Paragraph
175
Many
People believe that the Nazis made it illegal to be Gay in Germany, but that is
not the case.
Paragraph
175 (which made it illegal to be Gay, but not a Lesbian) was created in 1871.
Anyone
convicted of being Gay was sent to a Regular German Prison.
Between
1902 and 1918 (when World War 1 ended)
9,384 Gays were convicted in Germany and sentenced to Prison.
Between
1919-1932 (during the Weimer Republic)
9,257 Gays were convicted in Germany and sentenced to Prison.
In
1935, the Nazis amended Paragraph 175, to make it easier to denounce Gays with
just the belief that a Man liked another Man with no evidence needed. It also
included imprisoning Gays in Concentration Camps as well as in Regular Prisons.
In
1936 the Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion,
working with Gestapo Special Bureau II S was established in Berlin. It worked
with the Regular German Police to arrest any suspected Gay Man.
In
April 1941 Hitler declared that any Gay Man in the Hitler Youth (which was made
Compulsory for all Non-Jewish German Boys and Teenagers in 1936) get the Death
Penalty. They were not usually sent to the Camps, but killed privately with
their numbers kept secret.
In
November 1941 Hitler declared that any Gay Man in the SS, the Gestapo or the
Regular German Police get the Death Penalty. They were not usually sent to the
Camps, but killed privately with their numbers kept secret.
In
1943 Hitler declared that any Gay Man in the Regular German Military (which was
Compulsory for all Non-Jewish German Men) get the Death Penalty. After the
great German losses at Stalingrad in February 1943 (where 235,000 German
Soldiers and 22 German Generals were captured by the Soviets) the Death Penalty
for being Gay in the Military was not followed. Instead any Gay Soldier was
sent to Special Battalions that did dangerous jobs (like clearing minefields or
trying to kill Partisans in the Forests and Swamps of German-Occupied Eastern
Europe – where the majority were killed.)
Between
1933 – 1945 the Nazis
arrested at least 100,000 German and Austrian Men for being Gay or the
suspicion of being Gay.
50,000
of these Men were sentenced in German Civilian Courts; 7,000 by German Military
Courts and an unknown number by Special Closed Courts.
15,000
were imprisoned in Concentration and Death Camps (where they were made to wear
the Pink Triangle on their Prisoner Uniform or a Yellow Star with a Pink
Triangle if they were Jewish and Gay.)
60%
of those imprisoned in Concentration Camps and Death Camps died or were
murdered (the highest rate of all other Prisoner Groups except the Jews.) Those
not killed in the Gas Chambers were either killed through Forced Labor or
during Experiments carried out by the German Nazi Doctors at the Camps.
Some
of these Experiments included forcing Gay Men to have intercourse at the Camp
Brothel (known as the Lagerbordell) in order to see if it would “cure” them.
10
Concentration and Death Camps had their own Brothels for the Non-Jewish
Prisoners (that doesn’t include the Brothels for the SS and the Wehrmacht
throughout German-Occupied Europe) which the Non-Jewish Prisoners could use if
they filled their Quota.
34,140
Female Prisoners (mostly Political Prisoners and Roman and Sinti, but no Jews)
were forced into these Brothels during the War.
Gay
Men were forced to be with these Women while Nazi Doctors watched. The Gay Men
were then almost always killed immediately after to be studied. If a Woman
became pregnant the Baby was taken to a State Orphanage and the Mother was
killed.
Other
Experiments on Gays included Castration, Lobotomies and Hyperthermia Tests.
Gay
Men were arrested from all over German-Occupied Europe and sent to
Concentration and Death Camps, but they were usually recorded as being
Political Prisoners and not Gay so their numbers are not known.
When
World War 2 ended in 1945 Gays continued to be imprisoned some went from a
Death Camp or a Concentration Camp to a Regular Prison.
Gay
Homosexuality (but not Lesbian Homosexuality) was illegal in the United
Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and the United States so the Allies did not
recognize Gays as Victims of the Nazis, but as Regular Criminals.
The
1935 Version of Paragraph 175 – one of the few Nazi-era laws that remained in
force and unaltered in West Germany – was upheld by the West German Federal
Constitutional Court in 1957 and remained in force until 1969, when
Homosexuality was partially Decriminalized.
From
1946-1968 (from when World War 2 ended until it was Decriminalized) West Germany sent 58,361 Homosexuals to
Prison.
From
1968 – 1990 (from when it was Decriminalized until Reunification) West Germany sent 4,904 Homosexuals to
Prison.
In
East Germany, the Pre-1935 Version of Paragraph 175 was kept into law.
Homosexuality was rarely prosecuted after 1957, was Decriminalized in 1968 and
Paragraph 175 was repealed there in 1988.
Paragraph
175 not only continued in West Germany and in East Germany, but also in United
Germany.
From
1990 to 1994 United Germany
sent 283 Homosexuals to Prison.
Paragraph
175 was not repealed in Germany until 1994.
Since
1994 Homosexuals have been allowed to openly serve in the German Military
(German Men had to serve as Conscripts until 2011.)
Until
2000 Officers in the German Military were forbidden to be Homosexual.
Same-Sex
Civil Unions became legal in Germany in 2001.
In
2002, Germany finally annulled the Nazi-Era judgements under Paragraph 175 and
in 2017, Victims were offered Compensation (the Annulment and Compensation
extended to Men convicted from 1945-1994.)
Each
Person convicted under Paragraph 175 received €3,000 Compensation, plus €1,500
for each year spent in Custody as a result of a Conviction.
The
Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism opened in Berlin in 2008.
Inside is a Video showing 2 Men Kissing. Every 2 Years the Video is changed to
show 2 Women kissing.
Same-Sex
Marriage became legal in Germany in 2017.
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