THE SEVERED HANDS OF CHILDREN TIMELINE OF EVENTS

Introduction 

The timeline of historical events led to Joseph Goebbels, The Severed Children’s Hands or The Children with Their Hands Cut Off. The German Empire changed drastically after 1871. The Great Depression left the Weimer Republic in economic failure, a crisis that led unemployment rates to reach thirty percent. The devastated populations culture changed rapidly. Goebbel railed the public sphere behind the Nazi party through his rhetorical speeches and oration. His rhetorical campaign changed criminal punishments to capital crimes and long-term imprisonment ended in the death penalty. 

The German Empire: Homosexuality Criminality  

In 1871, four kingdoms and twenty-five states unified as the German Empire. In the same year, the German Reich adopted the Prussian criminal code paragraph 143 as paragraph 175, a code criminalizing male homosexual relationships.[i] Capital crime punishment for female homosexuality ended in 1794 in Prussia and by 1851, it was no longer written in the criminal code.[ii] The British Empire changed the criminal code of male-male sexual relations from the death penalty to long-term imprisonment in 1860.[iii]

African Concentration Camps

In 1904, 1,500 Germans troopers fired machine guns at the 40,000 Herero people of West Africa. The Herero people headed towards British Bechuanaland, but the Germans pursued and captured them. Germany built Konzentrationslagers or concentration camps, a system of human encloses for the Herero people of West Africa.[iv] The Konzentrationslagers system resembled the British concentration camps built in 1900 in South Africa to contain the colonies Boer population.[v] The British camps separated the Boer’s into 40 white camps and 60 black (native refugee) camps.[vi] The white camps held 150,000 women and children with a few of their black servants and the black camps were labor camps for displaced African families.[vii] From 1904 to 1908 there are ~ 25,000 recorded white camp deaths and ~15,000 black camp deaths.[viii]

Severed Hands of Children

In 1909, the paragraph 250 proposal extended paragraph 175 of the German criminal code to recriminalize female homosexuality and to change the serving sentence.[ix]  Austrian born Adolf Hitler moved to Germany in 1913 at the age of 24 and he joined the German army at the start of World War One. Paul Joseph Goebbels, a German born and writer, had a deformed leg and could not fight in the war. He attended the university and earned his PhD. The Allied press reported German soldiers severed the hands of children and labeled them ‘German atrocities’.[x] The newspaper Le Matin and the British press depicted wounded German soldiers in Paris hospitals with severed hands of young women and children in their pockets starting on September 20, 1914.[xi]

End of World War I

The German Empire (Reich), Kingdom of Prussia abolished monarchal rule and reformed as the Weimer Republic, Free State of Prussia in 1918. Meanwhile, Austria and Hungry proclaimed independence from Charles I, the Emperor and King, and reformed as the Republic of German-Austria. And the Weimar Republic borrowed money from the United States to pay for their war reparations. 

Hitler, Röhm, Goebbels & the Stormtrooper Revolution

Hitler’s first public speech in 1919 impressed the captain of the Reichswehr (German armed forces), Ernst Röhm to join the German Worker’s Party.[xii] The German Worker’s party changed its name to the Nazi party the following year. In 1921, Hitler became the leader of the Nazi party. Dr. Joseph Goebbel joined in 1922. Hitler and his Sturmabteilung or Stormtroopers started a national revolution by storming a public meeting to demand a new government and the next day he went to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the government.  Hitler spent a year in prison after for high treason and the Nazi party was banned. On December 20, 1924, Hitler was released and on January 4, 1925, he met with the Bavarian prime minister and agreed to use the democratic process to achieve political power. The minister lifted the Nazi party ban on February 16, 1925. But, on February 27, Hitler proclaimed that the Nazi party would walk over dead bodies of the Marxist Jews. This banned him from public speaking in Bavarian until 1927. 

Rhetoric Militarization of Homosexuality

In 1925, Röhm’s comrade Dr. Karl-Gunther Heimsoth article “Friendship or Homosexuality,” explained how male homosexuals sex could be used as a war weapon against the feminist and Semitism.[xiii] Röhm advocate for the repeal of paragraph 175.[xiv] German rhetoric militarized homosexual language to merge their friendship identity with comradeship and the homosexuals of the Weimer Republic started to request emancipation.[xv]

Goebbel’s Rhetorical Campaign 

Hitler and Goebbels met in 1925. The party began strategically placing administrative regions or Gaue in the 33 Reichstag or lower parliament districts of the Weimar Republic with each headed by a Gauleiter (regional leader). Goebbels was appointed the Gauleiter of Berlin in 1926. He won the 1928 election to serve as one of the 12 Nazis appointed to the Reichstag. These events affected the rhetorical campaign used by Joseph Goebbel cultural oration. The Weimar Republic borrowed money from the United States to pay for their war reparations after WWI and when the stock market crashed in the United States in 1929, Germany’s unemployment rates rose close to 30 percent by 1930. The Nazi party designated Goebbels as its propaganda leader in 1929, and his national Reichstag campaign led to the Nazi party winning 107 seats in parliament in 1930. 

Cultural Influences of Goebbels Oration

Goebbel publication in Berlin named Der Angriff [The Attack], a daily tabloid, covered the 1930 death of the Storm Trooper (SA) and Nazi activist Horst Wessel.[xvi] Wessel’s political meetings, failure to pay rent, and fights over the communal kitchen led to his death.[xvii] The landlady sent German communist and Red Front Fighter Albrecht Höhler to Wessel’s attic room.[xviii] Wessel opened the door, and Ali Höhler shot him in the face with his pistol.[xix] Goebbel sat at Wessel’s bedside as he laid dying and Wessel’s mother felt she was losing the perfect son. Goebbel reacted by publishing reports depicting Communists as thugs and murderers and Wessel as a talented martyr.[xx] 30,000 Nazi’s marched at his funeral and stormtroopers dressed in their uniforms including SA-Hermann Goring, son of Kaiser Prince August-Wilhelm.[xxi] The communists insulted the proceedings participants with brickbats, and the words “A final Heil Hitler to the pimp Horst Wessel,” were written on the walls of the cemetery’s parish.[xxii] Goebbel converted Wessel’s marching song composition to become the Nazi tune Horst Wessel Lied, the second national anthem of Germany.[xxiii]

Concealment of Homosexuality from the Public Sphere

In his diary entry for February 27, 1931, Goebbels opposed the Nazi party becoming an “El Dorados” or a place of wealth and opportunity for homosexuals.[xxiv] Dr. Meyer published articles on Rohm’s sexuality, and he was found hanged in a cell on December 15, 1931, after being charged with fraud.[xxv] In 1932, an unknown author published the article “National Socialism and Inversion,” to report Röhm’s confessed his homosexuality to Hemisoth in 1929 and that his inability and any comrade’s inability to conceal homosexual activities to the public sphere should have “a free hand in private.”[xxvi]

Goebbels' Unified Cultural Sphere

In 1932, the Red’s or communist threatened to turn May 1, an official holiday of the National Socialist, to a day of resistance.[xxvii] Union leaders decided to support social equality in consequence of its members attempt to resist.[xxviii] Goebbel wrote the slogan ‘mob ought to be shown the teeth’ in his May 1 diary entry.[xxix] That same year, Goebbels announced Hitler’s candidacy by portraying him as a man of integrity.[xxx] Hitler won the election and as the new German Chancellor, he had absolute power to draft and enforce laws. He appointed Goebbel as the Reichsminister for propaganda and national enlightenment to unify the cultural sphere through war communication and art. Nazi speeches placed importance on the speaker and appealed to emotions. Goebbel described strong speakers as presenting political problems simply.[xxxi] His tributed Hitler’s speaker style as speaking from the heart instead of intellectually.[xxxii]  

May 1: The Rhetorical Symbol for the end of the German Marxist

Goebbel organized a political event for the Chancellor Hitler on May 1, 1933, at Tempelhofer Field with more than one million in attendance.[xxxiii] Swastika banners and flags covered the field and Horst Wessel Lied played as Hitler promised to end the artificial separation of social classes by creating a unified community.[xxxiv] Goebbel responded with “The sun has risen again over Germany” and May 1 became the symbol of ending the German Marxist period.[xxxv] In July, the Nazi sterilization law passed which allowed medical doctors to sterilize people with inheritable clinical conditions.[xxxvi] This started in 1927 when African German and Asiatic German children fathered by French colonial soldiers in the Rhineland by German women where “Black Shamed,” and threatened with extermination of mixed-race children with sterilization.[xxxvii]  

The Violence of Stormtrooper Unification

In 1934, Goebbel coined the phrase “blood glues people together,” to represent the unification of stormtrooper camaraderie through violent acts.[xxxviii] June 21, Goebbels speech broadcasted on every German Radio station that the Chancellor was approved to use force against Röhm by the President of the German Empire, Paul von Hindenburg.[xxxix] The aftermath of the Night of Long Knives murders left the public sphere in confusion and Goebbels answered in a broadcast using stereotypical attacks to expose the murdered stormtroopers as traitors for planning to expose the Nazi party leaders as homosexuals on July 1.[xl]

Mass Media: The Powerful Symbol of the Romanticized Stormtrooper

The Nazi regime used mass media production between 1933-1939 to create symbolizes and demonstrate power.  Stormtrooper relationships in the media were romanticized to become a powerful symbol in persuading the German public sphere.[xli] Julius Witthuhn, the author of Gotthard Kraft, wrote a story about a hero and his romantic relationship with his girlfriend, and he dedicated the book to the SA-Mann (lowest stormtrooper rank), killed by the communists in 1931.[xlii] He wanted to show how all the unknown men “bled for the movement”.[xliii] Stormtrooper stories focused on mythical equal relationship between the stormtrooper and their wives too busy in party activism to cook.[xliv] Stormtroopers professed their love for the fatherland was more important than their relationship.[xlv] The German family’s hardships caused by the Great Depression ruined values and the father was replaced by the stormtrooper as the sole provider of the family.[xlvi] German women and children were attacked such as children’s bottle being poisoned, and father’s threatening to kill their sons for becoming Nazis, by communists to justify stormtrooper violence.[xlvii] Communist enticed German women to participate in orgies with Asians.[xlviii] The character SA-Mann Shultz, in Bade’s SA erobert Berlin, defended Dr. Goebbel when communist mocked his speech and fought for him in the Battle of Pharus hall in 1927.[xlix]The real SA-Mann Shultz legally claimed to be the inspiration for the story.[l]

Homosexual Concentration Camps & the Sterilization of Mixed-Raced Children

In 1937, 385 mixed-race children were sterilized.[li] The increased strength of Paragraph 175 destroyed German’s homosexual subculture with ~30,000 people placed under surveillance by 1939.[lii] Concentration camps permanently housed between 5,000 and 15,000 homosexuals who wore pink chevron on their uniforms.[liii]

A Turn to the British Enemy

Mass communication rhetoric by Goebbel in 1938 created the British and the Russians as Germany’s common enemy.[liv] British journalist who criticized Germany could not enter the empire and had to carefully cover the Jewish population reports.[lv] Goebbel aimed for his target audience to perceive the German race as pure to enforce Hitler’s claim of the master race.[lvi]

ENDNOTES

[i] Matysik 30

[ii] Matysik 30

[iii] Han & O’Mahoney 272

[iv] Smith & Stucki 418

[v] Smith & Stucki 418

[vi] Smith & Stucki 427

[vii] Smith & Stucki 429

[viii] Smith & Stucki 427

[ix] Matysik 28

[x] Last 49

[xi] Last 49

[xii] Machtan 5

[xiii] Machtan 6

[xiv] Machtan 7

[xv] Crouthamel 111

[xvi] Jones 28

[xvii] Jones 27

[xviii] Jones 27

[xix] Jones 27

[xx] Jones 28

[xxi] Jones 28

[xxii] Jones 28

[xxiii] Jones 28

[xxiv] Machtan 8

[xxv] Machtan 9

[xxvi] Machtan 6

[xxvii] Berg-Schlosser 68

[xxviii] Berg-Schlosser 68

[xxix] Berg-Schlosser 68

[xxx] Machtan 10

[xxxi] Scanlan 89

[xxxii] Scanlan 89

[xxxiii] Berg-Schlosser 68-70

[xxxiv] Berg-Schlosser 69

[xxxv] Berg-Schlosser 70

[xxxvi] Weindling 248-9

[xxxvii] Weindling 249-50

[xxxviii] Reichardt 297

[xxxix] Machtan 14

[xl] Machtan 15

[xli] Wackerfuss 304, 322

[xlii] Wackerfuss 307

[xliii] Wackerfuss 307

[xliv] Wackerfuss 319-320

[xlv] Wackerfuss 319-320

[xlvi] Wackerfuss 321

[xlvii] Wackerfuss 321-2

[xlviii] Wackerfuss 322

[xlix] Wackerfuss 308

[l] Wackerfuss 308

[li] Weindling 250

[lii] Machtan 17

[liii] Machtan 17

[liv] Bozkanat 92

[lv] Bozkanat 93

[lvi] Bozkanat 93

References

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Crouthamel, J. (2011) ‘Comradeship’ and ‘Friendship’: Masculinity and Militarization in Germany’s Homosexual Emancipation Movement after the First World War. Gender & History, 23(1) pp. 111-129. URL-Hyperlink-‘Comradeship’ and ‘Friendship’. 

Goebbels, J. (1998) Children with Their Hands Chopped Off (R. Bytwek, Ed. & Trans.). Calvin University German Propaganda Archive(Original work published 1941). URL-Hyperlink-Children with Their Hands Chopped Off

Goebbels, J. (1941) Die Zeit Ohne Beispiel (Google Trans.) Zentralverlag der NSDAP, F. Eher Verlag. eBook-Hyperlink-Die Zeit Ohne Beispiel. 

Han, E. & O’Mahoney, J. (2014) British Colonialism and the Criminalization of Homosexuality. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 27 (2), pp. 268-288. URL-Hyperlink-British Colonialism 

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Machtan, L. (2001) Hitler, Röhm and the Night of the Long Knives. History Today, 51 (11), pp. 5-7. URL-Hyperlink-Hitler, Röhm and the Night 

Matysik, T. (2004) In the Name of the Law: The “Female Homosexual” and the Criminal Code in Fin de Siècle Germany. Journal of the History of Sexuality 13(1) pp. 26-48. URL-Hyperlink-In the Name of the Law

Reichardt, S. (2013) Violence and Community: A Micro-Study on Nazi Storm Troopers. Central European History, 46(2) pp. 275-297. URL-Hyperlink-Violence and Community

Scanlan, Ross (1949) The Nazi Party Speaker System (Rednerwesen der NSDAP). Speech Monographs, 16(1) pp. 82-97 URL-Hyperlink-The Nazi Party Speaker System 

Smith, I. & Stucki, A. (2011) The Colonial Development of Concentration Camps (1868-1902). The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 39(3) pp. 417-427. URL-Hyperlink-The Colonial Development of Concentration Camps 

Wackerfuss, A. (2013) The Myth of the Unknown Storm Trooper: Selling SA Stories in the Third Reich. Central European History, 46(2). Pp. 298-324.URL-Hyperlink-The Myth of the Unknown Storm Trooper

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LADY JANE GREY: IS SHE ALICE IN WONDERLAND?

INTRODUCTION

Queen Jane Grey, a victim of a young death, walked with dignity across the wintry grounds of the Tower of London towards the White Tower reciting the prayers from the illuminated manuscript clutched in her hands. Her love of literature is seen as one of the highlights of her life. She discusses the longest living human according to biblical text, Methuselah [GENESIS 5:27], in the margins of her illuminated manuscript, a prayer book. 

In the 12th century monasteries crafted illuminated manuscripts, but by the 15th century Paris became the heart of their creation. Illuminated manuscripts became a customary expensive gift to celebrate diplomatic and sovereign relationships in the 16th century. Grey's illuminated manuscript, a possible gift from her mother Frances Grey Duchess of Suffolk, the french queen, commemorates the literacy, wisdom, religious, and political roles its predecessors with emerging patterns that give new meaning to the life and legacy of Grey.