I fell in love with a Hitler Jugend

In 1994, Andreas Sternweiler self-published an important biography in cooperation with Berlin's Gay Museum. Und alles wegen derg Jungs ("And all because of the boys") is the result of many interview sessions with the, as the book's subtitle informs us, "scout leader and concentration camp prisoner" Heinz Dörmer. Born in 1912, Heinz was arrested by the Nazis in 1935 and spent ten years in prisons and concentration camps because of his homosexuality. [...]

The book about Heinz was published by a gay museum to bring to light previous societies' homophobic justice systems. We're supposed to shake our heads in disbelief at what Heinz had to go through, just because he was a homosexual. And we do. But at the same time, a lot has happened with the homosexual identity since 1994, when the book was published.

Who's the Nazi now?
How would today's society react to what Heinz did? He had sex with young teenagers, some of them under 14 years old, when he himself was above 18. In the preface, Wolfgang Theis, co-founder of Schwules Museum, stresses the importance of writing down Heinz's and other homosexual Holocaust survivors' stories, as they constitute "a piece of homosexual experience". But would Heinz even be called a homosexual today?

Despite the book is published to make us aware of the Nazi's persecution of homosexuals, it's a fact that Heinz would be sentenced by today's society too for having sex with young teenagers. In fact, the five years that the Nazis gave him seem mild compared to what you can get in the USA for similar deeds.

One can also note the similarities between Heinz's latest conviction and that of Eric (see next page) [in the magazine]. Both were in their early forties when they had sex with their boyfriend of sixteen. In 1994, this was still worth defending by the gay establishment as a legit expression of homosexuality. Who would defend Heinz today?

source: Article 'I fell in love with a Hitler Jugend' by Karl Andersson; The Lover, issue 01, October 2015