Germany Wipes Slate Clean for 50,000 Men Convicted Under Anti-Gay Law
Axel Hochrein said that This has been a very, very long fight for the rehabilitation of gay men who were convicted
in this democratic German state — not in the National Socialist state, but in the democratic German state,
By DAVID SHIMERJUNE 23, 2017
BERLIN — In what the justice minister, Heiko Maas, called a "belated act of justice," the German Parliament has voted
unanimously to void the convictions of roughly 50,000 men prosecuted for homosexual acts since World War II.
Richard Evans, a Cambridge University professor and expert on German history, said
that the Nazi government, and especially Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the S.S., used Paragraph 175 extensively to arrest and imprison gay men.
" Marcel de Groot, director of Berlin’s gay counseling center, said
that many of the convicted men have died or have chosen to conceal that chapter of their lives. that The convictions had such a huge impact on these men’s lives, on their social inclusion, proper employment, that we hope the government will go further in compensation.
Sex among men was illegal in Germany from its founding in 1871 until the last
years of the 20th century, under Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code.
In the early postwar years, Professor Evans said, West Germany prosecuted about 100,000 men for homosexual behavior and convicted about half of them.
" Professor Evans said of the vote. that This is one of the last,
and very overdue, acts of recognition of the injustices of the Nazi era, doubly welcome because the persecution continued long after Nazism had vanished from the scene,