One country, two criminal codes
One country, two criminal codes: after reunification, the anti-gay Paragraph 175 still applied only in the West.
On 3 October 1990, Germany was reunified. For gay men, however, the country was not yet one on that day. In the Unification Treaty, both sides had agreed not to extend Paragraph 175 to the territory of the former GDR. From then on, two different laws applied within the same state.
Behind this lay a paradox. The GDR, hardly known as a haven of freedom, was ahead of the West when it came to criminal law on homosexuality. Consensual acts between adult men had been legal there since 1968. As early as 1987, the GDR's Supreme Court had seen no further need for punishment. At the end of 1988, the People's Chamber also abolished the higher age of consent and replaced it with a uniform youth protection rule.
In the Federal Republic, by contrast, the paragraph remained in force. Sexual contact between men was subject to an age of consent of 18, while a lower one applied to everyone else. And it was enforced. Even in 1990, courts in the West convicted almost a hundred people under it.
Before reunification, there was therefore a danger that the paragraph would return in the East. The Gay Association in the GDR, founded in Leipzig in February 1990, collected signatures against it together with West German activists. Successfully. But what was legal in Leipzig could still land you in court in Cologne.
This could not last. A few weeks after reunification, around 6,000 people demonstrated in Berlin against the paragraph. The new government promised a common rule, but the debate dragged on for years. It was not until March 1994 that the Bundestag voted to repeal it, and the repeal took effect on 11 June. After more than 120 years, the chapter was closed. And it was the East, of all places, that had given the final push.