The Gay Capal of the Neteenth Century | The New Yorker

Contents:

• BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL
• BERL BEFORE THE NAZIS: GERMAN PAL WAS A LIBERAL HUB WH A THRIVG GAY SCENE 1920S
• GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA
• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• GAY BERL, BEFORE HLER CAME TO POWER

BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL

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. 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?

So was actually ma more dranian unr the Nazis 1935, and that remaed the law of the land Wt Germany until was fally reformed, startg the very-late So if homosexual acts were illegal Berl the '20s and early '30s, how did a gay subculture manage to flourish? And, of urse, people had nsensual sexual relatns private, so the law was difficult to what he fally end up dog - he cid that would be easier to simply observe and monor and, sence, keep tabs on spected homosexuals - spected vlators of the law - than to actually try to persecute them or prevent them om breakg the law. And what this meant practice was that the police partment, startg the late-1880s, simply tolerated all kds of different, you uld say, public acmodatns, bars, f; eventually, large transvte balls, where obv homosexuals, or, at least, obvly spected homosexuals, uld ngregate and there was a kd of homoerotic aternizatn, you uld say, that was allowed Berl by the late 1880s, and this permted the growth of a whole work of different kds of bars and rtrants.

It was somethg that really didn't exist the same way any other European Somethg really unual about how this law was enforced was that a partment lled the Department of Blackmail and Homosexualy was created to enforce the law. And so blackmail beme a huge the same police missner and then his succsors and really the entire police partment, regnized that the bigger problem was not homosexual nduct, but the way which the law self actually allowed for the practice of blackmail. And the two, then, were always closely I thk a lot of the people that the Department of Blackmail and Homosexualy went after were prostut bee the partment, though I terpreted, didn't really want to go after, like, the middle class.

BERL BEFORE THE NAZIS: GERMAN PAL WAS A LIBERAL HUB WH A THRIVG GAY SCENE 1920S

And the assumptn, too, I thk, was that prostut who make money the sex tra were also willg to make money through blackmailg the people they were - who were payg them to have that leads to, like, a whole other chapter the story, which was that there was a lot of prostutn, male prostut, gay Berl at the time. So there were actually lots and lots of, we uld say, gay Nazi sympathizers who joed the SA, who joed the party, who were members of the movement, so to speak, and who also believed that bee of this figurehead, they would never actually be this was more or ls the se for the first year and a half until the summer of 1934.

And so women were also, you know, of urse targeted and nsired absolutely send-class So what's the timatn of how many gay people were imprisoned durg the Third Reich, and how many died ncentratn mps and prisons? And of urse, the late '70s to the '80s, the timat were much, much higher but they've sort of been pegged down as people have done more rearch and done some actual archival work to tablish those Durg the 1920s and the early 1930s, there were movements to try to liberalize the anti-gay law or to elimate the anti-gay law.

GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA

And his theori had this credible cultural fluence, and a lot of people - people like Thomas Mann wrote, jt passg, how pervasive the ias about the Mannerbund actually anyway, what out of is this ia that there are actually really, really sort of virile, natnalist and, as you put , proto-fascist dividuals who also happen to be homosexual. He thought that was probably an imbalance of male and female sex hormon that acunted for homosexualy or homosexual also then cid that one might be able to e sex hormon to fluence behavr and also ultimately to transn to a different genr. But 's certaly documented that there were both venu and different kds of anizatns that really tered specifilly to So now you're the procs of wrg another book lled "Long Kniv: Homosexualy In Nazi Germany.

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

The prence of a lot of gay-intified, some s openly homosexual, dividuals who were volved the Nazi movement and who participated at least the early years and then up until the so-lled Night of Long Kniv - up until the assassatn of Rohm. BEACHY: Well, you know, after pletg this book and after wrg about what I thk is really the birth of morn homosexual inty and homosexual rights activism, I have trouble unrstandg why Germans still regnize the Stonewall rt or rts at the end of the '60s 1969 as the begng of the morn homosexual rights I thk the Germans need to sort of honor their own history and regnize the importance of somebody like Magn Hirschfeld and the scientific humanarian mtee found 1897, you know, almost 70 years before the begng of the so-lled morn homosexual rights movement. So I thk some ways that the Germans have almost been brawashed, and so that's - I gus that explas my ironic tone at the end of the Well, Robert Beachy, thank you so much for talkg wh Thank you so much for havg me on the show, Robert Beachy is the thor of "Gay Berl.

GAY BERL, BEFORE HLER CAME TO POWER

Women buyg e, open homosexualy and r revellers dancg to the early hours of the morng are featured the remarkable photos which reveal what Berl looked like the roarg Hler pleted his march to power 1933, the German pal was a liberal hotbed where people dulged their sexual and hedonistic appet Berl's nightlife and party century-old photos, om Germany's Feral Archive (bunsarchiv), show Berl's relaxed social meant that same-sex bars, nightclubs and barets tered to gay men, lbians and trans people flourished the excg cy. Experimental art such as this would have likely been banned by the 's relaxed social attus also meant that same-sex bars, nightclubs and barets tered to gay men, lbians and trans people flourished the excg and sometim prer cy. Crime veloped parallel wh prostutn and Berl acquired a reputatn as a hub for dg alg substanc such as e, hero and German pal's unually liberal law enforcement and s pleasure-seekg reputatn turned the pal cy to a hedonistic and open-md mec which was unmatched across 's tolerance for behavur that was technilly still illegal saw wrers, poets, artists om across the world to dulge the unhibed nightlife and a thrivg gay was also an era of great creative productivy creative experimentatn for the cy - wh multiple cultural ntributns the fields of lerature, art, mic, dance, drama and cema.

The photos, om Germany's bunsarchiv, show Berl's relaxed social attus also meant that same-sex bars, nightclubs and barets tered to gay men, lbians and trans people flourished the excg and sometim prer cy. Berl's tolerance for behavur that was technilly still illegal saw wrers, poets, artists om across the world to dulge the unhibed nightlife and vast homosexual subcultureBy the 1920s, Berl was home to an timated 85, 000 lbians, a thrivg LGBTQ-media scene, and around 100 gay bars and clubs. And 1919, physician, Magn Hirschfeld tablished his revolutnary 'Instut fur Sexualwissenschaft' (Instute for Sexology) where he openly lobbied for the crimalisatn of homosexualy and helped transgenr men to apply to live legally unr their new genr.

It was also an era of great creative productivy creative experimentatn for the cy - wh multiple cultural ntributns the fields of lerature, art, mic, dance, drama and cema Eldorado, a famo nightclub post-war Berl that tered for the gay muny, but was a h amongst lols and tourists alike. Audienc, straight and gay, qued up at the famed Jewish-owned nightclub where trans women and drag queens performed and gave paid danc to visors The Internatnal Alliance of Women ngrs Berl, Germany, June 1929Left: Lbian magaze, Die Frnd, May 1928.