I met Bert Schaffner in the early 1980s at a special meeting of the Gay Psychiatrists of New York convened to establish leadership in the early stages of the AIDS crisis. We both became part of a small ongoing support group composed of health care professionals working in HIV/AIDS. Our friendship developed through our work in that group and subsequent dinners and outings to classical music events.
Bert struck me as a spry, impish, handsome, dignified gentleman, with an engaging warmth and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. The ensuing years have not diminished any of those traits. At 87, Bert still practices psychiatry full time out of the Central Park South apartment where he's lived for 54 years. In his vacation time, he travels frequently to India and Europe, where he has numerous friends and professional colleagues. Though he now walks with a cane, requires the assistance of a hearing aid, and on occasion needs to pause for a moment to recall events that happened over 55 years earlier, he remains mentally alert, charming, and as much fun to spend time with as ever.
Early in our friendship, Bert began to share with me stories about his experiences during World War II and I've come to think of him as one of that era's "unsung heroes." At a time when the "gay community" was not even a fledgling idea, Bert was an important protector and caretaker for young homosexual men faced with military service.
After reading Coming Out Under Fire, I was introduced to its author, Allan Bérubé, and I told
him about Bert and his wartime experiences. Allan said that he regretted not having known about
him while he was preparing his book and suggested that I interview Bert so his story could be
recorded for posterity. One evening last September we chatted in my home in Chelsea.
Michael Shernoff: Why did you decide to become a psychiatrist?
Bertram Schaffner: I always wanted to know what made a person gay, and wanted to understand
how to live with it without being in turmoil. When I was a young man, in the late 1920s and early
'30s, psychiatrists were thought of as people who had wisdom, who could provide the knowledge
that I hoped would help me. When I had traveled to Russia in 1936, people asked me why we in
America went to the theater. I replied, "To be entertained." They countered, "We go in order to
learn how to live." I was really going into psychiatry to learn how to live my life, as a gay man.
MS: Did either your medical or psychiatric training provide the insights you were looking for?
BS: Actually neither component of my early professional training was useful to me on this score.
It was only during my second and third analyses, long after I completed medical school, residency,
and psychoanalytic training, that I received professional assistance in understanding how to
combat what we now understand as internalized and institutionalized homophobia. Of course
those terms were not used until my fourth and latest analysis, some ten years ago.
MS: Could you have been admitted to medical school or to a psychiatric residency program if you
were open about being gay in the 1930s?
BS: Absolutely not. I could not even have gotten a medical license. I lived in constant terror of
my homosexuality being discovered and then losing the ability to work as a psychiatrist and to get
psychoanalytic training. You know, Michael, you may find this remarkable, but I first began to
think of myself as homosexual when I was three years old (laughs), certainly before the age of six.
I never thought of it as pathological, rather I always considered my feelings to be a natural,
"normal," and intrinsic part of me. However, I was also aware of the total unacceptability of my
feelings in the minds of other people. At the age of eight, when the parents of a playmate found
notes that he and I had exchanged about our interest in sex, they forbade us to ever see each other
again, and I lost a friend forever.
MS: Let's talk about your experiences during W.W.II. When were you drafted?
BS: It was October, 1940, in the third year of my residency training, while I was at Bellevue. The
first concern I had was that I would be drafted as an enlisted man, since I did not know how I
would manage living so closely to other men. Would I be accepted? I had had a lot of teasing over
the years about my effeminacy. For instance, in my high school yearbook, the Class Will stated
that "Bertram Schaffner leaves his girlish grace to Ann Pennington," a well-known burlesque
"queen," which in those days didn't necessarily mean what it does today. I also didn't know how I
would stand up under combat conditions.
I had a complete terror of spiritual and emotional death. What I worried about was the severe toll
it would take on me to be separated from companionship with other gay men, and to be totally
isolated among heterosexuals. That's what I really feared. I was called to active duty upon the
completion of my residency, in April 1941, eight months before Pearl Harbor. Fortunately by that
time, Army regulations had changed so that enlistees who held medical degrees automatically
entered the Army as officers, not enlisted men. Therefore I thought my worries would be over,
because I would be a First Lieutenant and serving as a doctor, in other words, as a
non-combatant. I was especially relieved that I would not have to carry a rifle, or shoot to kill.
MS: What were your duties?
BS: I was assigned to do psychiatric assessments of draftees for the Selective Service System at Governor's Island in New York Harbor. I was to determine if these men were mentally fit to serve, and to weed out people likely to break down under stress, or who might undermine "morale" among the troops, a major concern of the Army at that time. I was to look for signs of
depression, mania, psychosis, and sociopathy. People who had been hospitalized for psychiatric
reasons, chronic alcoholics, or repeated criminal offenders were automatically excluded. In those
days, within the psychiatric profession, and in the culture at large, homosexuality was put in the
same category as these other conditions. It was clear to me that the Army wanted homosexuals to
be identified and excluded from military service.
MS: Tell me about how you handled the gay question with the men you interviewed
BS: This is really interesting. You have to realize how surreal an experience it was for me as an
active homosexual who felt normal but unwanted, and as an officer in an institution that clearly
would have removed me from active duty if the commanding officers knew about my
homosexuality. I had been instructed not to let homosexuals into the service, but I was not told
how to determine whether a person was homosexual or not. The only thing I was ever told by the
commanding officer was that I did not have enough "index of suspicion" about people.
MS: What do you think he meant by that?
BS: I was afraid to ask him what he meant, because I didn't know whether he was referring
particularly to homosexuals or not, and I didn't dare to bring up the subject. I didn't want to call
attention to what I was doing. I was aware of the amount of power my assignment gave me over
these men's lives and I struggled to wield it in a responsible and kind manner. I had only between
five and ten minutes to do a psychiatric evaluation, and I developed my own approach to
interviewing draftees by devising my own set of questions.
That was a period when people just did not talk to strangers about sexual matters. Newspapers
did not dare to print the words syphilis and gonorrhea. Instead, they referred to "social diseases."
So it was pretty daring of me to even ask the questions I did. The Army did not tell me to ask
those questions, and I took a big risk in asking them. I would begin by asking people whether they
felt ready or equipped to go into military service. If they said, "Yes, I am." I would ask, "How do
you get along with people? Are you comfortable with other men, and comfortable with women?
Is there anything that makes you uncomfortable about being in close proximity to other people?
How do you feel about being in combat?"
After those initial questions, I would ask the draftees, "Would you mind telling me about your
sexual life? How old were you when you began to masturbate? How old were you when you first
had sex with a woman?" the next question was, "Was it with a nice girl or not nice girl?" In those
days, a person would not have used the word prostitute, or whore, in interviewing potential
enlisted men, since those particular words would have immediately ended their willingness to talk
openly. That would have truly undermined what I was trying to do, since it was important to me
to establish rapport so that I could ask, "Have you ever had sex with a man?" Hopefully I asked
this question in exactly the same nonjudgmental manner I had asked all the other questions, so as
to give these men an opening, if they needed one, to tell me that they were gay. I hoped they
would understand that if they told me they were gay, I would protect them. The key thing to
remember is that if a draftee was rejected by the Army and marked 4F due to homosexuality,
when he got back home to the small town or village from which he had come, his records would
have been available to anyone in the local draft board and to all future employers. Thus the reality
of his being homosexual would become public and could ruin his life. So, if a gay draftee was
reluctant to serve in the army, or I did not feel confident of his ability to do so, I had to find a way
to disqualify him from active duty without revealing his homosexuality.
MS: That's a hell of an assessment to have to make in five to ten minutes.
BS: There were some gay men who openly expressed their terror of being in the army, not
because of fear of death, but because of fear of being brutalized by the other soldiers, mostly
because they were either very slight, effeminate, or obviously homosexual. Since their fears were
by no means unrealistic, I validated them and found another legitimate reason to disqualify them
from active duty. I felt it was crucial to make sure that their reputations were not ruined simply
because they were homosexual and not appropriately able to serve in the army without placing
themselves in unnecessary danger that had nothing to do with whether or not they were under fire
from an enemy. I was quite different from most of the other medical officers in those days who
felt that if someone was homosexual, "The hell with them, let them suffer."
On the other hand, there were men who admitted their homosexuality to me and expressed their
strong desire to serve their country and fight in the military. When a man told me that he had had
sex with another man, or even that he was homosexual, and wanted to enter the army, then I
usually ranked him "fit for service," providing he felt confident of his ability to manage the variety
of stresses he would likely face. But I felt it was my duty to caution him to be careful about letting
other men know about his homosexuality. If we were both confident that he could hold his own
with other soldiers, and was not afraid of having a "nervous breakdown" in combat circumstances,
I felt he deserved to be allowed to enter the Army.
MS: This made you a real radical underground gay activist in those days.
(BS laughs and nods.) What else about your service in the induction centers do you think was
important?
BS: I got so bored just doing 60 routine examinations a day that I began to do research, and
eventually wrote a paper providing statistics about the sex lives of men, which was published in
1948 and preceded the Kinsey study. I reported on the percentage of homosexuals I found while
doing induction center interviews. This was one of the first times anyone had published something
about homosexuality in the American professional literature, without being negative about the
subjects' lives. Writing about this in a non-condemnatory way was daring back in those days. In
my research, I found that between 3% to 5% of the men I interviewed admitted to being
homosexual. Kinsey's findings, that approximately 10% of the men they interviewed were gay,
were interestingly in conflict with my findings.
MS: Did you have any difficulty meeting other gay men when you were in the Army, and did you
have an active sex life?
BS: Until the U.S. entered the War, I was not really in a military environment. I was billeted in the
Hotel Shelton at 49th and Lexington, and could continue to lead an active gay social life while
serving in the Army.
Then, after being stationed on Governor's Island for a year and a half, I was transferred and on a
weekly basis rotated among Albany, Syracuse, Utica and Binghamton to do the same kind of
interviews. I was a bit concerned about whether or not I would be able to meet other
homosexuals once I was stationed outside Manhattan. As it turned out, I needn't have worried.
Upstate, both enlisted men and officers were billeted in the same hotels. It would have been
professional suicide for me to pursue anyone sexually, especially an enlisted man. Yet several
enlisted men, some married, also staying in the hotel, would occasionally knock on my door for
sexual liaisons. It would have been terribly dangerous for both of us had anyone ever seen one of
them leaving my room. Yet, in wartime you do live dangerously since you're constantly aware that
you could be sent into harm's way at any time, and your life would be over.
In August 1944, I was sent to Camp Gordon, Georgia to prepare to go overseas with the 10th
Armored Division, as the division neuropsychiatrist. All cases of people having breakdowns,
disciplinary problems, or accused of homosexuality were sent to me. Up until then I had been in
New York where I always had contact with other gay people. Suddenly in Camp Gordon, I
realized that I was isolated. I had to eat in the Officer's Club, where high level officers and their
wives would eat together. I was acutely aware of being single, and of not fitting in. I had been so
lonely in Camp Gordon that I tried to look for someone gay to talk with by going to a bar where I
had heard that some gay soldiers went. When I went into town I removed all the insignia
indicating that I was an officer and a doctor, and tried to mingle in the bar, since it was strictly
"off limits" for me to socialize with enlisted men, and I was acutely tense because of the risks I
was taking. Before long, a stranger put his arms around my shoulder and very gently said: "Sir, I
really think you shouldn't be here. I would like to escort you back to camp. It would be very
dangerous for anyone to know that you are here."
MS: Who was this man?
BS: I'm not sure. I think he could have been a member of the military police from division
headquarters, who may have recognized me as the new division psychiatrist. I have no idea
whether he was also gay. I only know that he perceived the danger I was in, and was protecting
me. He persuaded me to leave with him and I went back to my hotel alone. I began to feel
despondent. I felt that if I were completely cut off from homosexual companionship throughout
my whole Army life overseas, that I would lose my mind. I realized that I had to do something
drastic. I knew that I could not appeal for help through normal Army medical channels. I would
simply be branded, dishonorably discharged, possibly imprisoned, and cut off from any of the
normal benefits that veterans receive. Fortunately I knew the name of a doctor who happened to
be a general, the chief medical officer in Zone 1 of the U.S. Army, which included the Northeast. I
called him from a private phone, which was also against the rules, and told him very frankly what
was happening to me. He was not condemnatory about my homosexuality, and very kindly
arranged for me to get orders for a leave, which enabled me to come up to New York, and
consult his brother, a civilian analyst. This analyst helped me see that I was not destined to be a
victim. He also helped me understand that if things became unbearable for me that I could use my
personal connection with his brother to be rescued without losing my status or reputation. It was
this knowledge that helped me remain in the Army, and to feel less desperate. Shortly afterwards
I was shipped to the European front where I met and made friends with other officers who were
also homosexual.
MS: The General must have been an unusual man for the times.
BS: He certainly was.
MS: You were troubled about your homosexuality, and the difficulties it posed during your
military career, but you were not ashamed of it. Do you have any thoughts about how you
managed to arrive at what today we call "gay pride" during a period when this was a virtually
unknown concept?
BS: That is an interesting question, and one that I obviously have given much thought to. There is
something from my childhood that comes to mind. As a child, every other year we visited my
mother's family, in Worms, Germany. Almost every day I would play in park with a huge statue
of Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms. Luther was accused of violating God's rules by the Holy
Roman Emperor. This statue was inscribed with a quotation of his reply when he was asked to
recant his rebellion: "Here I stand. Ich kann nicht anders. I can't be any different. God help me.
Amen!" I believe that this made such a big impression on me, that I adopted it deeply as my own
personal credo. I relate it to my being homosexual, and I will not apologize for what I am, to
anyone, ever.
Michael Shernoff, MSW is a Manhattan psychotherapist, the author of several
books on health issues that face gay men, including AIDS and chemical
dependency, and a soon to be published book on the mental health aspects of people with HIV on combination therapies. He also edited "Gay Widowers: Life after the Death of a
Partner,"and can be reached via his web site at http://www.gaypsychotherapy.com.
Key Words: Psychiatry, history, WWII, homosexuality, military, gay