second part

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Comments

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There can be no doubt that the Nazis, when in power, persecuted homosexuals. Remember that as the Nazi Party came closer to power, it also became increasingly bourgeois and distant from its Bohemian roots. Between 1930 and 1934, hundreds of thousands of new members joined the party, practically all of whom would have belonged to the old reactionary right, with little of the bohemian about them. And in 1934 Hitler saw fit to use the notorious homosexuality of Roehm and his whole circle as an excuse to exterminate them. Now an important feature of Nazi behaviour was what Ian Kershaw calls "working towards the Fuehrer", that is second-guessing Hitler's wishes and trying to move accordingly. The huge slaughter of homosexual SA leaders became a signal to all those parts of the party that had not loved them. To this may be added a generational aspect: the slaughter of the SA leaders greatly reduced the number of first-generation Nazis in the party, and this worked together with the entrance of large numbers of new members to dilute and weaken the historical memory of the earlier, bohemian, dropout days. The SS, which replaced the SA as party army , were a newer formation, and even ideologically straight - they were expected to marry and beget children, of pure Arian blood, of course.

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Yes, I got that. But what I meant was, were there actual physical triangles that people were compelled to wear, analogous to the infamous yellow stars? Or is that just one of the legends that seem to cluster about Nazi Germany, like the "Hitler's pope" business you denounce so eloquently elsewhere?

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Only in the camps. It wasn't, like the yellow Star of David, something to be worn in daily life; it was one of a number of colour-coded badges showing why a prisoner was there. Pink was the colour code for homosexuality - the triangle was not specific, the colour was.