Symbol Used by the Nazis to Persecute Gay Men During World War II
On Sunday, March 9, President Donald Trump posted a deeply disturbing message to his official account on Truth Social, the social media network that he owns. The message was a link to an opinion piece at The Washington Times, a notoriously Conservative newspaper. The opinion piece, written by former U.S. Army intelligence captain Jeremy Hunt and titled “Army recruitment ads look quite different under Trump,” was posted on the Washington Times’s website. In addition to using the pink triangle, the post has a slash through the triangle. The slash is frequently used to negate the idea of a concept as acceptable.
It is appalling to see a Nazi symbol used in concentration camps so blatantly posted on social media. After Trump has signed several anti trans and anti LGBTQ+ executive orders meant to curtail the rights of citizens of the nation, a post like this can only be seen as another attack on the community.
It is even more troubling after Elon Musk was accused of doing a Nazi salute during the Inauguration and Musk’s open support of AfD, an extremist party in Germany that has called for Germany to stop atoning for the Holocaust, whose members have made antisemitic remarks, and revived the use of banned Nazi slogans.
The pink triangle was used during the Nazis’ rule over Germany and Europe during World War Two. It was one of many colored badges the Nazis forced prisoners to wear, each representing a different group deemed “undesirable” by the regime.
Those deemed guilty of having same-sex relations were sent to concentration camps, where they were forced to wear a pink inverted triangle sewn onto their uniforms, distinguishing them from other prisoners. The treatment of these individuals was especially brutal, many were subjected to extreme torture, medical experiments, and execution.
Historians estimate that between 5,000 and 15,000 gay men were sent to concentration camps, and the majority did not survive. Those who did faced further persecution even after the war, as homosexuality remained illegal in Germany, and many were re-arrested under Paragraph 175.
