Homosexuality In Germany Essay

In Germany, just like in most places at the time, homosexuality was illegal even before the Holocaust. Male homosexuals were illegal under paragraph 175 of the German criminal code. There were still protest in some parts of Germany though most people acted as if they didn’t occur. But, when the Nazis came into power they actively sought out homosexuals to castigate. As the Nazi crusade went on over 100,000 men were persecuted in Germany, and allying countries, for being homosexual. Half of them were sent to prison, while a median of 15,000 were sent to concentration camps; an unknown number of them died. Some of them were allowed to go free if they converted to the “proper” way and became “racially conscious”. The Nazi party even went of their way to break into the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin in 1933 to confiscate and destroy most, if not all, of their research and documentation. Through the next year they spent their efforts shutting down and destroying locations where homosexuals would be able to meet in peace. They even had police keep a record called a “pink list” of all individuals who engage in homosexual actions, although the

Now, it wasn’t just illegal to commit "criminally indecent activities between men", but to commit any action that could be taken as homosexual. They did so that the prosecution of homosexuals under the Nazis hand were now legal. With this new law the Reich Central Office for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality was formed. They would arrest and hold suspected homosexuals without trials for how ever they wanted, if they choose to release them they would sometimes rearrests them to send them to concentration camps. Though there was one way to get out of going to a concentration camp. The Nazi believed one way to “cure” homosexuality was to castrate the male, although they didn’t always wait for the prisoners consent before doing