Martin Hoyer, known by his stage name Robert T. Odeman, was a German classical pianist, actor, writer, and composer persecuted by the Nazi regime for living openly and unapologetically as a gay man. Born in Blankenese, which became a quarter of Hamburg, he later took his stage name of Robert T. Odeman when he began his career as an actor and musician.
In 1922, he met his first love, architecture student Martin Ulrich Eppendorf, who went by the name Muli, with whom he shared a close and enduring relationship until Muli's untimely death in 1932. But the heartbreak he must have felt did not silence him. He threw himself into his work and Odeman became musical director of the New Theater in Hamburg in 1933 and later opened a cabaret, which the Nazis shut down, claiming it to be "politically subversive." Life under the regime became more and more dangerous. He was betrayed by a boyfriend who turned Odeman in to the Gestapo and consequently arrested under Paragraph 175 (the infamous Nazi law criminalizing homosexuality) in 1937, spending nearly 3 years in prison. After his release in 1940, Odeman was subject to a Berufsverbot (an order of “professional disqualification”) and forbidden from performing in public.
But the worst was yet to come: Odeman was arrested again in 1942 and this time sent to the brutal Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In a twist of fate and unimaginable courage, Odeman managed to escape during a forced death march toward the Baltic Sea in April 1945, alongside other gay prisoners..
After the war and all the unimaginable trauma he had been through, Odeman found inspiration and focused on cultural activities, training as an actor and performing in various theatres. He also wrote satirical poems that were set to music by such notable German musicians as Charles Kálmán and Norbert Schultze. In 1959, he found love again with Günter Nöring. Since same-sex marriage was still a distant dream, Odeman adopted Nöring — a legal workaround used by many queer couples of the time to secure inheritance and other rights. Günter took the name Odeman-Nöring, a quiet but powerful gesture of unity.
Robert T. Odeman lived a full, defiant, creative life — one marked by love, persecution, survival, and ultimately, resilience. He passed away in 1985, at the age of 80, leaving behind a courageous and inspiring legacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment