Himmler used the Ahnenerbe's research to fuel and justify the Holocaust.[32] In a 1937 speech at Bad Tölz, Himmler announced that the bog bodies of northwestern Europe, which testified to an Iron Age tradition in which individuals were deliberately killed and deposited in bogs, must have represented the eradication of homosexuals.[35] This was an idea that he had adopted from Ahnenerbe archaeologist Herbert Jankuhn.[36] His adoption of this suggestion was linked to his homophobic fear that male homosexuality was transmittable and that it could spread within the ranks of the SS and other spaces of male bonding unless strong measures were implemented to prevent it.[37] Himmler then claimed this alleged ancient tradition as legitimation for the extermination of homosexuals within his own society.[36] As many as 15,000 gay men were rounded up and imprisoned in concentration camps, where up to 60 percent died.[36]