LGBTQ+ Stories from Nazi Germany

Born in 1891, Eve Adams was a Polish, Jewish immigrant to the United States, an entrepreneur, an author, and a leftist. She also never hid the fact that she loved women. After she was deported to Europe in 1930, Eve became a victim of the Holocaust.

Born in Amsterdam to a Jewish father and Christian mother, Frieda Belinfante had a cosmopolitan upbringing and enjoyed music. She lived life on her own terms and defied society's expectations. After the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, she bravely joined together with other LGBTQ+ people to resist the Nazis and protect tens of thousands of Jews. After the war, she continued her life of love, authenticity, and service to others.

The artist Richard Grune was twenty-nine years old when he moved to Berlin to find a place for himself in the city’s world-famous LGBTQ+ community. Unfortunately, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor at the same time. The Nazis arrested Grune for being gay and he spent a decade locked away in prisons and concentration camps.

Margot Hueman was fifteen years old when the Nazis deported her and her family to the Theresienstadt ghetto. That's where she met Dita, the love of her life. Together, Margot and Dita survived seven different camps and were liberated in April 1945. Margot became the only lesbian Jewish  Holocaust survivor to bear testimony.

Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld was a pioneering German sexologist and political advocate who founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, the first LGBTQ+ rights organization in the world. During Germany’s Weimar Republic, he also established the Institute for Sexual Science, which provided counseling, healthcare, and a range of other services to Germany’s LGBTQ+ communities. When the Nazis came to power, they targeted Hirschfeld because of his work.   

Gerd Katter was a trans man born in Berlin, Germany in 1910. As a teenager, Katter was a patient at Magnus Hirschfeld’s famed Institute for Sexual Science, and even received a “transvestite certificate” that allowed him to live openly as his true self without reprisal from the police. Katter’s story showcases his bravery while also teaching us about life in early twentieth century Berlin.

Fritz Kitzing was a gender-nonconforming person who was just 27 years old when the Nazis came to power in Germany. They faced harassment, discrimination, and violence from the German police, Nazi organizations, and ordinary citizens. Despite this, Kitzing navigated the web of laws and policies and insisted on living their life.

Josef was twenty-four years old when he fell in love with Fred. Unfortunately, Fred's father was a Nazi official and had Josef sent to a concentration camp. Josef survived and bravely told his life story in 1972 by publishing a book under the pseudonym Heinz Heger. It was the first to tell the history of the Nazis' gay victims and it inspired queer activists to reclaim the pink triangle as a symbol of activism and pride.

Ernst Pack was a construction worker and German veteran of World War I. The Nazis arrested him multiple times for violating Paragraph 175, Germany’s national anti-gay law. He was eventually sent to concentration camps, where he was forced to undergo an invasive and irreversible medical procedure aimed at “curing” him of being gay.

Ilse Totzke was a music student in Würzburg, Germany. Multiple people in Totzke’s neighborhood denounced her to the Nazis for being a “social degenerate” manhater who “did not receive gentleman visitors.” The Gestapo seemed more interested in the fact that Totzke continued associating with Jewish people, despite the Nuremberg Laws, which prohibited such interaction between Jews and non-Jews in Germany. Totzke persisted and risked her life to save her Jewish friend.