Annonse
World War II: 63 Norwegian men were arrested for having sex with German men
This is significantly more than was previously known.
Published
Lauritz, a 30-year-old worker from Southern Norway, was arrested by German security police in August 1944.
Prison records note homosexual activity as the reason.
Camilla Maartmann at the Grini Museum/Museums in Akershus has gone through records and registers from prisons and camps in Norway during World War II.
She found far more men who were arrested for sex with men than researchers previously believed.
63 Norwegians, 90 Germans
Annonse
Previously, only 15 cases were known to historians. Maartmann found many more: 63 Norwegian men, along with 1 Dane, 2 French citizens, and 90 Germans.
"I am the first to have systematically gone through the prison records in Norway," Maartmann tells Science Norway.
Her findings are published in the latest issue of Historisk tidsskrift.
Not all registers and prison records have survived, so Maartmann believes the number of Germans was likely much higher.
She has also looked at who the Norwegian men were. They came from all over the country and all walks of life. Their ages ranged from 15 to over 70. 83 per cent were unmarried, while 17 per cent were married or widowers.
18-year-old Erik was arrested in 1944. In court, he said he had sex once with a German soldier. Erik was sentenced to one year in prison and sent to Grini prison camp.
Stricter German law
Norwegian men who were caught engaging in sexual acts with German citizens were prosecuted under German law. Paragraph 175 of the German criminal code made it a crime to engage in 'unnatural sexual acts between persons of the male sex.'
This applied to any physical contact between men with sexual intent or motivation.
This law was stricter than Norway's. Paragraph 213 of the Norwegian criminal code prohibited 'indecent intercourse between male persons,' but prosecution required a clear justification based on public interest.
Only 13 men were convicted under Norwegian law during the war years, according to a study from 2015.
Sexual relationships between women were not addressed in either German or Norwegian law.
These legal differences actually worked to the benefit of Norwegian men charged under German law.
Because the Norwegian law was more lenient, the German court believed Norwegians did not understand the seriousness of their actions and therefore had to receive milder punishment.
Annonse
Feared Germans would be seduced
Norwegians charged under German law were thoroughly interrogated about their sex lives, partners, and the details of the incidents they were accused of.
Court records reviewed by Maartmann show that German authorities feared their soldiers might be 'seduced into homosexual acts by the local population.'
Young men under 21 were seen as especially vulnerable. The court worried that they would be influenced in the 'wrong' direction, and that homosexuality would spread further in society.
During his trial, 30-year-old Lauritz spoke about several male partners. He said he had been to a doctor to get help for what was then described as 'his unnatural desires.'
The doctor believed Lauritz's homosexual orientation was innate and therefore could not help him.
The court considered his lack of prior offences a mitigating factor, but regarded his sexual encounters with ten German soldiers as an aggravating circumstance. He was sentenced to three years in a house of correction.
Harsher punishments for Germans
The 63 men prosecuted under German law received sentences ranging from three months to three years.
Most served their time in Norwegian prisons and camps. But 14 men with longer sentences were sent to prisons or penitentiaries in Germany, where conditions were much worse.
"According to one source, one of the men was sent to a concentration camp in Germany, where he died after six months," says Maartmann.
The 90 German soldiers or civilians who were convicted of sex with men in Norway received harsher punishments than the Norwegians.
In Germany, gay men were systematically persecuted and convicted under the strict German law. As many as 15,000 were sent to concentration camps, where they were given a pink triangle on their uniforms, according to the Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies (link in Norwegian). A study showed that gay prisoners died earlier and more often than political prisoners.
Gustav Schreiber was a German civilian who was convicted for a relationship with a Norwegian man, according to Skeivt Arkiv. Both were sentenced. The Norwegian served one year and three months in Norwegian and German prisons. Schreiber was sentenced to two years and three months and sent home to terrible conditions in a labour camp, where he died.
Paragraph 175 of the German criminal code existed for a long time. It underwent certain changes, but was not finally repealed until 1994.
Paragraph 213 in the Norwegian penal code was repealed in 1972.
———
Translated by Alette Bjordal Gjellesvik
Read the Norwegian version of this article on forskning.no
Related content:
Subscribe to our newsletter
The latest news from Science Norway, sent twice a week and completely free.
