(no subject)
Paragraph 175. Who has heard of this? I am shocked that this completely appalling fact is constantly overlooked when discussing the holocaust and being a quarter German myself, my own nationality's history.
Paragraph 175 was part of the German Criminal Code and deemed any acts between males, consenting or otherwise, a crime. It originally read:
Unnatural fornication, whether between persons of the male sex or of humans with beasts, is to be punished by imprisonment; a sentence of loss of civil rights may also be passed.
As soon as the Nazis were in power, Paragraph 175 became useful for their persecution. It was even broadened to include "lewd acts", which included sexual conduct that did not always include physical contact, could be prosecuted. People were often convicted on suspected behaviour, through the use of "pink lists", which were a list of names of people suspected to be gay by friends and neighbours.
Historians believe as many as 100,000 were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps and it is believed that fewer than 4,000 survived. Those who died constitute one of the highest mortality rates of any non-Jewish prisoner factions in the camps. Not to mention, the concentration camps often treated them as medical cases which involved "cures", such as performing surgery to insert a capsule that released testosterone that often resulted in illness or death and castration. While castration was often performed in return for a promise of leniency, camp officials often castrated many homosexuals on a whim.
Between 1945 and 1969, around 50,000 more men were convicted and sentenced.
This genocide of homosexual men appears to be entirely overlooked, it would seem. Did I really need another reason to be completely ashamed of my heritage?