Alex Ross on Robert Beachy’s new book, “Gay Berl: Birthplace of a Morn Inty.”
Contents:
- HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
- BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL
- BERL BEFORE THE NAZIS: GERMAN PAL WAS A LIBERAL HUB WH A THRIVG GAY SCENE 1920S
- QUEER & GAY BERL: YOUR GUI FOR LGBTQ+ BERL
- GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA
- A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
Durg Prohibn, gay nightlife and culture reached new heights—at least temporarily. * lgbt berlin 1920s *
The Begngs of a New Gay World“In the late 19th century, there was an creasgly visible prence of genr-non-nformg men who were engaged sexual relatnships wh other men major Amerin ci, ” says Chad Heap, a profsor of Amerin Studi at Gee Washgton Universy and the thor of Slummg: Sexual and Racial Enunters Amerin Nightlife, 1885-1940. ”At the same time, lbian and gay characters were beg featured a slew of popular “pulp” novels, songs and on Broadway stag (cludg the ntroversial 1926 play The Captive) and Hollywood—at least prr to 1934, when the motn picture dtry began enforcg censorship guil, known as the Hays Co.
” By the post-World War II era, a larger cultural shift toward earlier marriage and suburban livg, the advent of TV and the anti-homosexualy csas champned by Joseph McCarthy would help ph the flowerg of gay culture reprented by the Pansy Craze firmly to the natn’s rear-view mirror. 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.
BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL
In Gay Berl, Robert Beachy scrib the rise of a gay subculture the 1920s and '30s, how ntributed to our unrstandg of gay inty and how was eradited by the Nazis. * lgbt berlin 1920s *
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?
BERL BEFORE THE NAZIS: GERMAN PAL WAS A LIBERAL HUB WH A THRIVG GAY SCENE 1920S
* lgbt berlin 1920s *
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.
QUEER & GAY BERL: YOUR GUI FOR LGBTQ+ BERL
Everythg about Berl's LGBTQ+ scene ✓ practil ✓ queer events ✓ LGBTQ+ hotels ✓ gay bars & clubs ► Click here for the Gay Gui for Berl * lgbt berlin 1920s *
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. 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.
GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA
The right-wg rurgence Germany rells prewar Berl. It may signal an omo turn for the untry’s gay muny. * lgbt berlin 1920s *
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. 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.
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. The tle of the chapter, “The German Inventn of Homosexualy, ” telegraphs a prcipal argument of the book: although same-sex love is as old as love self, the public disurse around , and the polil movement to w rights for , arose Germany the late neteenth and early twentieth centuri.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
A new book tells the te stori behd Cabaret, and what was possibly the most thrillg gay party scene the world has ever known. Read an excerpt here. * lgbt berlin 1920s *
By the begng of the twentieth century, a non of gay lerature had emerged (one early advote ed the phrase “Stayg silent is ath, ” nearly a century before aids activists ed the slogan “Silence = Death”); activists were bemoang negative pictns of homosexualy (Thomas Mann’s “Death Venice” was one target); there were bat over the ethics of outg; and a schism opened between an clive, mastream factn and a more rto, anarchistic wg.
The episo suggts the gree to which the German cultural and tellectual tradn, particularly the Romantic age, which stretched om Goethe and Schiller to Schopenher and Wagner, embolned those who me to intify themselv as gay and lbian.