Editing Paragraph 175 (section)

===Development in West Germany===
{| border="0" align="right" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="margin:0px 0px 15px 30px; background:#F3F3FF"
|+''Table 4: Convictions under §§&nbsp;175, 175a (1946–1994)''
|-
|''Year''&nbsp;
|''Number''
|rowspan="27" | &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
|''Year''&nbsp;
|''Number''
|-
|'''1946''': || align="center" | ''(~1152)'' || '''1969''': || align="center" | 894
|-
|'''1947''': || align="center" | ''(~1344)'' || '''1970''': || align="center" | 340
|-
|'''1948''': || align="center" | ''(~1536)'' || '''1971''': || align="center" | 372
|-
|'''1949''': || align="center" | ''(~1728)'' || '''1972''': || align="center" | 362
|-
|'''1950''': || align="center" | 2158 || '''1973''': || align="center" | 373
|-
|'''1951''': || align="center" | 2359 || '''1974''': || align="center" | 235
|-
|'''1952''': || align="center" | 2656 || '''1975''': || align="center" | 160
|-
|'''1953''': || align="center" | 2592 || '''1976''': || align="center" | 200
|-
|'''1954''': || align="center" | 2801 || '''1977''': || align="center" | 191
|-
|'''1955''': || align="center" | 2904 || '''1978''': || align="center" | 177
|-
|'''1956''': || align="center" | 2993 || '''1979''': || align="center" | 148
|-
|'''1957''': || align="center" | 3403 || '''1980''': || align="center" | 164
|-
|'''1958''': || align="center" | ~3486 || '''1981''': || align="center" | 147
|-
|'''1959''': || align="center" | ~3530 || '''1982''': || align="center" | 163
|-
|'''1960''': || align="center" | ~3406 || '''1983''': || align="center" | 178
|-
|'''1961''': || align="center" | 3196 || '''1984''': || align="center" | 153
|-
|'''1962''': || align="center" | 3098 || '''1985''': || align="center" | 123
|-
|'''1963''': || align="center" | 2803 || '''1986''': || align="center" | 118
|-
|'''1964''': || align="center" | 2907 || '''1987''': || align="center" | 117
|-
|'''1965''': || align="center" | 2538 || '''1988''': || align="center" | 95
|-
|'''1966''': || align="center" | 2261 || '''1989''': || align="center" | 95
|-
|'''1967''': || align="center" | 1783 || '''1990''': || align="center" | 96
|-
|'''1968''': || align="center" | 1727 || '''1991''': || align="center" | 86
|-
|                || align="center" |           || '''1992''': || align="center" | 77
|-
|                || align="center" |           || '''1993''': || align="center" | 76
|-
|                || align="center" |           || '''1994''': || align="center" | 44
|-
| colspan="5" | <small>Source: Rainer Hoffschildt 2002<ref name="hoffschildt">Rainer Hoffschildt: "140.000 Verurteilungen nach '§ 175'," in ''Invertito'' 4 (2002), {{ISBN|3-935596-14-6}}, pp.&nbsp;140–149.</ref><br />* 1946–1949 complete estimate,<br />based on the course around World War I<br />* West Berlin and Saarland included<br />before 1962 and 1961 respectively<br />(in prior sources never considered!).<br />* 1958–1960 [[Saarland]] estimated (~59)</small>
|-
|}

After [[World War II]], the victorious Allies demanded the abolition of all laws with specifically National Socialist content; however, they left it to [[West Germany]] to decide whether or not the expansion of laws regulating male homosexual relationships falling under Paragraph 175 should be left in place. On May 10, 1957, the [[Federal Constitutional Court of Germany|Federal Constitutional Court]] upheld the decision to retain the 1935 version, claiming that the paragraph was "not influenced by National Socialist [i.e., Nazi] politics to such a degree that it would have to be abolished in a free democratic state".<ref>''"damit sollte nicht ausgeschlossen sein, daß diese ihrerseits zu der Auffassung kamen, gewisse Vorschriften seien so stark von nationalsozialistischem Geist geprägt, daß sie mit dem Rechtssystem eines demokratischen Staates unvereinbar und daher nicht mehr anzuwenden seien."'' [http://www.schwulencity.de/BVerfGE_6_389.html BVerfGE 6, 389 - Homosexuelle] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060306125644/http://www.schwulencity.de/BVerfGE_6_389.html |date=6 March 2006 }}, on SchwulenCity.de. Accessed 3 September 2006.</ref>

Between 1945 and 1969, about 100,000 men were indicted and about 50,000 men sentenced to prison. The rate of convictions for violation of Paragraph 175 rose by 44 percent, and in the 1960s, the number remained as much as four times higher than it had been in the last years of the Weimar Republic.<ref name=moeller2010>{{cite journal |last1=Moeller |first1=Robert G. |title=Private Acts, Public Anxieties, and the Fight to Decriminalize Male Homosexuality in West Germany |journal=Feminist Studies |date=Fall 2010 |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=528–552 |jstor=27919120 }}</ref> Many arrests, lawsuits, and proceedings in Frankfurt in 1950–1951 had serious consequences.<ref name="Kraushaar 1997">Elmar Kraushaar: Unzucht vor Gericht: ''"Die 'Frankfurter Prozesse' und die Kontinuität des §&nbsp;175 in den fünfziger Jahren."'' ("The 'Frankfurt Trials' and the continuity of §&nbsp;175 in the Fifties") In Elmar Kraushaar (ed.): ''Hundert Jahre schwul: Eine Revue''. (One Hundred years of Homosexuality: a revue) Berlin 1997. S. 60–69. {{ISBN|3-87134-307-2}}, p.&nbsp;62</ref> These [[Frankfurt Homosexual Trials]] of 1950/51 marked an early climax in the persecution of homosexual men in the Federal Republic of Germany, which showed clear continuities from the Nazi era, but took place under the auspices of the new Adenauer era. They were largely initiated by the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office, using the sex worker Otto Blankenstein as a key witness.<ref name="Speier">Daniel Speier. "Die Frankfurter Homosexuellenprozesse zu Beginn der Ära Adenauer – eine chronologische Darstellung."  ''Mitteilungen der Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft'' 61/62 (2018): 47–72</ref>

The strong continuities between the Nazi era and postwar West Germany are partly due to the continuity in staffing of the police and judiciary, which was disrupted in [[East Germany]]. The retention of the Nazis' legal basis for the charges, however, was due to a conservative Christian political realignment; criminalization was strongly defended by some CDU/CSU politicians such as  [[Franz-Josef Wuermeling]] and [[Adolf Süsterhenn]]. These "Catholic maximalists" faced increasing opposition from Protestants and the more liberal elements within their own party.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Schwartz |first1=Michael |title=Homosexuelle im modernen Deutschland: Eine Langzeitperspektive auf historische Transformationen |journal=[[Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte]] |date=2021 |volume=69 |issue=3 |pages=394–395 |doi=10.1515/vfzg-2021-0028|s2cid=235689714 |trans-title=Homosexuals in Modern Germany: A Long-Term Perspective on Historical Transformations}}</ref> Similar to the thinking during the Nazi Regime, the government argued that there was a difference between a homosexual man and a homosexual woman, and that because all men were assumed to be more aggressive and predatory than women, lesbianism would not be criminalized. Therefore, it was argued, while lesbianism violated nature, it did not present the same threat to society as did male homosexuality.<ref name=moeller2010 />

First convening in 1954, the legal experts in the criminal code commission (Strafrechtskommission) continued to debate the future of Paragraph 175; while the constitutional court ruled it was not unconstitutional, this did not mean it should forever remain in force. It was therefore the commission's job to advise the Ministry of Justice and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer about the new form this law should take. While they all agreed homosexual activity was immoral, they were divided when it came to whether or not it should be allowed to be practiced between consenting adults in private. Due to their belief that homosexuals were not born that way, but rather, they fell victim to seduction, the Justice Ministry officials remained concerned that if freed from criminal penalty, adult homosexuals would intensify their "propaganda and activity in public" and put male youth at risk.<ref name=moeller2010 />
During the administration of [[Chancellor of Germany (Federal Republic)|Chancellor]] [[Konrad Adenauer]]'s government, a draft penal code for West Germany (known as ''Strafgesetzbuch E 1962''; it was never adopted) justified retaining paragraph 175 as follows:

<blockquote>Concerning male homosexuality, the legal system must, more than in other areas, erect a bulwark against the spreading of this vice, which otherwise would represent a serious danger for a healthy and natural life of the people.<ref name="Stumke 1989 p183">Stümke 1989: p.&nbsp;183</ref></blockquote>

With new national Bundestag (West Germany's parliament) elections coming up, the Social Democratic Party was coming into power, first in 1966 as part of a broad coalition, and by 1969, with a parliamentary majority. With the Social Democrats holding the power, they were finally in a position to make key appointments in the Ministry of Justice and start implementing reform. In addition, demographic anxieties such as fear of declining birth rate no longer controlled the 1960s and homosexual men were no longer seen as a threat for not being able to reproduce. The role of the state was seen as protecting society from harm, and should only intervene in cases that involved force or the abuse of minors.<ref name=moeller2010 />

On 25 June 1969, shortly before the end of the [[Christian Democratic Union of Germany|Christian Democratic Union]] (CDU){{spaced ndash}}SPD Grand Coalition headed by CDU Chancellor [[Kurt Georg Kiesinger]], Paragraph 175 was reformed, in that only the "qualified cases" that were previously handled in §175a{{spaced ndash}}sex with a man less than 21 years old,  homosexual prostitution, and the exploitation of a relationship of dependency (such as employing or supervising a person in a work situation){{spaced ndash}}were retained.<ref name="Bound">{{cite book|title=Bound and Unbound: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Genders and Sexualities|pages=141–142|year=2002|author1=Zowie Davy |author2=Julia Downes |author3=Lena Eckert |publisher=Cambridge Scholars |isbn=1443810851}}</ref> Paragraph 175b (concerning bestiality) also was removed. Three days later, on June 28, 1969, the [[Stonewall riots]] broke out in New York.

With the 1969 reform in place, the acceptance of homosexual acts or homosexual identities for West Germans was far from in place. Most reformers agreed that decriminalizing sexual relations between adult men was not the same as advocating an acceptance of homosexual men. While the old view of "militarized" masculinity may have phased out, "family-centered" masculinity was now grounded in the traditional male, and being a proper man meant being a proper father, which was believed at the time to be a role a homosexual male could not fulfill.<ref name=moeller2010 />

On 23 November 1973, the social-liberal coalition of the SPD and the [[Free Democratic Party of Germany|Free Democratic Party]] passed a complete reform of the laws concerning sex and sexuality. The paragraph was renamed from "Crimes and misdemeanors against morality" into "Offenses against sexual self-determination", and the word ''Unzucht'' ("lewdness") was replaced by the equivalent of the term "sexual acts". Paragraph 175 only retained sex with minors as a qualifying attribute; the [[age of consent]] was lowered to 18 (compared to 14 for heterosexual sex).<ref>{{cite book|title=Handbuch Sexualstraftaten: Die Delikte gegen die sexuelle Selbstbestimmung|author=Klaus Laubenthal|year=2012|publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3642255564}}</ref>

In 1986 the [[Alliance '90/The Greens|Green Party]] and the first openly gay member of the German parliament tried to remove Paragraph 175 together with Paragraph 182. This would have meant a general age of consent of 14 years.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13487885.html|title=Lebensbund besiegelt|date=4 February 1991|access-date=20 October 2016|language=de|archive-date=7 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307233913/http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13487885.html|url-status=live}}</ref>{{failed verification||Article only mentions a Greens initiative without a date, presumably in 1991, and neither par. 182 nor age of consent|date=October 2016}} This was opposed by the CDU, SPD, and FDP,{{citation needed|date=October 2016}} and Paragraph 175 remained a part of German law for eight more years.