Christian–Alexander Wäldner:
Nationalsozialistische Opfer aufgrund homosexueller Handlungen am Beispiel des braunschweigischen Gefängnisses Wolfenbüttel
Christian–Alexander Wäldner:
Victims of Nazi prosecution for homosexual acts – the example of the Brunswick prison in Wolfenbüttel
English abstract
Analysing the many facets of the national socialist regime of injustice is one of the most important preoccupations of contemporary history. In this respect, further details of aspects of the dictatorship are discovered, which have not been researched thoroughly even 60 years after the end of the war. Among many others, research on prison inmates who were prosecuted because of homosexual acts is still scarce. Wäldner’s essay is dealing with this specific group of victims, especially in connection to the prison regime of Wolfenbüttel. This particular prison was chosen because other institutions lack sources. In analysing all of the surviving files of men prosecuted for homosexual acts in Wolfenbüttel prison, a German penal institution can be analysed thouroughly for the first time regarding these persecution cases.
303 individual files are representative of 592 individual lives. This essay addresses the social and local origin of inmates and asks if corresponding previous convictions existed and what the consequences were. Following the statistical analysis, exemplary individual fates are investigated.