Sex and the Sturmabteilung: Ernst Röhm, the first openly gay politician

Picture the first openly gay politician. You probably imagine a brave, progressive figure fighting for equality. Now, imagine they were outed by the press. You might feel a pang of sympathy. But what if I told you this politician wasn’t exactly a hero? In fact, he was a Nazi – and not just any Nazi. Meet Ernst Röhm: Hitler’s right-hand brute, leader of the thuggish SA (Sturmabteilung), and the first openly gay politician in history.

Yes, you read that right. A high-ranking Nazi was openly gay – and Hitler knew. So how did Röhm rise to power despite the Nazi Party’s infamous persecution of LGBTQ+ people? And why did his story end in betrayal and bloodshed?

Best friends with Hitler - until he wasn’t

Born in 1887, Röhm was a hardened soldier who found his calling in post-WWI paramilitary chaos. He met a young Adolf Hitler in the early days of the Nazi Party, and the two hit it off. Hitler’s vision of a racially pure, powerful, and masculine Germany appealed to Röhm. Unlike other Nazis, Röhm didn’t fawn over Hitler – he even called him “Adi” instead of the grandiose “Mein Führer.” If Hitler was the brains behind the Nazis then Röhm was the jackboot. He built the SA into a 400,000-strong paramilitary force, a boozy, brawling gang of working-class thugs who terrorized Hitler’s enemies.

However, Hitler had grander ambitions. He wanted to legitimise the Nazi Party by gaining the support of Germany’s elites – the industrialists, the aristocracy, and, most importantly, the military. But Röhm’s SA had a reputation for being too rowdy, too radical, and too working-class. The establishment saw them as a threat rather than an asset.

In 1923, Hitler attempted to seize power in the failed Beer Hall Putsch. The coup collapsed, the SA was banned, and Hitler landed in prison. With the SA dissolved, Röhm formed an alternative paramilitary group, the Frontbann. But when Hitler was released, he chose to focus on gaining power legally, leaving Röhm frustrated. When he was denied permission to merge the Frontbann back into the SA, he quit the Nazi Party and left Germany for Bolivia in a huff.

Röhm couldn’t stay away, however. In 1930, Hitler invited him back, needing his organisational skills to rebuild the SA. The old friends reunited, but their differences remained. Röhm still saw the SA as the future of Nazi power, while Hitler wanted to distance himself from their chaotic image to court the German establishment

And power breeds paranoia. As the SA grew, so did Röhm’s influence, and that made Hitler nervous. The German elites, already wary of the rowdy SA, were horrified. Worse still, rumors swirled that the SA was a hotbed of homosexuality...

Manly Eros

Most Nazis viewed homosexuality as degenerate and un-German. But the SA had its own warped perspective: as long as it was discreet and “masculine”, it was fine. An essay written by an anonymous gay stormtrooper refers to the idea of ‘‘manly Eros”. This concept drew inspiration from ancient Greek ideals of homoerotic camaraderie. It was seen as different to homosexuality, which the Nazis associated with effeminacy, cross-dressing, and Judaism. In their eyes, Manly Eros was simply a form of male love between “healthy and respectable fellows” within the Nazi Party and was therefore entirely compatible with Nazi ideology.

Germany had been going through a prolonged period of crisis since WWI. It had been humiliated, something the Nazis were now trying to rectify. Military power was male power and male power symbolised strength. With the post-WWI restrictions on German rearmament, the biggest symbol of male military strength at this time was the SA. Röhm, a burly, scarred soldier*, fit the manly Eros image perfectly and he was described as engaging in “bull-like philandering” with other - often younger - men.

The higher Röhm rose within the ranks of the Nazi Party, the harder it became for Hitler to turn a blind eye to this philandering. The press eventually discovered Röhm’s double life and published a series of articles on homosexuality within the Nazi Party, including some of Röhm’s letters where he described himself as “same sex oriented”. he scandal exploded. Leftist groups taunted SA members with chants of “Heil gay!” and “SA trousers down”. The Soviet Union even came to regard homesexuality as a fascist trait.

In late 1933, Röhm became minister without portfolio, making him the first openly gay politician and the Nazis the only political party in Weimar-era Germany with a known homosexual in its leadership. However, the scandal surrounding Röhm’s sexuality was embarrassing and the size and ideology of the SA posed a huge threat. Hitler realised that Röhm had become a liability.

*Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook on The Rest is History podcast described Röhm as looking like Uncle Monty from ‘Withnail and I’ and it’s true, he did look like a sinister Richard Griffiths…

The Night of the Long Knives

By 1934, Hitler was on the verge of absolute power. The only thing standing in his way? The SA. Earlier in the year, Röhm had horrified army officers by announcing that he wanted to merge the SA with the German army. These guys didn’t want to be associated with a bunch of working class thugs with ‘corrupt morals’. Yet Hitler needed the military’s support to consolidate control.

Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, leaders of the SS and both bitterly resentful of Röhm, saw an opportunity. They compiled a "dodgy dossier" – a fabricated collection of documents falsely accusing Röhm of plotting a coup against Hitler with foreign backing. It was an easy sell to the SS, which already loathed him, and it gave Hitler the pretext he needed to act.

Early in the morning on 30 June 1934, Hitler and the SS launched a surprise attack on the SA leadership in a purge that became known as the Night of the Long Knives. Röhm and his men were staying at a spa hotel and were caught completely off guard, many still in their beds. His long-time lover and deputy, Edmund Heines, was found with an 18-year-old stormtrooper and was executed on the spot. Hitler personally arrested Röhm, but oddly, hesitated to have him killed. Instead, he handed Röhm a pistol with a single bullet and told him to do the deed himself.

Röhm refused. He declared that if Hitler wanted him dead, he should be man enough to do it himself. Ten minutes later, SS officers entered his cell and shot him. Ever the defiant brute, Röhm had stripped off his shirt before dying, a final act of stubborn masculinity.

Joseph Goebbels quickly spun the massacre as a necessary purge of “deviants and traitors”, ensuring the media dubbed it the Röhm Putsch. Hitler, now free of his problematic friend, claimed he had only just discovered Röhm’s "moral corruption." Convenient, considering the Nazi Party had tolerated him for years. Röhm’s death cemented Hitler’s grip on power, and the SA was sidelined.

Even after his death, the Nazis used Röhm as a cautionary tale. When WWII started going south, they blamed his homosexuality for their early mistakes, rather than their own incompetence.

Röhm was the first openly gay politician, yet he thrived in a party that sent thousands of LGBTQ+ people to concentration camps. He was Hitler’s closest friend, but also one of his first victims, doomed by the very ideology he helped build.