All language subtitles for Albrecht Becker Liebe und Leid aka Love and Torment_Track03-eng

Love and Torment

I'm Albrecht Becker. I'm 90 years. old.

I'm a set designer. I worked on films
in Hamburg for 50 years.

I take lovely photos of all kinds of people.

I'm a gay man.

At 15, I had my first sexual contacts
with older men.

I always liked men who were
between 30 and 40 years old.

They were my mentors.

I found the Nazi era very interesting
because it had two aspects.

Folk art and such things were cultivated.

But when Hitler or Géring came,

I didn't go to the street to look.
They didn't interest me.

But you had nothing against the Nazis?
-No.

Did you know the name Ernst Rohm?
Did you know he was gay? -Everyone did.

Gay men played a big role in the Nazi era.

Especially at Tegern Lake.

I could say there was a whole battalion
of famous people there.

A few of them were really good-looking.

Blond Germanic types with blue eyes
and all the trimmings. Dashing uniforms...

Until June of 1934,
the toleration of gays was obvious.

Even after the so-called “Réhm Putsch”
[was smashed with mass arrests and murder],

they waited half a year
[before persecuting gays].

You and your friend... You were
a window dresser, and your friend...

He was the director
of the Bavarian State Archives.

[The Gestapo] served us with a summons,
and we just went,

completely naive,
and I didn't return for three years.

I just said, “I'm gay.
Everyone knows that.

“I have a relationship with Professor Abert.”

They were very satisfied,
and proceeded to put words in my mouth.

Stupidly, I mentioned the names
of friends with whom I'd had sex.

But as I said,
I was gullible and very naive.

Of course, they exploited my naivety.

My trial resulted from the Gestapo's desire
to get at a particular man.

He was a Jewish wine dealer,
an anti-Nazi.

He fought the Nazis,
and of course, they quickly destroyed him.

He was a gay man?
-Yes.

You went to prison because of him?
-Yes.

He had a nude photo of me.
He had many photos of nudes,

all notated with statistics
such as penis length, etc.

I wasn't afraid at all.
Even in jail, I wasn't afraid.

I just accepted it:
“Well, that's how it is.”

I thought,
“There's no love without torment.”

You enjoyed suffering?
-Yes, I did. That has to do with masochism.

I was in jail in Nuremberg.

Looking back at it,
my time in Nuremberg

was actually a restful period.

It was very bad for gay people when they
were sent to the Dachau concentration camp.

That was certain doom.

Indirectly, I'm thankful to the man who
sentenced me to 3 years on the one hand,

but who saved my life on the other.

I knew that man. His name was Gerum,
and I had the feeling that he was gay.

There were 4 or 5 gay men in that jail.

We weren't treated worse than the others.
Basically, we were just ignored.

There was no chance
to talk with the others.

The only exception
was in the shower.

Every 14 days, we were allowed
to shower for 3 minutes.

How was it after you were released?
Were you stigmatized, was it difficult?

Not at all. My former boss re-hired me,
and I went back to decorating shop windows.

But then I was drafted into the army.

I was in Russia
until the summer of 1944.

That was near Stalingrad.

Then I was wounded
with a so-called “ticket home shot”.

I had a grenade splinter in my right arm.

How was gay life in the military?
-There wasn't any.

There was no gay talk,
and no one knew I was gay.

I saw naked men only once,
when we came to the first river.

We all tore off our uniforms
and jumped into the water.

We didn't have bathing suits,
SO everyone swam naked.

After 14 days we came to water again,
but by then, everyone had bathing trunks on.

From 1940 till *45...
I was in the military for 5 years.

You had no sex during that time?
-I had no sex.

That's when I began to tattoo myself.

That was my
sadomasochistic substitute for sex.

I started out with 3 sewing needles,
woolen thread, a pencil and black ink.

I drew a design on my skin
with the indelible pencil,

and then I inked it
with diagonal needle pricks.

After taking care of it for
3 or 4 days,

a jagged scab would form.

You mustn't tear it off.
You have to wait for it to fall off.

Then a dull, blue picture appears.

If you want it dark, you have to stick
the needle in deeper. That hurts a lot.

When I was tattooing myself, I always had
an erection, and afterwards I jacked off.

My comrades...
We were in a bunker in winter.

I was in an upper bunk,
which had a curtain.

I lay there behind the curtain
tattooing myself and jacking off

while the others were playing cards.
It was very funny.

How did the comrades react to your tattoos?
-They never saw them.

At that time,
they were under the bathing trunks.

Later they started moving up.
The most beautiful were here and here.

Those designs
were from a museum in Copenhagen,

from the headhunters of Borneo.
-And you tattooed your own penis?

Yes, but just with one color, blue.

Then, in the 70's I started to tattoo over
all the designs on my body.

It's the custom in the South Pacific
that upon reaching a certain age,

the people don't want
the designs anymore for some reason.

After tattooing over the former designs,
this is the result.

Here were those very beautiful designs
from Borneo.

On my back is the dragon.

The dragon was done in Hamburg in 1952.

There was a tattoo artist at the time who
called himself “the king of the tattooers”.

My “bed-friendship”
with Herbert Kirchhoff lasted 10 years.

That was between 1944
and 1955 or '58, more or less.

He was one of the best
postwar German set designers.

At Germany's biggest studio he worked
on hit films with stars like Rokk and Leander.

During the first 10 years,
we were together constantly.

We worked together, vacationed together...
Our friendship lasted until he died in 1988.

Let's see... Now I'm 90.

Until the age of 85, more or less,
my sperm production worked successfully.

Around then, it became too strenuous,
and I gave it up completely.

At one point I convinced myself that my
testicles were too small, so I injected paraffin.

I knew that paraffin is used cosmetically.

I didn't know that it wanders.

In my case,
it wandered upwards from the scrotum.

It more or less encased my cock.

My cock, which was 7 inches long,
is now less than 2 % inches

because the wax became
like a little belly around it.

You discovered piercing very early.
-Yes, before it became a fashion.

The hole in the head of the penis is not
from the South Pacific, but from Borneo.

The headhunters of Borneo
bore a hole through the head of the penis

in order to wear a ring, feathers,
a brush, or a rod of ivory.

I was very interested in that,
and then I burned the hole

with a thin, red-hot needle.

It took an hour.

Then I pulled a length of surgical thread
through the hole.

It took 3 months to heal.

Doesn't that involve incredible pain?
-Of course, but that's sadomasochism.

That's the consequence.
But I worked up to it for two years.

It's a training of the will. You can't just say,
“Now I'll do that.” You wouldn't endure it.

How have you experienced
growing old as a gay man?

Basically, I overlooked it completely
because I was so taken up with myself.

The only thing is that since I was 85,
I don't masturbate anymore.

And I discovered that to be penetrated
without a partner, you have to buy a dildo.

So I bought a couple of dildos.

Then I set one up, sat on it,
and made 5 photos.

Regarding that, I wrote:
“When a gay man gets old

“and no one wants to go to bed with him,
he has to buy dildos and amuse himself.”

What's the secret of your eternal youth?

My curiosity, and the fact that I can cope
with anything. Nothing gets me down.

And I find everyone beautiful.

I want to photograph everyone and
go to bed with some, but that doesn't happen.

I can live without anyone.
I've always had two hands.

And now I have dildos.
Who needs anything more?

Subtitles: Mike Shephard