Albrecht Becker (November 14, 1906 – April 22, 2002), c. 1930. Photo c/o @uscedu. Albrecht Becker, who was born one hundred and ten years ago today, was a German production designer, actor, and photographer who was imprisoned by the Nazi regime for being homosexual. At the age of eighteen, Becker began a ten-year relationship with an older man through whom Becker was introduced to a number of influential artists and thinkers. In the mid-1930s, Dr. Leopold Obermayer, a Jewish wine merchant in Wurzburg, where Becker also lived, complained to local police that his mail had been opened; the complaint was investigated by the Gestapo, who searched Obermayer’s home and discovered photographs of young men, including Albrecht Becker. In 1935, Becker and Obermayer were put on trial for violating Germany’s anti-homosexual statute, Paragraph 175; both men were convicted. Becker, who was Christian, was sentenced to three years in prison at Nurnberg; Obermayer, who was Jewish, was sent to Dachau and then to Mauthausen, where he was killed. Near the end of World War II, when the German army was in desperate need of soldiers, some gay prisoners, including Becker, were released and conscripted; Becker served on the Russian Front until 1944. After the war, Becker pursued a successful career in the arts and he became well-known for his photography. Albrecht Becker died on April 22, 2002; he was ninety-five. For more, see “Paragraph 175,” a documentary chronicling the experiences of several gay men, including Becker, and one lesbian, all of whom were persecuted by the Nazis. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #AlbrechtBecker
