ABSTRACT
When the first organization for homosexual emancipation began in Germany, its first-and continuing-goal was legal reform, specifically, repeal of § 175 of the penal code, the antisodomy law. But the next change in that law came when it was strengthened by the Nazis in 1935, and this revision remained in the Federal Republic of Germany until 1969, when an “age of consent” (Schutzalter = protected age) was set at 21 (lowered to 18 in 1973). Following unification of the two Germanys, § 175 was repealed in 1994, but was essentially replaced by § 182, which set a sex-neutral age of consent at 16, with even stronger penalties for adults having sex with persons under 16.
