Alan Turing and German Gays

Alan Turing was a national hero.  He is widely regarded as the father of computer science and was behind the breaking of the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park. His genius allowed critical knowledge of German military movements.  It is no exaggeration to say that he was behind one of Britain's most critical contributions to the Allied and Soviet victories over the Nazis.

Turing happened to be gay.  He was 40 and was in a relationship with a 19 year old when he was arrested in 1952 and charged with the same Victorian offence that Oscar Wilde and an estimated 75,000 other gay men were, before consenting sex between male adults (at the time over 21 years old) was finally allowed in England and Wales in 1967.  Turing was chemically castrated and died in unclear circumstances aged 41.

Alan Turing as a young man

 Problems with a Pardon

This post was prompted by David Allen Green's piece at New Statesman on Turing and the issues around his suggested pardon.  I found it both powerful and actually extremely moving.  I really recommend you give it a read.

As the piece points out, Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an official apology on behalf of our country for the way that Turing was treated, back in 2009.  Pressure has been increased recently, however, for a pardon.  There are problems with this.  A pardon stems from the ancient Royal Prerogative of Mercy.  It is in effect the Monarch using their power to forgive a person who has committed and been convicted of a crime.  The person has still technically breached the law and is guilty; only morally are they are considered innocent.  The law has been correctly applied (as opposed to a misapplication of justice, where it has not).  The conviction still stands on their criminal record.

As David Allen Green points out, such an act is legally and practically useless.  Turing is long since dead, it cannot affect his serving of any sentence, and this is therefore only of symbolic value.  Gordon Brown's apology was enough if all we wanted was a symbolic act.  The chief executive of Stonewall has described the exercise as "pointless".  Others would say the symbolism is in fact worse than useless, but wrong, given the State is reasserting that a crime was committed.

Turing's German Contemporaries

Now let's consider for a moment the fate of gay contemporaries of Turing in Nazi Germany.  Gay sex had been permitted in some German States (such as Bavaria) prior to German Unification in 1871.  Paragraph 175 of the unified German Criminal Code made it an offence throughout the country.  The Social Democrats attempted to repeal "this disgraceful paragraph" as early as the 1890s.  It looked likely to be abolished in the early 1930s and was actual put on a "reform package" before the Reichstag, but in 1933 the Nazis took power.

The Nazis extended the law to cover homosexual thoughts (i.e. orientation) rather than just acts.  After discharge from criminal prisons, many gay men were moved directly to the concentration (as opposed to death) camps.  Here they formed one of the lowest tiers in the prisoner hierarchy, marked out by pink triangles on their uniforms.  Up to 15,000 died of maltreatment, starvation, illness or simple murder.  Unlike Jews or Gypsies they were not subjected to factory type genocide, and the numbers involved were much smaller than the other groups (estimated at 6,000,000 and 1,000,000 respectively).

Nonetheless the individual suffering, based on sexual orientation, was horrendous.  Death rates ran at around 60%.  Those who did survive left to find scant pity or understanding for them.  They were considered sexual criminals rather than victims and some (released by the Allies) were sent back to ordinary prisons to fulfill their prison sentences.  German courts continued to prosecute gay men under paragraph 175 until 1969 (two years later than England/Wales legalised gay sex).  Around 140,000 men in total were convicted under paragraph 175 over the period 1871-1969.

Dachau Monument to Gay Victims of the Nazis

German Rehabilitation 

In 2002 Social Democrat, Green and Far Left members of the German Bundestag succeeded in extending a law called the NS-Aufhebungsgesetz to men convicted under paragraph 175.  This was in the face of votes to the contrary from the conservative CDU/CSU parties and the liberal FDP.   There was a mixed reaction from the LGBT community: whilst the measure was welcomed as far as it went, it did not affect those convicted between 1945 and 1969 under paragraph 175: the very same provision the Nazis had used against gay men.  Their convictions remain unaffected to this day.

The interesting thing here is that most articles on the 2002 law refer to a "pardon" of the victims. A quick look at the German statute reveals that this is legally incorrect. The Act extends to gay criminal offences another Statute of 1998 (apologies that the links are in German).  That Act abolishes the decisions of Nazi courts of "justice" between 1933 and 1945 which were based on political, military, race, religious or philosophical reasons.  This is not a pardon: it is saying the offence never happened and the conviction had no legal basis.  The slate is wiped clean and no criminal record remains.

Back to the Turing Pardon

So, we return to Alan Turing.  David Allen Green's suggestion is a mechanism based on the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, introduced under the Coalition.  Under this men who engaged in consensual gay sex which would no longer constitute an offence, can apply to have their criminal records removed.   The suggestion is that this could be applied to deceased victims of the law that convicted Turing. 

It goes much further than a pardon one, both legally and morally.  It acknowledges that the law was wrong before 1967 and grave wrongs were done.  In effect it would place Turing (and not just him, but all of the other 75,000 victims of this law) in the same position as German gay men convicted under the Nazis.  There is a beautiful and befitting symmetry in this.  The gay German victims of the Nazis who benefited from the law of 2002 would not have done so without Turing's work and Allied victory.  It is right, and it is just for our government to take this step now.