Skip to main content

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • Site
    • English home page
    • المصادر بالعربية
    • Πηγές στα Ελληνικά
    • Recursos en español
    • منابع موجود به زبان فارسی
    • Ressources en français
    • Gyűjtemény és tudástár magyar nyelven
    • Sumber Bahasa Indonesia
    • Materiali e risorse in italiano
    • 日本語のリソース
    • 한국어 자료
    • Recursos em Português (do Brasil)
    • Материалы на русском языке
    • Türkçe Kaynaklar
    • اُردو ری سورسز
    • 中文参考资料
  • Events
  • Plan Your Visit
  • Support the Museum
  • Connect
  • Donate
  • Learn About The Holocaust
  • Remember Survivors and Victims
  • Confront Genocide and Antisemitism

  • Home
  • Learn about the Holocaust
  • Information for Students
  • Learning Materials and Resources
  • Homosexuals: Victims of the Nazi Era

Nazi Leader Heinrich Himmler on the “Question of Homosexuality”

  • Introduction to the Holocaust
  • Information for Students
    • The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students
    • Online Activities
    • Learning Materials and Resources
  • Timeline of Events
  • Holocaust Encyclopedia
  • Holocaust and Related Maps
  • Homosexuals: Victims of the Nazi Era
  • Persecution of Homosexuals
  • A Homosexual Recalls 1933
  • Paragraph 175
  • Nazi Leader Heinrich Himmler on the "Question of Homosexuality"
  • Further Information

In a speech that Himmler gave before a conference of SS officers on February 17, 1937, he included remarks on the question of homosexuality.

If you further take into account the facts I have not yet mentioned, namely that with a static number of women, we have two million men too few on account of those who fell in the war [of 1914-18], then you can well imagine how this imbalance of two million homosexuals and two million war dead, or in other words a lack of about four million men capable of having sex, has upset the sexual balance sheet of Germany, and will result in a catastrophe.

I would like to develop a couple of ideas for you on the question of homosexuality. There are those homosexuals who take the view: what I do is my business, a purely private matter. However, all things which take place in the sexual sphere are not the private affair of the individual, but signify the life and death of the nation, signify world power or 'swissification.' The people which has many children has the candidature for world power and world domination. A people of good race which has too few children has a one-way ticket to the grave, for insignificance in fifty or a hundred years, for burial in two hundred and fifty years....

Therefore we must be absolutely clear that if we continue to have this burden in Germany, without being able to fight it, then that is the end of Germany, and the end of the Germanic world....

Translated in Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wipperman, The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 (New York, 1991), pp. 192-93.

Museum Information

  • Today at the Museum
  • Plan Your Visit
  • Exhibitions and Collections
  • Traveling Exhibitions

Resources for Academics and Research

  • Ask a Research Question
  • About the Museum's Collections
  • Research about Survivors and Victims
  • Academic Programs

Resources for Educators

  • Teaching about the Holocaust
  • Programs for Teachers
  • Teaching Materials
  • Holocaust Encyclopedia

Resources for Professionals and Student Leaders

  • Judiciary
  • Military
  • Law Enforcement
  • Faith and Interfaith Communities
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
Main telephone: 202.488.0400
TTY: 202.488.0406

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • About the Museum
  • Contact the Museum
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy
  • Accessibility
  • Legal
×

#USHMM #AskWhy

FirstPerson

Conversations with Survivors
of the Holocaust

Watch Now

Join us right now to watch a live interview with a survivor, followed by a question-and-answer session.

×
$25,000 MATCHING GIFT CHALLENGE
Join our #GivingTuesday challenge to make your tax-deductible gift go twice as far. Help us teach about the consequences of unchecked hate and antisemitism. Give today.
MATCH MY GIFT
×

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Museum's commemoration ceremony, including remarks by the German ambassador and a Holocaust survivor, is happening now.

#WeRemember

Watch Now