- Caption
- Name: Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim
Date of Birth: April 27, 1906
Place of Birth: Luebeck, Germany
Friedrich-Paul was born in the old trading city of Luebeck in northern Germany. He was ll when his father was killed in World War I. After his mother died, he and his sister Ina were raised by two elderly aunts. After graduating from school, Friedrich-Paul trained to be a merchant.
1933-39: In January 1937 the SS arrested 230 men in Luebeck under the Nazi-revised criminal code's paragraph 175, which outlawed homosexuality, and I was imprisoned for 10 months. The Nazis had been using paragraph 175 as grounds for making mass arrests of homosexuals. In 1938 I was re-arrested, humiliated, and tortured. The Nazis finally released me, but only on the condition that I agree to be castrated. I submitted to the operation.
1940-44: Because of the nature of my operation, I was rejected as "physically unfit" when I came up for military service in 1940. In 1943 I was arrested again, this time for being a monarchist, a supporter of the former Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Nazis imprisoned me as a political prisoner in an annex of the Neuengamme concentration camp at Luebeck.
After the war, Friedrich-Paul settled in Hamburg.
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim
- Event History
- Article 175 of the 1871 German constitution classified homosexuality as an "unnatural form of licentiousness," carrying with it a prison term for persons caught in such an act. The Nazi regime considered homosexuals to be "asocial" elements who should be imprisoned. In mid-March 1933, the Nazis arrested political opponents and placed them in "protective custody" (Schutzhaft). Persons accused of homosexuality, and persons known for their activities on behalf of homosexuals, were also arrested at that time. In August 1936, another wave of arrests of suspected homosexuals took place in several cities in Germany with large homosexual communities.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261.