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Notes To Reviewer

I am editing the existing article on the Persecution of Homosexuals in Nazi Germany, a start-class/C-class article.

The first section of new content created includes paragraphs of original topics I've put into the appropriate section of the original article. The additions made to existing sentences/content section includes all the edits I made that built upon sentences or ideas that were already present. I often added supporting information, more primary sources, or additional detail when I thought it was appropriate with these edits. The original sentence is stated with what I subsequently added in under the edited section. Lastly, I included all the sources that I've used thus far in this new content with my works cited.

I would like feedback on other areas of the article that could benefit from more primary sources and pictures. Additionally, I am open to hearing about additional sections that I could create on the original article.

New Content Created

New content for lead paragraph on silence=death use of pink triangle:

Several movements like the Silence=death project have reclaimed the pink triangle symbol in support of gay rights, AIDS awareness, and related issues.

New content for lead paragraph on police interrogations:

Police compiled list of suspected homosexuals after torturing and compelling gay men to identify others homosexuals.

New content for lead paragraph on actions during crackdown:

Gay clubs were shut down as homosexual men were no longer permitted to openly socialize with one another. Gay men who were not sent to camps emigrated to safety, withdrew from homosexual practices, or engaged in heterosexual relationships to cover their identities.

New content for lead paragraph regarding memorials:

Several memories around the world, including the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism in Berlin, commemorate the homosexual victims in Nazi Germany.

New content on Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim:

Under the Nazi's new paragraph 175, 230 men were arrested in Luebeck in Janurary 1937. Noted German Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim was among those arrested. He served 10 months in prison, was later rearrested in 1938 and released upon the condition that he be castrated. During his imprisonment Groszheim, like many other gay men, was subject to torture and abuse as he stated that he was "beat[en] to a pulp" as his "whole back (was) bloody." Prisoners were "beaten until [they] finally named names." Groszheim's badge in prison was labeled with the letter A which stood for Arschficker ("arse-fucker").

New content on Civil Rights Movement section with added information on HIV/AIDS crisis:

A Silence=Death poster, 1987

The pink triangle symbol worn by homosexual concentration camp prisoners was notably reclaimed by the gay community during the United States HIV/AIDS crisis through the Silence=Death Project which featured the pink triangle on a back background. The poster was created by the Gran Fury, a six person collective in New York City. The collective, which included Avram Finkelstein, aimed to use the power of art to bring awareness to and end the AIDS epidemic. The ACT UP organization used this image as a central component to their awareness campaign during the AIDS epidemic. Finkelstein described how the collective "initially rejected the pink triangle because of its links to the Nazi concentration camps" but ultimately "returned to it for the same reason, inverting the triangle as a gesture of a disavowal of victimhood." Even today, this symbol has continued to be used by the gay rights movement as the poster was recently featured on the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art windows.

New content for added image from the wiki page on Berlin's monument:

Berlin's Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism

New content on US Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibit:

Starting in 2003, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has displayed its traveling 30-panel exhibition dedicated to homosexual victims of the Holocaust across the country.

New content on fake heterosexual marriages/relationships:

Gay men that did not successfully emigrate to safety either attempted to conceal their gay identities, with some engaging in heterosexual relationships and marriages with women.

File:Fake heterosexual marriage for gay.jpg

Paul Otto is pictured next to his gay lover with his wife behind him who married Otto to help conceal his gay identity

Gestapo Radio Telegram for a list of suspected homosexuals for the Chief of Police in Dortmund

New content on pre-Nazi Homosexual Community in Germany:

New Content: Despite societal marginalization, a lively homosexual counterculture in Germany gradually developed throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Berlin alone there were over forty gay clubs and meeting places, staffed by homosexuals, that served as popular pubs for gay community including more famous spots like 'Queer's Way' in Tiergarten. Private baths and other places were used as fronts for homosexuals to gather and socialize well.

New content on gay community:

Der Eigene, a gay magazine

New content: There was a vibrant social scene that grew along with the nightlife, including developments like the foundation of Der Eigene, the first gay magazine in the world.

New content on gay night clubs and content:

New Content: Stories by Christopher Isherwood about the gay community's cabaret shows eventually served as the inspiration for the 1972 Hollywood film Cabaret. As some of these clubs were quite popular, such as El Dorado, to the point that they were even frequented by tourists other clubs catered to different classes within the gay community. As some venues catered towards the upper income strata of queer Germans, other bars like the Mother Cat (Zur Katzenmutter) catered towards soldiers.

Eldorado, a prominent gay club in Berlin in 1932

New content on the revision of paragraph 175a in Nazi law:

New Content: Additionally, in 1935 paragraph 175 was altered with paragraph 175a which expanded the criminal offenses relating to homosexuality. This expanded homosexual conduct to include criminal indecency which encompassed any actions that went against "public morality" or "aroused sexual desires in oneself or strangers." As a result, someone could be prosecuted under 175a for looking at a man in an "enticing way."

New content on crackdown of homosexuals:

New Content: One homosexual man recounts was also regularly summoned to the Gestapo office for interrogation for a period of weeks following the arrest of an earlier romantic partner. He, like many homosexuals at the time, had to break off all relations with all his friends in the homosexuality community as he commented that "we lived like animals in a wild game park...always sensing the hunters." Arrested homosexuals were used to generate lists of other members in the gay community, leading towards a societal purge of the homosexual community.

Gestapo Radio Telegram for a list of suspected homosexuals for the Chief of Police in Dortmund

New content on Tiergarten Holocaust memorial:

New content: Berlin's Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism is located in the Tiergeraten Park, which contained the location of the popular 'Queer's Way' for the early 20th century gay community. The memorial was approved by the Budenstag on December 12, 2003, opened to the public on May 27, 2008, and subsequently vandalized numerous times in the years following its opening. The memorial was vandalized again in the fall in August 2019 when vandals painted over a window in the momunement that allowed visitor to see a picture of a gay couple kissing.

New Concentration Camp Image:

Homosexual concentration camp prisoners in Sachsenhausen, Germany on December 19, 1938

Additions Made to Existing Sentences/Content

Edit to lead paragraph to include reference to existing gay life:

Original: The Gestapo compiled lists of homosexuals, who were compelled to sexually conform to the "German norm".

Edited: Germany's vibrant gay community at the timed was erased as the Gestapo compiled lists of homosexuals, who were compelled to sexually conform to the "German norm".

Edit on lack of record of homosexual victims:

Original: Homosexual concentration camp prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution in either post-war German state.

Edited: Homosexual concentration camp prisoners were not acknowledged as victims of Nazi persecution in either post-war German state. Additionally, neither state contained a record of homosexual victims of the Holocaust.

Edit on legal changes to Paragraph 175:

Original: Paragraph 175 was not repealed until 1994, although both East and West Germany liberalized their laws against adult homosexuality in the late 1960s.

Edited: Paragraph 175 was not repealed until 1994, although both East and West Germany liberalized their laws against adult homosexuality in the late 1960s. However, the Nazi edits to the law were partially repealed in 1950 while homosexual acts between adults were legalized in 1968 in East Germany.

Edit on treatment of gay men in concentration camps:

Original: For instance, they were assigned the most dangerous tasks at the Dora-Mittelbau underground rocket factory and the stone quarries at Flossenbürg and Buchenwald. SS soldiers also were known to use gay men for target practice, aiming their weapons at the pink triangles their human targets were forced to wear.

Edited: For instance, they were assigned the most dangerous tasks at the Dora-Mittelbau underground rocket factory and the stone quarries at Flossenbürg and Buchenwald. SS soldiers also were known to use gay men for target practice, aiming their weapons at the pink triangles their human targets were forced to wear, in camps such as the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Homosexuals were indiscriminately killed while they were creating artificial mound targets with earth and clay on the shooting range as guards often targeted homosexuals instead of the shooting rage targets themselves. It is noted that homosexuals in the Nazi regime were targeted "in a manner with parallel in any civilized state in the world."

Edit on harsher concentration camp treatment:

Original: The harsh treatment can be attributed to the view of the SS guards toward gay men, as well as to the homophobic attitudes present in German society at large.

Edited: The harsh treatment can be attributed to the view of the SS guards toward gay men, as well as to the homophobic attitudes present in German society at large. Additionally, homosexuals in concentration camps lacked the ability to practice group solidarity, which aided other groups like political prisoners, for their morale.

Edit on the start of the crackdowns of 1933:

Original: The raids of 1933 marked a stark turning point in the Nazi persecution of homosexuals as the gay community withdrew from the clubs and groups that had dominated the homosexual community in Germany. The personal testimony...

Edited: Within just weeks of Hitler's appointment as chancellor on January 30, 1933 the subsequent raids and crackdown throughout the year marked a stark turning point in the Nazi persecution of homosexuals. In February Nazi Storm Troopers began to shut down bars and ban the sale of publications featuring sexual content. As a result the gay community withdrew from the clubs and groups that had dominated the homosexual community in Germany, thereby putting a rapid end to the vibrant gay communities at the time. The personal testimony...

Edit on the change in the Berlin gay community during 1933 (beginning of the purge):

Original: A climate of fear took hold over the homosexual community, with – for example – many lesbians getting married to avoid being sent to the concentration camps that had first appeared in March 1933.

Edited: A climate of fear took hold over the homosexual community, with – for example – many lesbians getting married to avoid being sent to the concentration camps that had first appeared in March 1933. The raids of 1933 marked a stark turning point in the Nazi persecution of homosexuals as the gay community withdrew from the clubs and groups that had dominated the homosexual community in Germany. The personal testimony of an anonymous subject described the change in political climate as a "thunderbolt", while many of his Jewish and homosexual friends started to disappear as they were presumably detained.

Edit for 1st mention of Ernst Röhm:

Original:
"In late February 1933, as the moderating influence of Ernst Röhm weakened, the Nazi Party launched its purge of homosexual..."

Edited:
"In late February 1933, as the moderating influence of Ernst Röhm, the most prominent gay Nazi official, weakened, the Nazi Party launched its purge of homosexual..."

Edit on Ernst Röhm:

Edit on Ernst Röhm:

Original: As a consequence, many fled Germany (e.g., Erika Mann, Richard Plant). Röhm himself was gay, but he subscribed to an ultra-macho "hard" image and despised the "soft" homosexuals.

Edited: As a consequence, many fled Germany (e.g., Erika Mann, Richard Plant). Röhm himself was gay, but he subscribed to an ultra-macho "hard" image and despised the "soft" homosexuals. Parties opposing Hitler even used Ernst, who was known to visit many of Berlin's gay clubs and parlors and was a member of the League of Human Rights, to attack Hitler by discussing "Hitler's queer friend Röhm".

Added Citations to the article:

Note: This is not the comprehensive list. These are some of the major sources that were used, especially those that were in German. Many of the English sources and books were directly cited and not listed below.

Burleigh, Michael, and Wolfgang Wippermann. “The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945.” Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, 16 Dec. 2008.

Eissler, W. U. (1980). Arbeiterparteien und Homosexuellenfrage : zur Sexualpolitik von SPD und KPD in der Weimarer Republik. Verlag Rosa Winkel. ISBN 3921495504. OCLC 476524293.

Plant, Richard. (2013). The pink triangle : the nazi war against homosexuals. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 9781429936934. OCLC 872608428.

Stümke, Hans-Georg; Finkler, Rudi (1981). Rosa Winkel, Rosa Listen: Homosexuelle und 'Gesundes Volksempfinden' von Auschwitz bis heute. Hamburg. p. 238.

Stümke, Hans-Georg. (1989). Homosexuelle in Deutschland : eine politische Geschichte. Beck. ISBN 3406331300. OCLC 230964202.

“Nazi Persecution of Homosexual 1933-1945.” USHMM, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/exhibition/persecution-of-homosexuals/.

Bibliography (additional sources consulted for background information):

Giles, Geoffrey J. “The Denial of Homosexuality: Same-Sex Incidents in Himmler’s SS and Police.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 11 no. 1, 2002, pp. 256-290. Project MUSE

Scally, Derek. “Holocaust Resistance.” The White Rose - A Lesson in Dissent, Jewish Virtual Library, 30 Jan. 2018.

Whisnant, Clayton John. Queer Identities and Politics in Germany: A History, 1880-1945. Harrington Park Press, 2016.