Bibliography

This list of peer-reviewed, English-language books and articles is a great starting place for identifying publications that allow you to learn more about queer German history before and during the Holocaust. For works in additional languages, visit the Bibliography on Lesbian and Trans Women in Nazi Germany (maintained by Dr. Anna Hájková) and the Bibliography on Queer Contemporary History in German-Speaking Europe (maintained by the Freie Universität Berlin).

Imperial & Weimar Germany (1871-1933)

Beachy, Robert. Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015).
Lybeck, Marti M. Desiring Emancipation: New Women and Homosexuality in Germany, 1890-1933 (SUNY Press, 2014).
Marhoefer, Laurie. Racism and the Making of Gay Rights: A Sexologist, His Student, and the Empire of Queer Love (University of Toronto Press, 2022).
Marhoefer, Laurie. Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis. (University of Toronto Press, 2015).
Sutton, Katie. “‘We Too Deserve a Place in the Sun:’ The Politics of Transvestite Identity in Weimar Germany,” German Studies Review Vol. 35, No. 2 (May 2012): 335-354.
Vendrell, Javier Samper. The Seduction of Youth: Print Culture and Homosexual Rights in the Weimar Republic. (University of Toronto Press, 2020).

Nazi Germany (1933-1945)

Autobiographies

Beck, Gad. An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin. Translated by Allison Brown, (University of Wisconsin Press, 2000).
Heger, Heinz. The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps. Translated by David Fernbach. Introduction by Klaus Mueller. Preface by Sarah Schulman, (Haymarket Books, 2023).
Seel, Pierre. I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror. Translated by Joachim Neugroschel. (Basic Books, 1995)
Schoppmann, Claudia. Days of Masquerade: Life Stories of Lesbians During the Third Reich. Translated by Allison Brown. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. (While not an autobiography, this book contains interviews with lesbians who survived the Nazi regime.)

Secondary Sources

Ashton, Bodie, "The Parallel Lives of Liddy Bacrofft: Transgender (Pre)History and the Tyranny of the Archive in Twentieth Century Germany," in German History (2023).
Evans, Jennifer and Elissa Mailänder, “Cross-Dressing, Male Intimacy and the Violence of Transgression in Third Reich Photography.” German History (June 2020): 1-24.
“Forum: Holocaust and the History of Gender and Sexuality.” German History, Vol. 36, Nr. 1 (March 2018): 78-100.
Giles, Geoffrey J. “The Persecution of Gay Men and Lesbians during the Third Reich.” In The Routledge History of the Holocaust, edited by Jonathan C. Friedman, 385-396. (Routledge, 2011).
Grau, Günter and Claudia Schoppmann, eds. Hidden Holocaust? Gay and Lesbian Persecution in Germany 1933-45. Translated by Patrick Camiller. (Cassel, 1995).
Hájková, Anna. “Introduction: Sexuality, Holocaust, Stigma.” German History special issue. June/July 2020.
Herzog, Dagmar, ed. Sexuality and German Fascism. (Berghahn Books, 2005).
Huneke, Samuel Clowes. “The Duplicity of Tolerance: Lesbian Experiences in Nazi Berlin” in The Journal of Contemporary History 54.1 (April 2017): 30-59.
Marhoefer, Laurie. “Lesbianism, Transvestism, and the Nazi State: A Microhistory of a Gestapo Investigation, 1939-1943,” in The American Historical Review Nr. 121, Issue 4 (October 2016): 1167-1195.
Micheler, Stefan and Patricia Szobar, “Homophobic Propaganda and the Denunciation of Same-Sex-Desiring Men under National Socialism.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 11, No. 1/2, Special Issue: Sexuality and German Fascism (Jan. -Apr., 2002): 95-130.
Nunn, Zavier, “Trans Liminality and the Nazi State,” Past & Present (Sept. 2022),
Wackerfuss, Andrew. Stormtrooper Families: Homosexuality and Community in the Early Nazi Movement. (Harrington Park Press, 2015).

Updated January 2024. To suggest that a resource be added to this page, please email jake@pinktrianglelegacies.org.

Bibliography

Imperial & Weimar Germany (1871-1933)

Beachy, Robert. Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015).

Lybeck, Marti M. Desiring Emancipation: New Women and Homosexuality in Germany, 1890-1933 (SUNY Press, 2014).

Marhoefer, Laurie. Racism and the Making of Gay Rights: A Sexologist, His Student, and the Empire of Queer Love (University of Toronto Press, 2022).

Marhoefer, Laurie. Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis. (University of Toronto Press, 2015).

Sutton, Katie. “‘We Too Deserve a Place in the Sun:’ The Politics of Transvestite Identity in Weimar Germany,” German Studies Review Vol. 35, No. 2 (May 2012): 335-354.

Vendrell, Javier Samper. The Seduction of Youth: Print Culture and Homosexual Rights in the Weimar Republic. (University of Toronto Press, 2020).

Nazi Germany (1933-1945)

Autobiographies

Beck, Gad. An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin. Translated by Allison Brown, (University of Wisconsin Press, 2000).

Heger, Heinz. The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps. Translated by David Fernbach. Introduction by Klaus Mueller. Preface by Sarah Schulman, (Haymarket Books, 2023).

Seel, Pierre. I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual: A Memoir of Nazi Terror. Translated by Joachim Neugroschel. (Basic Books, 1995)

Schoppmann, Claudia. Days of Masquerade: Life Stories of Lesbians During the Third Reich. Translated by Allison Brown. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. (While not an autobiography, this book contains interviews with lesbians who survived the Nazi regime.)

Secondary Sources