One of Germany’s oldest and bravest champions against homophobia and anti-Semitism died this week at the age of 99.
Wolfgang Lauinger was imprisoned for being gay first by the Nazis and later by police in post-war Germany. He passed away this week without ever being compensated by the government for the wrongs committed against him.
DW.com reports:
Lauinger was one of the leading campaigners against Paragraph 175, under which sexual activity between men was a criminal offense, and which was part of the German Criminal Code from 1871 until its eventual abolition in 1994.
The Nazis tightened the law in 1935, increasing its maximum jail sentence to five years and prosecuting it more rigorously — around 50,000 men were convicted under Paragraph 175 between 1933 and 1945, about 5,000 of whom are thought to have been sent to concentration camps.
Lauinger, whose father was Jewish, spent eight months in prison from 1941 to 1942 for belonging to the “Swingkids” — a German youth movement that loved American swing music and saw itself as an alternative community to the Hitler Youth. He survived the war by going into hiding after his release.
He was again arrested in 1950 when German police began raiding gay bars during a period known as the “Frankfurt Homosexual Trials.” He was held in prison for six months before going to trial in February 1951, where he was acquitted.
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He spent the rest of his life an an LGBTQ rights activist campaigning to have Paragraph 175 stripped from the Criminal Code. It was eventually struck from the books in 1994, but it wasn’t until June this year, over 20 years later, that the government began compensating those who had been unfairly penalized under the antigay law.
Lauinger applied for compensation but was turned down in October after officials determined he wasn’t eligible having been acquitted in 1950.
“They made the law into a farce,” he told Buzzfeed earlier this month. “What is the difference to a normal person who has been in prison for five months, whether they were released or acquitted?”
Kangol
What an interesting life this man led. His life would make for an interesting movie, documentary or fictional feature, detailing what it was like to live in the pre-war, Nazi/WWII, and post-German eras, while also detailing his activism and lifelong resistance.
Jaxton
Brave Wolfgang was not imprisoned for being gay. There was no gay identity politics back in the Nazi era.
Wolfgang was imprisoned for poorly defined crimes relating to homosexuality and ant-authoritarian activities in general.
It’s important to make this distinction because modern media makes the mistake of applying the GLBTQ lens to the past.
SnakeyJ
Jaxton, that’s not entirely true. Although the word “gay” was not defined at the time he was absolutely imprisoned for having sex with men. Concentration camp prisoners who were there for homosexual activities had a pink triangle on their uniforms to identify them as such. Maybe the term “gay” wasn’t used, but it was the same prejudice.
Juanjo
Miss Jaxton has presented us with a distinction without a difference which is a type of logical fallacy. But that is typical of Miss Jaxton, who seems to live only to be contrary. Unfortunately for him, reality has yet again bitten him in the ass. It is Germany which was one of the pioneers as far as the establishment of gay liberation. On May 14, 1897, German physician and sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, the world’s first official organization advocating homosexual and transgender rights.
Founded in Berlin, the committee campaigned for social recognition of gay, bisexual and transgender men and women, after homosexual acts between males had been made a crime as part of the German Criminal Code in 1871. Ulrichs had used another term than homosexual initially – urling to describe men whose sexual orientation was described by a sexual attraction for other men. He also was one of the first to describe and categorize terms and definitions for bisexuals and lesbians. He argued that homosexuality was not a form of mental illness nor a moral failing but rather a natural human condition he thought was genetic. In 1868, Karl-Maria Kertbeny, another resident of Berlin, coined the word “homosexual” and thereafter both men and others used the word to describe gay men in their efforts to decriminalize homosexual relations between men as well as between women.
When Hitler came to power there was a strong gay subculture in Berlin in particular as well as some of the other larger cities. In fact, between the end of the First World War and the Nazi’s rise to power in 1933, Berlin was the international center of the LGBT scene. This is the reason why Isherwood, among others, had traveled to Berlin to live. Descriptions of the time found in the Gay Museum in Berlin indicate that Berlin was as open a gay culture in the 1920s as it is now, which is saying a lot.
So Jaxton, in other words, you are full of bovine excrement. As is typical for you.
Jaxton
Women were hardly ever persecuted for homosexuality. It was the men they went after.
Mikah92
R.I.P to this amazing man who stood against tyranny. Such an inspiration.
He was quite the looker too,so handsome.
Notright
And we care because? This belongs on a gay german website maybe but not here.
Ander
“We” who? I’m interested in the full spectrum of the history of LGBT. You only speak for yourself.
Juanjo
I’m sorry, who appointed you as the speaker of all gay people?
irbaboon
How can you be so mean!
IWantAFullBeard
I am so impressed by the courage of this man and people like him. The courage it requires to fight for gay rights in 1950’s Germany is extraordinary.
Hussain-TheCanadian
Queerty please post more stories like this from around the world, we all should be informed on the struggles of our gay brothers and sisters.
RIP Wolfgang; rest up, and thank you for being a warrior for justice.