By GEIR MOULSON

Germany’s defense minister is apologizing for decades of discrimination against gay servicepeople in the military until a change of policy in 2000.

A study commissioned by the defense ministry and being presented Thursday documented “systematic discrimination” in the Bundeswehr — the military of West Germany and since 1990 of reunited Germany — from 1955 until the beginning of the new millennium.

“I very much regret the practice of discrimination against homosexuals in the Bundeswehr, which stood for the policy of that time,” Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said in a statement. “I apologize to those who suffered because of it.”

Kramp-Karrenbauer said she wants to advance legislation to rehabilitate those affected.

The study said that “same-sex orientation was viewed as a security risk in the Bundeswehr until the turn of the millennium and made a career as an officer or noncommissioned officer impossible.” Read more via AP