1938–1945: Persecution of People for Homosexual Acts

The prosecution of homosexuality was not a specific feature of the Nazi period in Austria. Paragraph 129 of the Austrian Penal Code [Ib StG], introduced in 1852, criminalised – until the 1971 small criminal law reform – sexual contact between men as well as between women as a “sexual offense against nature”. After the so-called “Anschluss” (“annexation”) of Austria to Nazi Germany in 1938, the paragraph and thus the criminalisation of female homosexuality remained intact, although the corresponding paragraph in the penal code of the “German Reich” (§ 175 RStGB) exclusively punished male homosexuality. With the Nazi assumption of power, surveillance, repression and persecution also drastically increased in the Austrian territory: The Gestapo and the criminal police in particular attacked gay men for whom a separate prisoner category – the pink triangle – was introduced in concentration camps. This prisoner group had little chance of survival.

In the postwar period, Austria did not recognise gay people as a Nazi victim group for decades. In 1995, as part of the National Fund Law they finally received financial reparation of approx. 5,000 Euros and only in 2005 were they included as a victim group in the Victims Compensation Act.