Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim (born April 27, 1906 in Lübeck, Germany) was a German man who was imprisoned by the Nazis for the crime of homosexuality.
Von Groszheim was one of 230 men arrested in Lübeck on suspicion of being gay by the SS in January 1937 under paragraph 175, which outlawed homosexuality. He was imprisoned for ten months, during which he had to wear a badge emblazoned with a capital A, for Arschficker ("arse-fucker"):
They beat us to a pulp. I couldn't lie down...my whole back (was) bloody. You were beaten until you finally named names [1]
Von Groszheim was held in a cell with no heating, very little food, and no toilet facilities. He was rearrested in 1938, tortured, and forcibly castrated before being re-released.
Because of the castration, von Groszheim was rejected as physically unfit for military service in 1940. In 1943 he was arrested a third time, this time as a supporter of the former Kaiser Wilhelm II, and imprisoned as a political prisoner at Neuengamme concentration camp.
After the war, he settled in Hamburg.
