You are correct in assuming that decriminalizing homosexuality does not automatically translate into societal tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality as a choice. The German Democratic Republic was well ahead of its western counterpart in abolishing section 175 of the Strafgesetzbuch (the German criminal code which both German states inherited from the Reich) in 1968 which prohibited homosexual actions between adults. (Institutional discrimination remained however on a smaller scale as the age of consent differed.) In the Federal Republic of Germany section 175 remained theoretically in effect until it was dropped completely in 1994.

However, open homosexuality was far from welcome in the GDR. Homosexual subculture was deemed as "bourgeois" and "soft", not fit for the "new man" of socialism. East German sexology and psychology continued to view homosexuality as an abnormity, an undesirable condition of the mind which could be healed with the right therapy. This view was mirrored in law in such a way that the age of consent for homosexual acts was higher (18 years) than for heterosexual acts (16), implying a danger for youth posed particularly by homosexuals.

Homosexual activists were closely monitored by the Staatssicherheit (the East German interior and exterior intelligence agency), preventing open acts of "subversion", but they were never openly persecuted for homosexual acts alone. The Stasi kept tabs on any kind of group formation, activism or lobbyism, anticipating dangers for the East German state, so its actions do not come as a surprise. Durian Haseluff, homosexual activist in Potsdam, said that being a homosexual in the GDR did not pose any particular problem (that was not faced by heterosexual subjects of the East German despotism too) if you were not involved in politics.