Law Regarding Same-sex Sexual Activity
There are no laws against same-sex sexual activity in Germany when it involves private sex acts between consenting adults.
Male-male sexual activity was prosecuted under sodomy laws throughout Europe from the Middle Ages, and was made a crime nationally under Paragraph 175 in 1871, the year the federal German Empire was formed. The law was extended under Nazi rule, and convictions multiplied by a factor of ten to about 8,000 per year. Penalties were severe, and 5,000 – 15,000 suspected offenders were interned in concentration camps, where most of them died.
The Nazi additions were repealed in East Germany in 1950, but homosexual relations between men remained a crime until 1968. West Germany kept the more repressive version of the law, legalizing male homosexual activity one year after East Germany, in 1969. The age of consent was equalized in East Germany through a 1987 court ruling, with West Germany following suit in 1989; it is now 14 years (16/18 in some circumstances) for female-female, male-male and female-male activity.
Read more about this topic: LGBT In Germany
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