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Behind the Aegis

(53,832 posts)
Fri Oct 12, 2018, 04:06 PM Oct 2018

LGBTQ History: Were Gay Concentration Camp Prisoners 'Put Back in Prison' After World War II?

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At the end of the war, when the concentration camps were finally liberated, virtually all of the prisoners were released except those who wore the pink triangle. Many of those with a pink triangle on their pocket were put back in prison and their nightmare continued.

Both claims made in the post are accurate, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested for violating Nazi Germany’s law against homosexuality, and of these, approximately 50,000 were sentenced to prison. An estimated 5,000 to 15,000 men were sent to concentration camps on similar charges, where an unknown number of them perished.

The men arrested for being gay were targeted under a revised version of a 19th century statute, Paragraph 175, which was expanded to categorize homosexuality as a crime of “indecency.” But even though the U.S. and their allies defeated the Nazi regime, the law remained in effect after World War II, as the Holocaust Memorial museum’s exhibit on the regime’s anti-gay persecution states:

As the Allies swept through Europe to victory over the Nazi regime in early 1945, hundreds of thousands of concentration camp prisoners were liberated. The Allied Military Government of Germany repealed countless laws and decrees. Left unchanged, however, was the 1935 Nazi revision of Paragraph 175. Under the Allied occupation, some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment regardless of time served in the concentration camps. The Nazi version of Paragraph 175 remained on the books of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) until the law was revised in 1969 to decriminalize homosexual relations between men over the age of 21.

Paragraph 175 was not repealed in full, however, until 1994. On 22 March 2017, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cabinet approved a bill that overturned convictions for gay men which had carried out under Paragraph 175 between 1949 and 1969 and also provided compensation for surviving victims.

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LGBTQ History: Were Gay Concentration Camp Prisoners 'Put Back in Prison' After World War II? (Original Post) Behind the Aegis Oct 2018 OP
This message was self-deleted by its author Meadowoak Oct 2018 #1
Most were not sent to asylums in Nazi Germany. Behind the Aegis Oct 2018 #3
Thank you for posting. Raster Oct 2018 #2

Response to Behind the Aegis (Original post)

Behind the Aegis

(53,832 posts)
3. Most were not sent to asylums in Nazi Germany.
Fri Oct 12, 2018, 05:03 PM
Oct 2018

While a few were, and many were castrated, male homosexuality, in particular, was seen as "abhorrent" but not an overtly "mental disturbance". Most were arrested during the Nazi Regime, and many of them were shipped to concentration camps. Gay men in other countries occupied by Germany were locked up, very few deported, and a few sent to concentration camps, most were left to be dealt with my the local governments; that is to say, most were jailed or simply murdered.

Of course, those in mental "health" facilities were are also persecuted and were the test subjects for the perfection of various killing methods, including gas chambers.

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