This is a list of events in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQ+) history in Germany.
Ancient
98 – Germanic tribes executing homosexuals and sinking them into swamps are reported by Tacitus. The remains of such corpses have been found in Denmark and Northern Germany. Some were strangled to death before being drowned, while others were drowned alive. ca. 500 – As the Germanic tribes living south of Scandinavia convert to Christianity, their views are confirmed by the Roman Catholic condemnation of homosexuality. However, rather than adopting church- inspired edicts, they maintain their own legal practices.
Medieval and early modern periods
ca. 800 – Several laws against homosexual acts are put into effect in the Holy Roman Empire by the Frankish king Charlemagne. His son and successor Louis the Pious is especially homophobic, blaming Noah's flood on homosexuals and endorsing St. Paul's call for the death penalty. 1007 – The Decretum of Burchard of Worms equates homosexual acts with other sexual transgressions such as adultery and argues, therefore, that it should have the same penance (generally fasting).
1328 – The German Law Book for Town and Country calls for burning at the stake of all lesbians and gay men within the towns and cities of the Holy Roman Empire. In practice though, milder sentences are sometimes carried out, especially for aristocrats: rapid execution (decapitation by sword) followed by burning. In most cases, all documents concerning the trial are also burned to expunge every trace of the deed, whose very mention is labeled sinful. Sodomy, a word not to be uttered among Christian folk, is linked with heresy. 1493 – Hartmann Schedel illustrates Sodom and Gomorrah in Nuremberg Chronicle. The Book of Genesis 18 and 19 describes the destruction of Sodom as punishment for homosexuality. 1532 – The Holy Roman Empire makes sodomy punishable by death.
17th century
1615 – Peter Paul Rubens paints The Flight of Lot and his Family from Sodom. 1620 – Brandenburg-Prussia criminalizes sodomy, making it punishable by death.
18th century
1721 – Catharina Margaretha Linck is the last woman executed for female sodomy in what is Germany today. 1746 – Frederick the Great of the Kingdom of Prussia suspends use of the death penalty for sodomy. 1794 – The Kingdom of Prussia officially abolishes the death penalty for sodomy. Long prison sentences with hard labour replace death as the punishment for homosexuality.
19th century
1852 – Johann Ludwig Casper writes an article about homosexuality, known as Über Nothzucht und Päderastie und deren Ermittlung Seitens des Gerichtsarztes. 1854 – Wilhelm Gollmann writes about homosexuality in the Homeopathic Guide to all Diseases Urinary and Sexual Organs. 1859 – Arthur Schopenhauer briefly writes about homosexuality in the chapter on the Metaphysics of Love in his third edition of The World as Will and Representation. 1864 – Lawyer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs confesses, under the pseudonym Numa Numantius, his secret homosexual inclinations in his first two books in the 12 book series entitled Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (Researches on the Riddle of Male-Male Love). He proposes a concept of third gender identity through the term urning. 1864 – Johann Ludwig Casper dedicated his third chapter to homosexuality in the first part of the Special Divisions section in the third edition (third volume) of A Handbook of the Practice of Forensic Medicine. 1867 – On August 29, 1867, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs became the first self-proclaimed homosexual to speak out publicly for homosexual rights, when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of anti-homosexual laws. 1869 – The term "homosexuality" appears in print for the first time in a German-Hungarian pamphlet written by Karl-Maria Kertbeny (1824–1882). 1870 – Friedrich Christian Oppenhoff mentions Paragraph 175 in Das Strafgesetzbuch für den Norddeutschen Bund. 1871 – Homosexuality is criminalized throughout the German Empire by Paragraph 175 of the Reich Criminal Code. Homosexuality was already a criminal offence in all territories of Germany, but it was regulated by the state authorities separately. 1896 – The first worldwide gay magazine, Der Eigene, is founded in Berlin by Adolf Brand. 1897 – Founding of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee. The first gay rights movement in history.