postcard from 1903.
©Sammlung Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
During the Weimar Republic, the first floor of the corner building housed a pub that was used by
homosexuals as a meeting place. In Weimar, there was a local branch of the League for Human Rights (BfM), which was founded in 1922 and represented the interests of 48,000 gay and lesbian members across the country. After the National Socialists came to power, the association was banned and the relevant clubs were closed or monitored. Section 175 of the Reich Criminal Code, which criminalized "fornication between men", was significantly tightened in 1935. In 1936 and 1937, numerous trials against homosexuals from Thuringia took place at the Weimar district court. For example, a 24-year-old from Weimar, who had previously been a member of the BfM, was sentenced to nine months in prison for a "regular love affair" with men. The public prosecutor responsible, Hanns Georg Desczyk, described homosexuality as a "great danger to the people and the state" and demanded that this "racial degeneracy" be "fought in the most merciless way". During the Nazi era, male homosexuality could be punished with up to ten years in prison. Men persecuted as homosexuals were also threatened with imprisonment in a concentration camp.