Germany set to financially compensate more than 50,000 convicted gays

The Federal Republic of Germany is set to compensate over fifty thousand convicted gay men for their sexual orientation under a historic law.
The Western European country has set aside thirty million euros to compensate homosexuals convicted under a historic law for their sexual orientation up to 1960s - reveals German daily "Süddeutsche Zeitung" (SZ) on Saturday.

The compensation would "depend on concrete individual cases," taking sentence duration into consideration - Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Maas of the Social Democrats told the paper.

A draft law set to be formally announced later this month will provide for "relatively uncomplicated" individual claims - Heiko Maas is quoted. It also allows for collective compensation.

Convicted homosexuals would also have their names cleared. 
The Germany justice minister also told "SZ" he expects more than five thousand men to have personal claim.

Homosexuality was made a crime on paragraph 175, which was part of Germany's criminal code from 1871 to 1994.  

Over one hundred and forty thousand men were convicted in total, with around fifty thousand of them having been prosecuted since after the World War II.

The anti-gay code was tightened during the Nazi era, which saw homosexual and bisexual men rounded up in thousands and taken to concentration camps.
Gay men were subsequently arrested and jailed - causing social exclusion, unemployment and lost of homes.