Talk:Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Vaticidalprophet (talk · contribs) 20:38, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

This is an important and sensitive article on which you've done excellent work. Notes:

General
Keep an eye out for reference ordering. Misplaced refs noted:
 * under Paragraph 175.[52][51] (#World War II)
 * and the third was considered most dangerous.[83][81] (#Nazi views of homosexuality)
 * "voluntarily" sterilized to eliminate their "degenerate sex drive".[117][105] (#Castration)
 * Many homosexual prisoners at Ravensbrück died at the same time.[122][47] (#Concentration camps)
 * before any arrests of such individuals.[153][57] (#Continued existence)
 * one of the most prominent symbols of gay liberation in the United States.[180][175] (#Legacy)
 * a speech by President Richard von Weizsäcker.[182][52] (#Legacy)
 * Some people think it looks better in ascending order, but to the best of my knowledge it isn't required by MOS or any other standard and I tend to think it's not worth the hassle. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  03:06, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Lead

 * the first homosexual movement was shut down, publications were burned, and clubs frequented by homosexuals were shut down The repetition of "shut down" caught my eye here, but this is a tricky one. The issue might be in the phrase "the first homosexual movement was shut down", which strikes me as an odd wording. The first homosexual movement article implies the specific thing shut down was the movement's infrastructure (including gay clubs), and the movement itself (which as an intangible social movement couldn't be centrally 'shut down') was destroyed due to the destruction of its infrastruture. "The first homosexual movement was destroyed, with the shutting down of homosexual social clubs and associations" (not that exact wording -- it's a proof of concept and a bit clunky -- but in that direction) might get across the idea better, then seguing from there into the seizure and burning of publications.
 * Rephrased
 * Persecution accelerated after the Röhm purge as combatting homosexuality became a priority of the Nazi police state and Once arrested there was a presumption of guilt and the police often used harsh interrogation and torture to force the victims to confess are both long, unpunctuated sentences.
 * Rephrased
 * The death rate of these prisoners has been estimated at 60 percent, higher than other prisoner groups -- the death rates of other prisoner groups for comparison are contextualized later in the article, but would it be due to contextualize them here too? More raising the possibility than asking for it, given that this paragraph of the lead is already quite long, but it's worth considering that readers may come in without knowledge of what the death rates were for other groups.
 * I think this would be too much detail for the lead. Also, the death rate of concentration camp prisoners varies a lot based on exactly which camp, the reason for imprisonment, nationality, when they were arrested etc.
 * Fair's fair -- as I said, suggestion, not request. Vaticidalprophet 03:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Nazi Germany's persecution of homosexuals is considered to be the high point in a longer history of discrimination and violence targeting sexual minorities. "High point" comes in with some positive connotations/implications of 'success' or 'achievement' that, while clearly not intended here, are a bit unfortunately eye-catching. Consider alternative phrasings -- "most serious"? "most severe"?
 * Done

Background

 * A couple other cases of multi-clause run-on sentences here (Political compromises allowed many homosexuals to live freely in their private life and in dedicated subcultural spaces provided that they did not infringe too much on the public sphere; Most German homosexuals did not feel threatened by Nazism and some even joined the SA).
 * Added commas
 * The last paragraph jumps rapidly from the relative tolerance of Röhm and others to the "being gay is always bad" take, in a way that crosses timelines somewhat awkwardly (events from the 1930s followed by events from the 1920s). If it's possible (i.e. if this isn't reflecting a limitation of the sources), the paragraph would flow more smoothly if revamped to contextualize this dichotomy better. That is, currently there's a fairly jarring effect where the paragraph goes from the party's early protection of Röhm and the presence of gay men, to the strongly homophobic views it nonetheless held and applied even in this era, without contextualizing them or explaining how these could simultaneously exist.
 * I've reorganized the paragraph slightly for better chronological order. It's possible to add:
 * The majority of Nazis held traditional moral beliefs and found Röhm intolerable.
 * Although the Nazi Party was willing to temporarily tolerate Röhm and some other homosexuals within its ranks, the party never adopted such tolerance as a general principle or changed its views on homosexuality.
 * Röhm's sexuality weakened his position in the party and was cited by his opponents to undermine him. Although he asserted that the party had become "accustomed to my criminal idiosyncrasy", Marhoefer concludes that this "was wild optimism or self-delusion".
 * Which of these (or some combination) do you think would provide the best explanation? (t &#183; c)  buidhe  03:06, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I think a combination of #2 and #3 would present the issue well -- mostly #3, but also the elements of #2 that mention gay men more broadly (as only mentioning Röhm would still leave the hanging thread of how other Nazi-affiliated gay men were treated). Vaticidalprophet 03:26, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Done

Nazi takeover and initial crackdown (1933)
Further comments to kome. Vaticidalprophet 20:38, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Two consecutive multi-clause run-on sentences (Historian Geoffrey J. Giles suggests that the anti-homosexual crackdown was intended to please the Nazis' conservative backers who had put them into power as well as socially conservative voters.[21] The Vatican as well as Protestant churches praised the crackdown.[22][23][24]). The latter is relatively short, but still a bit abrupt, mostly induced by the "as well as"; it could be revamped as "The Vatican and Protestant churches both praised the crackdown". (I note this is followed by three references, and is the only allusion to the Church perspective in this subsection. Is there further information on their reactions that could be incorporated?)
 * Added some additional info from Marhoefer
 * During the first years of Nazi rule, prison sentences for homosexuality increased, from 464 in 1932 to 575 in 1933 and 635 in 1934. It took me a moment to parse this sentence -- "prison sentences for homosexuality increased" primes the reader for the penalties becoming more severe, rather than the number of persecutions increasing.
 * Clarified
 * Thanks for the comments, I'll get to it. FYI: I put in for a copyedit at WP:GOCE/REQ, but it has not been fulfilled yet—hence the prose issues that you found and I'll endeavor to fix. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  20:44, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Continuing comments. For what it's worth (re. your comments at Talk:Röhm scandal/GA1), feel free to focus on that one -- I'm not always the most prompt reviewer (though I'm being moreso than usual lately), so I don't mind if people I'm reviewing longer/complex articles of focus on some of the shorter ones while I'm in the process of conducting a full review. My laptop has also reached the 'randomly bluescreens' stage of its lifecycle, so I might sometimes have logistical issues while typing up longer comments...

Initial crackdown, continued

 * activists made agreements to keep quiet about their activities to protect their former members is a bit odd -- the structure of the phrase means the referent for "their former members" reads as "activists" rather than the "organizations" earlier in the sentence it presumably is, and more to the point, "activists" and "people who keep quiet about their activities" are contradictory groupings. "Former activists", or some other wording?
 * Reworded. What Whisnant says is "Participants in the Weimar gay movement also seem to have come to some sort of agreement to keep quiet about their activities and membership in order to hamper police efforts. We know that members largely stuck to their promise: there are a few known cases of individuals who had been quite active within the gay movement but who, when caught by the Gestapo or criminal police, mentioned nothing about their previous involvement."
 * The Mann family is a large family with many members over many generations. Who specifically fled?
 * Added names

Röhm purge and expanding persecution (1934–1935)

 * Some stopped having sex with other men while others did so even more secretly. Aside from the prose concerns with this sentence, I'm not sure it's the best way of expressing the information it's trying to express. It's clear from this point that gay romantic and sexual relationships were under heavy secrecy already for all but a very small minority of men, so it's difficult for the reader to envision how that increased. Do the sources go into more detail?
 * All Whisnant says is "Many gay men simply stopped having sex with other men at this point; those who continued looking for sexual opportunities did so much more carefully." I could cut this sentence if you think that would be better.
 * If there isn't a good way to expand it, it's probably better to cut. Vaticidalprophet 06:21, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Done (t &#183; c)  buidhe  06:25, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Peak of persecution (1936–1939)

 * Historian Peter Longerich states that from 1936 to 1939 the German police was (besides the political enemies of the regime) "preoccupied above all with the regulation of sexual activity, that is to say, the fight against abortion and homosexuality". I get why the parenthesis is there, but it's a bit clunky, and I'm not generally a fan of parenthetical statements in articles anyway. Currently it mostly distracts from the sentence and its point, and could be omitted. If you want to retain that information, it could be restructured into a different sentence (or a footnote, though I know you tend to dislike widespread footnoting) noting that political enemies of the regime were a major focus, and contextualizing/comparing the degree of focus on enemies, the degree of focus on sexual activity, and the way those were both prioritized above all else.
 * Reworded
 * In 1936, the police launched a nationwide campaign against homosexual meeting places, reducing earlier regional differences in prosecuting homosexual offenses. Is there more on how this specifically impacted areas with previously proportionately low rates of prosecution? The structure of the last couple subsections mostly discusses nationwide phenomena and doesn't focus much on regional variation (the last substantial discussion of it was in the first subsection, discussing how smaller cities sometimes retained a gay nightlife even with the early crackdowns); the introduction here of how significant regional variance continued this late in the persecution's ramping-up is worth expanding on.
 * I think this is more likely to refer to longstanding differences in prosecution policies, especially related to religious differences in Germany with Catholic areas being more anti-homosexual than Protestant areas. Eg. Munich (Catholic) aggressively prosecuted homosexuals throughout the Weimar era, while Berlin and Hamburg (Protestant) were noted for their hands-off approach. Schwartz isn't entirely clear on what he means; Whisnant specifically notes an increase in indictments in Hamburg. I'll look for additional sources to clarify this point.
 * I reordered to be more clear about what this campaign consisted of. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  02:33, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I've also added more info from a new source (t &#183; c)  buidhe  20:24, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Looks good! <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 23:39, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

World War II

 * More men were subject to military jurisdiction and[13] Is there a less awkward place to put this inline cite or no? (You could probably also use a comma here.)
 * Done
 * Homosexuals (as well as rapists and child molesters) Well, they made that comparison, but it looks...striking...to the modern reader to present it precisely this way (and not necessarily striking the way it should be striking). "Homosexuals were permitted to serve in the Wehrmacht assuming they were willing to bear arms and "control their sexual desires" [is that a quote from something? I've put it in quote marks because it reads like a quote; it's also a fairly striking wording to the modern reader and could be worth rephrasing if it's not a quote]", followed by how this meant they were treated as sexual offenders of the same kind as rapists and child molesters, who were also allowed to serve? Not sure quite what the sources support here, so just throwing out ideas.
 * Changed to "remain celibate during their military service". Rephrased to avoid equivalence between these different types of "sex offenders"
 * Even castrated men could serve in the Wehrmacht. This is interesting. Is there more about it?
 * No, but quite likely the reason was the desperate manpower situation
 * Overall, military courts were more lenient than civilian courts when it came to consensual sex and harsher when it came to aggravated homosexuality. What constituted "aggravated homosexuality" -- is it the earlier-discussed harsher penalties for sex with younger men and subordinates, or is it something else?
 * Yes, clarified

Annexed territories
More to come, etc. <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 20:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The persecution of homosexuals was extended to the annexed territories but not the rest of German-occupied Europe,[71] the Nazis were mostly uninterested in punishing homosexuals who were not considered ethnically German. The comma is a bit awkward (I'd personally use a semicolon, but I probably overuse them).
 * Used semicolon

A digression: Nazi endocrinology
Sorry for the few days of delay here -- a couple sentences caught my eye for their medical statements, and I ended up getting and reading through the sources (and in one case its own sources) to see what was being claimed in them. One checked out but could use some more in-text elaboration; the other is the source drawing conclusions from its own source that I'm not sure check out. Relevant portions:


 * The procedure exposed them to serious health consequences that could include excessive sweating, depression, or heart arrhythmia. (last sentence in #Castration, cited to Whisnat (2016) p. 218)

The health consequences of castration are still a pretty complex discussion even at this much more advanced point in the field of endocrinology, and the examples used stood out to me as oddly specific. Reading Whisnat, I found he reproduced more or less the same list (with some rewording on your end to avoid close paraphrasing). Looking at Whisnat's own source I found much more detail, which specified this list of side effects was drawn from a single case. As it's a sole case study, putting it in the article text as a list of side effects constitutes undue weight, so the sentence should probably be struck. Later in Giles it's mentioned side effects could be severe enough some men committed suicide; contextually, this seems to be most focused on depression, which was also the one of the three effects called out as most severe by both Whisnat and Giles. If you want to retain a sentence on side effects, refocusing on the potentially dire consequences rather than individual examples would be more due.

Giles also provides more detail on some other points I've asked about. He specifies the reasons castrated men were nonetheless able to serve, and is more explicit than the article is about 175a being drawn from the specific fear that young men could be seduced into long-term homosexuality (right now the discussion of etiology-based typologies is somewhat unclear on what the type differences actually were). These could be useful incorporations.


 * The best known experiments involving homosexuals were attempts by endocrinologist Carl Vaernet to change prisoners' sexual orientation by implanting an artificial gland that released testosterone. This research, carried out on non-consenting prisoners at Buchenwald, had drastic health consequences for the victims. (in last paragraph of #Concentration camps, cited to Whisnat (2016) p. 223 and Weindling (2015) pp. 183–184)

This drew my eye because of how young endocrinology was as a field at the time; the Nobel Prize for first synthesizing testosterone had been awarded just over a decade earlier, and the era is at the tail end of what's been called the "heroic age of endocrinology" because of just how difficult isolating the sex hormones was and how weird the process of producing them with contemporary technology ended up being (testosterone was first synthesized from 25,000 litres of urine). Whisnat's description of it is pretty short, but Weindling goes much more in-depth. I also found another source that described Vaernet's experiments in sufficient detail and added the historical context for them.

I'm not sure "gland" is a good descriptor here -- Weindling calls it a tube, Herrn a pellet. The term feels as though it was chosen to avoid close paraphrasing, but it doesn't match medical use, where "artificial gland" has anachronistic implications -- it sounds to the reader like a lab-grown gland or similar, which of course wouldn't be the case in the 1940s. Herrn's "pellet" is probably the most appropriate term, as hormone-releasing pellets are commonplace and the referent would be clear.

Both Weindling and Herrn either allude that or explicitly say Vaernet claimed his research a success. Weindling makes the interesting note that one of Vaernet's subjects claimed to have gone from homosexual fantasies to heterosexual ones, but got castrated anyway. He also alludes to simultaneously researching if the subjects were looking younger from hormone treatment, as well as if they were changing their sexual orientation (fountain-of-youth stuff was a huge part of 19th and early 20th century endocrinology). It's hard to be sure from either source what drastic health consequences were experienced -- it seems many (most?) subjects died within a short time of the procedure, but there's very little long-term followup (only one man has his long-term consequences mentioned, and per the prior note it's probably undue to focus on single-case side effects). It may be more accurate to note that many of Vaernet's victims died shortly after than to have the current note, and to see what else about the medico-historical background is worth incorporating.

It's also explicitly mentioned that many of the men who were the victims of this experiment were castrated beforehand; Herrn goes into further detail about the several decades prior of research at that point into attempting to cure gay men by castrating them and replacing their hormone source with an 'untainted' one (before the synthesis of testosterone, often by transplating the testicles of straight men into gay men), which may provide worthwhile historical context. I think I might have a book on that specific note somewhere, but I'm not sure... <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 05:47, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * User:Vaticidalprophet I removed the sentence about consequences of castration, but I do think something should be put in about the negative physical and psychological effects of this procedure, which readers are not necessarily familiar with. I changed the wording to "pellet" and mentioned deaths, but I'm not sure additional words to these experiments would be WP:DUE. Rather, I think further elaboration would be reasonable on other articles such as Vaernet's article, Nazi human experimentation, or Homosexual prisoners in concentration camps (which is separately notable from this one, there's a lot more to say). What do you think would be appropriate to say about castration and military service? Giles mentions some individuals' opinions on page 49 but it's not clear whether these people are driving Nazi policy. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  06:43, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The best balance on discussing castration side effects (which I agree is a reasonable thing to mention) is probably the "side effects were sometimes severe enough to lead to suicide" of Giles, without too much speculation on what those side effects were. I did get a "there's more to say" sense and respect the difficulty of deciding what goes in which articles; I'm gesturing at the background because it's worthwhile to have wherever it gets applied, but it's fair to note the application might be in a different article. As for castration and military service, would the opinions be fine contextualized as opinions, in lieu of certainty of how influential they were? <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 07:06, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * All Giles says about suicide is that it was "not uncommon" among men who underwent castration, but we know from other sources, and state elsewhere in the article, that in fact suicide was common for all men persecuted for homosexuality. Will look for better sources on this. For the military service aspect, I don't think individual opinions should be included unless there's especially prominent or powerful within the Nazi apparatus, which does not seem to be the case here (t &#183; c)  buidhe  07:56, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I've looked through German and English sources on Google Scholar and am drawing a blank on this so I guess it will have to be left out. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  20:00, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Nazi views of homosexuality
I should have a laptop again from this afternoon (local time), so I'll be able to review promptly again, knock on wood. Sorry again for the holdup!

<b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 00:17, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * permanently changing the sexual orientation and preventing the youth from becoming fathers is a somewhat awkward wording, possibly from the specific phrasing "the youth" -- does that need a "the"?
 * Rephrased
 * I referred earlier to the issue of sexual orientation typologies. The [non-Nazi] context where I'm most familiar with sexological typologies often focus strongly on gender role expectations, e.g. considering more feminine gay men to be of a different 'type' to more masculine ones. Was this an aspect of Nazi sexological typologies?
 * The Nazis were not so concerned about whether homosexuals were effeminate. In the context of persecution, it was more important whether they were likely to be "repeat offenders". Actually, I ended up taking out the bit about 1944 typology because it does not seem to have influenced policy in any noteworthy way and would be more suited to Nazi views on homosexuality.
 * The flip side to the Nazis' persecution of homosexuality was their encouragement of heterosexual relations (including extramarital sex) for racially desirable people. "Flipside" is usually one word (though the spell checker on this library computer doesn't recognize it, which may be a sign that it's more slangy than usually acceptable in an encyclopedia article). That aside, encouragement of extramarital sex intuitively sounds incompatible with a "family values" ethic; can this be made sense of?
 * The Nazis weren't actually that into family values, although they leaned opportunistically into this to gain support. Their primary ideology was a national or racial one, if family values or Christianity was considered to get in the way of this goal it was cast aside. (for example, see Longerich p. 267)
 * He estimated that there were one or two million homosexual men in Germany -- can we add how many men were in Germany at the time to get a sense of proportions?
 * I ended up cutting this and reducing the amount of space devoted to Himmler's speech.
 * No worries, I really appreciate your detailed review! This section was the one I was least happy with when I nominated the article. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  01:57, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Identification and arrest

 * Complicating the Nazis' efforts, many homosexual men did not fit these stereotypes, and in contrast, many effeminate men were not homosexual. I feel like this phrasing is a bit circumlocutory, given that "in contrast" is implied by the juxtaposition of those statements in the first place. That said, it's defensible/could go either way, I'm just drawing attention to it for another look.
 * Removed
 * the police watched restaurants that served a mixed clientele What's a "mixed clientele" in this sense?
 * both hetero and homosexual. Reworded.
 * Is "morals offenses" a term of art? If it's not, "moral offenses" sounds more natural.
 * I think they mean different things. Reworded to avoid euphemistic language.

Regional and class-based targeting

 * The final mention of forced labourers doesn't seem to match the rest of the groups listed. The sense in which forced labourers were a group persecuted by the Nazis is a different sense to in which e.g. Jewish people, Roma, and disabled people were -- it was a quality the Nazis assigned to them, not one that existed outside the Nazi context. Is there a better way to contextualize this?
 * Well, the list is mixed in that way. The deserters also would not exist if not for the Nazis' wars of aggression. The source lists them all together: "Die von  uns recherchierten  Personen  sind  häufig  im  Kontext  von  Doppelt-  und  Mehrfachstigmatisierungen  als  Juden,  Sinti  und Roma, Kommunisten, Sozialdemokraten, Menschen mit Behinderungen, Prostituierte/Strichjungen,  sogenannte  Kriminelle,  Asoziale,  Fahnen-flüchtige oder auch als Zwangsarbeiter zu betrachten". I've reworded and added more info from a new source.

Interrogation and trial

 * The telling-employers line drew my eye, given it's explicitly contextualized as being a single case report. Are there additional sources discussing this that would let us cut the parentheses/confirm it's more widespread?
 * Removed as I didn't find anything else
 * The police would tell suspects that if they confessed they would get less punishment while otherwise they would suffer indefinite detention in a concentration camp or lengthy incarceration -- run-on sentence
 * Reworded

Prisons
Already looked over this and the Castration sub-section, no new notes.

Glad you're liking the review :) The remaining sections after #Methods are short enough I think we're getting close to finishing this up, once the last and admittedly longest subsections of it are handled. <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 05:59, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much for your review! (t &#183; c)  buidhe  10:04, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Last couple subsections of this part...

Concentration camps

 * The concentration camps differed from the legal punishment system as one was held in indefinite detention without recourse to law and were at the mercy of the SS and Gestapo -- run-on sentence
 * Rephrased
 * Himmler did not consider a time-limited prison sentence sufficient to deal with homosexuality, stating that the homosexual leaves prison exactly how he entered it. Is this a (translated) quote? The phrasing of the second half of the sentence sounds somewhat quote-y.
 * It's not an exact quote, rather paraphrased. Zinn states: "Für Himmler war schließlich auch die Frage, was mit Homosexuellen nach Verbüßung einer Gefängnisstrafe geschehen sollte, von großer Bedeutung, denn »der Homosexuelle« kam in seinen Augen »aus dem Gefängnis genauso homosexuell heraus, wie er hineingekommen« war." I changed to be farther from the source.
 * After 1939, it was a policy send anyone convicted -- assuming this is missing "to"
 * Fixed
 * In the prewar camps, both Jews and homosexual prisoners ranked at the bottom of the prisoner hierarchy and those who were both Jewish and homosexual fared the worst.[131] Along with Jews, they were often assigned to segregated labor details where they had to perform especially dirty and backbreaking work[132] or punishment commandos where conditions were even harsher than the rest of the camp.[57][133] Homosexual prisoners rarely benefited from solidarity from other prisoners (even Jews) who often held negative beliefs about them. All three of these sentences are pretty run-on compared to their length (I'm not going too hard on the prose because I know it's pre-GOCE and will probably change some more, but this part did stand out).
 * Rephrased somewhat.
 * Kapo should be linked somewhere.
 * Done
 * There may not be a good way to handle this...but "deadly shoe testing experiments" as a phrasing has a bit more bathos than appropriate for the serious subject matter. Depending on what the source supports, it might work to either add a bit more detail about why concentration camp prisoners were testing shoes, or to remove "shoe testing" entirely and just focus on the running-to-overexertion.
 * OK, I removed this sentence because if I spent the number of words necessary to describe how awful it was, it would be UNDUE. These experiments should be included in Homosexual prisoners in Nazi concentration camps when that article is created.

Death penalty
Should be able to get the last few sections done in the next couple days. <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 01:42, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The first sentence is somewhat confusing, in that as the Postenpflicht was already common practice by this point for camp prisoners generally, and also obviously conditional on them trying to escape (I guess Himmler assumed any SS man would try escape the camps?), it's not quite clear how this translates into a specific/explicit death sentence.
 * This is an allusion to the systematic falsification of the cause of death of prisoners. The implication from Giles and Longerich is that what Himmler is really saying is that they will be executed at the camp and their death certificate will state that they were shot when trying to escape. Unfortunately, all the sources I can find assume that the reader knows about this euphemism and don't explain explicitly, so I'm not sure I can clarify without original research. Alternatively, I could cite this paper for a note that "shot while trying to escape" is a euphemism for murder.
 * I think using it to add a note is the best of the available options. <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 08:14, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Done (t &#183; c)  buidhe  08:27, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
 * any member of the SS and police -- should be "or"?
 * Done

Continued existence
Last three sections!


 * You have two consecutive paragraphs here starting "Historian [name] [verbs]". It might be worth seeing if there's an alternative sentence structure usable here, because the repetition is a bit straining, but I recognize the constraints of encyclopedic writing can be pretty tight here.
 * Reworded
 * Seems obvious from where we're standing, but for future-proofing and people new to the subject matter probably worth specifying that gay men marrying were entering heterosexual marriages -- especially as time marches on, more and more readers will be coming from a place where gay marriage in the West is taken as an automatic given, and in the context of an article about homophobic persecution that might call for a double-take...
 * Done
 * A significant number of gay and bisexual men committed suicide;[139] 25 percent of those persecuted in Hamburg. The semicolon doesn't flow well here, as the latter half is a sentence fragment. "committed suicide, including 25% of those persecuted in Hamburg"?
 * Done
 * You have a lot of "also"s in your second paragraph, and at least some are probably superfluous.
 * Removed

Aftermath

 * The Nazi persecution is considered to mark the high point in discrimination and violence against homosexuals across history -- per prior comments on the "high point" wording
 * Reworded
 * The last surviving Nazi concentration camp prisoners imprisoned for their homosexuality, Pierre Seel and Rudolf Brazda, have died. This is a somewhat jarring way to put it. A smoother rephrasing might look something like "...last surviving concentration camp prisoners imprisoned for their homosexuality were Pierre Seel, who died in 2005, and Rudolf Brazda, who died in 2011"; the plain "have died" is a bit of a disconnect and also doesn't give a good sense of the chronology.
 * Removed since the source doesn't give these dates and we don't know if there were others who did not come forward.

Legacy
That should be all of it (some other minor points I've wavered on at GAN level, may bring up at FAC). Excellent article that I'll be happy to pass soon. <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 13:52, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The 1979 play Bent by Martin Sherman further popularized the Nazi persecution of homosexuals in English-speaking countries. The sardonic response here might be "I sure hope it didn't popularize the Nazi persecution", but I won't do that to you 😛 Still, worth rephrasing to avoid that response, as it does permit an unfortunate reading.
 * Reworded
 * Given the navbox has the hewiki ILL to the Tel Aviv memorial, it might be worth adding that to the text too?
 * Done
 * Thanks so much for your comments! I'll ping you when this gets to FAC. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  20:29, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Passing now :) <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 02:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)