Bruns in 1986

Manfred Bruns (1934 - 22 October 2019[1]) was a federal prosecutor at the Federal Court of Justice of Germany, and a famous German gay civil rights activist. He was until 2016 a member of the Board of Directors of the Lesbian and Gay Association (LSVD).[2][3]

Early life and career

Bruns was born in 1934, in Linz am Rhein in Rhineland-Palatinate, and was brought up in a conservative Catholic household.[4] For years he concealed the possibility he might be gay.[4] In 1961, he got married and had three children.[4] Bruns worked as a prosecutor at West Germany's Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe.[4] He came out to his family in the early 1980s, and then to his work[5] He never initiated divorce proceedings with his wife.[4]

In 1985, he came out on live TV when he appeared on a TV show to talk about the subject of homosexuality.[4] The show's host inquired about his relationship with his wife, making an implication there was a "special arrangement" with her.[4] After he came out on the show, it was a turning point that helped to define Germany's political gay and lesbian movement.[4]

From then on, Bruns was determined to eliminate "paragraph 175", that was defined by law as "unnatural sexual offenses" between two men.[5] Together with Volker Beck and Günter Dworek, they worked to eradicate the so called gay paragraph, which could imprison men to a possible sentence of six months in prison.[5] The arcane law was established in 1871, under the German command.[5] When the Nazis were in power, paragraph 175 was strictly enforced.[4] On July 11, 1994, the paragraph was finally struck down.[4]

In 1994 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class, and in 2002, he received the Magnus Hirschfeld Medal.[6][5]

References

  1. ↑ "Trauer um Manfred Bruns". queer.de. October 22, 2019.
  2. ↑ "Same-Sex Partners Win Legal Status in Germany". New York Times. August 2, 2001.
  3. ↑ "Same-sex couples win rights". Workers World. August 9, 2001. Archived from the original on July 21, 2018. Retrieved September 22, 2007.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Pieper, Oliver; Goebel, Nicole (11 June 2019). "Germany's 'gay' Paragraph 175 abolished 25 years ago". Deutsche Welle.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Feddersen, Jan (24 October 2019). "Manfred Bruns war ein "Sicherheitsrisiko" und ein Kämpfer gegen den § 175: nachruf" [Manfred Bruns was a "security risk" and a fighter against § 175: obituary]. Die Tageszeitung (in German). Berlin, Germany. p. 2. ProQuest 2307762823 – via ProQuest.
  6. ↑ "German Society for Social Scientific Sexuality Research (DGSS)". www.sexologie.org.
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