Guido Westerwelle, leader of Germany’s Free Democratic Party, is slated to become the country’s first openly gay Vice-Chancellor. The FDP finished second in national elections Sunday, but the party formed a coalition with the winning Christian Democratic Union. The UK Telegraph provides a profile of Westerwelle:

The 47-year old from Bonn will become Germany’s first openly homosexual vice-chancellor and could win more than the normal three cabinet positions traditionally reserved for the junior partner in a coalition government.

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Mr Westerwelle had his official coming-out when he attended Angela Merkel’s 50th birthday party in 2004 with his partner, businessman Michael Mronz, and has said he would like to have a family.

Westerwelle, the first openly gay leader of a major German political party, is often credited with increasing his party’s appeal with younger voters.

Klaus Wowereit, the first openly gay mayor of Berlin, condemned the vandalism of a memorial to the gay and lesbian victims of the Nazis.

Vandals damaged the memorial, which is a concrete slab with a window allowing visitors to see a film of same-sex couples kissing, by smashing the window. The incident happened over the weekend, according to 365 Gay.

“An attack against this memorial is clearly directed against homosexuals – that can be said without waiting for further police investigations,” Wowereit told the Spiegel newspaper. “We must show our condemnation of this act of intolerance and homophobia.”

PinkNews reports:

More than 50,000 gays and lesbians are believed to have been convicted under the Nazis due to their sexuality.

Up to 10,000 of them died in concentration camps.

Many survivors, far from being liberated, were transferred to prisons.

The laws used against gay people in Germany remained in the statute books until 1969.

It was only in 2002 that the German parliament issued a formal pardon for any gay people convicted by the Nazis.