LGBT History Month 2026: Robert Oelbermann and Rudi Pallas

Both Robert Oelbermann and Rudi Pallas were prominent figures in the German youth movement who became victims of Nazi persecution due to their homosexuality.

Robert Oelbermann in 1936 shorty before his arrest.
Coll. Archive of the German Youth Movement, Witzenhausen, P1 No.914

Robert Oelbermann was born in 1896 in Bonn, Germany. In 1921, he and his twin brother Karl founded the Nerother Bund youth group in the Cologne region. Such youth groups were quite common at the time and focused on hiking, camping, singing folk songs (using the Zupfgeigenhansl songbook), and experiencing nature. Gay relationships sometimes developed from the intense adolescent male camaraderie, and the Nerother Bund accepted these friendships, espousing a type of "pedagogical eros."

During the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, many Hitler Youth leaders who had previously been members of the Nerother Bund youth group were arrested beginning in late 1935. Robert Oelbermann was taken into custody on February 14, 1936. In a letter written afterward, he openly defended homosexuality, calling it "the sole foundation of the state." He argued that it was an undeniable fact that all true leaders possessed same-sex inclinations and that all genuinely great achievements arose from this impulse. For these reasons, he concluded, portraying same-sex love as abnormal, pathological, or criminal was a profound injustice—damaging both to individuals and to the state itself.

In July 1936, Oelbermann was sentenced to 21 months in prison under Paragraph 175 (the German law criminalizing homosexual acts), just one of more than 50,000 men persecuted for being gay during the Nazi regime. After serving his sentence, he was taken into "protective custody" and deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There, he became an important figure, especially for prisoners marked with the pink triangle. Within the camp, he was soon known as the "leader of the 175s," as camp elder Harry Naujoks later recalled in his memoirs. As the unofficial block elder of Block 14—where many homosexual prisoners were concentrated—he was able to do much to encourage solidarity and mutual support among the pink triangle inmates. It was here that he met Rudi Pallas, a former scout leader (he formed the South Legion Youth League), physician at the Berlin University Hospital and fellow gay prisoner.

Rudi Pallas, from the album of his friend Fritz Nickel, ca 1930-31
Coll. Archive of the German Youth Movement, Witzenhausen N125 No.9

Oelbermann and Pallas together organized clandestine resistance activities among homosexual and political prisoners, doing a a great deal to foster solidarity among the gay prisoners. Lectures, musical evenings, and cabaret performances were held in Block 14. The SS eventually even imposed a ban on visits to this block, probably because they feared it could "become a central point of the camp," as the prisoner Albert Christel later reported.

Block 14 was dissolved in the spring of 1940, and most of the homosexual prisoners were transferred to other concentration camps. Oelbermann himself was transported to Dachau in August. Seven months later, on March 29, 1941, forty-four year old Robert Oelbermann died there, according to the official report, from "cardiovascular failure due to asthma and edema."

However, Pallas was released in May 1940 and sent to the Eastern Front before being taken prisoner by the Russians. He was one of the few homosexual deportees to be recognized as a "victim of war" for his anti-fascist activism. In 1952, while under investigation once again by the West German police for homosexuality, he committed suicide.

Some information above culled from The Pink Triangle, a German-language site:
http://www.rosa-winkel.de/bio-oelbermann.htm
and
The French-language Shoah Memorial site:
https://expo-homosexuels-lesbiennes.memorialdelashoah.org/robert-oelbermann-1896-1941-et-rudi-pallas-1907-1952.html

LGBT History Month 2026: Alojzy Pawłowski's Five Lost Years in Concentration Camps

Arrested and locked up in various concentration camps, Alojzy Pawłowski was forced to spend a total of five years of his life in prison simply because he was gay.

When we look back in time for this LGBT History Month, it is easy for the sheer scale of persecution to reduce its victims to numbers. But behind those numbers were individual lives—gay men and women with families, friendships, hopes, careers, loves, and stories of their own. So many of those stories were never recorded, were deliberately and maliciously erased, or disappeared with the people who lived them. Remembering people like Alojzy Pawłowski allows us to restore, from our own moment in history, some measure of the individuality and humanity that was so savagely denied to them in their lifetimes.

From Arolsen Archives at the International Center on Nazi Persecution:

Alojzy Pawłowski was born in Soły (Ashmyany district/Vilnius Voivodeship) in 1918.He was a Polish national, a Catholic, and a nurse by profession. At 22 years of age, he was sentenced to two years in prison for fornication with men, similar to his partner Jan Ratajczak.

It is written in the ruling: “Defendant 1 [Pawłowski] was employed as an auxiliary nurse from August 30, 1939, until May 28, 1940, […] at the city hospital in Poznań. In May 1940, he met defendant 2 [Ratjczak] at the hospital, who had been admitted there at the end of April with a foot injury. Without first alluding to his intentions in conversation, he lay down in bed with defendant 2 one night around the middle of May. He gripped defendant 2’s genitals, held his own against them, and played until […] he became stiff and ejaculation took place.”

Special Court I of Poznań declared: “The term fornication in Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) comprises not only coitus-like acts between men, but also any abuse of the body of another person of the same sex for sensual pleasure. As expressly determined by the law, the man who allows himself to be abused by another man for fornication is equal to the man who commits fornication with him. These elements of the crime are present in all three cases.”

Alojzy was also convicted based on Paragraph 174/3 and was considered the seducer: “It was to be taken into account during sentencing that the defendant [Pawłowski] acted as the seducer, and has a proclivity towards perverted fornication. He was therefore not allowed any mitigating circumstances. […] However, it was to be taken into account for the defendant [Ratajczak] that he was seduced into performing the act by the defendant [Pawłowski].”

He served his sentence in Poznań prison and, from August 9, 1940, in Rawicz penitentiary. He was moved to Rawicz prison camp in 1942. He was due to be released in June 1943, but the Gestapo took over.

In August 1942, Alojzy wrote a letter to his aunt, Maria Jankowska. He was curious as to whether his family was in good health. In this text, the censor at Rawicz underlined just a couple of sentences: “[Aunt], you have told me that you have spoken to Edward and that he recently got married. Thank you very much for the greetings, and I ask that you send a short note from me.” That was the last letter between Alojzy and his family. It is not known who Edward was, but Alojzy was once again punished due to this fragment of text.

In August 1943, the Gestapo transported him to Auschwitz concentration camp where he was assigned prisoner number 136627. One year later, he was taken to Ravensbrück concentration camp – then to Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he was freed.

Alojzy Pawłowski returned to Poland after the war and lived in Ustka. He wrote two letters to the Arolsen Archives, one in 1973 and another in 1984. He needed some kind of evidence that he had been a concentration camp prisoner in order to receive a pension.

A guest article by Joanna Ostrowska. The biography of Alojzy comes from her book “Oni. Homoseksualiści w czasie II wojny światowej” (Warsaw 2021).

https://arolsen-archives.org/en/news/five-lost-years-alojzy-pawlowski/

LGBT History Month 2025: The Unbreakable Spirit of Robert T. Odeman

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.

LGBT History Month 2025: The Bravery and Talent of Brian Stonehouse

Born in England in 1918 to an unwed mother, Brian Stonehouse's early years were marked by societal skepticism and the looming shadow of illegitimacy. His family emigrated to France, where his British roots and sexual identity painted him as a perennial outsider and keen observer, a fate that would shape the rest of his life.

Stonehouse's journey took a dramatic turn during World War II when he became a Special Operations Executive for British intelligence. As a gay secret agent often disguised as a French art student named Michel Chapuis, he faced the horrendous trials of three Vichy prisons and survived the brutalities and torture of five Nazi concentration camps. His survival was partially due to his remarkable talent for drawing; he sketched portraits of the guards’ wives and mistresses, securing extra food and shelter in return, all while keeping his personal vow of never painting or drawing a Nazi officer in uniform. His charm and good looks also played a crucial role; in one camp, he befriended an SS guard who offered him protection.

Immediately after the war, Stonehouse returned to Dachau to sketch the crematoria, driven by a strong desire to "bear witness" to the atrocities he had seen. His commitment to documenting history brought him to the War Crimes Tribunal, where he met American Major Harry Haller. It was Haller who persuaded Stonehouse to emigrate to the United States and kickstart his career as an illustrator.

Stonehouse quickly rose to prominence, becoming one of the most sought-after fashion illustrators of his era. His work graced the pages of leading fashion magazines, and his illustrations became synonymous with elegance and style. However, the 1970s saw a shift in his artistic focus. Stonehouse began experimenting with his drawings, showcasing male models and capturing that era's blossoming gay pride and sexuality, infused with hints of his own identity. In 1979, he returned to Britain and became a portrait painter. His clients included members of the Royal family. One of his last portraits of The Queen Mother, who sat for him many times, still hangs in the Special Forces Club in London.

Brian Stonehouse lived his life like a cinematic epic, filled with adventure, artistry, and passion, but above all else, extreme bravery in the face of death. His story even includes an affair with an unnamed male Swedish film star. He passed away in 1998, leaving behind a legacy that bridged the worlds of espionage and fashion, and a life story that continues to inspire.

Left, Stonehouse in uniform. Right, Stonehouse disguised as Michel Chapuis, French art student.

LGBT History Month: WW II and Paragraph 175

For LGBT History Month, I would like to highlight an aspect of WWII that is not talked about much...not only the persecution, imprisonment, torture, and slaughter of gay men at the hands of the Nazis, but the continued persecution and imprisonment of gay men after the war at the hands of ordinary German citizens due to a monstrous law called Paragraph 175.

At the end of WWII, tens of thousands of people were liberated from Nazi concentration camps. But what is deliberately overlooked is the fact that gay male prisoners wearing the pink triangle (the Nazis’ symbol to brand homosexuals) were forced to serve out the rest of their sentence as it was laid out in this draconian law.

In an article for the news outlet Los Angeles Blade, journalist Karen Ocamb succinctly wrote:

"According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the total number of those murdered by Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust was 17 million men, women and children: 6 million were Jews and 11 million were other ethnicities, including Soviets, Slavs, Poles and Ukrainians, Romanis/Gypsies (classified as enemies of the state, like Jews), the disabled – and homosexuals.

No one really knows or seems to care how many LGBTQ people were killed, tortured, maimed or castrated, except, thankfully, the US Holocaust Museum. 'More than one million gay Germans were targeted, of whom at least 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 were convicted and imprisoned,' reports the Museum via Wikipedia. An estimated 5,000 to 15,000 gay men were imprisoned in concentration camps and died at high rates, according to a survivor. They were forced to wear identifiable pink triangles, as were those convicted of pedophilia and bestiality.

But unlike other survivors liberated from concentration camps as World War II ended, gays were persecuted and re-imprisoned under Germany’s anti-gay law, Paragraph 175."

Paragraph 175 is extensively detailed on a dedicated Wikipedia page, which states that:

"Paragraph 175 (known formally as §175 StGB; also known as Section 175 in English) was a provision of the German Criminal Code from 15 May 1871 to 10 March 1994. It made sexual relations between males a crime, and in early revisions the provision also criminalized bestiality as well as forms of prostitution and underage sexual abuse. While the Nazi persecution of homosexuals is reasonably well known today, far less attention has been given to the continuation of this persecution in post-war Germany.[4] In 1945, after the concentration camps were liberated, some homosexual prisoners were recalled to custody to serve out their two-year sentence under Paragraph 175.[7] In 1950, East Germany abolished Nazi amendments to Paragraph 175, whereas West Germany kept them and even had them confirmed by its Constitutional Court. About 100,000 men were implicated in legal proceedings from 1945 to 1969, and about 50,000 were convicted.[4] Some individuals accused under Paragraph 175 committed suicide. In 1969, the government eased Paragraph 175 by providing for an age of consent of 21.[8] The age of consent was lowered to 18 in 1973, and finally, in 1994, the paragraph was repealed and the age of consent lowered to 16, the same that is in force for heterosexual acts."

It remains heartbreaking that so many thousands and thousands of men were denied human treatment after a war that saw their humanity crushed to begin with. I recall going to the site of the Dachau concentration camp on a visit to Germany in 1988 where there were monuments to every persecuted and slaughtered religious or ethnic group, except gay men (lesbians were not included in Paragraph 175). In one of the interpretive libraries, I saw a pink granite triangle plaque on an easel with an accompanying petition to sign, urging the organization that oversees the Dachau site to place the small monument in memory of all those men. Even in 1988, we were still fighting to be recognized as having been in the camps at all. The survivors of the camps, in particular Dachau, did not want to be seen as having anything in common with what they clearly viewed as prisoners lesser than themselves, prisoners who, one suspects, they believed deserved to be there, and to have died at the hands of Nazis. It was not until 1995 that the plaque was allowed to be placed.