The Cologne memorial dedicated to Den schwulen und lesbischen Opfern des Nationalsozialismus (English: To gay and lesbian victims of National Socialism) is a monument dedicated to homosexuals, persecuted in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The monument was inaugurated on June 24, 1995. At that time, it became the second monument of its kind in Germany (after the Frankfurter Engel), and third in Europe (after the Amsterdam Homomonument). It is noteworthy to state, that the 1990 initiator of the memorial was the German trade union of Gewerkschaft öffentliche Dienste, Transport und Verkehr (ÖTV).
The monument stands on a prominent location at Rheingarten Embankment, between the Cathedral, Museum Ludwig and the Hohenzollern Bridge.
The design was subject to a competition, in which Achim Zinkann's design was selected to be realised. The memorial is made of pink and gray granite and has a height of 120 cm and a length of 69 cm.[1] The memorial's form renders a pink triangle, a symbol of the LGBT movement as used by the Nazis to refer to male inmates of concentration camps, who were persecuted because of their homosexuality. The memorial also bears the inscription: Totgeschlagen - Totgeschwiegen (a German language word play in regards to "death", meaning: swat to death - hushed up [to death], making an accusation of the continuous neglect of the victims until 1994, when paragraph 175, which had made sex between males a crime, was abolished.
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