The right-wg rurgence Germany rells prewar Berl. It may signal an omo turn for the untry’s gay muny.
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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. Crowds here dance unr nfetti ra at annual Christopher Street Day, or gay pri, paras.
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 . Gay muni New York, Paris, and London faced the threat of imprisonment, fancial , murr, or even executn. 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.