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Prominent National Socialist lawyer Hans Frank warned the German people in 1935 that the “epidemic of homosexuality was threatening the new Reich.” <ref>Richard Plant, ''The Pink Triangle'' (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1986), 26.</ref> Expanding on Frank's premise, Heinrich Himmler made a speech to SS commanders on February 18, 1937 noting that the two million men lost during the Great War and the reported two million homosexual German men had detrimental effects on German society. Himmler concluded that since four million men were no longer procreating homosexuality was to become a state matter. He pronounced that “All things which take place in the sexual sphere are not the private affair of the individual, but signify the life and death of the nation.”<ref>Ben S. Austin, “Homosexuals and the Holocaust,” Middle Tennessee State University, http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/homobg.html (accessed December 2, 2011).</ref> With such a pronouncement, the SS and local police departments intensified their search for those members of society who they deemed detrimental to the regeneration of the Aryan family. The Reich believed producing pure German offspring was the key to the future success of Germany.
[[File:crossof honor.jpg|thumbnail|300px|Cross of Honour of the German Mother]]
On June 4, 1933, less than six months after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, the program of “Matrimonial Credits” was introduced. Under this program, parents received 125 marks per child produced.<ref>Plant, 210.</ref> The Reich's propaganda focused on depicting reproduction as a national duty and honored women who produced numerous offspring. If a woman produced either nine total children or seven male offspring she received the Cross of Honour of the German Mother; the highest possible honor bestowed upon Nazi women. Pure German women who produced superior children were revered in Nazi society, yet those who were likely to produce “inferior” children became victims of the sterilization program and later Aktion T4; the state sanctioned murdering of those deemed unfit to reproduce.
In the early and mid-1930’s, several laws were enacted to insure the preservation of pure and superior Aryan blood to provide for the future of the nation. In 1934, the Marriage Law was enacted which required couples to provide proof that their potential offspring were immune from any disabling diseases through heredity. The National Socialists were so concerned with the threat of a racially inferior German society, they rounded up and sterilized gypsies and homosexuals under the heading of "deviant asocials.". Ironically, a decade prior to this program, homosexuals enjoyed an open and vibrant life in Berlin, which was arguably the most gay-friendly city in the world at the time.
==== Gay Life in Germany ====
