Frankfurter Engel
The Frankfurter Engel (German for Frankfurt angel) is a memorial in the city of Frankfurt am Main in southwestern Germany; it is dedicated to homosexual people who were persecuted under Nazi rule, and as well as under Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code during the 1950s and 1960s.
Design
The memorial is a statue of an angel and is the first of its kind in Germany. Subsequent memorials in Germany are Kölner Rosa Winkel (1995) in Cologne and Memorial to Homosexuals persecuted under Nazism (2008) in Berlin.
At the basis of the memorial written in the German language is:
Homosexuelle Männer und Frauen wurden im Nationalsozialismus verfolgt und ermordet. Die Verbrechen wurden geleugnet, die Getöteten verschwiegen, die Überlebenden verachtet und verurteilt. Daran erinnern wir in dem Bewusstsein, dass Männer, die Männer lieben, und Frauen, die Frauen lieben, immer wieder verfolgt werden können. Frankfurt am Main. Dezember 1994
This can be translated to English as:
Homosexual men and women were persecuted and murdered in Nazi Germany. The crimes were denied, the dead concealed, the survivors scorned and prosecuted. We remember this, in the awareness that men who love men and women who love women still face persecution. Frankfurt am Main. December 1994.
The memorial remembers homosexuals who were persecuted and/or died during the Nazi rule and Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code that outlawed homosexuality during the 1950s and 1960s. It was reformed in 1969 and fully repealed in 1973.
History
On 20 July 1992 a competition for the memorial design began. Ultimately, the winner of the competition was the artist Rosemarie Trockel, and the memorial was built at the crossing of the streets Schäfergasse and Alte Gasse. On 11 December 1994 the memorial was opened.
Literature
- Rüdiger Lautmann. Nationalsozialistischer Terror gegen Homosexuelle. Verdrängt und ungesühnt. (together with Burkhard Jellonnek): Paderborn: Schöningh. 2002. ISBN 3-506-74204-3
