Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 9, 2004

Paragraph 175 (known formally as §175 StGB) was a provision of the German Criminal Code from May 15, 1871 to March 10, 1994, which made male homosexual sex a crime. The statute was amended numerous times. Nazi Germany greatly exacerbated its severity in 1935. East Germany reverted to the old version of the law in 1950, limited its effect to sex with youths under 18 in 1968, and abolished it entirely in 1988. West Germany retained the Nazi-era statute until 1969, when it was limited to "qualified cases"; it was further attenuated in 1973 and finally revoked entirely after German reunification in 1994. In some of its forms, the law also addressed zoophilia. (more...)

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