<p>An official order incarcerating the accused in the <a href="/narrative/6810">Sachsenhausen</a> concentration camp for the "offence" of <a href="/narrative/4631">homosexuality</a>. Germany, July 1944. </p>
<p>The Nazis posed as moral crusaders who wanted to stamp out what they labeled as the "vice" of homosexuality in order to help Germany win the racial struggle. They <a href="/narrative/45421">persecuted homosexuals</a> as part of their so-called moral crusade to racially and culturally purify Germany. </p>

gay men under the Nazis

The Nazi regime harassed and targeted gay men and lesbians by banning their organizations, shuttering their presses, and raiding and closing their meeting places. For gay men, this harrassment worsened over the course of the 1930s, eventually turning into brutal persecution. Beginning in 1935, the Nazi regime used a revised version of Paragraph 175 to arrest large numbers of men accused of having sexual relations with other men. Some of these men were sent to concentration camps as “homosexual” (“homosexuell”) offenders. The Nazi regime’s actions effectively destroyed the networks and communities that gay men and lesbians had established before the Nazis came to power. 

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