Kurt von Ruffin

Kurt von Ruffin born 28 September 1901 (d 1996)

Kurt von Ruffin was a German actor and opera singer who was imprisoned by the Nazis for the crime of homosexuality.

Von Ruffin began his career as a singer. Starting in 1927 he sang with the operas of Magdeburg, Mainz, and Nuremberg. He made his film début in 1931 in Die Faschingsfee and Walzerparadies, also starring in Harry Piel's Bobby geht los in the same year. For the latter film von Ruffin took boxing lessons from heavyweight champion Hans Breitensträter.

After completing filming on Schwarzwaldmädel in 1933, von Ruffin was denounced as a homosexual by another gay man who named him under torture, and imprisoned at Lichtenburg, where many gay men were imprisoned, for two years. Von Ruffin says that SS guards touched prisoners and then beat those who got sexually aroused. He also recalls being forced to watch as some prisoners were beaten to death.

After nine months in Lichtenburg, von Ruffin was released thanks to the intervention of prominent theatre director Heinz Hilpert, and his lawyers arranged for the destruction of his Gestapo file.

Von Ruffin went on to star in five more movies: Königswalzer (1935), Die Geige lockt (1935), Schwarze Rosen (1935), Die Stunde der Versuchung (1936), and Du bist so schön, Berlinerin (1936) before he was finally prohibited from appearing in any more films. From 1941 until the end of the war, he appeared only on stage.

After the war, von Ruffin appeared in several more films, including Ich mach' Dich glücklich (1949), Der blaue Strohhut (1949), Neues vom Hexer (1965), Die Herren mit der weissen Weste (1970), and his last, Der Unbesiegbare in 1985.

The film We Were Marked With A Big 'A' (1991) tells the story of the gay holocaust through the experiences of three gay survivors, Kurt von Ruffin, Paul Gerhard Vogel and Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim.

As we hear in this film, before the pink triangle there was the big "A". Embarrassed by the crudity of its meaning, Kurt von Ruffin confides off-camera that the "A" stood for arschficker (arse-fucker). This was the identifying label that many gay men in the concentration camps were forced to wear before the more elaborate system of triangle identification was introduced.

Kurt von Ruffin died in Berlin in 1996.