The Nazi Targeting of Trans People
Transphobes have long argued that transgender people are a danger to children, to women, and to society as a whole. Many claim (falsely) that "transgenderism" is new or a fad, dismissing trans and gender nonconforming people's long and deep historical roots. Recently, influential public figures have claimed that the Nazis did not target trans people or destroy decades of research on trans culture and healthcare. This is not the first time such claims have been made, but the recent wave of posts is especially dangerous because it reaches so many people.
Those that deny that the Nazis specifically targeted trans people are wrong. In conjunction with the world's leading scholars on this topic, the Pink Triangle Legacies Project has collected articles and videos by professional historians based on archival research to defend against this historical erasure.
Digital Articles & Videos in English
LISTEN: Historian Dr. Laurie Marhoefer talks with host Dr. Waitman Beorn about how the Nazi state was built on persecution. Jews and multiple other groups were victimized and killed during the era of the Holocaust. This episode examines the Nazi persecution of gay and transgender people and talks about the challenges of doing this historical research today while Holocaust history is under attack.
The Holocaust History Podcast
(March 2024)
EXPLORE: Researcher, activist, and co-founder of Trans Student Educational Resources, Eli Erlick, has put together a page that provides an introduction to the history and a unique timeline of events featuring colorized photographs of trans people under the Nazi Regime.
www.elierlick.com
(March 2024)
READ: Historian Dr. Laurie Marhoefer provides a helpful introduction to the history.
Smithsonian Magazine
(September 2023)
WATCH: Leading scholars discuss what life was like for trans people in Germany during the Weimar and Nazi eras. Featuring: Dr. Anna Hájkova, Dr. Bodie Ashton, and Dr. Katie Sutton. Hosted by the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
(June 2022)
READ: In 2022, a court in Cologne, Germany took up a case that essentially centered around whether it was Holocaust denial to claim that the Nazis didn't target trans people. At the crux was whether it was a lie to say that trans people had been targeted by the Nazis. Historian Dr. Laurie Marhoefer dives deeper in this article.
Central European History
(2023)
READ: During the Weimar Republic – a period in German history following World War One, before the rise of the Nazis – the country was an epicentre for LGBTQ+ people, with movements supporting transgender and gender-non-conforming folks. The Nazis destroyed all that. This article features interviews with historians Dr. Bodie Ashton and Dr. Jake Newsome.
Pink News (March 2024)
WATCH: This documentary provides a nuanced yet accessible approach to understanding the diversity of queer life in Germany during the Weimar and Nazi eras. Features interviews with leading scholars such as Dr. Zavier Nunn and Dr. Robert Beachy.
Netflix (2023).
WATCH: In this talk, Historian Dr. Laurie Marhoefer looks at transgender activism before 1933 and discusses what happened to trans people under the Nazi State. Hosted by Oregon State University
(May 2019)
WATCH: Historian Dr. Ashton Bodie tells the astonishing story of trans woman Liddy Bacroff, who was persecuted by the Nazi regime. Hosted by the Forum Queeres Archiv München
(April 2022).
WATCH: In this YouTube video historian Dr. Laurie Marhoefer explores what happened trans people under the Nazi state, beginning with pre-war Berlin and then under the repressive Nazi regime. Marhoefer looks specifically at violence against trans women that was recorded in police files from the era.
Hosted by the Museum of Jewish Heritage (June 2023)
READ: Historian Dr. Katie Sutton introduces readers to the culture that self-identified "transvestites" built for themselves in Germany between the two world wars.
History | Sexuality | Law
(June 2021)
READ: In this essay, historian Dr. Jake Newsome provides an overview of how and why the Nazis targeted queer and trans people in Germany.
PinkTriangleLegacies.org
(January 2024)
EXPLORE: This collection of essays, videos, and downloads tell the true stories of LGBTQ+ individuals who lived in Nazi Germany.
PinkTriangleLegacies.org
(January 2024)
Peer-Reviewed Scholarship in English
For scholarship in additional languages, consult the extensive Bibliography on Lesbian and Trans Women in Nazi Germany, which is compiled by historian Dr. Anna Hájková.
Historian Dr. Zavier Nunn offers a close reading of the life of trans woman Gerd R and explores the ways that the Nazis sought to police trans and gender nonconforming people. Past & Present (August 2023).
Historian Dr. Katie Sutton's article traces how middle-class transvestites in Germany in the early 20th century came together to demand legal and social recognition, including acknowledgement of “transsexual” desires. Their efforts represent a critical but forgotten moment in the history of transgender political activism.
German Studies Review (May 2012)
Scholars Dr. Jennifer Evans and Dr. Elissa Mailänder offer an analysis of two sets of photographs depicting male to female cross dressing. By queering Nazi history and analyzing these photographs within and beyond their visual frames, they point out the limits of reducing every image of cross-dressing to an expression of an inchoate gay or trans identity and argue for analysis that embraces the multiple layers of histories gathered around visual sources.
German History (March 2021)
Historian Dr. Bodie Ashton pieces together the story of a person who exists in the archives of Nazi records as Heinrich Habitz. The Nazis arrested, terrorized and ultimately murdered Habitz in a concentration camp for violating Paragraph 175, the national law criminalizing sex between men. But Heinrich Habitz only existed on paper. "He" was actually a trans woman named Liddy Bacroff.
German History
(December 2023)
Lesbianism, Transvestitism, and the Nazi State: A Microhistory of a Gestapo Investigation, 1939–1943
By examining case files of the Nazi Gestapo (secret state police), historian Dr. Laurie Marhoefer explores the ways that Nazis understood same-sex desire among women and how they understood gender nonconformity. The case of Ilse Totzke is offered as a case study, one that also reveals the role of ordinary Germans in the Third Reich's campaign against queer people.
American Historical Review
(October 2016)
Updated March 16, 2024.
To suggest that a resource be added to this page, please email jake@pinktrianglelegacies.org.