Return of the past: the policy of the SED and the laws against homosexuality in Eastern Germany between 1946 and 1968. Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands.
In 1968 the Government of Eastern Germany adopted a New Penal code of the GDR. In the new code, there was no Paragraph 175-the paragraph in the German Penal code punishing homosexuality. So-called "mere" homosexuality (consensual sexual activities between two adult men) was no longer punishable. With the repeal of Paragraph 175 the efforts started in 1952 to eliminate the legal discrimination of homosexuals in the GDR came to a provisional end. Through analysis of recently available files the author describes the political and social conditions which resulted in the reform being delayed until 1968. He also pointed out that the legal solution to the question of homosexuality was an instrument of politics and subjected to the power interests of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party, SED). The delay in the reform of decriminalization of homosexuality established a trend which aimed to control sexual behavior in the interests of the socialist utopia of the new "socialist humanity." Individuals and groups which diverged from this model character were to be led toward sexual "normality" by maintaining the threat of legal punishment. In other words: In the GDR, as in other countries where state socialism became the ruling system, the overthrow of the bourgeois society was not accompanied by sexual revolution. The relationship between respectability and socialism shows clearly how effectively bourgeois morality has penetrated all layers of the population.
Grau
G
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Institute of History for Medicine/Charité, Humboldt-University in Berlin. xgrau@aol.com
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005859:Germany, East; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006716:Homosexuality / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011057:Politics; D012742:Sex Offenses / Q000266:history* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence