Penalization of the homosexuality between men in the Nazi Germany was primarily based on the article 175 of the German Criminal Code introduced in 1871 and stating that 'Sexual acts contrary to nature between men or between people and animals is punished with a jail time, additionally, a verdict may also include loss of honorable status'. This issue was a more or less a legal status quo in many western countries that kept similar or even severe provisions against homosexuality. The ardent opposition to the idea of homosexuality treated as a threat to the nation itself is, however, quite evident in the politics of NSDAP since the 1920s, what goes well beyond the will to uphold the existing law inherited from German Empire.

One of the homosexual organizations issued an open letter to all the political parties prior to the parliamentary elections in 1928, where it asked about the stance towards the penalization of homosexuality in Germany. Representatives of NSDAP replied with the following: 'Common needs before individual ones! It is not important whether you or I live. What matters is the life of the German nation. And only one who fight can live, because to live is to fight. And fighting is something what only mature people are capable of. Maturity, in turn, means propriety, especially in love. Free love and lack of restraint is a vice, so we reject it, as we reject anything what is harmful to our Nation. Anyone who supports the love between two men or women is our enemy. We reject anything that can turn our nation into the toy in the hands of our foes, because we know that life is a fight and it is insane to think that people will be friends just like that. History of nature tells us that might gives right. And the stronger will always succeed when confronted with someone weaker. Today we are those weaker, but soon we will be strong ones. But this can happen only when we will be able to multiply. This is why we do reject all unbridled passions, and especially love between men that deprives us from the last opportunity of shaking down the chains that has been put upon our nation.'

In general, homosexuality was not treated as a disease or contagion in the strict medical sense, but rather as a psychological anomaly that could have been elicited through 'seduction', largely understood as an exposure to homosexual behaviours and later strengthened by the active participation in the latter.

For example, Heinrich Himmler treated homosexuality as a psychological condition, stating in an 1937 address to the SS-Grüpenführers in Bad Tölz that "If you find a man of such [homosexual] tendencies holding any influential office, then, in any country, you will also surely find three, four, eight, ten or more men sharing the same tendencies. This is because one such a man drags others like him in, kicking out few normal ones who were working there. Thus, normal people are being downtrodden, and whatever they do, they will be destroyed."

Thus, in this particular speech, Himmler did not meant that homosexuality to be a contagious disease in the literal sense, but presented an application of the 'birds of the feather' mechanism, implying that homosexuals holding any station, governmental or not, tend to surround themselves with other homosexuals regardless of their competency, what he considered a threat to the functioning of any organization. He also follows with the following characterization: 'Homosexual is an ultimate mentally sick person. He is weak and when faced with serious problem, he will always turn up a coward. I believe that such people can show appropriate hardiness during a war, but when it comes to the civil courage, they are the most cowardly lot in the whole world [...] It is caused by the fact, that homosexuals are compulsive liars, and they do not lie to achieve some clandestine goals [...] homosexual lies and completely believes in what he says' [please note that the latter is similar to the sentiment Hitler held towards social democrats in the early chapters of 'Mein Kampf].

With the rise of the NSDAP as the prominent political power, the stance towards homosexuality radicalized. If in 1920s Berlin was a common place of emmigration for the homosexual from the western Europe due to relatively lenient treatment of homosexuality largely considered harmless, the rise of totalitarian rhetoric change this state of affair. In the one of the 1930 issues of the 'Volkischer Beobachter', official newspaper of the NSDAP we can read that '[...] homosexualism crystallizes all the hideous instincts of the Jewish nature, the law should recognize it for what it is, i.e. an abominable deviation and most serious crime that needs to be punished with all the severity, by gallows or exile'. In one of his speeches from early 1930s, Himmler stated that the sexuality should not be a private issue, and 'Although homosexuals often claim that no one is interested in what they do with their private lives. But anything related to sexual behaviours is not a private issue, but rather a matter or life and death for any Nation as they determine whether it will form an Empire or fall into subservience'. This was mirrored by e.g. guidelines for the police officers in Kassel published in 1937 we can find the passage stating that the 'Homosexuals are enemies of the state and should be treated as such'.

Josef Meisinger, director of Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung der Homosexualität und der Abtreibung (State Center for Elimination of Homosexuality and Abortion) that has been formed on 10th of October 1936 under the auspices of Gestapo stated that although homosexuality possibly originated in Asia and 'expanded' through Ancient Greece and Rome to the Germanic territory, it is a 'phenomenon' rather than a strictly medical condition and also supported theory that it is a psychological condition that can be developed only through the seduction by another homosexual and potentially remains under the conscious control of a healthy person. This was reflected in judicial practice. In general, court verdicts were based on the assumption that homosexuality is not a congenital trait and can only develop due to seduction and subsequent practice, while at the same time being possible to be completely suppressed by sheer will, especially in the case of well-educated people. Verdicts were sometimes stating explicitly, that the homosexual tendencies could not have been treated as extenuating circumstances, as they could have been suppressed by anyone who knew that they are unnatural and their expression in sexual acts were a crime, essentially treating all homosexual acts as premeditated criminal activity.

It is also true that non-Germans were treated with much more leniency that the Germans, what was largely caused by the origin and character of the anti-homosexual stance of the German government. Lawmakers and other officials were largely focusing on the idea that the German regulations should benefit German society and be a tool to the development of the latter. While homosexuality and abortion among Germans were considered a direct threat to the nation (on assumption that homosexuals do not produce offspring, may seduce others and are generally not only are asocial but also actively propagate and popularize asocial behaviours), legal measures need not to be used in all their severity when applied to people who are not members of the German nation. This is reflected in the corollary of the German Ministry of Justice, issued on 22nd of January 1941 to the attorneys general and containing guidelines of the legal actions concerning Poles in the occupied territories and Germany stated that homosexual acts or cases of abortion among Poles do not need be treated harshly, as they are not detrimental to German nation, pointing out that it does not include people whose action might involve Germans, such as male prostitutes or people performing abortions professionally.