With a population of over 750,000, Frankfurt am Main is Germany's fifth-largest city (well over 2 million people live in the Frankfurt metropolitan area) and can look back on an eventful history spanning more than 1200 years. Internationally, Frankfurt is known today primarily as one of the world's most important financial centers.
Among the sights of the city are the historic city hall ›Römer‹, the Frankfurt Cathedral (›Kaiserdom St. Bartholomäus‹, the coronation church of the emperors of the so-called Holy Roman Empire), the Goethe House in the Old Town and the botanical garden ›Palmengarten‹ in the Westend district.
Most of the venues of Frankfurt's gay scene have been located for many years right in the city center, around Schäfergasse and Alte Gasse. The small square at the intersection of the two streets has borne the name of the gay writer Klaus Mann since 1995.
Annual highlights and queer events in Frankfurt include the Frankfurt Gay Pride (CSD Frankfurt) in July, the Frankfurt Book Fair in October, and the international LGBT sports tournament FVV Xmas in December.
At the beginning of the 1950s, the city had still gained sad notoriety with the so-called Frankfurt Homosexual Trials. Around a hundred gay men were arrested in Frankfurt at that time, many of them accused and sentenced, some driven to suicide. One of the judges involved had already distinguished himself in Nazi times through particular zeal in the persecution of homosexuals.
To commemorate the persecution of homosexuals by the Nazis, the memorial Frankfurter Engel (›Angel of Frankfurt‹) was inaugurated in 1994 on the square Klaus-Mann-Platz mentioned above, the first memorial of its kind in Germany.