How the Nazis stroyed the first gay rights movement

Contents:

• GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA
• BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL
• QUEER & GAY BERL: YOUR GUI FOR LGBTQ+ BERL
• STANFORD SCHOLAR EXPLOR THE HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS GERMANY
• 'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY
• GAY BERL, BEFORE HLER CAME TO POWER

GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA

It may signal an omo turn for the untry’s gay the Nazi Party seized power 1933, Berl's Instute for Sexual Science was looted, s library burned and staff persecuted. “There’s been a gay bar of some kd at this addrs for more than 100 years, ” Nash, an energetic 54-year-old, explaed to a walkg tour he was leadg as he gtured enthiastilly at a neon sign outsi, which featured ttle wh large nose rgs.

But LGBT-rights groups have warned of a parallel rise of vlent homophobia mastream the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party stormed to the Bunstag last year, s policians have lled for homosexuals to be imprisoned, vowed to repeal gay marriage, and nounced those sufferg om HIV. They are also remrs of Germany’s fascist past and, rights groups worry, signs of dangero future clamp-downs on vulnerable is a powerfully queer place—gay culture, polics, activism, clubs, and sex reverberate through the cy.

But “Germany is not the shy, progrsive untry wish to be portrayed as, ” says Katr Hugendubel, the advocy director of the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn Europe (ILGA-Europe), which reprents more than 1, 000 LGBT 1918, when Bull’s precsor first opened, Weimar-era Germany was embarkg on a sndalo .

BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL

Berl’s reputatn for wild immoraly and s unually liberal law enforcement, by ntrast, helped turn the cy to Europe’s undisputed gay the 1920s, Berl was home to an timated 85, 000 lbians, a thrivg gay-media scene, and around 100 LGBT bars and clubs, where artists and wrers mixed wh cross-drsg ll girls who supposedly spired the Some Like It Hot director Billy Wilr. Magn Hirschfeld’s revolutnary Instute for Sexual Science openly lobbied for the crimalizatn of homosexualy and helped transgenr men apply wh ernment agenci to live legally unr their new genr. For the past eight years, he has transported tourists and earnt genr-theory stunts back time to search for the ghosts of their pneerg hero, as part of his popular LGBT walkg tour around Wt Berl’s “gayborhood” of Schö lately, the tour has taken on a different meang.

QUEER & GAY BERL: YOUR GUI FOR LGBTQ+ BERL

Cricized the AfD reprentative Hans-Thomas Tillschneir for a Facebook post that echoed Nazi-era propaganda agast homosexuals by claimg that HIV sufferers were “martyrs of a dishibed, hedonistic, hypersexualized society.

”Read: It’s Time to Drop the ‘LGBT’ From ‘LGBTQ’Given the AfD’s homophobic reputatn, is perhaps surprisg that 39-year-old Alice Weil, s other -lear, is a lbian who liv wh her female partner and children.

But stead of advotg for LGBT rights, the former vtment banker wants to protect gay Germans om “dangero” Mlims whom she has lled “headsrf girls, welfare-claimg knife-wieldg men and other do-nothgs.

STANFORD SCHOLAR EXPLOR THE HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS GERMANY

” The party even has a vol LGBT group lled “Alternative Homosexuals” that oppos qutned about her ments, Weil has blamed the media for spreadg “propaganda” and sisted to Der Tagspiegel, a German newspaper: “I’m beg creded wh beg volved a supposedly homophobic party, but that's not the realy. For those new to Berl, the knowledgeable staff members are more than happy to share their tips on the cy’s gay nightlife and all the sential parti, events and exhibns.

In 2017, Germany’s Cabet approved a bill that would expunge the nvictns of tens of thoands of German men for “homosexual acts” unr that untry’s anti-gay law known as “Paragraph 175. Partly drivg this new era of tolerance were the doctors and scientists who started lookg at homosexualy and “transvtism” (a word of that era that enpassed transgenr people) as a natural characteristic wh which some were born, and not a “rangement. It is unclear how many of the men publicly or privately intified as gay or were part of gay muni and works that had been tablished Germany before the Nazi rise to power.

'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY

In ntrast, the work of gay men that veloped around thor Adolf Brand and his anizatn Gemeschaft r Eigenen (The Communy of Kdred Spirs) took a different approach. Gay newspapers and journals, such as Die Frndschaft (Friendship) and Der Eigene (translated varly, but this ntext implyg “his own man”), ntributed to the growth of gay works. Fally, 1936 SS lear and Chief of the German Police Herich Himmler tablished the Reich Central Office for the Combatg of Homosexualy and Abortn (Reichszentrale zur Bekämpfung r Homosexualät und r Abtreibung).

Unverg the histori of gay men durg the Nazi era was difficult for much of the twentieth century bee of ntued prejudice agast same-sex sexualy and the ongog enforcement of Paragraph 175.

A few years later, May 2008, the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted unr Nazism (Denkmal für die im Natnalsozialism verfolgten Homosexuellen) was unveiled nearby Tiergarten park central Berl.

GAY BERL, BEFORE HLER CAME TO POWER

More specifilly, 's about gay Berl, the gay subculture that flourished Berl the era between World War I and the rise of the Nazis, when there were nightclubs and barets that tered to a gay clientele, gay-themed theater and films and gay-oriented publitns that were sold at ksks.

Gay prostutn flourished too, so did black relatively open gay culture attracted English wrers and artists, cludg Christopher Isherwood, whose stori were adapted to the mil "Cabaret.

" My gut Robert Beachy is the thor of the new book "Gay Berl" that scrib that this culture, why flourished, how ntributed to our unrstandg of gay inty and how was eradited by the Nazis. They advertised all sorts of events, different kds of venu and they also attracted advertisers who were really appealg to a gay and lbian nstuency, and that's also really startlg, I We asked you to suggt a performer, a sger, that we uld listen to to give some sense of the mic people were listeng to then at perhaps some of the gay clubs. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)CLAIRE WALDOFF: (Sgg German) That was Claire Waldoff, a song picked for by Robert Beachy, the thor of the new book "Gay Berl, " which is about the gay subculture Berl the 1920s and early '30s, jt before the Nazi rise to was the law regardg homosexualy the '20s and early '30s Berl?