An investigation into deviance laws during

WW2: How were queer men affected by the

Paragraph 175 in the German criminal code
between 1933 and 1935?

History IA

History Internal Assessment 2022

Word count: 2,147
Candidate number: kbv349
Table of contents

Section 1: Identification and evaluation of sources …………………………………………… 3

Section 2: Investigation…………………………………………………………………………… 5
Section 3: Reflection………………………………………………………………………………. 9
References................................................................................……………………………… 11

2
Section 1: Identification and evaluation of sources

This investigation will answer the following question “How were queer men affected by the

Paragraph 175 in the German criminal code between 1933 and 1935?”. Paragraph 175 was

on the German Criminal code under “Crimes and offences against morality”, having three

clauses which describe homosexuality in men to be illegal and a sin against the government.

Thousands of queer men were forced to live under an oppressive regime that severely tortured

them without any guilt.

The first source which will be evaluated is “Nazi Germany: Paragraph 175 and other sexual

deviance laws” by The Internet History Sourcebooks Project from Fordham University 2021.

The source presented is by Scott Safier in his research paper called “Pink Triangle”, therefore,

this source is secondary. The origin of this source is from the “Pink Triangle Page” by Scott

Safier, an article that describes the horrors and discrimination that queer men suffered during

the Nazi Germany. The main purpose of this source is to communicate to the public the

clauses about this paragraph. The content that this source presents is, as mentioned before,

a detailed analysis of the clauses from Paragraph 175. The value that can be identified from

this source is that they are direct quotes from the official document, no historian or reporter is

objective authoring this article, it is just quotes directly extracted from the official document.

However, a limitation can be highlighted from this source is that the original source was in

German, therefore, this was translated to English which heavily implies some language could

have been lost in translation.

The second source which will be evaluated is “Paragraph 175 and the Nazi campaign against

homosexuality” is a research paper written by the American Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The source presented is a secondary source, since it presents information like a history book.

This is one of my strongest sources so far due to the information it provides not only about

Paragraph 175 but about other events surrounding it and because it is by the American

Holocaust Memorial Museum. The origin of this source is a specialist WW2 and other events

3
historian that drafted this informative article, it presents primary sources such as the actual

document testimonies from young queer men and the pink triangle poster. The purpose of this

source is to bring more context and further information than just the paragraph to people since

this is not so well known. The content present in this source is a detailed and in-depth analysis

of the events during and prior to the Nazi Regime regarding the Paragraph 175 and

homosexuality during those times. The value that from this source is that its reliable, the

American Holocaust Memorial Museum has objective information that details the events as

they took place. However, a limitation that it has is that it has a country bias since it is from

the USA.

4
Section 2: Investigation

Homosexuality was not made legal in Germany until 1994, before that, any queer acts were

penalized by imprisonment and physical punishments. Paragraph 175 was part of the 13th

statute of the German criminal code. Section 13 focused on punishing “Crimes and Offences

against Morality”. Other felonies included on this section are bigamy, sexual assault, bestiality,

and incest. Three clauses make up the whole paragraph and are divided by general clause,

A and B. All of them are a specific description of the punishments that the “criminals'' would

have to endure and under what circumstances. After all the research made, a question still

stands How were queer men affected by the Paragraph 175 in the German criminal code

during 1933 and 1935? To answer this question to the best of my abilities, this investigation

will be driven to the specifics of the psychological and physical abuse they had to endure, in

addition to their daily lives being on the run. The order of the arguments will be as follows; the

psychological dimension of the abuse, the physical dimension of the abuse, the social

dimension of the abuse and an adverse dimension on how the paragraph had a counter side.

The psychological trauma that queers endured during the longevity of Paragraph 175 as a law

caused in them serious levels of anxiety and oppression by the government. Before the

“offenders” were caught participating in homosexual acts, the stressed their endured because

of this persecution was extreme. According to the Federal Anti-Discriminatory Agency of

Germany, the rehabilitation process that the queer men affected by Paragraph 175 was very

extensive and difficult. Many of these patients showed PTSD symptoms as well as depression

or other anxiety disorders. The testimonies from the rehabilitation centre showed that the

prisoners were called slurs on the daily as well as daily emotional breakdowns caused by the

soldier's processes of breaking down their queerness for them to be reintroduced to society

as better members. According to HMD UK (n.d.), the psychological impacts on queer men due

to paragraph 175 were so extensive that a myriad of records were found regarding different

anxiety disorders and trauma responses in survivors. In most cases, they seeked for “lavender

5
marriages” to fit into the Nazi ideological norms. The psychological aspect of the trauma

contributes to the glorification of hate crimes and derogatory actions towards minorities. This

source could be considered revisionist, as it evaluates the events that happened 28 years ago

and analyzing them with the focus of mental health which was not popular back then.

The physical attacks that queer men suffered during their persecution was a clear proof of the

intolerance and bestiality of paragraph 175. When the offenders where captured and sent to

concentration camps, they received daily beatings by the guards and soldiers, starvation,

derogation of their image by wearing the pink triangle in their uniforms, beatings from other

offenders and even rape in some cases. According to 'Paragraph 175': The Nazis' Victims of

Shame by the Washington Post (2000), the queer man imprisoned inside of concentration

camps suffered from slave labour, medical experiments, and even physical castration and

most of them perished in such conditions. Most of the physical punishments they endured

ended in long term health complications that only extraordinarily little of them outlived. Not

only that, but they suffered beatings from other prisoners that were also against

homosexuality. Violence was the only thing they knew during the many months or even years

they stayed imprisoned. The aggressions targeted towards queer men were focused on

feminizing them and treating them like a promiscuous sex worker that did not deserve any

mercy for their sins. It was derogatory to their image and not only that but of course the beating

was slight, most of them died imprisoned due to their wounds. The physical trauma that queers

received inside of the concentration camps only enforces my idea of how the punishments

enforced where out of proportion.

Queer men were constantly discriminated against in their daily lives to the point where they

persecuted with more eagerness by the authority since they were considered a pest. As

mentioned before, just as Jews, queer men were always uncertain about their safety.

According to the USC foundation (2015), Albrecht Becker was interviewed in the year of 1977,

giving his testimony on the imprisonment and persecution of gay men during the longevity of

6
paragraph 175. He said that had he known that he would be persecuted and imprisoned as

he was, he would have stayed in the USA as he was previously, that was how safe gay men

felt during the Third Reich. What he meant with this was that the public and governmental

persecution got to such a point that queer men had to resort to escaping the country to be free

from imprisonment. As mentioned in other testimonies, before Paragraph 175 was more

developed, queer men could live with peace with their sexuality and society since the

discrimination from the government did not arise yet. Most of the victims did not have time to

hide or consider other means of secrecy before they were caught and imprisoned since before

their persecutions were not intense. The social dimension of the issue relates to my main

argument since it relates directly to the discriminatory aspects they faced during the queer

persecution.

Nonetheless, paragraph 175 does include strongly enforced laws against child molestation

and prostitution that could have been beneficial for the common public at the time. According

to Fordham University Paragraph 175 translation (2021), clause specifies 10 years of

imprisonment for a male over 21 that sexually assaulted another male under 21. What the

third clause clearly states in Paragraph 175 section a is that acts of promiscuity between a

man older than 21 and someone younger than 20 are going to be heavily punished to the

aggressor. During Hitlers Youth Programme, several sexual molestation cases were reported,

and this law would aid with those cases since they were not considered due to the social

stigmas at the time. Additionally, a further section of the clause highlights that queer men

would also be punished if he allowed himself to be molested by another men. The “positive”

impact that this law could have had was immediately outlawed by the contradictory wording

that it features. As mentioned before, for the sake of the investigation to be balanced, it can

be argued that there was an attempt from the government to stop prostitution and sexual

assault with this paragraph, however, the effects where null as it contained clear contradictions

that arise from prejudices and discrimination against men who identified as homosexual. This

7
position is highly orthodox as it represents discriminatory and out of date activities about

homosexuality, and it still glorified capital punishment for moral crimes.

In synthesis, the main argument presented in this analysis basis itself that queer men were

affected by Paragraph since it was discriminatory, oppressive, barbarous, and violent towards

them. The psychological impacts caused prolonged mental health disorders to the survivors

of the abuse, moreover, the physical aggressions the prisoners suffered were considered of

extreme measures with the effects lasting their entire lifetimes. The social aspect of the

persecution was key to understand the situation homosexuals had to live during the regime,

being not only followed by the police but also common civilians. However, the paragraph also

presented clauses that went against child molestation. The areas that present more detailed

information and stronger evidence are the ones that highlight how horrifying and oppressive

Paragraph 175.

8
Section 3: Reflection

The methods used by historians that I included in my investigation where testimonies from the

moment of the events, specifically, queer men that were imprisoned or persecuted during the

Third Reich. Additionally, the historians that authored research papers used the clauses of the

official document to interpret how was the persecution done and what were the exact crimes

that queer men were accused of. The limitations that were found regarding the investigation

methodology used by the historians that wrote my sources were that most of them were

informative with data interpreted after the date of events, rather than testimonies or information

from the date of the events. Furthermore, the issue with this historical event arises from the

immorality of the situation. The reliability of my sources used in this investigation can be easily

evaluated by researching the origin of it. If the source was written by a website that does not

present information as it truly happens but rely on the unmoral aspect of the issue, then it is

unreliable and unusual for the purpose of this investigation. All the sources featured in this

analysis were all objective about the events as they happened. The way in which I avoided

biased information in my sources was looking for formal research papers or websites that

present historical events as accurate as possible, before deciding on a source I did deep

research on the origin of the website or authors and if the information they present is not

biased in any way. As mentioned before, if the affair did not create an impact that changed a

society’s view on an issue or marked the beginning of a new chapter in history then it cannot

be considered as an event. The social juncture before and after the event is unchanged then

I cannot perceive the affair as holding any relevant significance in history. The change

9
between times needs to be widely evident for it to have made an impact in society. It is not

possible to describe historical events in an unbiased manner. Our experiences or moral values

will always influence the way we think of an event, so will our nationalities or personal

identities. Describing the event exactly as it happened is mostly impossible as usually the

sources of the sources are always going to be biased. It is almost impossible to describe a

historical event without any biases, however, relevant outlets to the matter should attempt to

have the least amount of subjectivity about the issue to deliver accurate information.

10
References

Burgi/Wolff (2016, May). Federal anti-discrimination agency - antidiskriminierungsstelle.de.

Rehabilitation of homosexual men convicted pursuant to Section 175 of the German Criminal
Code: mandate, options and constitutional framework. Retrieved July 15, 2022, from
https://www.antidiskriminierungsstelle.de/SharedDocs/downloads/EN/publikationen/legal_opi
nion_paragraph_175.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3

Crews, C. (2000, October 19). “Paragraph 175”: The Nazis’ Victims of Shame. The
Washington Post. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2000/10/19/paragraph-175-the-nazis-
victims-of-shame/417b95da-70b4-4c99-8adf-27ff4414c24e/

Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com). (n.d.). German “gay” paragraph abolished 25 years ago.
DW.COM. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-gay-paragraph-
175-abolished-25-years-ago/a-49124549

Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. (n.d.). Holocaust Memorial Day Trust | Gay people. Retrieved
July 15, 2022, from https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/nazi-
persecution/gay-people/

Kaczorowski, C. (2015). Paragraph 175. GLBTQ.

http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/paragraph_175_S.pdf

Langham, J. (2015, March 24). Under the shadow of Paragraph 175: Part 1: Albrecht Becker.
USC Shoah Foundation. Retrieved August 12, 2022, from
https://sfi.usc.edu/news/2015/03/8843-under-shadow-paragraph-175-part-1-albrecht-becker

M. (2020, June 29). Recounting Terror and Sexual Violence: Josef Kohout’s The Men With
the Pink Triangle. The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/the-men-with-the-pink-triangle-heinz-
heger

Moeller, R. G. (2010). The Regulation of Male Homesexuality in Postwar East and West
Germany: An Introduction. Feminist Studies, 36(3), 521–527.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/27919119

Paragraph 175. (n.d.). Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/paragraph-175-and-the-nazi-campaign-
against-homosexuality

11
Paragraph 175. (n.d.). Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/paragraph-175-and-the-nazi-campaign-
against-homosexuality

Revision of Paragraph 175 — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (n.d.). United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from
https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938/revision-of-paragraph-175

Safier, S. S. (n.d.). Internet History Sourcebooks Project. Nazi Germany: Paragraph 175 and
Other Sexual Deviance Laws. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/pwh/para175.asp

Thomas, A. (2017, January 15). Paragraph 175 – An Overview – QUEER ACADEMY. QUEER
ACADEMY. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://queeracademy.net/the-paragraph-175-by-
sebastien-tremblay/

UF Digital Collections. (2010). UF Digital Collection. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from
https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00060012/00001

United Nations. (n.d.). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

USC Shoah Foundation. (n.d.). paragraph 175. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from
https://sfi.usc.edu/tags/paragraph-175

W. (2022, February 18). Under the shadow of Paragraph 175: Part 1: Albrecht Becker. USC
Shoah Foundation. Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://sfi.usc.edu/news/2015/03/8843-
under-shadow-paragraph-175-part-1-albrecht-becker

Wiedemann, G. (2022, February 24). The long road to legal reform. Arolsen Archives.
Retrieved June 15, 2022, from https://arolsen-archives.org/en/news/the-long-road-to-legal-
reform-2/

12