Käte Rogalli's concentration camp admission list

This document is an admission list to Sachsenhausen concentration camp from May 27, 1937. It was the day of the imprisonment of transfeminine technical draftswoman and precision mechanic Käte Rogalli. Her “transvestite license” had been revoked between 1933 and 1936. The fact that she continued to wear clothing with feminine connotation was used by people in her social environment as a reason to denounce her. She was then arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp until March 23, 1938.

On the admission list you can see that something has been crossed out in front of the word “transvestite”, which is written in brackets. If you compare the crossed out part with other admission lists from the camp, it becomes clear that "§ 175" was crossed out, under which people were persecuted as gay men. The term “transvestite” appearing in brackets after § 175 reveals, that Käte's femininity had been understood by the Gestapo as evidence of homosexuality. The crossed out § 175 though suggests, that the suspicion of homosexuality raised against her could not be confirmed.

The police and Gestapo often derived sexual orientation from gender presentation such as clothing. Numerous people perceived male, who were suspected of being gay in a similar way to Käte tried to appear particularly masculine during interrogations in order to seem less gay.