Paragraph 175

Starring:Rupert Everett, Klaus MÃ¼ller (III), Karl Gorath, Pierre Seel, Heinz F., Annette Eick, Albrecht Becker, Gad Beck, Heinz DÃ¶rmer, Adolf Hitler, Magnus Hirschfeld, Marlene Dietrich, Ernst RÃ¶hm
Director: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
Studio: New Yorker Video
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Rupert Everett narrates this sensitive documentary about the Nazi persecution of homosexuals during World War II. "Paragraph 175" refers to the old German penal code concerning homosexuality, which was used to justify the prosecution of gay men during the war (the code ignored lesbians, still considered viable baby-making vessels). As mere rumor became enough to justify imprisonment, over 100,000 were arrested and between 10,000 and 15,000 were sent to concentration camps. In Paragraph 175, Klaus Müller, a historian from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, sets out to interview the fewer than 10 who are known to remain alive. The film covers the astonishingly quick rise of Hitler (one interviewee points out how ridiculous a figure he seemed at first) and the shock that more liberal Germans felt as it became clear that he was a force to be reckoned with. Some of the film's most touching moments come when the participants reminisce about their first loves and the "homosexual Eden" that was Berlin in the 1930s. This is a beautifully well made documentary that poignantly captures a piece of nearly forgotten history. --Ali Davis

Customer Reviews:

Personal freedom.......2007-03-30

This excellent documentary will make fascinating viewing for anyone interested in gay history, the history of the Nazi period, or human rights. Apart from the human interest side, Paragraph 175 is a salutary lesson in just how fragile many of our personal liberties really are. The film reminds us how changed, even tolerant, German society seemed to have become by the early 1930's, and how quickly, and completely, that was undone by the Nazis. Even in an apparently highly civilized society, human rights should never be taken for granted, nor should their protection be left to others - we all need to be vigilant. Someone else's fate today may well be ours tomorrow.

Half a history, not the truth about Nazism and Gays...........2007-01-01

This flick is made by politically left-wing and liberals gays for other politically liberal and leftist gays and lesbians who want rationalizations for their political beliefs. This movie reflects the "Identity Politics" so popular among the Liberal/Left. Unfortunately, this sort of overt political agenda which chokes scholarship and destroys rational dialogue about what same sex love is all about.

Truth is the Nazi Party was anti-Christian, attacked Judeo-Christian sexual norms in favor of a twisted form of paganism. In this atmosphere of anti-religion, homosexuality was not only tolerated, but was widely practiced by many top Party leaders and members.

The book doesn't really explore the history of notorious homosexual Ernst Rohlm who was the head of the SA. No mention of the long tradition of homosexuality among the German aristocracy and the military. No mention of the Vandervogel Movement, or Adolph Brand and his publication Der Eigene, which celebrated same sex love in the "Greek" tradition. Amazingly, the strongest evidence for widespread homosexual practices among the Nazi Party was SA leader Henrich Himmler himself, who detailed these accusations in his famous speech to the SA Leadership in 1936 in which he demanded a purge of these behaviors from the SS. Adolph Hitler himself was the subject of much suspicion of engaging in same sex relationships in his youth.

Nothing about any of this is mentioned in this so-called "documentary". Truth is that same sex love in Central Europe followed the historical model of Ancient "Greek Love" and Japanese "nanshoku". Same sex physical and emotionaly intimacy in Germany and Central Europe was practiced by those with the social or economic position to be able to ignore prevailing sexual norms: the aristocracy, urban sophisticates, intellectuals, and certain elements of the military. Personally, I believe that the resentment of some many people of power bribing or corrupting working class young men and boys into sexual activity is the root of much middle class and working class bias toward same sex love that even continues to the modern era.

Even the name of the movie is misleading. In fact, it was "Paragraph 175-A" passed in the 1935 which was the problem. In 1935, the original Paragraph 175--which dated back to 1871--was modified to criminalize any type of behavior that could be interpreted as indicating a homosexual inclination or desire. Under the expanded defination of illegal behavior under Paragraph "175A", the Nazi Party was provided a very powerful political weapon to get rid of their enemies. Under the new defination all sorts of perfectly non-sexual intimacy could be construed as criminal behavior. While there is no doubt many gay men were persecuted by the Nazi Party, there is contradictory evidence that Gay men continued to serve in the military, the government and the Nazi Party, as long as they were socially discrete and politically reliable.

Contrary to this movie's message, the documented incidence of gay men among the concentration camps population was so tiny a fraction of the number of practicing gays that we might expect from a geographic area as large as Germany that there may be doubt that there was a Gay "holocaust" in the sense of the term as applied to Jews, the physically or mentally disabled, or certain other ethnic groups such as Gypsies. And no doubt, many so-called gay "victims" in the concentration camps were in fact not gay at all, but were merely opponents of the regime or personal enemies of influential citizens.

True students of gay history and culture will find a lot of problems with this movie.

DOCUMENTING HATE.......2006-12-25

"PARAGRAPH 175"

Documenting Hate

Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride

A companion piece to "Bent", "Paragraph 175" (New Yorker Video) is a documentary on the Treatment of gays at the hands of the Nazis. By the year 1920, Berlin had become the homosexual Eden and homosexual men and women lived open lives in a world where being different seemed to be the rule. When the Nazis began their rise to power this changed and over 100,000 men were arrested between 1933 and 1945. Their crime was homosexuality and they were arrested under the extremely strange Paragraph 175, a sodomy provision of the penal code which dated back to 1871. Some men were sent to prison, the majority were sent to concentration camps and of the 100,000 only 4,000 survived. Today, less then ten of them still live and f that number, five have come forward to tell the story of the Nazi persecution. What they does s shed light on a period of history which has been hidden for too long. The moving testimonies they give are pieced together with provocative photos as questions of memory, history and identity are raised in this wonderful, but heartbreaking, documentary.
We ear from a gay Jewish resistance fighter who helped refugees in Berlin, from a Jewish lesbian who managed tot escape to England, a German Christian photographer who was imprisoned because he was gay and when released joined the army to be with men and a French Alsatian who watched as his lover was tortured and murdered in the camps. As they speak your heart breaks a little and these stories are real and devastating. You hear one man tell how he stood by as his lover was devoured by German Shepherds and from the gay man who managed to help his Jewish lover go free and then watch him run to his family so that he could die with them.
The movie documents the fall of the decadent golden days of Berlin and how gay men were taken prisoner because of innuendo or simply gossip. It is impossible not to admire the survivors who came forward to take part in this important film. The stories are real and the people are real and the emotions you will feel when you watch this are very real. It is impossible not to be struck almost senseless by what you see and hear here.
It is even hard to think about how this film was made. There are only a few survivors left and people are not eager to talk about this period. We have had many films that deal with holocaust material but gays and the holocaust has been almost completely ignored. What is sp interesting in "Paragraph 175" is that what we have is experience and emotions, we see them and we hear them and we are lucky for this because they will be gone soon.
Basically a series of interviews, the documentary has interspersed actual footage of the time with the people speaking and it is done very professionally. When we consider how many movies and documentaries have already been made about the darkest period in history but this one is special--IT IS ABOUT US. It was only 74 years old that this happened and it is almost inconceivable that it took that long to have a movie made about the treatment of gays during that time. But now that we have it, it must be seen as it explores the terrible, horrible fate of our community. This is the most powerful 80 minutes of film I have ever seen and while it is emotional and informative it does not force issues. It made me angry and sad and the compassion I felt in the beginning for the people who shared their stories turned to rage at times. Why did we not fight back? Why did we take this? And then I realized that we had no choice, No one cared whether we lived or died and many did not believe this was happening. The movie did not have to try to depend upon human emotion, it happened naturally and this was caused by the sheer simplicity and honesty of the interviews.
The only problem with "Paragraph 175" is that it was limited and this is because there are not enough survivors alive to talk about the period. The archival footage of life under Nazism and in the concentration camps is sparse and the pool of interviewees is small. This has caused the film to have t rely on family photographed and pictures of gay and lesbian Germany from the period immediately following the first World War. The narrator, British film star, Rupert Everett is the spine of the movie.
Let's take a brief look at what Paragraph 175 said. It stated: "An unnatural sex act committed between persons of male sex is punishable by imprisonment; the loss of civil rights may also be imposed". Yet this was never enforced until the rise of Hitler. As we watch and listen to the accounts of those interviewed, we hear stories of the most repressive nature. The stories pull at the heart because unlike the Jews they have not been able to tell their stories and have not been able to hide their feelings for so long.
The penal code did not cover lesbians because lesbianism was considered curable and women, being the vessels to produce children, were not included in mass arrests. Most lesbians went into hiding or exile or married gay men.
In closing I would like to give a few statistics. Of the 100,000 men arrested for homosexuality, 50,000 went to prison and about 15,000 were sent to concentration camps were they were used for slave labor, medical experimentation and castration. Of those that survived, we only have a few left today. Paragraph 175 was not abolished after the War; in fact it stayed in effect until the late 1960s and was enforced every once in a while.
This film excels in letting people tell their stories without adding to what they say and it carefully and judiciously explains the situation of denials of the "civilized" world that regarded homosexuality as a threat to the existence of mankind. Even with the horror of the stories, "Paragraph 175" gives one faith in man and also chides the viewer into making sure that something like this will never, ever happen again. The movie is beautiful because of its importance and should be viewed and reviewed whenever we think that things are bad for us here in America.

Excellent movie, minus the positive references to pedophilia.......2006-12-17

This movie is a key testament to one largely unspoken aspect of the Holocaust: the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis on gay men, and to a lesser degree on lesbians. Many of the interviews are touching and tragic, though at times the movie fragments them a bit more than is necessary.

My main criticism of the movie is that it sometimes blurs the lines between homosexuality and pedophilia. Some of the interviewees state outright that sex between adult men and boys was a healthy and even wonderful part of homosexuality in pre-war Germany. One interviewee in particular waxes eloquent about having himself "seduced" an adult man when he was but a young boy - as if an adult who lets himself "be seduced" by a child is somehow not a pedophile! This is sick and needs to be labeled as such, which the movie fails to do. And more so, it does gay people a terrible injustice because it perpetuates some of the most vile stereotypes about homosexuality.

On the flip side, none of the men interviewed spoke of having themselves molested boys, but considering the positive attitude expressed toward pedophilia, I couldn't help but imagine what some, knowing the potential criminal consequences of such an admission, were leaving out of their tales...

An extremely important human rights document.......2006-09-19

Documentarian Rob Epstein has captured as essential piece of human history, in the nick of time. The poorly documented terror aimed at gay men in Nazi-era Germany is examined in this very important and moving film.

Of those who survived, few were still living by the time Epstein made this document, and it represents a number of things - one of many eloquent reminders of human atrocities we should never be allowed to forget (and we should never allow the history to be forgotten), and a specific reminder to younger generations of gay and lesbian individuals around the globe of why we must always remain aware, attuned to our communities, and willing to fight when needed.

This is really an almost flawless film - I do have one small complaint. As with Michael Apted's MOVING THE MOUNTAIN (a reunion of the student leaders of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement), Epstein allows his camera to linger upon the tears of individuals who are reliving some extremel painful memories, a tactic I have some issues with, as I find it (at the very least) to be a little invasive, and in a film as strong (and valuable) as this one is, it's a tactical misstep.

This minor gripe aside, this is one of the more historically important documentaries to appear in recent years. See it.

-David Alston

The Sorrow and the Pity - 2 DVD Special Edition [NON-US Format, PAL, Region 2, Import]

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The Sorrow and the Pity - 2 DVD Special Edition [NON-US Format, PAL, Region 2, Import]
Director: Marcel Ophuls
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Special Editions | Fully Loaded DVDs | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000NDOX3E

Product Description

Made for French television, Marcel Ophuls's magnificent four-hour-plus documentary explores the average French citizen's memories of the Nazi occupation. Just how large and effective was the fabled Resistance Movement? Is cooperation the same thing as collaboration? And how did one's up-close-and-personal experiences with the occupation troops impact one's postwar life? These questions are probingly posed (but not all are answered) by Ophuls, who also acts as offscreen interviewer. The first half of the film is a mosaic of sights and sounds from the years 1940-1944: Maurice Chevalier singing for the German troops, clips of propagandistic newsreels, appalling vignettes from the scurrilous anti-Semitic film drama Jew Suss (1940), and the like. Ophuls' interpretation of history as the "process of recollection, in things like choice, selective memory, rationalization" is fully illustrated in the film's long second half, which is devoted almost entirely to interviews, in which the subjects display emotions ranging from mild embarrassment to abrupt rage. Long, challenging, exhausting, but never dull.

The Harvey Milk 4-Pack Box Set (Times of Harvey Milk / Common Threads / Where Are We / Paragraph 175)

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The Harvey Milk 4-Pack Box Set (Times of Harvey Milk / Common Threads / Where Are We / Paragraph 175)
Starring: Rupert Everett , Klaus Müller (III) , Karl Gorath , Pierre Seel , and Heinz F.
Director: Jeffrey Friedman , and Rob Epstein
Manufacturer: New Yorker Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

Gay & Lesbian | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Gay & Lesbian | Genres | DVD | Video

Documentary | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000228SRS
Release Date: 2004-06-08

Amazon.com

The Times of Harvey Milk
A devastatingly skillful and emotionally compelling documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk charts the political rise and brutal slaying of the first openly gay city official in the United State, Harvey Milk. Ironically, the same election that brought Milk to the board of city supervisors of San Francisco also elected the man who killed him, a former police officer and fireman named Dan White. After White shot both Mayor George Moscone and Milk, his defense lawyers convinced the jury that White's judgment was impaired by depression and junk food, resulting in a conviction for manslaughter instead of murder--a verdict that prompted riots. With care and conviction, The Times of Harvey Milk captures not only Milk himself, but also the political and social landscape in which these events took place. The interviews--with friends, politicians, and journalists--are articulate and heartfelt, expressing the impact that Milk had upon this historical moment. --Bret Fetzer

Where Are We? (Our Trip Through America)
Accomplished documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeff Friedman (Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, The Celluloid Closet) take a trip across the American South and Southwest, asking people about their hopes and fears. Along the way they interview a mobile-home salesman, gay and lesbian soldiers (including Gulf War veterans), a woman whose husband built her miniature version of Graceland, a recovering drug addict who aspires to movie stardom, a 15-year-old mother-to-be, and a casino owner whose role models include Nelson Mandela and Mother Theresa. Where Are We? (Our Trip Through America) is simple; none of the interviewees says anything profound or complex--yet the movie captures an intriguing and contradictory cross-section of the U.S., observing how people forge ahead regardless of their circumstances, seeking happiness as best they can. It's a striking portrait of resilience, illustrated with some amazing hairstyles. --Bret Fetzer

Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt
As of 2004, a variety of drugs have been developed to resist, if not cure, AIDS--yet Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt remains as emotionally powerful as it was during the height of the crisis, when people were dying by the thousands every year. With a combination of photo-montages, interviews with friends and family members, home movies, and news footage, this 1989 documentary captures the grief of those who have survived victims of AIDS. It's wrenching to hear the mother of a hemophiliac boy describing giving him blood transfusions in the middle of the night, or seeing pictures of a former Olympic athlete with the daughter he fathered with a lesbian mother, or hearing a Naval officer describe his relief when he learned that he, like his dead lover, had the virus--that the stress of waiting was over. A moving combination of art and politics. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

THE BASHING OF GAY MEN BY THE NAZI REGIME..........2006-05-29

This is a beautifully executed documentary that is approached with great sensitivity. An official selection of the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, the film is named after Paragraph 175, Germany's anti-sodomy law, which was enacted in 1871 and was gender specific to males. It is this statute upon which the Nazi regime relied to round up homosexual men for internment in its infamous concentration camps. Once interned, they were reduced to wearing the now infamous "pink triangle" to herald their homosexuality.

This documentary focuses on poignant reminiscences by the handful of homosexual men, now in their eighties and nineties, as well as one elderly lesbian who had managed to escape from Germany to England, who survived their experiences, were still alive at the time of filming, and willing to talk about this painful time in their lives. Their stories, sensitively handled by interviewer and historian Klaus Muller, are coupled with wonderful archival footage of a Germany of long ago, and come to life under the expert hands of directors Jerry Friedman and Rob Epstein.

The film discusses Weimar Germany's tolerance of homosexuality in the post World War I era, which tolerance continued up until the time the Nazis took control of the country. Berlin was a mecca for homosexuals before the Nazis took over, and Paragraph 175 was largely ignored. The film is highly successful in capturing the joie de vivre of that era, with wonderful archival film footage, stills, and music of a pre-Adolph Hitler Berlin, interspersed with clips of Marlene Dietrich in the film "The Blue Angel" (1931). The use of that film, as well as its signature song "Falling In Love Again", is a perfect marriage with this documentary, as it captures the flavor of the Weimar Republic before Adolph Hitler cast his shadow upon it.

The film shows how the Nazi regime stealthily encroached upon the tolerance that had been so pervasive, rendering gay Berlin a thing of the past, no longer a mecca for homosexuals. Its rigid application of Paragraph 175 was the end of an era of tolerance. It was replaced by the persecution of and intolerance for Germany's homosexual men. The film, narrated by Rupert Everett, is a brief ode to the suffering of this segment of Germany's population, but it is, nonetheless, a powerful one.

The DVD is limited in terms of bonus features. It does, however, provide two additional interviews with concentration camp survivors who shed more light on the treatment of homosexuals during the Nazi era, as well as an insightful and intelligent film commentary by the directors and producer.

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