Brutal Torture of Gay Men under Nazi Regime - Nazi Germany

Brutal Torture of Gay Men under Nazi Regime - Nazi Germany


Brutal Torture of Gay Men under Nazi Regime - Nazi Germany

Brutal Torture of Gay Men under Nazi Regime - Nazi Germany. Despite the fact that homosexuality was illegal, in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, there were indications of nascent and growing gay communities in Germany
Political and social conditions even allowed for people to publicly campaign for the decriminalization of sexual relations between men and the repeal of “Paragraph 175” which from 1871 banned sexual relations between men. In terms of legal policy relating to the German criminal code, the Nazi Party opposed efforts to decriminalize sexual relations between men and repeal Paragraph 175. The Nazi Party denounced homosexuality as a deviation from normal behavior that was completely antithetical to its fundamental belief in the need to increase the
pure, “Aryan” population and proper family life.
However, there were known gay men even in the Nazi movement, most notably Ernst Röhm who used the word “same-sex oriented”, to describe himself.
After the Nazis came to power on the 30th of January, 1933, they sought to dismantle the visible gay cultures and networks that had developed during the Weimar Republic. The Nazis used new laws and police practices to arrest and detain without trial a limited number of gay men beginning in late 1933 and early 1934.
The Nazi German judicial system also introduced castration into legal practice. As of late 1933, courts could order mandatory castration for certain sexual offenders. However, at least initially, men arrested under Paragraph 175 could not be castrated without their supposed consent but in some cases, men imprisoned under this statute could secure early release if they volunteered to be castrated. One such man was Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim.
In fall 1934, Reinhard Heydrich ordered the police of all large cities to make a list of known homosexuals. These lists have come to be known as the “pink lists,” although this is not what the Nazis or the police called them.
In late 1934, the Gestapo, which was the official political police, raided gay bars and made mass arrests of homosexual men; most of whom were not involved in politics.
Three events in the years 1934–1936 radicalized the Nazi regime’s campaign against homosexuality and led to more systematic oppression of gay men.
First was the murder of Ernst Röhm and other SA leaders in June–July 1934.
Second, in June 1935 the Nazis revised Paragraph 175, the statute of the German criminal code that banned sexual relations between men.
Finally, in 1936 SS leader and Chief of the German Police Heinrich Himmler established the Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion.
The Nazi campaign against homosexuality intensified in 1935–1936.
In the mid- to late 1930s, the police raided bars and other meeting places that they believed to be popular with gay men.
A neighbor, acquaintance, colleague, friend, or family member could inform the police of their suspicions.
There were gay men who took the risk of resisting the Nazi state for political and personal reasons. Some gay men helped hide Jews or joined underground anti-Nazi resistance groups. Such was a case of Willem Arondeus, a gay member of the Dutch resistance, who on the 27th of March 1943, during the German occupation of the Netherlands, participated in an attack on the Amsterdam Population Registry offices.
Not all of approximately 100,000 men arrested under Paragraph 175 during the Nazi regime shared the same fate.
Between 5,000 and 15,000 men were imprisoned in concentration camps as “homosexual” offenders.
The pink triangle called attention to this prisoner population as a distinct group within the concentration camp system. According to many survivor accounts, pink triangle prisoners were among the most abused groups in the camps. SS guards murdered homosexual prisoners out of cruelty or during sadistic games.
Beginning in November 1942, concentration camp commandants officially had the power to order the forced castration of pink triangle prisoners.

Josef Kohout, imprisoned under Paragraph 175, was 24 when he was arrested in March 1939 when his Christmas card to his male lover had been intercepted.

Scholars estimate that there were approximately 100,000 arrests under Paragraph 175 during the Nazi regime. More than 53,000 resulted in convictions.





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Content

0.24 -> The 30th of January 1933, Germany. Adolf Hitler  is appointed chancellor of Germany and the Nazi  
8.1 -> regime quickly begins to restrict the  civil and human rights of the Jews and  
12 -> other individuals deemed to be "enemies of  the state," and opens the first concentration  
16.26 -> camp – Dachau – situated near Munich. Among those arrested are not only the Jews  
22.26 -> and political prisoners, but also thousands  of homosexual men whom the Nazis track down  
27.3 -> thanks to denunciations from the public  who refer to them as being “perverse”.  
32.64 -> Approximately 100,000 men are arrested and  more than 53,000 result in convictions. Those  
40.32 -> sent to concentration camps are among the  most abused groups and are often subjected  
44.82 -> not only to brutal torture and inhuman  medical experiments but also sexual abuse.  
50.88 -> Because of widespread homophobia, these homosexual  inmates rarely benefit from solidarity from  
56.94 -> prejudiced fellow prisoners and are left isolated  and powerless within the prisoner hierarchy.  
62.94 -> During the Nazi era, between 5,000 and  
66.78 -> 15,000 men are imprisoned in concentration  camps as “homosexual” offenders. Out of them,  
72.3 -> thousands would die and those who would survive,  would remain marked to the end of their lives
78.48 -> Despite the fact that homosexuality was  illegal, in the mid- to late-nineteenth century,  
83.28 -> there were indications of nascent and  growing gay communities in Germany 
87.06 -> Political and social conditions even  allowed for people to publicly campaign  
91.38 -> for the decriminalization of sexual  relations between men and the repeal  
95.88 -> of “Paragraph 175” which from 1871  banned sexual relations between men.
102.78 -> Before coming into power, Adolf Hitler, the leader  of the Nazi Party, and many other Nazi leaders  
108.66 -> condemned Weimar culture, which was the emergence  of the arts and sciences that happened in Germany  
114.42 -> between 1918 and 1933, as decadent and degenerate.  Part of this condemnation was a rejection of  
122.58 -> the era’s open expressions of sexuality,  including the visibility of gay communities.  
128.34 -> Some prominent Nazis, including Alfred Rosenberg  and Heinrich Himmler, were clearly homophobic.  
134.4 -> However, Hitler and other Nazi leaders rarely  spoke publicly about homosexuality, and they  
140.34 -> rather focused on such issues as the creation of  a Greater German state, the Jews, and the economy.
145.68 -> In terms of legal policy relating to the German  criminal code, the Nazi Party opposed efforts  
152.16 -> to decriminalize sexual relations between men  and repeal Paragraph 175. During parliamentary  
158.22 -> debates, Nazis claimed that sexual relations  between men were a destructive vice that would  
163.62 -> lead to the ruin of German people. The  Nazi Party denounced homosexuality as a  
169.44 -> deviation from normal behavior that  was completely antithetical to its  
173.22 -> fundamental belief in the need to increase the pure, "Aryan" population and proper family life.  
178.44 -> The Nazis saw the purpose of sexual relations as  reproduction, rather than pleasure, and viewed 
184.32 -> homosexuality as a threat to  the superior "Aryan" race. 
188.22 -> They asserted these relations should be even more  severely punished than current German law allowed.
194.16 -> However, there were known gay  men even in the Nazi movement,  
197.76 -> most notably Ernst Röhm who used the word  “same-sex oriented”, to describe himself.  
204 -> Röhm was the leader of the SA, which was a  paramilitary organization associated with the  
209.4 -> Nazi Party, also known as the Storm Troopers and  the Brownshirts, for the color of their uniform
214.34 -> For Ernst Röhm, his sexuality did not conflict  with Nazi ideology or compromise his role as  
221.34 -> SA leader. In Röhm’s understanding,  legalizing sexual relations between  
225.96 -> men was not about encouraging liberal  democratic rights or tolerance. Rather,  
230.46 -> he believed it was about the  overthrow of mainstream morality.  
234.54 -> Röhm wrote that the “prudery” of some of his  fellow Nazis did not seem revolutionary to him.
240.42 -> Röhm’s sexuality was an open secret in  the Nazi Party that turned into a public  
245.16 -> scandal in 1931 when a leftist  newspaper outed Röhm as gay.  
250.14 -> Despite the controversy, Hitler defended his  loyal aide and longtime friend who remained  
255.36 -> in charge of the SA until 1934 when he ordered  Röhm’s execution. Hitler, pressured by German  
262.32 -> army commanders, whose support he would need to  become the President, directed the SS, led by  
267.3 -> Heinrich Himmler, to murder not only Röhm but also  300 of his men, some of whom were also homosexual. 
274.38 -> However, Röhm’s position in the  Nazi leadership had not tempered the  
278.28 -> movement’s condemnation of homosexuality and  gay communities even before he was murdered.
283.74 -> After the Nazis came to power on the 30th of  January, 1933, they sought to dismantle the  
289.68 -> visible gay cultures and networks that had  developed during the Weimar Republic which  
293.88 -> was the government of Germany from 1918 to  1933. One of the Nazis’ first actions against  
299.94 -> gay communities was to close gay bars and other  meeting spots across Germany. However, in cities  
305.4 -> like Berlin and Hamburg, some established  gay bars were able to remain open until the  
310.26 -> mid-1930s. Underground gay meeting places remained  open even later. Nonetheless, the Nazi closures  
317.7 -> and increased police surveillance made it far more  difficult for gay men to connect with each other. 
322.92 -> Another early action undertaken by the Nazi  regime was the elimination of gay newspapers,  
327.9 -> journals, and publishing houses. Newspapers had  been one of the primary means of communication in  
333.96 -> Germany’s gay communities. In addition, the Nazi  regime also forced gay associations to dissolve. 
339.96 -> In a further escalation, the Nazis used  new laws and police practices to arrest  
345 -> and detain without trial a limited number of  gay men beginning in late 1933 and early 1934.  
352.02 -> This was part of a larger Nazi effort to reduce  criminality. The Nazi regime instructed the  
357.66 -> police to arrest people with previous convictions  for sexual crimes such as public exhibitionism,  
362.46 -> sexual relations with a minor, and incest.  Those arrested included a number of gay men,  
368.88 -> some of whom were imprisoned in the  regime’s early concentration camps. 
373.32 -> The Nazi German judicial system also  introduced castration into legal practice.  
378.9 -> As of late 1933, courts could order mandatory  castration for certain sexual offenders. However,  
385.8 -> at least initially, men arrested under Paragraph  175 could not be castrated without their supposed  
391.8 -> consent but in some cases, men imprisoned under  this statute could secure early release if they  
397.38 -> volunteered to be castrated. One such man was  Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim. He was one of 230  
404.7 -> homosexual men arrested by the SS in In January  1937. Von Groszheim was held for 10 months in  
412.14 -> a cell with no heating, very little food, and no  toilet facilities. In 1938 he was re-arrested and  
419.46 -> tortured. The Nazis finally released him, but only  on one condition that he agree to be castrated.  
426.18 -> Friedrich-Paul submitted to the operation.  In 1943 he was arrested a third time and  
432.9 -> imprisoned as a political prisoner  at Neuengamme concentration camp.  
436.74 -> Von Groszheim survived the war and died in  2006 in Hamburg, Germany at the age of 99.
444.3 -> In fall 1934, Reinhard Heydrich ordered the  police of all large cities to make a list of  
450.54 -> known homosexuals. These lists have come to be  known as the “pink lists,” although this is not  
455.7 -> what the Nazis or the police called them. In late 1934, the Gestapo, which was the  
461.52 -> official political police, raided gay bars  and made mass arrests of homosexual men;  
466.14 -> most of whom were not involved in politics.  Many of the men accused of homosexuality  
471.42 -> would admit to acts that were not punishable under  Paragraph 175, expecting to be released. Instead,  
477.78 -> they were mistreated and incarcerated in  concentration camps such as Lichtenburg or Dachau.
483.66 -> These early measures were just the beginning  of the Nazi campaign against homosexuality. 
488.46 -> Three events in the years 1934–1936 radicalized  the Nazi regime’s campaign against homosexuality  
496.2 -> and led to more systematic oppression of gay men. First was the murder of Ernst Röhm and other SA  
503.04 -> leaders in June–July 1934. These killings changed  how Nazi propaganda talked about homosexuality.  
510.3 -> Röhm and the other SA leaders were murdered on  Hitler’s orders as part of a power struggle at the  
516.12 -> highest levels of the German government and Nazi  Party. But after the purge, Nazi propaganda used  
522.48 -> Röhm’s sexuality to help justify the killings.  In doing so, they played on much of the German  
527.82 -> population’s prejudice against same-sex sexuality. Second, in June 1935 the Nazis revised Paragraph  
535.74 -> 175, the statute of the German criminal code  that banned sexual relations between men.  
541.5 -> Under the new Nazi version of the statute, a wide  range of intimate and sexual behaviors could be,  
546.66 -> and were, punished as criminal. In addition, the  Nazi revision stipulated that non-consensual and  
552.9 -> coercive acts between men could result in  a sentence of up to ten years of hard labor  
557.46 -> in prison. The revision provided the Nazi  regime with the legal tools necessary to  
563.22 -> prosecute and persecute men engaged in same-sex  behavior in much larger numbers than before. 
568.92 -> Finally, in 1936 SS leader and Chief of the  German Police Heinrich Himmler established  
575.16 -> the Reich Central Office for the Combating  of Homosexuality and Abortion. This office  
579.84 -> was part of the KRIPO, which was a criminal  police, and worked closely with the Gestapo.  
584.88 -> The notoriously homophobic Himmler  saw both homosexuality and abortion  
589.74 -> as threats to the German birth rate and  thus to the fate of the German people. 
594.72 -> The Nazi campaign against homosexuality  intensified in 1935–1936. From this point forward,  
602.1 -> the regime focused less on shutting down gay  meeting places. Instead, the Nazis prioritized  
608.4 -> the arrest of individual men under Paragraph  175. In the Nazis’ understanding, these men  
614.04 -> were “homosexual” offenders and thus criminals  and enemies of the state. Himmler believed that  
619.56 -> targeting these men was necessary for the  protection, strengthening, and proliferation  
624.3 -> of the German people. He directed the KRIPO and  Gestapo to diligently carry out a campaign against  
630.84 -> homosexuality. And they did. These police forces  used raids, denunciations, and harsh interrogation  
638.7 -> and torture methods to track down and arrest  men whom they believed violated Paragraph 175. 
644.1 -> In the mid- to late 1930s, the police raided  bars and other meeting places that they believed  
649.5 -> to be popular with gay men. The police set  up cordons around bars or other locations  
654.78 -> and questioned anyone who seemed suspicious.  Some men caught up in raids would be released  
660.42 -> if there was no proof against them. Those  whom the police deemed guilty would be tried  
664.56 -> for violations of Paragraph 175 or, in some  cases, sent directly to a concentration camp. 
670.92 -> Police raids were public and high-profile displays  in the Nazi campaign against homosexuality.  
676.98 -> Through raids, the police threatened and  intimidated gay communities and individuals.  
681.66 -> However, raids were not particularly effective. The primary means through which the police tracked  
687.18 -> down men for alleged violations of Paragraph  175 were tips or denunciations from the public 
693.24 -> A neighbor, acquaintance, colleague, friend,  or family member could inform the police of  
699.12 -> their suspicions. Many Germans tended to agree  with the Nazi attitude towards homosexuality.  
704.64 -> Denouncers referred to those they denounced  as “effeminate,” “unmanly,” and “perverse.”  
710.28 -> Unlike raids, denunciations  were a very effective tool of  
714 -> repression and resulted in perhaps tens  of thousands of arrests and convictions.
718.8 -> The Gestapo and KRIPO interrogated men caught  up in raids, as well as those denounced. During  
724.98 -> these often physically and psychologically brutal  interrogations, the police frequently insisted on  
730.5 -> full confessions. Under the pressure of  harsh interrogation and torture methods,  
734.7 -> men were forced to name their sexual partners.  This in turn helped the police to identify other  
739.92 -> men to arrest and interrogate. In this way,  the police caught entire networks of gay men.
746.4 -> Gay men responded to Nazi persecution in different  ways and not all gay men made the same decisions.  
752.7 -> Nor did they all have the same choices. Gay men  categorized by the Nazi regime as Aryan had far  
759.66 -> more options than those categorized as Jews or  Roma and Sinti. Jewish and Romani gay men—above  
766.2 -> all—faced persecution for racial reasons. Some gay men, especially those with financial  
771.36 -> resources, could try to hide their sexuality  and outwardly conform. Some broke off contacts  
778.02 -> with their circles of friends or withdrew from  the public sphere. Others moved to new cities,  
782.64 -> the countryside, or even to other countries. Some  gay men also entered marriages of convenience. 
789.12 -> There were gay men who took the risk of  resisting the Nazi state for political  
793.32 -> and personal reasons. Some gay men helped  hide Jews or joined underground anti-Nazi  
799.08 -> resistance groups. Such was a case of Willem  Arondeus, a gay member of the Dutch resistance,  
804.72 -> who on the 27th of March 1943, during the German  occupation of the Netherlands, participated in  
811.5 -> an attack on the Amsterdam Population Registry  offices. His group managed to destroy 800,000  
817.44 -> identity cards of Jews and others sought by the  Nazis, which was 15% of the records. However, soon  
823.98 -> after the attack his unit was betrayed and on the  1st of April, 1943 the Nazis arrested Arondeus.  
831.96 -> He pleaded guilty and took the full  blame, which may be the reason why two  
836.34 -> young doctors were spared from execution  and given custodial sentences instead.  
841.14 -> Before his execution, Arondeus made a point of  ensuring the public would be aware that he and  
847.08 -> two other men in the group were gay, asking either  a friend or his lawyer to: "Tell the people that  
852.18 -> homosexuals can be brave! “. Willem Arondeus was  executed on the 1st of July 1943 at the age of 48.
862.26 -> Not all of approximately 100,000 men arrested  under Paragraph 175 during the Nazi regime shared  
869.28 -> the same fate. Typically, an arrest would lead  to a trial before a court. The court would either  
875.1 -> acquit or convict the accused and sentence them  to a fixed prison sentence. The conviction rate  
880.5 -> was approximately 50 percent. Most convicted  men were released after serving their prison  
885.72 -> sentence. In rarer cases, the KRIPO or the Gestapo  would send a man directly to a concentration camp  
892.14 -> as a “homosexual” offender. Typically, but  not always, men sent to concentration camps  
897.36 -> in this way had multiple convictions  or other extenuating circumstances.
902.04 -> Between 5,000 and 15,000 men were imprisoned in  concentration camps as “homosexual” offenders.  
908.04 -> This group of prisoners was typically required  to wear a pink triangle badge sewn onto their  
913.26 -> camp uniforms. These badges enabled SS guards to  identify the alleged grounds for incarceration.
919.74 -> The pink triangle called attention to this  prisoner population as a distinct group  
924.36 -> within the concentration camp system.  According to many survivor accounts,  
928.62 -> pink triangle prisoners were among  the most abused groups in the camps.  
932.88 -> SS guards murdered homosexual prisoners out of  cruelty or during sadistic games. It is recorded  
939.48 -> that the SS used the pink triangles on the men’s  chests as targets to shoot at ‘for practice’ 
945.48 -> In mid-1942, almost all of the 200 homosexual  prisoners at Sachsenhausen were executed. 
953.4 -> Sometimes pink triangle prisoners were assigned  the most grueling and demanding jobs in the camp  
958.86 -> labor system. At camps like Mauthausen and  Flossenbürg, it was standard practice to  
963.78 -> work homosexual prisoners to death which was  then disguised as being of natural causes. 
968.28 -> They were often subjected not only to  physical abuse but also sexual abuse.  
973.5 -> Pink triangle prisoners were raped by camp guards  as well as fellow inmates. In addition, they were  
979.68 -> beaten and publicly humiliated. In Buchenwald  concentration camp, gay prisoners were also  
985.98 -> given experimental treatments for typhus or were  subject to inhumane medical experiments such as  
991.02 -> the attempt of changing their sexual orientations  by implanting a pellet that released testosterone.  
996.42 -> Most of the victims died shortly after. Homosexual  prisoners were also used for testing opiates  
1003.08 -> and Pervitin or they were given experimental  treatments for phosphorus burns at Sachsenhausen. 
1009.5 -> Beginning in November 1942, concentration  camp commandants officially had the power  
1014.84 -> to order the forced castration  of pink triangle prisoners. 
1017.78 -> Fearing guilt-by-association, already  prejudiced fellow prisoners shunned  
1022.46 -> pink triangle prisoners who were left isolated  and powerless within the prisoner hierarchy. 
1027.86 -> Homosexual prisoners rarely benefited  from solidarity from other prisoners,  
1032.06 -> which for many camp inmates provided tools of  survival, such as access to food and clothing. 
1037.94 -> Josef Kohout, imprisoned under Paragraph  175, was 24 when he was arrested in March  
1044.24 -> 1939 when his Christmas card to his  male lover had been intercepted.  
1049.16 -> After the war he remembered how at Sachsenhausen,  where he arrived in January 1940, gay men could  
1055.58 -> have no responsibility. They could not speak to  prisoners from other blocks or with other badges,  
1060.38 -> because it was thought they would try to seduce  the other prisoners. Their block was only occupied  
1065.48 -> by homosexuals, with about 250 men in each wing.  At night, it was so cold that a centimeter of  
1073.4 -> ice would form on the windowpanes, but even so  the Homosexual prisoners were forced to sleep  
1079.1 -> in nightshirts and to hold their hands outside the  covers. This was supposed to prevent masturbation.  
1085.1 -> There were several checks each night and anyone  caught without underwear or with their hands under  
1089.66 -> the covers, were taken outside and had several  buckets of water dumped on them and were made  
1094.52 -> to stand outside for an hour in freezing cold.  Only a few people survived this treatment. They  
1101.78 -> were also forbidden to approach nearer than five  meters of the other blocks and anyone caught doing  
1106.46 -> so was whipped on the 'horse’ and received at  least 15 to 20 lashes. Josef Kohout survived the  
1113.78 -> war and in 1946 he met his partner, with whom he  stayed until his death in 1994 at the age of 79.
1121.94 -> In the concentration camps, the fact that  these prisoners were German-speakers provided  
1126.62 -> some measure of protection by giving them  access to less onerous work details such  
1131.24 -> as administrative positions. Some younger,  more attractive men could obtain advantages  
1136.88 -> from a sexual relationship with a kapo  or SS guard. Nonetheless, the typically  
1142.4 -> isolated position of homosexual prisoners  made their survival much more difficult.  
1147.14 -> It is believed that at least 3,100 to 3,600  pink triangle prisoners died in the camps.
1155.42 -> Gay men could be imprisoned and persecuted  in concentration camps for reasons other than  
1160.7 -> their sexuality. Some gay men were sent  to camps as political opponents, Jews,  
1165.92 -> or as members of other prisoner  categories. In these cases,  
1169.28 -> their sexuality was generally secondary  to the reason for their imprisonment and  
1173.36 -> they wore the badge that corresponded  to their official prisoner category.
1177.62 -> The Second World War began on the 1st of September  1939. Even though the number of men arrested under  
1184.82 -> Paragraph 175 continued throughout the war  years, it declined as the needs of a total war  
1189.92 -> took precedence over the Nazi campaign against  homosexuality. Many men who had Paragraph 175  
1195.86 -> convictions either joined or were conscripted  into the German military. The military needed  
1201.32 -> the manpower and in most cases, they considered a  soldier’s sexuality to be of secondary importance.  
1207.32 -> Such was a case of Albrecht Becker, a German  production designer, photographer, and actor,  
1212.72 -> who was imprisoned by the Nazi regime for  the charge of homosexuality under Paragraph  
1217.22 -> 175. However, towards the end of the war when the  German Army needed more men, Becker was released  
1223.7 -> in order to serve on the Eastern front which  he did until 1944. Albrecht Becker belonged to  
1230.06 -> those who survived the war, and he died in  2002 in Hamburg, Germany, at the age of 95. 
1236.54 -> At the end of the war, the Nazis destroyed  a great number of records including the  
1241.34 -> archive of the Reich Central Office  for the Combating of Homosexuality and  
1244.94 -> Abortion. Scholars estimate that  there were approximately 100,000  
1248.72 -> arrests under Paragraph 175 during the Nazi  regime. More than 53,000 resulted in convictions. 
1256.52 -> In spring 1945, Allied soldiers liberated  concentration camps and freed prisoners,  
1262.52 -> including those wearing the pink triangle. But the  end of the war and the defeat of the Nazi regime  
1267.92 -> did not necessarily bring a sense of liberation  for gay men who not only remained marginalized in  
1273.32 -> German society but sexual relations between  men remained illegal in Germany throughout  
1278.3 -> much of the twentieth century. Many men serving  sentences for allegedly violating Paragraph 175  
1284.6 -> remained in prison even after the war and tens of  thousands more were convicted in the postwar era. 
1290.9 -> Homosexuality was decriminalized in  East Germany in 1968 and the same  
1296.12 -> happened in West Germany in 1969. It was only in the 1990s when the  
1301.16 -> German government acknowledged “persecuted  homosexuals” as victims of the Nazi regime.  
1306.44 -> When in 2002 the government overturned  Nazi-era convictions for Paragraph 175,  
1312.02 -> gay men who had suffered at the hands of the Nazis  became for the first time eligible for monetary  
1317.42 -> compensation from the German government  for injustices perpetrated against them.
1321.26 -> Because of continued prejudice  against same-sex sexuality and  
1325.1 -> the ongoing enforcement of Paragraph  175 for much of the twentieth century,  
1329.12 -> many gay men were afraid to share  their testimonies or write memoirs. 
1332.9 -> We must never forget these men who either died  or survived and remained marked until the end  
1339.44 -> of their lives. Their stories and suffering  must forever remind us of the dangers of  
1344.78 -> discrimination and racism, and hatred towards  each other as the history often repeats itself.
1354.74 -> thanks for watching the World History  Channel please help us to create more  
1360.2 -> videos by clicking on the donation link thank  you and see you next time on the channel

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