By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor.
A long-overdue measure to compensate persons convicted of violating Germany’s 19th century anti-homosexuality law–since repealed–is to finally arrive. The German government set aside a reported thirty-million euros to be distributed among potentially an estimated fifty-thousand men convicted of homosexuality. The award stems for convictions spanning seventy years since the destruction of the Nazi Government.
The controversial law known as Paragraph 175, codified in 1871 until its repeal in 1994, had not reportedly been enforced since 1968 in East Germany and a year later in the West. Still, during such time over 140,000 men were convicted of violating anti-homosexuality statutes. During the Nazi-era the prohibition extended into outright state sponsored depravity when the Third Reich sent thousands to concentration camps to face hardship and execution.
Though those convicted and somehow surviving the nineteen thirties and forties were pardoned in 2002, disappointingly the pardons were not extended to those since despite the law not being currently enforced.
The repealing statute offers a straight-forward pardoning petition process and amounts commensurate with length of incarcerations. The government anticipates an initial five-thousand claimants.
While the compensation certainly is welcome in nearly all respects, it serves as yet another example of a necessary trait of those disparaged by government seeking redress is too often longevity.
By Darren Smith
Source: Deutsche Welle
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Frankly, I don’t see why they bother. They could pay every single person on earth a million dollars and take in the entire population of Africa and the world would still call them Nazis.
FWIW, I just got a copy of Swan Song. But it is like 9 or 10 books down the list right now because I have been buying a ton of books lately.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
This is a double edged sword, but some crimes against humanity such as slavery and what the Germans and Japanese did can never be equated monetarily. It speaks to how low humans can become as well as lets them off the hook. Some people are so disgusting that no punishment is possible. The leadership of the modern Germany and Japan was primarily made up of the creatures that were disgusting beyond belief, the ones that didn’t get caught. The history must remain stronger than the practicality.
Ich mochter ein doble zimmer fur ein nach. Ach. Nein. Single zimmer.
There is a larger context here. Because there isn’t a philosophical consistency for reparations like this, we now see, rightly, the contesting of whether the state can tell a human what to do with his body with another consenting adult; YET, the state of Germany can still jail those who SPEAK what the state says is “hate speech.” This includes questioning how many “migrants” Germany should import, and whether that influx of “refugees” will help or hurt Germany and much more.
So, I guess if Germany is beginning to become “enlightened,” it should start saving money now to compensate for those accused and jailed for “hate speech”; vilified now but lauded in the coming years.
This reminds me. Could we please do an audit of our laws and repeal any anachronistic laws of our own? It’s my understanding that there are still laws governing the, ahem, positions legally allowed between married folk, for example. Of course it’s not enforced.
Good reminder for a spring cleaning.
I would have thought everyone was out of jail by now.
Come again? Small adjustments in penal codes are not all that unusual. Where is the precedent for indemnifying those duly convicted of such offenses? I don’t think Conrad Black’s getting an indemnity, even though an appellate court ruled that he was convicted under an impermissible application of a federal statute.
You might have noticed that there were a mean of 1,400 – odd convictions per annum during the 98 years the law was in effect. Given that the male population of Germany averaged around 32,000,000 during those years, one might wager that there were a mean of 900,000 or so men of an age and disposition to do any cruising. Your risk of a conviction over a fifty year period would be just north of 7%. A precis of the text of Paragraph 175 is here
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Nazi_deviancy_laws.html
Curiously, the provision itself does not prescribe any penalties for (private) consensual sodomy, nor refer to any schedule of penalties. The only reference to a penalty (‘penal servitude up to 10 years) refer to crimes analogous to forcible rape, extortion, and statutory rape.
This business is indicative of the degree to which male homosexuals are now icons for the elites and the professional class alike.
$30,000,000.00/50,000 potential claimants = $600.00/claimant. Wow. This reflects impressive remorse and restitution. I’m sure the victims and their estates will feel fully-compensated in some small – extremely small – way.
Maybe it should be $600 in 1870, plus interest.
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
Stretching the process out until claimants die is a long standing tactic of governments – witness the Japanese and the “Comfort Women”, the Swiss banks and the Jews, etc.
“Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Agreed, you have to wonder about all the eighty year olds that go on trial for war crimes after they have finished their careers, raised their families, lived their lives to the fullest, and acquired the argument of innocence through attrition. In Germany and Japan doctors that experimented on children during the war, killed them when through, went on to practice medicine in civilian life and live their lives with their deeds. Germany and Japan, though, will never be in the position to do that again; makes you wonder if there is a method to this madness.
My God, that’s awful.
When we were in Europe in the 1970s, a French woman had a panic attack when she tried to wait on some Germans. While talking with us afterward, she said that all she could do was try not to teach her fear to her children. (My Dad didn’t mention he was half German.)
I think time has distanced us from the horrors of WWII and the concentration camps. It’s an abstract.
For me, slavery was an abstract horror. Could never understand how it even happened. But then I visited Rose Hall in Jamaica, and saw this underground hole she would stuff her slaves in. Saw the slavery displays at the Smithsonian, with recreations of slave decks. It’s enough to make your heart pound at what people really went through.
It’s so important, but so difficult, to never forget.