Germany’s president has asked the LGBT community for forgiveness for decades of suffering and injustice they endured as a result of repressive laws in Germany in the Nazi era and after World War II. Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke Sunday in a ceremony marking the persecution of gays by the Hitler regime. The DPA news agency quoted Steinmeier as saying that the harsh treatment continued in the post-war era, in both parts of a then-divided Germany, where homosexuality for years remained a criminal offense. The president says that “this is why I’m asking for forgiveness today, for all the suffering and injustice, and the silence that followed.”