The first "I do" at Hanover register office

On 1 August 2001, the Civil Partnership Act came into force in Germany. For the first time, same-sex couples could secure their relationship in law: they received next-of-kin status, shared rights in naming, inheritance and tenancy, mutual maintenance obligations and access to their partner's health and long-term care insurance. Marriage remained closed to them, as did joint adoption.

In Hanover's Old Town Hall, Reinhard Lüschow and Heinz-Friedrich Harre became the first couple in Germany to register their partnership on that Monday morning. A quiet appointment had been planned. Because the then Lord Mayor, Herbert Schmalstieg, wanted to be present and had it brought forward by an hour because of another engagement, the two became the first in the country. When they left the wedding room, the corridor was full of photographers. The two had fought for this moment for ten years: in 1992, together with around 250 couples across the country, they had demonstratively given notice of marriage and, after being turned down, took their case all the way to the Federal Constitutional Court.

Until the very end it was uncertain whether it would happen at all. Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia had challenged the law in Karlsruhe and wanted to stop it coming into force by means of an interim injunction. The Federal Constitutional Court rejected the application on 18 July 2001, two weeks before the date. Three judges issued a dissenting opinion. A year later, on 17 July 2002, the court declared the law constitutional. How registration was carried out differed from state to state, because the states had passed their own implementing laws on responsibility and procedure.

By the time marriage for all was introduced on 1 October 2017, an estimated 53,000 couples in Germany had entered into a registered civil partnership. Lüschow and Harre were also among the first to marry in 2017. Harre died four weeks later.