Listen to the episode here.

Happy Pride Month! We’re kicking off June with stories that are meant to be told. Angie starts with Lucicus Beebe. This dandy of a gentleman did everything with the utmost panache. He toured the US and Europe in his own decked-out train car and remained fashionable, even when reporting on fires that broke out.

Theresa brings in the tragic story of the pink triangle, which started in concentration camps and is a potent symbol of the queer community. Many wearers of the pink triangle in these camps were not freed when the camps were liberated – instead they remained imprisioned until the early 70s. After gaining freedom, they reclaimed this symbol, and it is now a positive symbol for the LGBTQIA+ community.

This episode pairs well with:

William Dorsey Swann
Stonewall

Transcript

Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast. The podcasts were two compulsive nutjobs are going to mainline history because that’s just what they do. And then they join forces and regurgitate said history on each other and you have tuned in for the splash back. I’m host one. I’m Theresa and that is Angie. I’m host two. Yeah, welcome. Hi. Yeah, happy. I mean, right month. 

Angie: We are in pride month. Ah, that’s right. That’s part of my topic. 

Theresa: Oh, is it? Okay, that’s good. That’s that because that would be really unfortunate. If you’re like, and let me tell you about the start of Groundhog’s Day. 

Angie: Let me tell you about this weird holiday that happens in February. 

Theresa: Actually, thanks. You’ve just given me an idea for July. Okay, you’re welcome. 

Theresa: You’re welcome. It’s actually your turn to go first. So I can just sit here and do. I’m going to stab myself. So my hand to this loom. Have you ever done that? I’ve sewn my hand to a shoe during a meeting. 

Cool. Like went through the calluses and like just kind of looked at it, realized I was still needing to be very involved in the meeting and kind of went. Mine is to just keep my hand down so nobody can see the shoe hanging from it for the next 15 minutes. And then I will de thread my calluses from the shoe. 

Angie: Cutting it off. Yeah. Oh, gross. Okay. Well, I’m just, I’m okay. I have had this, this guy in my pocket for over a year. I have wanted to tell you about him for over a year. Oh, I don’t remember where I heard of him, where I read of him. 

I don’t remember anything, but I immediately remember seeing the picture and going, yes, who is this, who is this gent? I need him. So I’m going to tell you the story of Lucius Beebe. Are you familiar with this name? 

Theresa: No, I want to be though. 

Angie: Okay. So, so you’re going to be like Angie, your sources. We need to talk about this. Source number one is Diffords Guide. This is an article by Theodora Sutcliffe. Diffords Guide is a drink guide. It’s like an adult beverage. 

Theresa: I understand what drinks are. Like that translates. 

Angie: I wasn’t sure if I actually pronounced the word drink. Oh. It felt very mumbled on my end. Okay. 

Theresa: Well, when I go through to edit, I’ll confirm or deny. Thanks. 

Angie: And before you tell me this might be worse than the Reddit bathroom mall, just listen to my story first. 

Theresa: Well, it’s like step one, before I can tell you my story, consume three ounces of vodka, come back. Indeed. Yes. And then we’re going to take a swig of a mocha and then three paragraphs from now. I’m going to have you take a shot of creme de ment. 

Angie: I’m realizing now that when I told you the history of bourbon, I should have done that. We should have had like a flight of things going on. 

Theresa: Oh my God. I’m really sorry. I let you down. You know, I mean, I get that there’s a distance between us. So you would have had to roped in hubs to go to Beth Mo to go find all of these things. That was an awesome. We could redo it. I don’t have to hit record. I mean, we could, we could make this do it. 

Angie: Okay. I love this. Let’s go. My next source is Henry pool.com. Henry pool is a very high end bespoke shop in London because not only do they keep meticulous records of their patrons. They also do these really delightful articles about them. 

I think I’ve actually used them before, but I can’t remember for which individual I used before. But as soon as I pulled this one up, I’m like, I know this place. This looks familiar. Again, just you have to hear the story. And then there is a local headline news 50 years after remembering Lucius Morris BB by David J. Watts from 2016. And then there was a review on one of his books that I may share a bit of later. 

I’m not so sure I’m sure the whole review, but there’s a fun little paragraph in there. So we’ll see. So that being said, like I said, this man is in my has been in my back pocket for. 

Months and I’m so glad you’ve never heard of him. Think like the reincarnated Lord Byron, but even better. Oh my, please don’t tell Lord Byron. I said this. We absolutely do not need to stoke his ego anymore than I have for the last few weeks, which is a weird thing to say. But for those of you that don’t know, I am finishing one of the steps of my education and have written a paper on Dracula and Lord Byron is a big, a big player in this paper. 

So I guess I’m a fan girl now, whatever. On December 9th of 1902, quite possibly the most colorfully described man was born into a prominent Bostonian family in Wakefield, Massachusetts. You went to Massachusetts again just for Gertl? Massachusetts. 

Massachusetts. Now I don’t know how to say it right. I mean. 

Born near Boston. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah. All right. So right off the bat, there’s this article that describes him as quote, a syndicated columnist, journalist, photographer, Gourmand, railroad historian, author, recountor and acknowledged dandy. 

Theresa: Honestly, I’m here for the acknowledged dandy. 

Angie: It’s giving billionaire plants, fruits, playboy, Rick Hartriver. 

Theresa: Yeah. Yeah, actually. Strangely enough, it works. 

Angie: He would grow up there in Wakefield in a well-established farm. It is actually still standing today. It is a private home. It’s at 142 Main Street in Wakefield. You can Google it and see how beautiful it is. When I say farm, I should be saying estate. This family had been there for some generations. So think old money. 

Theresa: There’s an estate on a Main Street. I know. Isn’t that wild? That feels like very small town. 

Angie: I think it’s not so much that it’s very small town. I think it’s that this particular family has been there for so long that the town built up around them. 

Okay. That’s my understanding. I read a little bit about his forefathers and that kind of is where I was under, like, they’re all successful merchant planters type individuals. And I think that they just, they settled here and here built up where they settled. 

So their house is at Main Street. He spends his childhood being a typical kid, getting into things, playing pranks, which are a lifelong love of his. Like, he was a young man. He lived that prank life up. And what I can only assume was a gentlemanly game with a friend. He once Bob bombed JP Morgan’s yacht via an airplane that he had chartered with toilet paper. 

Yes, please. Right. He attended both Harvard and Yale. 

At Harvard, according to Henry Puellingco, he quote, would sport full evening dress, a monocle and a gold tipped cane to morning class and kept a roulette wheel and a fully stocked bar in his rooms. 

Theresa: Okay. This is the kind of individual I want to be friends with. 

Angie: Right. Additionally, they say that he was also credited with introducing the white linen plus fours to Yale. Now, I know you might be thinking, Angie, what are plus fours? Exactly. Even if you’re not, please let me tell you. So you’re okay. Great. Plus fours are trousers that extend four inches below the knee, making them just a bit longer than knickerbockers. 

Theresa: And we just had knickerbockers the last of the knickerbockers. 

Angie: Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you for letting me say that sentence. While he was attending Yale, the Dean began endorsing prohibition and this didn’t sit well with her fellow baby. He quote, dawned fake whiskers. That’s because the Dean at the time evidently had a strong set of facial hair. 

And while wearing these fake whiskers, baby heckled from a box of the theater and lobbed an empty liquor bottle onto the stage. He does not have time for your BS. Give the man his vodka in the morning. 

Thank you so much. In the morning. In the morning, in the afternoon, there’s a, you’ll see. Okay. Okay. So this is a theme. This is a theme. At the time, baby had the distinguished honor of having been invited to leave not only Yale, but Harvard. Invited to leave. Yeah. 

Theresa: If you want, he was expelled. Okay. Yeah. Because typically that’s not invite only. Yeah. 

Angie: Nope. It’s he’s been invited to leave and asked not to return. However, Harvard would eventually like Roland and let him back in so he could complete his bachelor’s degree in 26. And then they expelled him a second time while he was earning his master’s degree. I don’t know why they expelled him, but I want to so bad. So now I’m on this mission to find like his personal journals. See why they expelled him not once. 

Theresa: Yeah. Because like, unfortunately, that’s all locked up and secretive. 

Angie: I need to know and I am prepared to do some digging to find it. Right around this time, we determined that writing is his jam at Yale while he was attending there. He wrote regularly for the Yale record, which was like, um, like the campus like humor magazine. 

Okay. He would also begin his journalistic career around the same time with the Boston Telegraph newspaper. This is also where he would begin his authorship of several books, these specifically at the time were books of poetry. 

By 1929, he was working for the New York Herald Tribune. His first assignment was a story about a fire in the city. He of course arrived to the fire in his quote, customary formal evening dress of top hat, tails and gloves. Author David Watts goes on to say in his article, that likely was the best dressed reporter of all time. I love this. 

Right. He would write from booths at New York’s most popular and fabulous eateries and night spots. He is credited for the term Cafe Society, which is like, you know, the super fashionable group that attends all these high end quote cafes and like night clubs and eateries and things like that. Watts shares that baby’s Watts shares baby’s thoughts on whiskey in an article that he wrote about him and baby is just hilarious. He says quote, I recoil from the consumption of whiskey, which is advertised as being light. The presumption implicit in this approach is that somehow a light whiskey is better than a heavy whiskey. But to my preferred thinking, it suggests a cheap, ineffective, flavorless and under proof product that all right minded whiskey drinkers should reject. I want my whiskey strong, boozy, potent, full body and an irreproachable proof. The sort that used to be consumed by heavily moustached men in a cast iron derby hats with solid gold plot chains across preposterous stomachs. Whiskey for Americans ought to be the sort that eats holes in the carpet if you spill it. 

Theresa: Hang on, that is one hell of a quote. Like part of it I was like, this reads how I would describe men. And then I was like, okay, spilling, ripping holes in carpets. I think it disintegrates at some point. You know, it breaks down, if you will. 

Angie: Yeah. By 34, BB was nationally syndicated because of his column in the New York Tribune. And for the next 10 years, at least 1.5 million people, which at the time was 1% of the population in the United States would start their day reading his column. Wow. 

Right. He was known and fabulous everywhere he went. Here is a sampling of the dandy that he was. Quote, his wardrobe had been described as both impressive and broke, consisting of some 40 suits, at least two mink lined overcoats, numerous top hats and bowlers, a collection of dosing skin gloves, walking sticks, and a gold nugget wash chain. Much of his attire was bespoke tailoring, particularly from a favorite firm in from favorite firms in Seville, Royal London. When he was pictured on the cover of January 16, 1939, issue of Life Magazine, you guessed it, he is wearing full evening dress. The caption, Lucius BB sets a style. I do have a picture. I will show it to you in just a little bit. I’m grateful for this. 

You are welcome. As an adult, he enjoyed a Turkish bath every morning. I don’t know why I needed to share that, but it seems very relevant to who he is as a person. 

Theresa: He’s kind of- He really does. He knows what he wants. Yeah, he’s going to maintain his lifestyle and quite frankly, I’m here for him. Me too. 

Angie: If I wasn’t clear yet, this man knows how to ball and not only like he loved the finest of Frippery’s, he owned several Rolls Royces, two private railcars, one called the Gold Coast, which is currently in the collection of the California State Railroad Museum, excuse me, Railway Museum, and the other one is called the Virginia City. The Virginia City continues as a privately owned railcar, fully restored to how it looked under B.B. and Clegg’s ownership, and you can charter it like it’s available for charter. Whoa. Right? And just for the full picture here, let me tell you what Henry Poole has to say about these railcars. 

He’s like the full visual. B.B. and Clegg, who I’ll describe to you, I’ll tell you about in just a moment, they were inseparable and they traveled extensively in Europe and across America and their private railroad cars, the Gold Coast and the Virginia City. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. 

Theresa: You’re telling me they had so much money that they not only had their own railway car, they brought it with them from America to Europe. Extensively. And I am just like, okay, but I want to bring my dogs with me into Canada. What do I need to do? Like, you know what I mean? Like that is the level of difference of lifestyle that we’re living. 

Angie: He lived his dream, you know? They would be accompanied. Funny that you say that by their quote, 185 stone St. Bernard T-Bone Towser. 

Theresa: Now, but how much is a stone? 

Angie: Because… I think a stone is a pound. Isn’t it a pound? 

Theresa: I don’t know. You’re the one who said it. Like, I’ve never measured anything in stones. Stones, two pounds. I’m more likely to measure, like, weights of things in stones. 

Angie: One stone equals 14 pounds. So I’m thinking perhaps this 

Theresa: dog is only 400 pounds. That math is not right. That math ain’t mathin’. 

Angie: Maybe it’s 185 pounds and I wrote stone. It doesn’t matter. He’s huge. His name is T-Bone Towser and he is the St. Bernard. I imagine he also has a monocle. 

Because what wouldn’t he have to with that name? That feels right. Right? So the Virginia City, which was the second railroad card that I mentioned, is decorated by Hollywood set designer Robert Hinley in a style beady, christened Venetian Renaissance Baroque. It can’t take furniture that would have shamed Versailles cost half a million dollars. There was a 23-foot observation drawing room, a dining room for eight, a 50-bottom wine cellar, three-state room staff order… 

Theresa: A wine cellar in the car. Yes. Okay, so probably not a cellar, but more of like a wine or wine closet. A room? Yeah. I think more of a room. Because cellar just implies subterranean. 

Angie: I’m thinking it’s not quite subterranean because at one point it was movable. Right. There were three-state rooms, staff quarters, and of course a small Turkish bath on board. When Director Demil, like Mr. Demil… Mr. Demil. Yes. …set eyes on the Virginia city, he said, quote, tell the madam I’ll have a drink, but I’m too old to go up the stairs. He is referring to be the, of course. 

Theresa: I mean, I realized I was grinning and that’s not audible. 

Angie: It’s delightful, isn’t it? Yes. And just because, like, he’s one of those people I feel like could be like one of those pompous, arrogant A-holes that you just hate, but I’m pretty sure I would absolutely adore this man. 

Theresa: And I acknowledge that you combined pompous and arrogant to pompagant. 

Theresa: And honestly, like, we didn’t need to carry that one forth. 

Angie: He’s pompagant. Mm-hmm. During the Great Depression and World War II, he wrote about what he calculated as the 500 people, including himself, that were sufficiently rich, famous, and displaying his definition of alarm, which is energy, style, enthusiasm, and ash. There were only 500 of them in the whole of the U.S. And he probably knew every one of them. 

Theresa: I mean, honestly, he seems like he would be able to come up to that calculation accurately. 

Angie: Right. Like, we might not be able to measure the actual size of our Rottweiler, but we know 500 really rich people. Right. But we’re doing great. He has also generally accepted that BB is the one who coined the term partner when referring to an individual in a game urge or in a game. Oh, wow. And when you think of the attitude of the day, so we’re in the 20s, the 30s, the 40s, BB’s relationships were relatively open and well known because he does what he wants. Are you going to tell him now? 

Wow. In the 1930s, he was involved with society photographer Jerome Zerbe, but then in 1940, while staying as a guest at the Washington, D.C. home of Evelyn Walsh McClain, the owner of the Hope Diamond, okay, just to set the scene, BB began a relationship and a partnership with Charles Clegg, another one of her guests, and this relationship would continue for the rest of his life. This is the Clegg that he’s bought the railroad cars with and did all the traveling and all that with. Clegg was also a talented photographer, but his love was rail history. He loved the idea of railroads and rail history. And BB was sort of all about this because as a bit of a historian himself, he was also an author and photographer as well. So he was like, this was sort of the life they both really wanted and it worked well for them. In 1950, they left New York and moved to Virginia City, Nevada, where they lived at the Piper mansion and bought the then dying local newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise. Mark Twain had once written for the Enterprise, which I thought was pretty fun. 

Wow. So when they bought it, it was dying, it was falling apart, but they brought it back to life. And to me, I think it’s really sweet to say that while they owned it, they would write a series of essays for it called That Was the West. So like they’re working together. 

They have figured out how to work as partners in life and employment, and I just love that, like good for them. They would sell the Territorial Express in 1961 when they bought their winter home in Hillsborough, California, just outside of San Francisco. And this was like their base from here. 

They continued to travel, photograph, write. BB would write his final, with his final syndicated newspaper column for the San Francisco Chronicle in the years between 1960 and 1966. The column is called This Wild West. He also wrote for things like The Gourmet, The New Yorker, Town and Country, The Holiday Magazine, American Heritage, Playboy and Horizon. 

Theresa: Playboy feels like it stands a gay man writing for Playboy. 

Angie: But here’s the thing, and I know that so many people say this Playboy actually has really great articles. 

Theresa: So, um… Google on, Angie, and how well do you know this? 

Angie: In a weird turn of events, my uncle was a collector, and I was like, what is this about? Opened it up, and before I even found what we all know Playboy to be, there are great articles in there. Like I found the articles first, and then I flipped a few pages and was like, oh, oh my God, no, go back. Go back. So there are, there’s some great journalism in there, if you will. 

Theresa: I, you know, I’m gonna push, I’ve realized I pushed back past the fact that you ignored the cover 

Angie: of a Playboy. I mean, I knew what a Playboy was. I didn’t like, I didn’t go into it flying blind, but I had heard they have great articles, and I just wanted to know if that was BS or not, because I’m like, no, you’re just saying that because like, look at the cover. You know what I’m saying? Like, there can’t be great writing in this. But there is. At least back in the early 2000s there was. I don’t know what it’s like today. 

It’s been a minute. In the Holiday magazine, he wrote that, Henry Tull, I love this, the article that they wrote about him, he interns, writes about them, is to tailoring what Rolls Royce and Cartier are to automobiles and diamonds, respectively. I know that is some big props. Yeah, he loved Henry Poole. He also authored something like 35 books. A lot of those titles would be on railroad history that several were coauthored with his partner, Mr. Quag. However, sadly, he died of a heart attack at the age of 63. At which time, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, quote, Lucius Debe, who was larger than life is dead, the famous author suffered a heart attack shortly after his ritual morning Turkish bath. Because he will also go out in style. 

Theresa: I mean, honestly, yeah, he’s living his very best, his very best life. A couple more little bits on him. The Wakefield Daily published an account when his ashes were returned home entitled Lucius Morris B.B., A Famous Son Returns on the Day of His Funeral. His ashes were reportedly along with those of two of his dogs were interned in one of the B.B. 

Family Plots at the cemetery. And then there is this Tumblr blog post. I think this is so much fun. We’re this particular author. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find their name, but the blog is called Steampunk Vehicles. They have like several classic images of B.B. and the author has written a little bit about him saying, quote, B.B. considered himself a connoisseur of the preposterous, which is 100% true. He refused to accept a world that didn’t suit him. He had no regard for what the haters thought and worked all the time at his art. Most importantly, he refused to give up his dignity when the rest of the world was selling wholesale. In the sense that he was the first person out of the Victorian era to idolize it, he might just well be the first steampunk. 

In some of his books, like in the reviews of them, the author that’s reviewing it always talks about how that’s just what B.B. was. He was the bigness of the Victorian era brought sort of into this modern era. And he didn’t believe in like the whole less is more. 

More is more. Put it all up. Put it on the walls. 

Do the thing. I love that for him. Henry Poole says that his motto was, if anything is worth doing, it is worth doing in style. I also say that he was entirely unacquainted with self-denial. And honestly, I just want to be him when I grow up now. I mean, yeah. And then on his last belief before I finish my story, he believed, quote, there is no food or time of day and night when the service and consumption of champagne is not both appropriate and agreeable. Okay. Okay. So here is my his life magazine cover. It’s pretty fabulous. 

Theresa: Wait for this to load. Okay. So it is a black and white photo. There is a, I’m going to say dapper. I don’t feel that’s encompassing enough. This man has gloves, evening coat, tie, vest, chain going across the front, top hat, looking here. And yeah, into the distance of, you know, slightly askew of the camp. Like this is an incredible photo. Right. 

Angie: Okay. So hopefully this will load. The steampunk vehicles has included some other images of him. And I thought they were so fun. I just wanted to share them. 

Theresa: The train, the rail car looks like it is like somebody took a palace and Versailles and crammed it into a steam car. 

Angie: So this first picture on the left with the top hat and tails, that was the first photo I’d ever seen of him. And I was like, who is this man? I must know. There’s a few more of just the rail car and the absolute lavishness. Decadence. Decadence. Decadence is the only word to describe what I’m looking at. There is, there’s so much going on. 

You can’t even, like, there’s no place to start. Exactly. Drapery, tapestry, everything’s in gold and red. It’s vibrant. It’s over the top and he is living his very, very best life. So that’s the story of Lucius B.B., the holy cow. The dandy around. 

Theresa: Well, okay. I should have had you go last. 

Angie: Was I going to be your pallet cleanser or are you about to ruin my day? 

Theresa: Are you a dandy and you’re about to ruin my day? Yeah. You’re going to maybe need to go take a shot before we get started. Great. Let me stop sharing my screen. Although I’m covering roughly the same time period. Okay. 

Angie: Well, maybe they knew each other. 

Theresa: I’m pretty, I’m, yeah, okay. So I’m covering the pink triangle. 

Angie: I’m unfamiliar. Like, that sounds familiar, but… 

Theresa: Things will start clicking here shortly. And once you see where this is going, you will want to pull the emergency brake and abandon ship. 

Angie: Can I just lay down now then? 

Theresa: I mean, you do, you boo. My source is history.com, the pink triangle from Nazi label to symbol of gay pride by Matt Mollin. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Spacing history and ourselves isolating homosexuals, National Center for Lesbian Rights, the significance of the pink triangle by Ellen Kamenidi, the National World War II Museum in New Orleans recounting terror and sexual violence, Joseph Kohut’s Men with the Pink Triangle by Jason Dossi, PhD. 

Angie: Can I just say that the National War Museum in Louisiana has their just along the same lines as the National Clark Service with their gifts to the world? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I’m going to start us in 1871, Germany. 

Theresa: We’re not going to be there very long. 1871? 1871. Okay. Okay. Germany enacted a provision in the criminal code. It’s known as paragraph 175. And it’s paragraph 175 that makes homosexual acts a crime. And there’s many nations at the time that have similar laws in place. The law was still on the books and many homosexual men are harassed or arrested by police throughout the years of the Weimar Republic. Okay. So nevertheless, in Berlin, and then there’s a couple other larger German cities, there is a tolerance of homosexuality that blossoms in the 1920s and 30s to the point where like Berlin seemed to be kind of like a shining mecca for the gay community. Okay. So our man likely took his train car to Berlin. Okay. Okay. 

Angie: Yeah. I’m now going to have to see if I can find information on his European travels. Yeah. 

Theresa: Like when you said I was like, oh, put that in your back pocket. So 1920s, 1930s, Berlin, this was kind of a place. There’s this homosexual culture that is flourishing. Now, rural Germany, outside of these areas, things are very different. It is not this idyllic, not this progressive. But in these areas, many are able to live their lives openly. They’re not hiding their sexual orientation. And then we have this point where the Reichstag even considers abolishing paragraph 175 just before the Nazis takeover. 

Angie: I mean, I guess at the end they would have reinstated it anyway that I was so excited that we were going to abolish it. 

Theresa: Right. To hear like, oh my gosh. Wow. In the 20s and the 30s? Fantastic. We were just going to let people live their lives. 

Angie: Yeah. Love who you love. Love wild idea. 

Theresa: So it’s the turn of the 20th century and despite this criminal code banning homosexuality, Germany with this thriving LGBT community is just here. There’s a lot. There’s over 100 queer bars, cafes, clubs and organizations. In Berlin. 

In Berlin. There’s queer publications. And there are LGBTQ activists that are fighting for equity in the society. And this is something I don’t think we fully have an understanding of when we think about 1930s Germany. 

Angie: Yeah, it’s not something that is taught in the history books. People only started becoming gay in the last 20 years. I mean, and autistic. 

Theresa: See? Right? Like it’s just, it’s all reason. 

Angie: So it’s in the… seeding the clouds. 

Theresa: Yeah, you know, it’s all the microplastics we’re eating. Yeah. Okay, so we have all this going on. Germany takes, where Nazi power comes to be around 33, and they have this mission to radically, racially, culturally purify Germany. All the things. And so they arrest thousands of LGBTQ plus individuals, mostly gay men, whom they brand as degenerate. 

Of course. Now, they believe that homosexual men are defective, and they’re an obstacle of the ultimate goal of creating this Aryan race, this master race. Now they don’t, these gay men don’t embody the Nazi view that this very masculine, this toxic masculinity, and that being the ideal German man. 

Right. They also fear that homosexuals, if they hold leadership positions in the Nazi government, they would be vulnerable to manipulation or blackmail by anyone who threatened to expose their orientation. Now, obviously, this isn’t a problem. You can’t expose somebody who’s living openly. But what? Yeah, you can’t go to BB and be like, we’re going to tell everyone you’re gay. And he’s going to be like, oh no, stop, please don’t. 

Angie: Let me shake my gold tipped cane at you. Yeah. Whatever will they think? Oh no, me and my 500 very rich friends will just go sit all the way down. 

Theresa: Yeah. So that’s what they’re kind of afraid of, right? So it’s kind of an awful thing. Now the Nazis, strangely, are not concerned about lesbians. Weird. The reason being, they presume that women are passive, or more so than men. And you could be forced to have children without being a willing participant. 

Consent isn’t an option, so you can still contribute to the master race. I hate that for them. Yeah. 

So that’s fun. And when Hitler takes over in 33, the enforcement of paragraph 175 gets stepped up. And there’s a man who lives near Hamburg who recalls, and this is a massive quote, so just bear with, with one blow, a wave of arrests of homosexuals began in our town. 

One of the first arrested was my friend, with whom I had a relationship since I was 23. One day, people from the Gestapo came to his house and took him away. It was pointless to inquire where he might be. If anyone did that, they ran the risk of being similarly detained because he knew them, and therefore they were also suspect. Following his arrest, his home was searched by Gestapo agents. Books were taken away. Notes and address books were confiscated. 

Questions were asked among the neighbors. The address books were the worst. All those who figured in them, or had anything to do with them, were arrested and summoned by the Gestapo. 

Me too. For a whole year, I was summoned by the Gestapo and interrogated at least once every 14 days or three weeks. After four weeks, my friend was released from investigative custody. The Nazis couldn’t prove anything against him either. However, the effects of his arrests were terrifying. Hair shorn off, totally confused, and no longer who he was before. We had to be careful with all contacts. I had to break off all relations with my friend. We passed each other by the street because we didn’t want to put ourselves in danger. We lived like animals in a wild game park, always sensing the hunters. My God. And that’s early, right? That’s 33. 

Angie: I’m such a visual person, and I’m just seeing him walking down the street, passing his friend and not being able to acknowledge his friend. Yeah. Like, eyes forward or eyes down, and what that must have been like for the individual? Do we have an individual’s name? Nope. Okay. That seems fair. Yep. 

Theresa: First, Ron, leader of the essay, which is the Nazi Party Stormtroopers, they’re also known as the Brownshirts. Ernst had been openly gay, and Hitler had only tolerated this until he became too troublesome. And he gets murdered during what’s called the Night of Long Knives in the summer of 1934, and this followed the next year by an expansion of paragraph 175, and the section of Germany’s criminal code dealing with sexual relations between men. And the Night of Long Knives, that ends up being like 200 people are offed in an evening. 

Angie: And simply because we are, could be, we’re not even confirmed? 

Theresa: I mean, so he, Hitler’s doing this to be able to expand on his power to start driving. And so he brands everybody who was murdered as like terrorists, and this was a thing, and he just had to react. It was very, I’m the victim. I’m the this. Like, let me spin this. 

Angie: And we’re literally just on our way to a dinner party. Yeah. Okay. Because I’m asking that because when you said that they took his address books and things. 

Theresa: Oh, no. So the other guy, and then Ernst Rohn was the leader of the essay. Right. 

Angie: So what I’m imagining is this 200 people that are removed from the census in one evening could have just, some could have just been adjacent. Like I’m a friend of his from the address book. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Could have been just, because I’m going to assume he wasn’t the only person whose stuff was stolen and gone through. 

Theresa: Right. Right. Okay. And I should have, I should have done a deeper dive on the night of Long Knives because I, I mean, there was just a lot. And so I couldn’t do too many rabbit holes for my own heart and head. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Yeah. So February of 1937, there’s a speech in Bavaria where the Reichschwuler SS Heinrich Kamler spoke of homosexuality as quote, depravity and as a plague. So we’ve got that going. This would lead to the eventual 100,000 German and Austrian men who were arrested on charges of homosexuality. 

During World War II, some 10,000 of them perished, mostly in SS run camps. Okay. This is, this is where we’re going. And we’re going to get so much worse. So brace yourself. 

Angie: Step in. Okay. Got it. 

Theresa: In these, in these camps, sterilization, castration, imprisonment and deportation to concentration camps were among the most common methods that were used against them. 

Angie: Have you ever read, when you talked about sterilization and castration, have you ever read the laws, the, the, what were acceptable to the Aryan race, like the edicts? 

Theresa: I did not. But I, I, yeah, like I think every time I’ve gotten close, I, I didn’t have the stomach for it. Yeah. 

Angie: I’ve had to read them a couple of times for a couple of different classes and every time it makes me angrier and angrier. I’m just curious. Yeah. 

Theresa: Sorry. Yeah. I know more about the Egyptian book of death, but 

Angie: you know, we’ll have a lot of weird things that we have. 

Theresa: Although the Third Reich was the most heartlessly homophobic regimes in modern history, we practically have no firsthand accounts of Nazi violence that it against gay men that existed either in West or East Germany before the 1970s, which is mind blowing. Yeah. Yeah. 

Okay. And this isn’t to suggest that no one discussed the subject as early as 1946, Jürgen Kogan, a progressive German Catholic journalist and a survivor of Buchenwald described the situation for gay men in the camps. He says, quote, the fate of homosexuals in the concentration camps can only be described as ghastly. They are often segregated in special barracks and work details. 

Such segregation offered ample opportunities for unscrupulous elements in positions of power to engage in extortion and maltreatment. And there is so much unsaid in that statement. Mm-hmm. 

Yeah. During that same year in the Soviet zone of occupation, Rudolf Kimmler appealed to the organization of those persecuted by the Nazi regime to offer recognition of gay men as victims of national socialist terror. He also tried to secure compensation for them from the East German government. Kimmler did not succeed in either venture. 

However, one of the precious few signs of commitment to older Marxist ideas of equity, the East German state in the 1950s did appeal to the additions of paragraph 175 to be carried out by the Nazis. Okay. Now, there is kind of some interesting thing. 

Okay. So there is a couple of memoirs by a gay victim of Nazism and written by a man named Heinz Hager. He wrote under a pseudonym, or that was the pseudonym used by Joseph Cahout. And this man lived from 1917 to 1994. And the book title is The Men with the Pink Triangle. And he recounts five years living in concentration camps. Wow. The book not only documents the Nazi crimes against gay men, but indicates the discrimination which continued after the defeat of the Third Reich. 

Because it doesn’t just go away. No. So Cahout grew up in a Catholic family in Austria. After Nazi Germany annexed the country in March of 1938, he became involved with a man named Fred. And Fred is in quotations. 

Okay. So we’re calling Fred Fred for the sake of the story. He is, Fred is the son of a Nazi party member. 

The Gestapo arrest him. I’m assuming Cahout in March of 1939, so a year later. And then a photo of Cahout that he had been given to Fred for the previous Christmas had the inscription, to my friend Fred, in eternal love and deepest affections. That had been discovered and used against him. And so Fred, I’m guessing Fred was the one arrested with the photo and then Cahout was taken up. He received a sentence of six months imprisonment in Vienna. 

Oh, I take it back. So Cahout was arrested. I should have read and internalized this. But Fred, because his dad was a party member, did not suffer punishment. Right. 

Okay. So once he completed his sentence, Cahout was not released. He was given the crushing news in January of 1940 that the Gestapo had decided to deport him to the Schachs and Hausen concentration camp just north of Berlin. Cahout never saw his devastated father again. In 1942, the father committed suicide filled with bitterness and grief. Yeah. And Cahout said this was because this was an age he could not fit into filled with disappointment for over all those friends who either couldn’t or wouldn’t help him, which is so devastating. Yeah. 

Yeah. During the long winter journey by train to Schachs and Hausen, two criminals sexually assaulted him. And Cahout went on to describe the brutal regime of forced labor and systematic violence that he and other gay men were forced into. And they were forced to wear the pink triangle. So every gay man in these camps was branded with this as a way to symbolize why they were there. 

Angie: You know, it’s going to sound really silly, but since it’s so dumb. But the CW does a lot of like the young adult series. Yeah. And in one of them, I’m drawing a blank on the legends of tomorrow, maybe what it’s called. Owen loves that series. So we’ve watched it multiple times. But there is an episode where they end up in one of those camps in that time frame. And they do such a respectful job of describing the situation and what the imagery was. And it was one of those things that it was like CW does not do a great job past season four of anything. But in this particular moment, they nailed it. And I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. And it was like one of those, I need to learn, like I need to learn more about this. Yeah. 

Put that in the brain, follow up. But everything you’re saying is exactly what they were portraying in the episode. Yeah, which is wild when you think of it. I mean, obviously it’s cleaner. Sure. 

Yeah, it’s more standard for, yeah, more suitable for younger, younger viewers. But I was like, Hmm. It’s not something you think about when you think about Nazi Germany. And when you think about, you know, all the individuals that did end up in these camps, like the thought had ever crossed my mind until that episode. But I was like, Oh my God, there are other people. Yeah, they’re very much imprisoned here. Got it. OK. 

Theresa: So. Kohut ends up spending a year in Soksenhausen and then the SS transferred him to Flossenberg concentration camp in Bavaria. And he remained there until very late in the war. 

And that’s when the SS decided to mark him and other inmates to dock out. Oh my God. Yeah, I know. I bred dock out. I was just like, Oh, no. Now, American soldiers liberated Kohut and his fellow inmates in April of 1945 before they reached dock out. Yes. 

Angie: So you’d really want to believe our boy. Strel was on that train. 

Theresa: Wouldn’t like, obviously, I have assuming he would not be during the war. I think he would have absconded to a safer location. 

Angie: I mean, Lucius Bebe for sure stayed in the US during that time. I’m going to have to I’m going to Google it, but he I think would have been too old to have been enlisted anyway. Right. But I was just thinking of Major Kerry Ellis and his. 

Theresa: Oh, Kerry Ellis. Sorry, sorry, I got completely distracted and I did even his. 

Angie: His concentration camp was in Italy. Italy. Yeah. The idea of just that that we know it happened more than once. Well. Hold please, because. 

Theresa: Yeah. I’m not I’m not done riding the bummer train. Oh, OK. Now, the best way to really go through and to kind of understand the private hell that was this man’s existence is to really go through and read the book, and this ends up becoming very surprising, even when you compare it to memoirs from other Holocaust survivors. There’s really awful chapters where Coal communicates the SS’s attempts to cure people of homosexuality, because the concept of paragraph 175 was to rehabilitate. 

These people. That was that’s that was the spirit. It was written in now in practice. That is not what happened. Yeah, that’s not what it was like. 

The cure for this was compulsory, regular visits to a brothel where there would be people who would watch the performance of the prisoner and then respond to whether or not they felt that performance was up to their standards. Oh. OK, because that works. 

Yeah. He also narrates episodes of torture and murder of fellow gay prisoners. There’s just he chronicles some gruesome mass executions of Soviet soldiers. And then he recalls candidly a network of protection and sexual relationships between men and the camps. Now, this isn’t nothing. 

necessarily very exciting or loving because. The quote that was pulled from this camp or this part is these relationships test the limits of what can be deemed consensual. So this is this is as gritty as it gets. Right. These are people trying to survive stuck in that survival frame of mind. 

Theresa: Just. 

Theresa: OK. Yeah, so we’re taking that pedal. We’re pushing it to the floor and we’re testing the limits of human decency. Right. Now, his memoir contributes so much and there’s like this wave of books and articles and documentaries on the persecution and murder of gay men by the Nazi regime. This group had been marginalized completely. Right. 

Like in Germany and beyond, there’s still just blatant homophobia. And so. One quote I wanted to end it on as I as I kind of wrap up his statement because I I don’t I haven’t even gotten to the worst part yet. 

But one quote that he has is what does it say about the world we live in if an adult man is told how and whom he should love? I mean. 

Angie: Yeah, and the person in general. Yeah. Yeah. 

Theresa: Now, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that 100,000 gay men were arrested and between five and 15,000 were placed in concentration camps. So just as Jews were forced to wear and identify themselves with yellow stars, gay men were required to wear a uniform. Where the large pink triangle, brown triangles were used for the Roma people. Red for political prisoners, green for criminals, blue for immigrants, purple for Jehovah’s Witnesses and black for a social people. And this included sex workers and lesbians. A social people, a social. Interesting. Okay. Now at these camps, we do have these gay men treated really harshly. As I’ve said before, there’s another memoir and I kind of want to go through and like spend time reading this like in a time where my mental health is maybe better, my meds are, you know, more consistent, all of that fun stuff. 

But the. There’s another memoir by a man named Pierre Seal and he is another gay Holocaust survivor. His book is I, Pierre Seal, Deported Homosexual, A Memoir of Nazi Terror. And that just seems like I say the book, I didn’t read it yet, but I want to make sure that I say the name so that if others in a better state can go do that right now. 

Yeah. It is estimated that 65% of gay men in the concentration camps died between 1933 and 1945. Even after World War II, both East and West Germany upheld the country’s anti-gay laws and many gays remained incarcerated. Incarcerated until the 1970s. The laws in place, putting them there, weren’t repealed until 1994. 

Angie: So, imagine, so they sat there for 55 years on. 

Theresa: Yes. So. The allies come through. They see the guys marching to Dachau. They take them, then they go through all of their records and they’re like, Hey, what were you imprisoned for? Oh, you’re imprisoned because you’re Jewish. Oh, God, you’re imprisoned because you’re a Jehovah’s Witness. 

Peace be with you. You’re imprisoned because you’re gay. Well, technically that is a criminal offense. You’re going to need to go back behind bars. We’re going to let Germany decide what to do with you. 

Angie: That’s so weird to me from the ally perspective. They’re like, yeah, you’re rebuilding your whole governmental system in the first place. Like go with God, go do your thing. Good day. Yeah. Yeah. 

Theresa: Okay. But now imagine if you had somebody who wore multiple identities, you were gay and Jewish. Now your fate of whether or not you stayed incarcerated remain to who reviewed your records that day and which part they decided to pay attention to. So frustrating. Okay. 

Mm hmm. So all this is going on. So in the seventies, when they finally release everybody from their concentration camps, there’s also this movement for gay rights that starts to emerge in 1972. The book, the men with the pink triangle comes out. And then the next year, post-war Germany’s first gay rights organization, homosexual Acton West Berlin, which goes by the acronym HA, reclaimed the pink triangle symbol of liberation. 

Okay. At its core, Peter Heddenstrom starts, the pink triangle represented a piece of German history that still needs to be dealt with. Now he was one of the founding members and he said this in 2014. So he’s still looking at the pink triangle is like, we still have to deal with this. This is still something that, and I think about like Germany seems incredibly acknowledging of World War Two, the camps, did, you know, Nazis, Germany, like the whole thing. 

And so to hear them to be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no need to do that. Me to look at that. This is still dark. This is still bad and it’s still ignored. This needs to be addressed. 

Yeah. So in the seventies, we have this kicking off. There’s also around this time, it starts cropping up an LGBTQ plus circles around the world in 86. New York City activists create a poster with the words silence equals death and a bright pink triangle that’s upwards facing. And this was meant to call attention to the AIDS crisis that just ripping through the gay population. 

Right. The poster was soon adopted by the organization Act Up and became a lasting symbol of the AIDS Act to see movement. And like, I, like, I knew the triangle’s existence in the camps. I hadn’t realized its symbology through, you know, post that, you know, like in the you know, like, so this is, this was fascinating for me because the triangle continues to be featured prominently by various LGBTQ plus organizations and in many events since the 1990s signs bearing the pink triangle that are enclosed in a green circle have been used as a symbol for identifying safe places for queer people. There’s pink triangle memorials in San Francisco, in Sydney. 

And in those tend to honor the LGBTQ plus built victims of the Holocaust in 2018 for Pride Month, Nike released a collection of sneakers featuring pink triangles. Wow. Okay. And I can’t say I knew that, but I, you know, I did that is just something that’s kind of interesting. And although the pink triangle has been reclaimed as a very empowering symbol, it’s ultimately a reminder to never forget the past and to recognize the persecution of LGBTQ plus people that is still going on all over the world. Okay. And so that is the story of the pink triangle. I hated it. Yeah, you’re welcome. You’re welcome. 

Angie: As much as it saddens me and frustrates me and infuriates me, it’s stories that need to be told. Because like I said, it’s not something that’s taught when you’re you go over World War II history. It’s not something that’s marketed when you’re in the bookshop looking for something new to read, right, to even recognize that there were other groups involved besides just Jewish people. 

Theresa: Like we hear like, I know in college or in high school and college when we covered World War II, it was like, and there were Catholics and there were, you know, political, you know, like, and we might have mentioned gays, but we didn’t say and when we liberated the camps, we didn’t liberate the whole camp. 

Angie: That’s wild to me. Like, what? 

Theresa: I know, I know. I, yeah. Yeah. 

Angie: I’m just thinking like you liberate, like, I guess I’m specifically thinking like that, but when it was liberated and, you know, for the most part, completely demolished isn’t the word, but, you know, you just get this image that like it’s just an empty building now. 

Theresa: Well, and I think, I think they largely were right, but I think the gay population who wasn’t released were reallocated to other facilities. 

Angie: Yeah, that makes sense. 

Theresa: And required to serve their sentence. Yeah. 

Angie: For just simply existing. Right. 

Theresa: And it’s, that’s a ridiculous thing. And it’s like one of the things I think it was a podcast that I was listening to about this topic. It was there’s, because there’s still needed to be prisons. There’s still needed to be jailed. There were still violent offenses that needed to have their senses carried out. You couldn’t eradicate every prison, every jail. Like there’s still needed to be structures and systems in place to keep people safe and keep bad people out of society. Right. This unfortunately was a really awful segment of humans. No, let me scratch that. This was an unfortunate, awful segment of history in which a minority group was. Just persecuted. 

Angie: For no, no good reason. Right. Right. Yeah. That’s so frustrating. Like the more you think about it. What are they going to do? Live your life, man. Worry about your own side of the fence for a minute. 

Like. I guess it’s so frustrating to me because when you think about these other groups of people, like in this case, the Jewish community or the Roma community or any of these other communities that you mentioned, they’re literally just living their life. They are not hurting anyone. They’re doing their own thing. 

They’re believing their own beliefs. And I just, I, I, I, for me, I have never once seen a violent queer person go out and commit acts of a villainy. And just something tells me, like obviously people are people and, you know, every group’s got one. Right. But like something tells me that all of these groups of people are just trying to live their life. Yeah. For the most part, but then be 

Theresa: people want to be, want to live. They want freedom. They want to be able to grow up. Love who they want to love. Being a community. 

Angie: Yeah. That’s the basic. So why are, why, why do other groups feel the need to police everybody else? I don’t know. Simply because of a difference. Like I will never get over that personally. Like it’s not our job at the end of the day. It is not our job to determine how someone else should live their life. Yeah. Yeah. 

Theresa: Yeah. But, you know, that, that is that. And hopefully you listen to this podcast in reverse order. I don’t know how, but 

Angie: I should have asked, do I need to be the… 

Theresa: Honestly, I thought about it. I was like, no, it won’t be that bad. It’s, it’s not that. It’s, it’s worse. It’s worse. I should have. It’s okay. 

Angie: Because now you can go and you can Google images of Mr. Lucius B.D. in all of his dandyism. 

Theresa: I mean, as soon as you said his first name was Lucius, I knew we were on to something brilliant. Right. 

Angie: Okay. Legit. When I saw that first picture of him in the top hat and I was, I literally was like, who is this man? This looks like somebody I want to be my great uncle or something. 

Like I need to be in his sphere. And then I saw that it was his name. I was like, oh my God, I don’t care what his job is. Like in my brain, before I read his story in my brain, I was thinking he was going to be that character from the Moulin Rouge. That’s like the Rhyme Master. 

Theresa: Yes. Like that’s totally what I saw. So I was like, that’s the story I’m good at. Except thanks. K bye. 

Theresa: You said that and I knew exactly. 

Angie: Right. Like everything’s going so well. Yes. That like larger than life over the top can’t do anything the easy way. It all has to be big and vibrant and bold. And once again, I brought you a person that was just doing the most. 

Theresa: And honestly, we need that. We need that. So if you know of humans who are doing the absolute most and you’re thinking, oh gosh, they, they definitely need to cover so and so, let us know. Like if you wanted to be like, you could suggest it on Instagram or TikTok on one of the posts that we have, you could email us. And if you email us, those go directly to me. Mwah. Ha, ha. 

I don’t share. And that is at unhinged.historypod at gmail.com. And on other news, rate, review, subscribe, send this to your favorite person who is a chaotic mix of delightful joy and crashing tragedy as we both are together. On that note, goodbye. 

Theresa: Bye.