A German soldier in 'Drag' with his comrades in Verdun, France 13.9.1916 Via Flickr: The Battle of Verdun (French: Bataille de Verdun; German: Schlacht um Verdun) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front in France. The battle was the longest of the First World War. The battle lasted for 302 days, one of the longest and costliest in human history. In 2000, Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann calculated that the French suffered 377,231 casualties and the Germans 337,000, a total of 714,231 and an average of 70,000 a month. In 2014, William Philpott wrote of 714,000 casualties suffered by both sides during the Battle of Verdun in 1916 and that about 1,250,000 casualties were suffered in the vicinity of Verdun in the war. A YouTube video on The Battle of Verdun: www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5iz3uZA6Co ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homosexuality in the German Army during World War I was characterized by a complex tension between strict military discipline and the intimate realities of trench warfare, significantly impacting post-war LGBTQ+ rights movements. While Paragraph 175 criminalized male homosexuality, military authorities did not aggressively investigate or prosecute homosexual acts during the conflict, often prioritizing manpower and morale over moral policing, despite official propaganda condemning such behavior. Key dynamics included: Frontline Intimacy: The extreme stress and isolation of trench warfare fostered deep emotional and physical bonds between soldiers, leading to widespread homosocial and homosexual relationships that many veterans described as emotionally liberating. Political Mobilization: Homosexual activists, including over half the membership of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee (WhK), served in the military, using their patriotic service to argue against Paragraph 175 and counter stereotypes of effeminacy. Post-War Legacy: Returning veterans contested the "exclusively heterosexual" ideal of militarized masculinity, with some embracing a "third sex" theory (Magnus Hirschfeld) and others promoting a hyper-masculine warrior identity (Adolf Brand, Ernst Röhm) to demand social integration and legal reform in the Weimar Republic. Good photographic material for historians.