Step 1 : Introduction to the question "3. In 1919 the film "Anders als die Andern" ("Different from the Others") was released, enraging many conservatives. What (at that time taboo) subject did it treat sympathetically?"
...1. STDs 2. Homosexuality 3. Drug-taking 4. Schizophrenia Germany was the only country in Europe to have a campaign in the period c. 1918-1933 for the decriminalization of homosexual acts between consenting adults. (This campaign had in fact begun on a small scale around 1898, when the subject was widely considered almost unmentionable). The film, directed by Richard Oswald, is about a homosexual who is blackmailed. The blackmailer is charged, tried and convicted, but in the process the hero's orientation and activities become public, and he commits suicide. However, the film was too much even for the Weimar Republic, and was banned in 1920. In 1931 a film sympathetic to lesbianism, entitled "M�dchen in Uniform" ("Girls in Uniform"), was also released in Berlin and later won awards in Italy and Japan. It was shown in Germany until it was banned by the Nazis.