Paragraph 175

original title:
Paragraph 175
country / year of production:
USA , Germany , Great Britain / 1999
original length:
86 min. , color
premiere:
22 January 2000, Sundance Film Festival
genre:
Documentary
based on:
director:
Rob Epstein , Jeffrey Friedman
film script:
Sharon Wood
producer:
Janet Cole , Rob Epstein , Jeffrey Friedman
cinematographer:
Bernd Meiners
editor:
Dawn Logsdon
composer:
Tibor Szemzö
cast (role):
Rupert Everett (Narrator ) , Rupert Everett
more:
plot synopsis:
A documentary on the persecution of homosexuels in Germany during the Nazi years. Klaus Müller, head of the Europe department of Washington`s Holocaust Museum, teamed up with directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman to interview survivors in their homes. These interviews - partly in German and French with English subtitles - make up most of the movie.
Reluctantly the six men recall the stories of their youth, describe their first sexual experiences - and the shame, the fear and the pain that their love was exposed to in the Third Reich.
The filmmakers emphasize the survivor`s memories by using original footoage of the 1920ies and 1930ies when especially the liberal Berlin was considered the "homosexual Eden".
After the Nazis rose to power the situation chenged dramatically. Homosexual men were immediately the subject of massive persecution. The filmmakers suspect that the attacks are also the result prominent Nazis being homosexuals themselves as i.e. Röhm, leader of the SA. The more the public learned about Röhm the brutal the attacks on homosexuals became.
keywords:
homosexuality , concentration camps , denunciation , Holocaust
war:
Second World War (1939-1945)
literature:
Frank Heibert (Ed.). Und Gad ging zu David. Die Erinnerungen des Gad Beck 1923 bis 1945. München: Dt. Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1999.

Pierre Seel. Moi, Pierre Seel, déporté homosexuel. Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1994.

Andreas Sternweiler. Und alles wegen der Jungs. Pfadfinderführer und KZ-Häftling Heinz Dörmer. Berlin: Verl. Rosa Winkel, 1994.
remarks:
http://www.tellingpictures.com/

Between 1933 and 1945 more than 100.000 men were imprisoned because of their homosexuality on the basis of paragraph 175 which had been introduced by Chancellor Bismarck back in 1871. It stated that "the unnatural act between persons of male gender or between a human being and an animal" was to be punished with prison and the loss of all civil rights.
Of 15.000 who were deported to concentration camps not even 40% survived; among the non-Jewish prisoners the homosexuals had the lowest rate of survivors. Like Jews, Sinti and Roma and other people considered "not worth living" by the Nazis, the homosexuals had to wear a badge: a pink triangle.
It was as late as 1969 that Paragraph 175 finally abolished.

Won two awards at the "Berlin International Film Festival" in 2000.
availability:
VHS NTSC, DVD