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The ancient Celts

Among the first historically documented inhabitants of what today is south Germany are the Celts. Of their culture and customs only a few ancient Greek and Roman mentions remain. Due to their extension —in space, and time— it is very possible that Celtic customs varied, which those Greek and Roman stories would not reflect. On the other hand, even the reliability of these accounts, and the link to a protoindoeuropean initiatory function of homosexuality proposed by Sergent, has been questioned.

Aristotle mentions in his book Politics (book 2, chapter 9) that the Celts practiced a form of pederasty similar to the ancient Greeks.

In the 1st century, Diodorus Siculus was scandalized by the Celt's customs:

[...] the men are much keener on their own sex; they lie around on animal skins and enjoy themselves, with a lover on each side. The extraordinary thing is they haven't the smallest regard for their personal dignity and self-respect; they offer themselves to other men without the least compunction. Furthermore, this isn't looked down on, or regarded as in any way disgraceful: on the contrary, if one of them is rejected by another to whom he has offered himself, he takes offence. [...]

— Diodorus Siculus, cited by David F. Greenberg

What was so difficult to understand for Diodorus Siculus was that Celt warriors didn't see being on the receiving end of man to man anal sex as scandalous, something that Roman society considered below the dignity of free men. Diodorus' information came from Posidonius, and was later confirmed by Strabo, and Athenaeus.

Rome

Main article: Homosexuality in ancient Rome

The Death of Orpheus (1494) by Dürer (1471-1528). On the ribbon hanging on the trees Orfeus der erst puseran («Orpheus, the first sodomite») is written. The drawing refers to the end Ovid gives Orpheus in his Metamorphoses, where the thracian maenads clubbed Orpheus to death for having renounced women in favour of catamites.

The east and south borders of what now is Germany, along the Rhine, and south Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, belonged for 300 years to the Roman Empire, they were part of the provinces of Germania Superior, Germania Inferior, and Raetia. In fact, Treveri, present day Trier, was the capital of the Western Roman Empire during the rule of Constantine II, Valentinian I, Gratian, Magnus Maximus, and Valentinian II. As such, these areas benefited of the advantages of the Roman civilization, and were fully part of it's culture.

The Romans brought, among all the other elements of their culture, their sexual morality. In Roman sexuality, the status was more important than the person. So free men could penetrate male slaves, eunuchs, and male prostitutes, just as female slaves, concubines, or female prostitutes. On the other hand, no adult citizen would endanger his reputation having sex with another man of his same status, or would let himself be penetrated by any man, no matter age or status. The biggest difference was between the active sexual partner (sometimes penetrating women, sometimes men), and the passive, viewed as inferior, and feminine. This morality was used against Julius Cesar, whose supposed amorous encounters with the king of Bithynia was the talk of the town in Rome. On the other hand, a form of pederasty, very similar to it's Greek pendant, was common.

Lesbianism was also known, both as feminine women that had sex with adolescent girls —a type of feminine pederasty—, and as tribadism, where masculine women took a masculine role, including fighting, hunting, and pursuing women.

The Germanic tribes

God Odin riding his horse Sleipnir.

There are also ancient Greek and Roman accounts about a type of pederasty among the ancient German tribes, but they are vague and imprecise, and Historians tend to dismiss them as unreliable. Later accounts by christian authors are mostly 200 to 300 years after the fact, they wrote from their religious point of view, where homosexuality was a sin.

Germanic tribes despised passive homosexuality, and they considered passive homosexuals at the same level as women, "imbeciles", and slaves, but they celebrated male camaraderie in war. Homosexuality was linked to the concept of nīþ, what basically meant "malign", "villain", but it could have the connotation of "effeminate", "coward", "weak", "unmanly". The word has lead to two modern German vocables: Neid, "envy", and nieder, "low".

The Icelandic laws, the Grágás, considered calling someone ragan, strodinn, or sordinn —words that define active, and passive homosexual men— punishable. Norvegian laws, the Gulathingslov, included among the insults considered a crime was "let oneself be used lasciviously by another man". The law from Bergen, and the islands also listst among the insults "to be a magician, or have a relationship with another man (kallar ragann)". The same can be said of the Frostathingslov from Norway, the Salic law, the Anglo-Saxon laws, and the law of Jutland.

On the other hand, there are accounts about transvestite, and effeminate priests. David F. Greenberg goes as far as to write in his book The Construction of Homosexuality that Odin gained arcane knowledge drinking semen. There is also the story of Loki, transformed into a mare, is mounted by Svaðilfari, giving birth to Sleipnir, Odin's wonderful eight-legged horse. The fact would become a stain in Loki's reputation.