Gay Germans compensated for Nazi-era law

The German parliament has voted to quash the convictions of 50,000 men sentenced for homosexuality under a Nazi-era law that remained in force after the war.

After decades of lobbying, victims and activists hailed a triumph in the struggle to clear the names of gay men who lived with a criminal record under Article 175 of the penal code.

An estimated 5,000 of those found guilty under the statute are still alive and are to be offered compensation.

The measure, overwhelmingly passed by the Bundestag, offers gay men convicted under the law a lump sum of €3,000 (£2,638) as well as an additional €1,500 for each year they spent in prison.

Article 175 outlawed “sexual acts contrary to nature … be it between people of the male gender or between people and animals”. Sex between women was not explicitly illegal.

Although it dated from 1871, it was rarely enforced until the Nazis came to power, and in 1935 they toughened the law to carry a sentence of 10 years of forced labour.

More than 42,000 men were convicted during the Third Reich and sent to prison or concentration camps.

In 2002, the German government introduced a new law that overturned their convictions, but that move didn’t include those prosecuted after the Second World War.