herrn-transvestiten-in-ns-zeit.txt

Overview: There have been no systematic studies of how transvestites were dealt with during the Nazi era. Due to the historical derivation of transvestism from the contrary sexual sensation "of the 19th century, the behavior was medically regarded as a symptom and legally as an indication of homosexuality, a blanket ascription against which heterosexual transvestites and sexologists turned. During the Weimar period it came along a liberalization for official recognition in the form of so-called transvestite certificates as well as for the establishment of subcultural structures. A change in the criminal provisions in the Nazi era has not been proven for wearing clothes of the opposite sex (causing public nuisance), even if the general procedure was more restrictive There are indications of local exceptions.In the analysis of criminal prosecution files as well as medical and criminological publications, continuities and breaks in dealing with transvestites are shown, whereby sexual orientation and gender play a decisive role e role. Homosexual transvestites were prosecuted according to the penalties provided for homosexual acts or prostitution (tightened in 1935); transvestism could increase the sentence or contribute to the recommendation of castration. In the case of 'heterosexual', mostly married transvestites, who as a rule did not appear publicly and who were also able to refute the suspicion of homosexuality raised against them, criminal prosecution can in no case be proven, although their inclination was considered immoral in the Nazi gender ideology. In contrast to 'homosexual' transvestites, who attracted men in women's clothes, or 'heterosexuals', who kept their inclinations in secret, transvestites mostly tried to pass through as men in everyday life. All criminal files found are homosexual transvestites. Although female homosexuality was not a criminal offense even during the Nazi era, transvestites seem to have been treated both contradictingly and arbitrarily. The legal sanctions for publicly wearing men's clothing range from warnings on record to concentration camp imprisonment. At the same time, in exceptional cases, transvestites were also granted transvestite certificates or changed their first names. The practice of sex reassignment surgery for so-called 'extreme transvestites' of both sexes, introduced after the First World War, can only be proven in a very small number of man-to-woman cases and no woman-to-man cases during the Nazi era. Eugenic and therapeutic considerations played a role here. 

Since this is a first exploratory study, some research fields are finally named that result from the material. They are intended as a suggestion for future investigations. 

In the last 30 years, numerous research results have been presented on the persecution of homosexuals under National Socialism, on persecution policy, studies on the structures and strategies set up to enforce them, studies on the nationwide and local practice as well as on the individual fates of the persecuted and the biographies of persecutors (Grau 2011) . The focus was on homosexual men; their collective fate differed in the extent and intensity of the persecution from that of homosexual women, whose same-sex sexual acts were not directly punishable. 

Researching the fate of transvestites is difficult, and there is hardly any work on them to date. Systematic studies of continuities and breaks in dealing with them by the Weimar people during the Nazi era are not available (see Herr 2005; Rosenkranz et al. 2009). Apparently they were not persecuted in the same way as homosexuals. Because transvestism, the wearing of clothes of the opposite sex, was not punishable per se during the Nazi era, just as life in the role of the opposite sex was not legally sanctioned. As in the Weimar Republic, such persons were only prosecuted if they were conspicuous in their opposite-sex habit, i.e. if they "caused a stir" in public and thus disrupted public order. Paragraphs 360 (gross nonsense) and 183 were relevant under criminal law For this reason, a practice negotiated by Magnus Hirschfeld and the Berlin police chief was established as early as 1909, according to which transvestites could be issued a police certificate on the basis of a medical report, which they could present in order to avoid arrests protect - the so-called "transvestite certificate." 1 However, this is not a police permit to wear clothing of the opposite sex, as has often been wrongly assumed. Rather, it was merely an officially certified confirmation that that person was known to the police as wearing men's or women's clothes, which is why no measures should be taken. The police credentials were issued quite often during the Weimar period, because it is mentioned in numerous reports by and about transvestites. Statistical information is not available, however. In a further regulation from 1921 with the Prussian Minister of Justice, which also required a medical report, changes of first names were approved, whereby the minister reserved the right to decide in individual cases. Practical implementation of such permits has been documented at the local level for various cities, in addition to Berlin and Potsdam also for Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Essen. This established a double dependency of transvestites, on the one hand on their certification by medical professionals, on the other hand on state regulatory bodies such as the judiciary and the police. Nationwide decrees, laws or internal guidelines that would have re-regulated or modified this practice during the Nazi era are not yet known.