BERLIN — The German defense ministry said Tuesday that it has received 178 applications for compensation from gay servicepeople who experienced discrimination in the military in the past.
A law rehabilitating gay soldiers who suffered discrimination came into force two years ago, and so far, about 400,000 euros has been paid in symbolic compensation, the ministry said.in 2021 after a study commissioned by the defense ministry and presented in 2020 documented “systematic discrimination” in the Bundeswehr — the military of West Germany and since 1990 of reunited Germany — from 1955 until the beginning of the 21st century.
The law also offers compensation for gay soldiers who served in East Germany’s National People’s Army until Germany’s unification in 1990.in the Bundeswehr at the time the study was presented. In the past, soldiers were punished by military courts for consensual gay sex, dismissed, denied promotion or stripped of responsibility.