What is NOT a fun fact?

This is not true, or at least not in the way you put it. I am a licensed tour guide in a former Nazi concentration camp, so allow me to clarify a bit.

Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code banned male homosexuality. It was introduced in 1871 when the German Empire was formed, although many of the pre-unification German states had laws banning homosexuality. However the wording of the law made it quite clear that it referred specifically to anal sex. This meant that penetration had to be proven in order to secure a conviction. So unless a cop happened to walk in on two dudes going at it, it was very difficult to send someone to jail for homosexuality. As a result of lax and unenforceable anti-gay laws, certain places in Germany, notably Berlin, would become well known for their tolerance of homosexuality. In fact, "homosexuality," or Homosexualität, is a word which was first printed in German. The first academics in the world to seriously study homosexuality, to claim that it was not a perversion or disease but rather innate, and to fight for gay rights, were German (Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Magnus Hirschfeld).

This turning a blind eye policy would change after Hitler came to power. In 1935 the Nazis changed the wording of Paragraph 175 to be much more vague, meaning that homosexuals could be imprisoned much more easily for "Unzucht" ("lewdness").

Disgracefully, the vague Nazi wording of Paragraph 175 was retained after the war, and in 1969 it was changed back to the original 1871 wording (which still maintained homosexuality was illegal), and that one would remain in place until 1994. That's right - homosexuality was still technically illegal in Germany until ninety fucking four.

Homosexuals were still discriminated against, imprisoned, and put on sex offender lists - and that's a scandal. But you implied homosexuals were still imprisoned inside concentration camps, which is not true. They would have been held in regular prisons. Let's make no mistake, this was very different - no one was doing slave labour, no one was being tortured, no one was being castrated (which did happen to gays inside concentration camps). But here's a not-so-fun fact: postwar West Germany convicted more people for the "crime" of homosexuality than Nazi Germany did. Even if they were not treated anywhere near as badly, this is a disgrace.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent