WayGay: Homosexuals and the Holocaust

Paragraph 175 was the German statute prohibiting homosexuality between men.

Enacted in 1871 following the unification of the German Empire, its enforcement was sporadic prior to 1933, particularly in urban areas.

In 1935, Nazi jurists undertook an extensive overhaul of the German criminal code. Paragraph 175 was re-written to broaden the law’s scope of “indecencies between men” from a narrow interpretation of an intercourse-like act, to include virtually any contact between men deemed to have sexual intent, even “simple looking” or “simple touching.”

The severity of the persecution of homosexuals increased after the war’s outbreak. In July 1940, Himmler directed that any convicted homosexual who “seduced more than one partner” be sent to a concentration camp after completing his prison sentence to prevent the homosexual “contagion” from spreading. After 1942, the SS embarked on an explicit program of “extermination through work” to destroy Germany’s “habitual criminals.” Some 15,000 prisoners, including homosexuals, were sent from prisons to concentration camps, where nearly all perished within months.

Following Germany’s defeat, most Nazi-era laws were revoked, but the revisions to Paragraph 175 remained in effect. Under Allied occupation, some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment regardless of time served in concentration camps. Homosexuals were specifically denied compensation as victims of National Socialism. Paragraph 175 was not revised again until 1969 when the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) decriminalized homosexual relations between men over age 21. In 1994, Germany abolished Paragraph 175 and recently pardoned those convicted under the statute during the Nazi era.