Flossenbürg concentration camp

In February 1942 an SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer in full uniform, with silver ribbons and decorations, together with an elegant young lady in an evening dress, were arrested in a box at the Hamburg opera, following a denunciation, in that the lady was a young man of 19, a soldier in the Waffen-SS, and home on leave in Hamburg. His father owned a major nightclub on the Reeperbahn.

They were taken directly to Flossenbürg concentration camp in Bavaria, and locked in separate individual cells. They remained in solitary confinement until the camp was liberated in April 1945, other than an hour each night for exercise, but not at the same time. This was at the express command of SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler who did not want such a prominent officer mixing with other prisoners and wearing the pink triangle.

The lady, who was very pretty, 'even for a girl', was allowed to live only in that his father had important connections in the Nazi party, and paid a large bribe. Money from the father, plus the trade of the jewellery that he was wearing ensured that these two prisoners got extra food.

The SS intended to have them shot before the camp was liberated in 1945, but in the general chaos of that time they managed to escape.

• Heinz Heger. Die Männer mit dem rosa Winkel : der Bericht eines Homosexuellen uber seine KZ-Haft von 1939-1945. Hamburg: Merlin-Verlag 1972. English translation: The Men with the Pink Triangle. Alyson Publications, Inc 1980 p65-6.