Germany to compensate 50,000 gay men who were jailed for their sexual orientation

Germany is set to compensate up to 50,000 men convicted under a historic law which was still in effect until the late 1960s. The government will set aside €30m (£27m, $33m) in compensation, depending on individual cases, and taking the length of sentence into consideration.

Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the draft law which will be formally announced later in October will offer "relatively uncomplicated" individual claims, as well as allowing for collective claims.

Maas told German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) that over 5,000 men have a personal claim.

The law, known as Paragraph 175, was part of Germany's criminal code from 1871 to 1994. It made homosexual acts between men a criminal offence. Since the end of World War II, a total of over 140,000 men were convicted, and 50,000 were prosecuted under Paragraph 175.

During the Nazi regime, thousands of gay and bisexual men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. Those who managed to escape the camps were often arrested again, because of Paragraph 175. The persecution continued well after the end of World War II, with men often socially ostracised as well as losing their homes and jobs.

The Nazis revised the German criminal code to include a broad range of sexual behaviour between men illegal. A text of the revised law read: "A male who commits lewd and lascivious acts with another male or permits himself to be so abused for lewd and lascivious acts, shall be punished by imprisonment. In a case of a participant under 21 years of age at the time of the commission of the act, the court may, in especially slight cases, refrain from punishment."

The former East Germany halted the law a year before the West, with the penal code abolished in 1994.

Although convictions during the Nazi period were lifted in 2002, no pardons were issued for those sentenced over the last 70 years. The Green party's spokesperson attacked the unwillingness to offer compensation and apologies as a "monstrous disgrace", according to DW.