Latex condoms were created by Julius Fromm, who was born in Konin in present-day Poland. 
 
 Julius Fromm is perhaps the Polish town of Konin's most famous son. But a tribute to the inventor of the latex condom has caused controversy in the Catholic country. Locals objected when an activist group pulled a giant sheath over a phallic public statue. 
 
 Fitting a giant condom on a public statue may appear to be a creative way of commemorating the creator of the latex sheath -- but not in Catholic Poland, it seems. 
 
 An action group pulled off the stunt in the central Polish town of Konin, but in doing so aroused the ire of local civic leaders. The enormous sheath, conceived by a group called Akcja Konin (Action Konin) and consisting of a plastic bag, was placed over a phallic fountain sculpture to commemorate the birth of Julius Fromm. 
 
 Fromm was born in the town -- then part of the Russian Empire -- in 1883. He moved with his family to Berlin as a child, and eventually came up with a revolutionary new way of producing a seamless, thinner condom. He patented the invention in 1916 and started producing them on a large scale after World War I. 
 
 They met with such success that his name became synonymous in Germany with latex condoms. But in 1938, the Nazis forced Fromm, who was Jewish, to sell his business for a pittance to Hermann Göring's godmother. He later fled to London, but died of a heart attack just four days after Germany's final surrender in 1945. 
 
 A fitting figure, many would think, for a public memorial. After all, the latex condom has helped save millions of lives by preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. But it is also a form of birth control that is frowned upon by the Catholic Church, which is influential in Poland. Now public officials as well as local religious leaders in Konin have come out against the rubber salute. 
 
 Not an Advert for Birth Control 
 
 Akcja Konin pulled a transparent plastic bag over a man-sized column in the middle of an inactive public fountain. For a few hours the column -- nicknamed "the penis" by many in Konin -- sported a proud sheath bearing the name "Julius Fromm," and his date of birth. 
 
 According to the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, Dariusz Wilczewski, the deputy mayor of Konin, claims the town has been turned into a laughing stock, while another local official, Marek Zawidzki, says: "One could choose a different way of promoting Fromm." 
 
 But renowned Polish sexologist Zbigniew Lew-Starowicz disagreed. He was quoted by Polish TV station TVN24 as saying: "The town of Konin should build a memorial to the creator of the latex condom. The town should be proud of him. There is nothing to be ashamed of." 
 
 The group has defended its actions. "Not many know that right here in Konin, the inventor of the latex condom was brought into the world," Akcja Konin member Waldemar Duczmal said, according to Rzeczpospolita. 
 
 "We discovered him a year ago and tried to bring him to the attention of the town," Duczmal says. "When that was not successful, we came up with the idea for this event." He was, however, keen to stress that it "was not an advertisement for birth control." 
 
 Akcja Konin, meanwhile, are already preparing a new initiative. "This time we will try to pay tribute to Mieczyslaw Bekker, the creator of NASA's lunar rover vehicle. He graduated from school in Konin," Duczmal says. 
 
 However, he declined to reveal the nature of the tribute. 
 
 Marta Solarz contributed to this report from Warsaw. ||||| With an upstanding municipal fountain nicknamed "The Penis" and a place in history as the town in which the inventor of the modern condom was born, many might argue that Konin in provincial Poland was more or less asking for it to happen. 
 
 Last weekend it did: an artists' group stormed the fountain and covered the structure with a mammoth transparent plastic preservatif, causing moral outrage among some officials and conservative Catholics in the town of 80,000 inhabitants halfway between Berlin and Warsaw. 
 
 "This is not an advertisement for birth control," insisted Waldemar Duczmal, who carried out the sheathing with fellow members of the Action Konin group, which says it pulls off provocative stunts to encourage tolerance. 
 
 The group said yesterday that the condom was meant to be an "opposite number" to a 37-metre-high statue of Christ erected by the Catholic Church in the Polish town of Swiebodzin last year. The spokesman said television coverage of the Christ statue presented a clichéd image of Poland as a backward country where religious fundamentalism reigned – an image he thought needed correcting. But the group said the stunt was also a serious attempt to pay respect to Julius Fromm, Konin's former resident who invented the modern latex condom, which he patented in Germany in 1916. 
 
 "We found out about Fromm's links with Konin a year ago and tried to bring it to the town's attention," Mr Duczmal said. "When that failed we came up with this idea," he added, pointing out that the giant condom was stamped with Fromm's name and date of birth. 
 
 Dariusz Wilczewski, the deputy mayor, joined local religious leaders and complained in an interview with Poland's Rzeczpospolita newspaper that the condom had turned Konin into a laughing stock. In deeply Catholic Poland, the Church continues to take a dim view of contraception. 
 
 However Zbigniew Lew-Starowicz, a sex therapist, said that Konin should build a memorial to the condom's creator. "The town should be proud of him. There is nothing to be ashamed of," he told Poland's TVN24 channel. 
 
 Fromm, who was Jewish, was forced to sell off his booming condom business to Hermann Göring's godmother in 1938. He died penniless in London in 1945 – four days before Germany's capitulation.
– Safe sex supporters have topped an ancient phallic statue in Poland with a kind of giant condom—and Catholic townies are not amused. The stunt was pulled to commemorate the birth of latex condom inventor Julius Fromm, notes Der Spiegel. The condom was crafted out of a large plastic bag and slipped over a man-sized column statue that's known locally as "the penis" in the town center of Konin, Fromm's birthplace. It only lasted for a short time before officials ordered the condom ripped off, complaining that the operation made Konin a "laughing stock." A spokesman for the artist group Akcja Konin that launched the project said it was intended to provide a kind of contrast to a giant Jesus statue erected in another Polish town, noted the Independent. A local sex therapist is now advocating that Konin build a memorial to Fromm. "The town should be proud of him. There is nothing to be ashamed of," he told a Polish TV reporter.