Library:In the Spirit of Stonewall/The struggle for gay rights in Germany

The Struggle for Gay Rights in Germany

December 17, 1976

In recent years gay women and men here, tired of years of oppression, have joined together to demand the rights that they have so long been denied. With pride and determination the gay movement has pointed out that people should have the right to choose who they wish to love, free from state or church interference. Gay people have stood firm and demonstrated against police and right-wing brutality against the gay community. They have fought discrimination in housing and on the job based on their homosexual preference. Yet, despite this movement, interference in the live of gay people, to the point of persecution and oppression, continues to be the norm rather than the exception here for homosexually orientated people. Some recent developments internationally, however, give grounds for real optimism that gay oppression can be ended.

Jim Steakley is a Canadian gay activist and author of The Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Germany, a book containing important information on the homosexual rights movement that existed in Germany previous to the Nazi period. Steakley recently returned from a seven-month stay in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany-GDR) and has presented his observations and research on the status of gay people in the GDR both at a public meeting in New York City and in an article entitled "Gays Under Socialism" in December 1976 issue of Body Politic, a gay newspaper based in Toronto

Homosexuality Not Illegal in GDR

In the first place, Steakley points out, homosexual acts are not illegal in the GDR. "Overall, the de-Nazification program carried out in the Soviet-occupied Zone was far more aggressive and thorough than those in the Western zones," he says. "The immediate benefit for gay people came with the repeal of Paragraph 175a, the Nazi law which led to the arrest and imprisonment of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of homosexuals. This law was struck down by the Superior State Court of Halle in 1948. By contrast, it remained in effect West Germany until 1969."

Although the pre-Nazi anti-homosexual law, Paragraph 175, was not eliminated until 1968 in the GDR (it has never been eliminated in West Germany!), it ceased to be enforced after 1957, "...except in cases involving assault, coercion, or minors," Steakley explains. Furthermore, "A number court decisions handed down during these years reveal that the government was actually inclined to dismiss cases involving minors if the defendant could demonstrate that he was having a beneficial and educative influence upon the younger male." According to Steakley, homosexuals have even been granted the right of adoption in some cases of gay orphans and gay wayward minors.

Of the period 1949 to 1961 Steakley observes, "West Germany was scarcely a haven for homosexuals during these years... the federal government was adamantly opposed to law reform which might improve the situation of gay people and local authorities were extremely intolerant of the gay subculture. Police entrapment and raids on bars and baths, unheard of in the GDR, were common in the West." Commenting on the current situation, Steakley suggests that gay relationships in the GDR tend to be more stable than in the West, and he cites the fact that one-third of all East Germans who move to the West return to the GDR within one year. With regard to gay people, it seems clear that GDR gays are totally unprepared for the intense sexual exploitation and general dog-eat-dog struggle for survival in the capitalist West.

Commenting on the housing situation in the GDR, Steakley notes that single people, gay and straight, are seldom able to obtain more than a studio apartment due to the serious housing shortage. He adds, however, that the government has an on-going high-priority construction program which gives every indication of being able to remedy the housing problem soon. Also, there is a law in the GDR which makes it illegal for rent to exceend ten percent of a person's income. "In the area of employment, homosexuals are occasionally fired by a homophobic superior." Steakley reports. "But gays have successfully argued their cases in special GDR workers' courts and had their jobs restored with back pay. In a country with the right to work and a serious labor shortage job performance has become the sole criterion for hiring and firing."

Within the GDR Socialist Unity (Communist) Party, "... the degree of tolerance [of gay comrades] varied from one cadre to the next. Gays in the cultural sector, for example, have brought their lovers to social functions without any repercussions, while factory workers are more reluctant to so indicate their homosexuality. Party members who are involved in the gay liberation movement... have experienced no difficulties with their cadres." Steakley notes that the gay movement in the GDR is made up largely of workers and professional people rather than students and that there is a strong likelihood that in the near future the government will officially recognize the movement, opening the door to government funding and access to substantial facilities and media resources.

Bolshevik Party Supported Gay Right

Certainly the treatment of gay people in the socialist countries is very much on the minds of progressive gays in the capitalist world. It is still far from being common knowledge that the Bolshevik Party in the early years of the revolution took positive action in support of gay rights and that the German Communist Party previous to the Nazi takeover provided aid and political support to the early gay rights movement in Germany. But that heritage is today being rediscovered and enriched by a growing number of working class parties in various countries.

Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia have all eliminated the sodomy laws which most western capitalist nations use to persecute and intimidate gay people. In what hopefully signals a positive turn in policy, reports from Cuba indicated that workers' courts there are making rulings similar to those of the GDR on the issue of job rights for gays. And workers' parties in a number of capitalist countries have begun to seriously reevaluate their previous anti-gay positions. These developments are, of course, only initial steps. It will take substantial efforts on the part of all the world revolutionary forces to finally and completely eradicate the centuries-old heritage of prejudice against and persecution of homosexually-inclined people. But the first step is being taken. And the overthrow of world imperialism, led by the billionaire class of the U.S., will remove the principal source and the only beneficiary of gay oppression, as well as racism, male chauvinism, national chauvinism, and all the other age-old prejudices of class society.