Persecution of Queer Individuals in Nazi Germany

Warning:This article contains discussion of topics which may be upsetting to some readers. This article is intended to be educational but reader discretion is advised.

The pink triangle. Nowadays, it is sometimes used as a symbol of queer pride.

The black triangle. Sometimes used as a symbol of lesbian pride.

The persecution of queer individuals in Nazi Germany took place from 1933 up until the fall of the Nazi Regime. Before 1933, male homosexual acts were illegal in Germany under Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code. The law was not consistently enforced, however, and a thriving gay culture existed in major German cities. Under the German Empire (from 1871 to 1918) and Weimar Germany (from 1918 to 1933), laws such as Paragraph 183 existed which were used to prosecute transgender individuals; however, these laws were inconsistently enforced, often leaving transgender people vulnerable to the arbitrary decisions of individual police officers. In 1908, thanks to the advocacy of Magnus Hirschfeld, Germany instituted the ability for transgender people to obtain transvestite passes, which shielded them from legal consequences for being publicly transgender.

After the Nazi takeover in 1933, the first homosexual movement's infrastructure of clubs, organizations, and publications was shut down. After the Röhm purge in 1934, persecuting homosexuals became a priority of the Nazi police state. Following the Prussian coup d'état in 1932 and the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, transgender movements, gathering places and institutions, such as the first homosexual movement, the Eldorado nightclubs, and the Institute for Sexual Science were dissolved, often by force.

History

German Queer Community Before The Third Reich

Germany was the home of the first homosexual movement. The word homosexual was coined by German-language writer Karl Maria Kertbeny; the first periodicals intended for a gay, lesbian, and transgender readership were published in Germany, and the world's first homosexual rights organization was founded in Berlin in 1897. In the 1920s gay culture flourished in Germany's major cities, especially Berlin. Political compromises allowed many homosexuals to live freely in their private lives and in dedicated subcultural spaces, provided they did not significantly infringe on the public sphere.

In Berlin, lesbian bars and night clubs opened up in the aftermath of the First World War. Notable amongst them was the Mali und Igel, run by entrepreneur Elsa Conrad. Inside the bar was a club called Monbijou des Westens. The club was exclusive and catered for Berlin's lesbian intellectual elite; one famous guest was the actress Marlene Dietrich. Each year the club hosted balls with up to 600 women in attendance.

In the Weimar Republic, the government which ruled Germany from the end of World War I in 1918, transgender people gained rights and freedoms unprecedented in Europe at the time, and much early progress was made in transgender medicine. The key figure in these advancements was Jewish-German physician and sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, who founded both the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee in 1897—the main organization devoted to the decriminalization of homosexuality—and the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) in 1919.

Nazi Takeover and Initial Crackdown

In January 1933 the Nazi Party took power; immediately, their real and perceived enemies were the subject of a violent crackdown. On 23 February of that year the Prussian Ministry of the Interior ordered Berlin police to shut down any remaining establishments catering to "persons who indulge in unnatural sexual practices". This order was extended to other parts of Germany. In Cologne, almost all gay bars were forced to close. In Hanover, all had closed by the end of the year. In Hamburg, police targeted both prostitutes and homosexual spaces, including the main train station, public toilets, and gay bars, leading to a more-than-sixfold increase in indictments under Paragraph 175 by 1934. The anti-homosexual crackdown was intended to please the Nazis' conservative backers, who had put them into power, as well as socially conservative voters. Both the Vatican and Protestant churches praised the crackdown.

Paragraph 175 criminalized sexual relations between men. It did not apply to sexual relations between women. Nonetheless, beginning in 1933, the Nazi regime harassed and destroyed lesbian communities and networks that had developed during the Weimar Republic. Because there was no single law or policy that applied to sexual relations between women, lesbians had a wide range of experiences in Nazi Germany. These experiences were not solely determined by their sexuality. Rather, other factors shaped lesbians’ lives during the Nazi era. Among them were supposed “racial” identity, political attitudes, social class, and gender norms.

In March 1933 the Nazi authorities began to confiscate printed material on homosexual topics. Any LGBT-related magazines that had survived earlier censorship were closed down and copies were burned. Their publishers were targeted; Adolf Brand's house was raided five times and police stole all of his photographs, 6,000 magazine issues, and many books. Friedrich Radszuweit's company was subjected to similar raids. During the Nazi takeover, German–Jewish homosexual-rights campaigner Magnus Hirschfeld was abroad on a lecture tour for the World League for Sexual Reform. On 6 May the Nazis' paramilitary wing, the SA, raided his Institute for Sex Research in coordination with German students. The institute's library of more than 12,000 books was publicly burned on 10 May on the Opernplatz; and its offices, together with those of The World League for Sexual Reform, were destroyed.

The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, known for performing some of the first academic studies of transgender medicine, and credited with performing some of the first gender affirming care, was closed, and would never reopen. Four days later, on 10 May 1933, as many as 25,000 of the institute's books, many of which contained unique insights into transgender history and medicine, were burned nearby in Bebelplatz Square. Hirschfeld remained in exile in France until his death in 1935, rather than return to Germany to face persecution as a gay, Jewish man. His image would be subsequently widely reproduced for use in Nazi propaganda, citing him as a prototypical Jew. Following the closure of the Institute, some of its staff, such as Ludwig Levy-Lenz (who was also Jewish), fled Germany for the safety of exile. However, a few of the Institute's former personnel, including Erwin Gohrbandt, turned to collaboration with the Nazi regime. Gohrbandt in particular joined the Luftwaffe as a medical advisor, and later contributed to human experimentation in the Dachau concentration camp, where transgender people like the ones he once treated are known to have been held as prisoners and murdered.

Many homosexual organizations attempted to destroy membership lists and other information the Nazis could use to target dissidents. Former activists made agreements to keep quiet to protect others. Some homosexuals, including Thomas and Klaus Mann, went into exile. The Swiss city of Basel in particular was a destination for homosexuals fleeing Nazi Germany. Other homosexuals of a more right-wing inclination, including Hans Blüher, who initially welcomed the Nazi takeover, remained in Germany. Some joined the SA, mistakenly believing that Ernst Röhm, a homosexual Nazi, would protect them.

Due in part to the inherent difficulty in identifying transgender people who can pass as their preferred gender, as well as identifying gender non-conforming people who may conform when in public, the Nazi government relied heavily on reporting by private citizens (often neighbors) in order to persecute transgender people. A widespread belief in Germany at this time held that transgender people were inherently deceitful, as they lived their lives "in disguise", which provided motivation to some Germans to denounce transgender people to the Nazi government. During the First World War, this belief was so ubiquitous that transgender organizations urged their members to wear clothes associated with their birth sex for the sake of their personal safety. However, many Germans were simply motivated to denounce queer and transgender people due to their personal belief in Nazi ideology and desire to make the idealized Nazi state a reality.

The most visible members of the LGBT community, including prostitutes, transvestites, and activist leaders, were targeted, and high-profile locations were shut down. The average homosexual's daily life, however, did not change, and some gay bars in Hamburg and smaller cities remained open. Some men were able to adapt to the closures by meeting with gay friends in primarily heterosexual establishments. Most homosexuals were not yet afraid of the Gestapo. They believed they could keep a low profile until the end of the Nazi regime, seen as coming soon.

1934-1995

After the 1933 revolution, Hitler began to see Röhm as a threat to his power and the SA as a liability due to their random acts of violence, which detracted from the Nazis' desired image as the party of law and order. On 30 June 1934 Röhm and several other SA leaders were suddenly arrested and executed. This event was later justified in Nazi propaganda, mainly by the alleged corruption and scheming with foreign powers, but also citing Röhm's homosexuality and the fact one of the victims of the purge, Edmund Heines, had allegedly been arrested while in bed with another man.

Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, leaders of the SS (a rival of Röhm's SA), supported the purge to assert their control over the Nazi police state. Eventually Himmler, who is described by historian Nikolaus Wachsmann as "one of the most obsessive homophobes" in the Nazi government, became commander of the SS, the Gestapo, and the concentration camp system, making him the second-most-powerful man in Nazi Germany. The purge ended the sense of safety many German homosexuals still felt.

Anti-gay repression began immediately after the purge, initially focusing on alleged homosexual cliques in the party and state bureaucracy. In October 1934 Heydrich ordered the police of all large cities to make a list of homosexuals. A separate Gestapo department, the Special Commission for Homosexuality in Berlin, was set up. In late 1934 the Gestapo targeted Berlin and Munich, raiding gay bars and making mass arrests of homosexual men; most of those arrested were not involved in politics. Many men accused of homosexuality would admit to acts that were not punishable under Paragraph 175, expecting to be released; instead, they were mistreated and incarcerated in Columbia-Haus, Lichtenburg, or Dachau concentration camp. By early 1935, 80 percent of the prisoners held in protective custody in the concentration camps were there for alleged homosexuality.

Almost exactly a year after Röhm was killed, Paragraph 175 was amended. The changes were demanded, especially by prosecutors and other legal professionals. The new version of the law punished all homosexual acts, defined broadly; "objectively when a general sense of shame is harmed and subjectively when there exists the lustful intention to excite either of the two men or a third party". In theory, it became a crime to look at another man with desire. Men were convicted for mutual masturbation or simply embracing each other, and in a few cases when no physical contact had occurred. Under the new law, typically all participants were viewed as equally guilty, whereas under the previous law, the "active" and "passive" participants were differentiated. The new law made it much easier to arrest and convict homosexual men, leading to a large increase in convictions.

1936-1939

From 1936 to 1939, German police focused on homosexuality as a top priority. In 1936 the Special Commission for Homosexuality in Berlin became the Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion, working with Gestapo Special Bureau II S. The new office organized conferences and issued directives to increase the effectiveness of anti-homosexual persecution. The Gestapo's homosexuality department also retained some authority on the area of transgender people as well. Specifically, the Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion designated responsible by the Nazi government for "collaborating in the design of the security police’s treatment of sexual degenerates", such as "transvestites, fetishists, and others." In March 1937, Himmler ordered police departments to make lists of suspected homosexuals and oblige them to register changes of address, and to monitor suspected homosexual meeting places, hotels, and personal ads in newspapers.

Between 1937 and 1939 nearly 95,000 men were arrested for homosexuality – more than 600 per week – representing a major investment from the Nazi police state. From 1936 to 1939, nearly 30,000 men were convicted under Paragraph 175. Unlike in the past, these men were virtually guaranteed to receive a jail sentence. The length of sentences increased; many men were sentenced to years in jail. Prosecutors, judges, and others involved in the cases increasingly cited Nazi ideology to justify harsh punishment, adopting the regime's rhetoric of "stamping out the plague of homosexuality".

World War II and Concentration Camps

Gay Men

From 1939 to 1940, the number of men sentenced in civil courts under Paragraph 175 fell from 7,614 to 3,773. More men were subject to military jurisdiction and, with the onset of war, homosexuality was no longer the top priority of the security police. In anticipation of the outbreak of war, at the end of August 1939, Heydrich ordered the Gestapo to transfer most homosexual cases to the Kriminalpolizei (criminal police or Kripo) to free up resources for the persecution of opposition groups. It is unknown how many Paragraph 175 cases were handled by the special courts.

The military considered homosexuals to be predators who disrupted morale and unit cohesion. Prior to the war, homosexuals were offered re-education and if this failed, they could be dismissed and incarcerated in a concentration camp for the duration of their compulsory military service. Under the manpower requirements of war, it was felt necessary to recruit all available men; it was also a concern that rejecting homosexuals from military service could open a loophole for draft evaders. Men considered sex offenders, including homosexuals, rapists, and child molesters, could serve in the German military assuming they were willing to bear arms and remain celibate during their military service. Known homosexuals and some former concentration camp prisoners were conscripted. Even castrated homosexual men could be drafted.

Homosexuals were more difficult to round up than other groups the Nazis targeted. Police were given detailed instructions on spotting homosexuals; they were instructed to look for flamboyant men, those who avoided women or were seen walking arm-in-arm with other men, and anyone who rented a double room at a hotel. Hairdressers, bathhouse attendants, hotel receptionists, railway station porters, and others were asked to report suspicious behavior. Complicating the Nazis' efforts, many homosexual men did not fit these stereotypes and many effeminate men were not homosexual.

According to one estimate, denunciations resulted in 35 percent of arrests of homosexuals. Men were denounced by neighbors, relatives, coworkers, students, employees, or even ex-boyfriends seeking to settle grievances, passers-by who overheard suspicious conversation, and Hitler Youth and other Nazi supporters who voluntarily acted as the morality police. State employees working in youth welfare and rail stations, Nazi functionaries in the German Labor Front (DAF), the SA, the SS, and the Hitler Youth brought cases to the attention of the authorities. Some men were falsely denounced as homosexual by other Germans. The snowball method involved arresting one man, interrogating him, and searching his belongings to find additional suspects; this method accounted for thirty percent of arrests. Some men were observed before their arrests or temporarily released in hopes they would lead the police to additional suspects. Some were shown photograph albums of other suspected homosexuals; male prostitutes were often willing to identify other homosexuals this way. Another ten percent of victims were arrested in police raids, which were often conducted in parks, public toilets, and areas frequented by male prostitutes. In Hamburg the police watched restaurants that served a mixed heterosexual and homosexual clientele as well as public toilets.

Charges of homosexuality were often deployed against people who were not guilty. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels commented: "When Himmler wants to get rid of someone, he just throws §175 at him."

In June 1935 the Sterilization Law was amended to allow individual convicted criminals to be "voluntarily" sterilized to eliminate their "degenerate sex drive". During the Nazi era, the regime considered extending the policy of involuntary castration that was previously applied to child molesters and other sex offenders to homosexuals but such a law was never passed. In 1943 Gestapo chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner advocated for a law for involuntary castration of homosexuals and sex offenders but withdrew this request because he believed the Gestapo could ensure castrations were carried out where it desired. Although the fiction of voluntary castration was maintained, some homosexuals were subject to severe pressure and coercion—including the threat of imprisonment in a concentration camp—to agree to castration. An estimated 400 to 800 men and boys—some as young as 16 years—were castrated in this manner.

After 1939, it was a policy to send men who were convicted of multiple homosexual acts to a concentration camp after they served their prison sentences. On 12 July 1940 the Reich Security Main Office formalized this policy, decreeing "in future, all homosexuals who seduced more than one partner shall be taken into preventive custody by the police after their release from prison".

Historian Clayton J. Whisnant states homosexual concentration camp prisoners "experienced some of the worst conditions that humans have ever been forced to endure". In the prewar camps, Jewish and homosexual prisoners ranked at the bottom of the prisoner hierarchy, and homosexual Jews fared the worst. Along with Jews, homosexuals were often assigned to segregated labor details and had to perform especially dirty and backbreaking work, and endured worse conditions than the rest of the camp. Homosexual prisoners rarely benefited from solidarity from other prisoners, even Jews, because of widespread homophobia. Surviving the camps often required either building social networks with other prisoners or being promoted to a position of authority. Homosexuals were disadvantaged in both of these aspects; some younger, more attractive men could obtain advantages from a sexual relationship with a kapo (prison functionary) or SS guard. After 1942, conditions improved because of the need for forced labor, and some homosexual prisoners were promoted because of the influx of non-German prisoners who were ineligible for kapo positions.

About 5,000 to 6,000 homosexual men were imprisoned in the concentration camps. Sociologist Rüdiger Lautmann examined 2,542 known cases of homosexual concentration camp prisoners and determined their death rate was 60 percent, compared with 42 percent of political prisoners and 35 percent of Jehovah's Witnesses. Assuming a death rate of between 53 and 60 percent, at least 3,100 to 3,600 men died in the camps. SS guards murdered homosexual prisoners out of cruelty or during sadistic games, disguising the deaths as natural causes. At camps like Mauthausen and Flossenbürg, it was standard practice to work homosexual prisoners to death. In mid-1942 almost all the homosexual prisoners at Sachsenhausen (at least two hundred) were executed. Many homosexual prisoners at Ravensbrück died at the same time. The chances of survival depended on which camp the men were incarcerated in; Neuengamme was considered less harsh for homosexual prisoners than Buchenwald, Dachau, or Sachsenhausen.

Initially, homosexuals were differentiated from other prisoners with a badge bearing capital letter "A" that was used at Lichtenberg. The standardized Nazi concentration camp badges that included a pink triangle for homosexual prisoners were adopted in 1938.

Lesbians

Women in Nazi Germany accused of a lesbian relationship faced a different fate depending on their characteristics. Those who were Jewish, black, or politically opposed to the regime faced imprisonment in a concentration camp or death—sentences that in some cases were likely made more harsh by the victims' lesbian identity. In contrast, historian Samuel Clowes Huneke concludes that lesbians accused of non-political crimes were not treated differently based on being lesbian, and simply being denounced as lesbian typically led to a police investigation but no punishment.

Historian Laurie Marhoefer argues that "Though not the subjects of an official state persecution, gender-nonconforming women, transvestites, and women who drew negative attention because of their lesbianism ran a clear, pronounced risk of provoking anxiety in neighbours, acquaintances, and state officials, and that anxiety could, ultimately, inspire the kind of state violence that [Ilse] Totzke suffered"—imprisonment in Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Heinrich Himmler specifically saw lesbians as "pseudo-homosexuals" that could be cured with heterosexual sex. Due to German women already being seen as second to men, lesbian sexuality wasn't usually seen as a "threat" to the "purity of the race".

"The Nazi regime saw lesbians, first and foremost, as women. The Nazis believed that German women had a special task to perform: motherhood. According to Nazi logic, lesbians were women and should thus be mothers. They had a responsibility to give birth to racially pure Germans." according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia. "The Nazis concluded that Aryan lesbians could easily be persuaded or forced to bear children."

Lesbians that were not forced to bear Nazi children, however, were often put into concentration camps and labeled as "asocials" with a black triangle. One infamous example was Elli Smula and Margaret Rosenberg. A note by the Gestapo Office in 1940 states that:

"The BVG received complaints that some female conductors who served in the tram station Treptow maintained regular intercourse with fellow women workers of their station – lesbian intercourse, that is. For instance, it was asserted that they took fellow workers with them back to their place, plied them with alcohol, and then performed homosexual intercourse with them. The next day, the women were consequently not able to carry out their duties. As a result, the operation of the tram station Treptow was severely compromised."

Both women were locked up in Ravensbrück on November 30th, 1940, alongside 56 other women. The arrivals list notes "lesbian" next to their names. Smula would die in the camp in 1943, whereas Rosenberg would survive the camp and die later in 1985.

Many straight women in Ravensbrück feared or were disgusted by lesbians there as well, with some stating that they were thieves or inhuman. There are also accounts of lesbians having sex with other "anti-socials" in Ravensbrück, although much of these accounts also come from straight women, who viewed it as "depraved" and a sign that the women were "ruined".

The misogyny and lesbophobia at the time has led to much information on lesbians then being lost or not written down in the first place. Many Nazis and men in general believed that women couldn't be homosexual, if have a sex drive at all. Historians are still searching for more historical sources on lesbian persecution in Nazi Germany.

Transgender Individuals

Many transgender people were imprisoned and murdered in Nazi concentration camps, though it is unknown exactly how many were killed or died as a result of their mistreatment. In particular, as straight transgender women were viewed by the Nazis as a subset or variation of homosexual men—a sexuality whose manifestations in Germany the Nazis aimed to completely suppress—they were particularly targeted. Even in cases where transgender individuals were not killed or imprisoned in concentration camps, they were, with few exceptions, barred from being transgender in public life, and there is at least one recorded case of a transgender German being driven to suicide due to their forced detransition. Individual precincts and districts are also known to have taken specific action against transgender people; for example, on 11 November 1933, the city of Hamburg issued a specific order to its police department to "observe the transvestites in particular, and as required to send them to concentration camps".

Historian Laurie Marhoefer, when discussing the persecution of trans people by the Nazi regime, noted that "the Nazi state reserved its worst violence for trans women." A gay prisoner and survivor of the Lichtenburg concentration camp named Kurt von Ruffin recalled that camp officials often treated trans people with particular contempt. Incoming transgender women to the camp would be "stripped out of their women's clothes and then humiliated, insulted and beaten." Von Ruffin recalled hearing of one occasion when a transgender woman was forced to undress, then had her head forcibly shoved into a dirty latrine until she drowned.

Lucy Salani was the only known Italian transgender person known to have survived imprisonment in the concentration camps, including the Dachau concentration camp. She died in 2023. At least one Austrian trans woman, referred to as Bella P., is known to have been imprisoned in a concentration camp after a sentence under a law targeting "unnatural fornication". Another trans woman, known only as "H. Bode" is known to have been killed in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

In one notable example, German transgender woman and sex worker Liddy Bacroff submitted a request for a 'voluntary' castration on 4 April 1938, following an arrest for crossdressing and being on a date at a restaurant with a man. A repeat offender of German anti-homosexuality and anti-prostitution laws, including Paragraph 175, Bacroff requested "to be cured of my sick passion which has led me onto the path of prostitution". She was examined by Wilhelm Reuss, a medical examiner from the Hamburg Health Department, who concluded that "H. is a transvestite to his core. Accordingly his entire habitus is feminine and infantile, the voice eunuchoid". He further speculated that castration would only embolden Barcroff, as she was never the penetrating partner in her sex work. Reuss's report was effectively a death sentence. Bacroff was subsequently remanded to prison, and in late 1942, she was transferred to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, where she was killed on 6 January 1943.

Transgender men are also known to have been targeted in Nazi Germany, though their treatment differed in some regards from transgender women, and some were even able to continue their lives publicly. One trans man, known by the masculine nicknames "Kleener" and "Dicker", was arrested for crossdressing in August 1940, but was released after promising to wear women's clothing in public. A postal worker known as Gerd W., who was a transgender man, petitioned in 1940 to have his transvestite pass restored after being unhappy attempting to live as a woman. Although his transvestite pass was not restored, he was given permission to dress as a man so long as he did not have sexual relations with women. Another transgender man, Gerd Kubbe, had his transvestite pass revoked in 1933. He was arrested in January 1938 for crossdressing into "protective custody" on the orders of Reinhard Heydrich and imprisoned at the Lichtenburg concentration camp. However, in October 1938, he too was released, his transvestite pass restored, and he was even granted special permission from the Gestapo to continue wearing men's clothes and using a masculine name; though he was barred from using public restrooms or baths while wearing men's clothing.

Aftermath

Nazi Germany's persecution of homosexuals is considered to be the most-severe episode in a longer history of discrimination and violence against homosexuals; never before or since have so many homosexuals been sentenced to prison in such a short period, even disregarding concentration camp imprisonment. An estimated 100,000 men were arrested and of these, half spent time in prison. Post-war attitudes towards homosexuality were influenced by Nazi propaganda associating homosexuality with criminality and medical illness. Because the various Allied countries considered homosexuality a crime, those prisoners who had not finished serving their sentence under Paragraph 175 had to do so, but those who had never been convicted or who had already served the full time were released. Arrest and incarceration of men for consensual homosexual acts continued to be commonplace in West Germany and Austria through the 1960s; between 1945 and 1969, West Germany convicted about 50,000 men; the same number of men as the Nazis had convicted during their twelve-year rule.

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 Federal Constitutional Court in 1957 and remained in force until 1969, when homosexuality was partially decriminalized. In 1962 historian Hans-Joachim Schoeps commented; "For the homosexuals the Third Reich has not yet ended." Although not entirely accurate, this statement captured the view of many West German homosexuals. In East Germany, homosexuality was rarely prosecuted after 1957 and was decriminalized in 1968; the number of convictions there was much lower. The decriminalization did not result in widespread social acceptance, and Paragraph 175 was not repealed until 1994.

Homosexual concentration camp prisoners were not recognized as victims of National Socialism. Just as there was a hierarchy among prisoners in the concentration camps, there was a hierarchy among survivors. Reparations and state pensions available to other groups were refused to gay men, who were still classified as criminals. Political prisoners and persecuted Jews could be disqualified from victim status if they were discovered to be homosexual. In the 1950s Rudolf Klimmer unsuccessfully petitioned the East German government to recognize homosexuals as victims of Nazism and offer them compensation in line with that for other victims. In West Germany in the 1970s activists made similar demands, but these were rejected.

In 1985 the Nazi persecution of homosexuals was officially recognized for the first time in a speech by West German president Richard von Weizsäcker. In 2002, Germany annulled the Nazi-era judgements under Paragraph 175, and in 2017, victims were offered compensation.

On 27 January 2023, the German government dedicated its annual Holocaust memorial commemoration to lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender victims of the Holocaust. This marked the first time the German government had granted official recognition to transgender people as victims of the Holocaust. In a speech given at the commemoration, German Bundestag President Bärbel Bas stated "For our remembrance culture, it's important that we tell the stories of all victims of persecution, that we make their injustice visible, that we recognize their suffering."

Resources

Wikipedia contributors. "Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 28 Jun. 2024. Web. 18 Aug. 2024.

Wikipedia contributors. "Transgender people in Nazi Germany." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 18 Aug. 2024. Web. 18 Aug. 2024.

Wikipedia contributors. "Lesbians in Nazi Germany." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 31 Jan. 2024. Web. 18 Aug. 2024.