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==== Treatment in the Camps ====
Homosexuals who were sentenced to suffer in a camp received especially harsh treatment from Nazis as well as both the guards and in some cases fellow prisoners. As the pursuit of homosexuals gay men intensified throughout the 1930’s and early 1940’s, most gay men in German society were afraid of contacting one another for fear of arrest and prosecution. This practice was continued inside the concentration camps; therefore, a cohesive and supportive group network was not be formed among gay prisoners as it was within so many other classifications of prisoners. It is arguable that the ensuing feeling of isolation contributed to the early death of homosexuals in concentration camps. Most gay men died within one year of arriving at a camp.<ref>Austin</ref> In Buchenwald they were victims of Dr. Carl Vaernet’s experimentation, which included the implantation of subcutaneous testosterone capsules and castration, and more often than not died as a result.
[[File:buchenwald.jpg|thumbnail|300px|Buchenwald]]
At other camps, such as Dachau, they were worked to death. They were treated in camps as they were in ordinary society, thus had to endure the name calling and scrutiny at a greater level than other prisoners.<ref>Ruediger Lautmann, “Gay prisoners in Concentration Camps as Compared with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Political Prisoners,” Middle Tennessee State University, http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/lautmann.html/ (accessed December 2, 2011).</ref> While homosexuals had to avoid contact with other male prisoners, those incarcerated for criminal behavior or as political enemies engaged freely in homosexual activity on their specific blocks. Although these camps were said to be for the reeducation of homosexuals, the percentage of deaths among gay men was second only to that of Jewish prisoners. Throughout the entire system of concentration and extermination camps, the death rate among homosexuals was an astounding 53%; political prisoners had a death tally of over 40%, while Jehovah’s Witnesses suffered an almost 35% loss in the camps.<ref>Lautmann</ref>
Perhaps the saddest aspect of homosexual persecution under the Nazi regime was that once the camps were liberated by the Allies, many homosexual prisoners had to remain imprisoned. Paragraph 175 was still in effect and these men who thought themselves to be liberated in 1945, remained prisoners in Germany.
==== Conclusion ====
Pro-natalism was a campaign designed to promote reproduction among German people. Paragraph 175 was a law enacted in 1871 and revised in 1935 to include a broader spectrum as to what defined sexual deviancy; any presumed physical intimacy between men was thought to be a criminal offense. Curiously, Paragraph 175 only pertained to German and Austrian males. All females were exempt from the law and those in violation who were not of German ancestry were simply deported from the country. This enhances the argument that the persecution of homosexuals was based solely on the desire of Hitler to repopulate a pure German race. The law did not apply to any country under Nazi occupation during the war; only Germany and Austria were affected as these countries were deemed by Hitler to be the home of a pure Nordic race. Hitler’s actions regarding homosexuals were based on his racist agenda, which he applied to his pro-natalist beliefs.
