.

Not literally, but nearly.

And so I said, if I
want to be among men,

I have to go to the army.

And so I got
voluntarily to the army.

- [Interviewer] Why did ...

- I joined only the army because
I wanted to ... (chuckles)

(conversing in foreign language)

(plane buzzing)

(uneasy music)

- [Narrator] By mid-1944,

the Nazi war machine
began to collapse.

The Soviets were
advancing from the east,

the British and
Americans from the west.

An aerial campaign
of carpet bombing

destroyed one German
city after another.

The concentration camps,
however, were spared.

Half a century later, some camps

have been preserved as
monuments to the past.

Some have disappeared
completely.

Others have been restored
and put to new uses.

(conversing in foreign language)

(uneasy music)

(accordion playing)

♪ Falling ♪

♪ In love again ♪

♪ Never wanted to ♪

♪ What am I to do ♪

♪ I can't help it ♪

♪ Love's always been my game ♪

♪ Play it how I may ♪

♪ I was made that way ♪

♪ I can't help it ♪

♪ Men cluster to me like
moths around a flame ♪

♪ And if their wings burn ♪

♪ I know I'm not ♪

♪ To blame ♪

♪ Falling ♪

♪ In love again ♪

♪ Never wanted to ♪

♪ What am I to do ♪

♪ I can't help it ♪

(accordion playing)

(dramatic music)