Were Homosexuals targeted in the holocaust, outside of the 'reich'?

by dontalktomeaboutlife

Most people know that the Nazis aggressively rooted out and murdered Jews and Gypsies wherever they conquered, but what about those other groups targeted in Germany?

As I understand it, groups like Homosexuals or Jehovah's witnesses or others were targeted in Germany (and Austria) because they didn't fit the 'mould' of what the Nazis wanted society to be like. But in conquered countries like France, Denmark or the East, did they impose the same cruelty against those kinds of groups? France wasn't 'Germanic' or part of the Reich, so it would seem silly to waste resources 'purifying' their society by removing people like homosexuals? In short, did the Nazis care about French gays or Belgian Jehovah's witnesses?

estherke

In a word: no. Homosexuals were targeted in Germany because homosexuality was against the law. The nazis tightened that law but they didn't invent it. They did step up the implementation of the law and the sentences handed out to an appaling degree, up to and including the death sentence. Jehova's witnesses were targeted because they refused to swear allegiance to a worldly authority, i.e. the Führer, and they refused to serve in the army. Neither of these was applicable outside of Germany. Homosexuality wasn't against the law in most other European countries in the first place and the Germans didn't care to introduce such laws because their major objection to homosexuals was precisely that they "polluted" the pure German Volk and corrupted its youth, as well as not contributing to the heavily nazi-promoted increase of the German population. As you rightly surmise, they didn't care whether other countries' societies were "polluted" or "corrupted" or not procreating rapidly enough.