I was flipping through the channels the other day when I came across a documentary about Nazi prison camps on the Hitler channel (aka, History Channel). The were showing a ledger where each person was kept track of, including the “crime” for which they were incarcerated. The symbols were all upside down triangles of different colors, for political prisoners it was a blue upside down triangle, for gypsies it was an orange upside down triangle, for communists it was a red upside down triangle, and for homosexuals it was a (you guessed it) pink upside down triangle.
Is this just a very weird coincidence? It was not remarked upon in the program, but for an upside down pink triangle to have been used as a symbol for homosexuals then and now is amazing.
Was it a common symbol before the war, and am I just an ignorant twit for not knowing?
I did a google search on “pink triangle gay” and got a bazillion links, all mentioning the current usage of the pink triangle as a gay pride symbol, and all giving its origin in the Nazi concentration camps.
If this is not the origin, an awful lot of gay pride groups believe that it is.
By the way, search “pink triangle granite” and see a picture of the Homomonument in Amsterdam. I took a photo of it when I was there 10 years ago to prove to my gay buddies that it really does exist.
While the black triangle has been claimed/reclaimed as a symbol of pride/solidarity/remembrance by some lesbians and feminists, it was not a symbol specifically for lesbians as the pink triangle was for gay men (175ers). The black triangle was for “anti-social” or “socially unacceptable” women, including unmarried mothers, lesbians, prostitutes, feminists. Basically any woman who did not submit/subscribe to the “Church, Children & Kitchen” ideal.
A lot of gay and lesbian groups have reclaimed the symbol. Lutherans Concerned/NA uses a slightly modified form of the classic “Jesus fish” with a pink triangle for the tail. There’s a blurb on the home page about the symbol and the origin of the triangle. The coincidence you thought you saw was purely intentional.
You have excellent timing–the National Holocaust Memorial Museum is currently running an exhibition on Nazi persecution of homosexuals (their term, not mine) and I went to a talk by the curator this weekend. Here’s a link–if you mouse over the top chart, a bit of text on the pink triangle will pop up: http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/hsx/chapter7.php
As others have said, the black triangle marked those considered “asocial”, which included lesbians.
What a lot of people don’t realize is how much the nazis attacked homosexuals. That famous picture of all the books burning? That’s a lot of gay history going up in smoke…
ava, that was alluded to in the speech the curator gave–he said one of the main problems encountered in putting together the exhibit was the fact that so much material had been destroyed. Paragraph 175 was still on the books until 1969, so people were very reluctant to keep any materials related to homosexuality.
Nazis didn’t really care much about lesbianism–it was assumed that all women wanted to procreate. In and of itself, it wasn’t covered under Paragraph 175 or elsewhere.
Well, Section 175 of the Penal code: “Sodomy and Crimes against Nature” wasn’t a Nazi era law. It was actually part of the old Prussian penal code that became law for all of Germany when the country unified. What the Nazis did do was tighten up on its enforcement.
In Imperial Germany and the Weimar era, the sodomy law wasn’t really enforced, especially in big cities like Berlin, which got to be known as a “gay-friendly” city, and a flourishing gay subculture developed in Berlin. By the Weimar era, Section 175 was seen as anachronistic, and there was actually a campaign to get it repealed, including a petition which was sponsored by a number of prominent German liberals and socialists (including Albert Einstein), and led by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, himself gay, who was a researcher on homosexuality and fetishism. The campaign even included a film, “Ander als der Aendern” (Different than the Others), about a gay violinist who commits suicide. However, the campaign failed, and the sodomy law stayed on the books.
So, when the Nazis came along, they gave the law teeth, and started prosecuting people for it.
If you’re gay and visiting Germany, don’t worry. The law was repealed in 1969.
Just as a side note, the main character in “Andern als die Andern” is played by Conrad Veidt, who’s most famous as the SS Major Strasser in “Casablanca”.
Ive been “out” for quite a while now and although I am aware of the Pink Triangle, I have never ever seen one used. If any triangle it is a rainbow one, but generally and rainbow that isnt half arc as depicted by the skys can be assumed to be a sign of pride (gay). It is my belief that the pink triangle is somewhat outdated (too dull for todays queens :), and only brought back to relevance by Jerry Fallwell and his Tinkie Winkie rediculousness a couple of years ago…
