Gay Germany | LGBTQ+ Travel Gui, Germany Gay Rights & Safety Tips

Contents:

• ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI
• SUBS LOOKG FOR DOMS (GAY MEN ONLY)
• QUEER KO: 1970S AND ‘80S GAY GERMAN ARTHOE CEMA
• DOM LEATHER BULL’S FAG FEEDMY TWEETSSURRENR
• SHRIEN DEWANI’S GAY LOVER ‘THE GERMAN MASTER’ WHO WAS KEY WNS HONEYMOON MURR TRIAL FOUND HANGED
• GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA
• GAY GERMANY
• SHRIEN DEWANI'S 'GAY LOVER' AND WNS HONEYMOON MURR TRIAL FOUND HANGED
• GAY BERL

ERNST RöHM, THE HIGHT-RANKG GAY NAZI

As Eleanor Hanck explas, Röhm, his face srred om war wounds, strsed a hyper-masculy to unteract ntemporary views of homosexualy as feme. His open homosexualy may have threatened the psychologil secury of some other Natnal Socialists, creatg a form of ‘male homosexual panic. '” She go further, wonrg if “the purge of the SA and the killg of Röhm reprented the leral objective rrelative for the supprsn and reprsn of the homosexual sir their own Nazism?

Even before Ernst Röhm was murred, the Nazis had begun crackg down on homosexualy, banng anizatns, burng books, and arrtg the first of some 100, 000. Around 15, 000 gay people were sent to ncentratn mps, where some were experimented upon bizarre efforts to fd a “cure” for sexual orientatn, a forhadowg of Amerin psychologil and later fundamentalist efforts to try the same thg.

SUBS LOOKG FOR DOMS (GAY MEN ONLY)

Its programmer, filmmaker Wieland Speck, says that “qutng our parents’ generatn, the war generatn, had a strong impact on the velopg gay movement, pecially the first femist ceast. Speck scrib the attu among German gay men at the time was ma: “every possible STD was ridiculed as the vcibily of the gay psyche ma s first appearance history.

” He adds: “This high time was met hard by the ‘gay ncer’ which ma s way to the nscns of German society about 1986 — an awarens spearhead by Arthur J.

QUEER KO: 1970S AND ‘80S GAY GERMAN ARTHOE CEMA

Rosa von Prnheim’s nontatnal It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society Which He Liv (1971) has been creded wh spirg the German gay liberatn movement, although Speck scrib this tone as “already strag at the leash.

Prnheim regnized the danger stemmg both om the vis self and the rurgence homophobia led to, envisng a near-future versn of a leper lony.

Collectively wrten, stars the director as a bathhoe owner who profs om allowg his gay ctomers to have unsafe sex while stgglg wh AIDS and his own homophobia.

DOM LEATHER BULL’S FAG FEEDMY TWEETSSURRENR

The film juggl several narrative l, cludg an edor who spreads misrmatn her tabloid paper and a woman who fetishiz sex wh gay men, endg up a dystopian 1987, where 70% of German prisoners are HIV-posive and the ernment has ma HIV tts mandatory.

30 years later, the narrative of Heer Carow’s Comg Out (1989) seems a b basic: Philipp (Matthias Freihof), who is married to a woman, realiz that he’s gay after beg attracted to Matthias (Dirk Kummer).

SHRIEN DEWANI’S GAY LOVER ‘THE GERMAN MASTER’ WHO WAS KEY WNS HONEYMOON MURR TRIAL FOUND HANGED

It avoids the mon impulse of queer cema towards tragedy, spe the openg scene’s pictn of Matthias gettg his stomach pumped after a suici attempt driven by self-hatred about his gayns.

Afterwards, he embraced munism and remas satisfied by — he says, “we stopped mankd’s exploatn by mankd” — but plas that ignored the problems of gays. (Gay men were eer legally East Germany than the Wt after World War II, where the Nazi law that crimalized homosexualy stayed on the books until 1969. ) The novelty of s gay subject matter may have gotten more attentn than other East German films of the ‘80s, but genuely feels like a precursor to Andrew Haigh’s Weekend (2011).

GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA

The fact that AIDS killed off half a generatn of gay men, while the closet renred many of the survivors visible, meant that our imag of gay life the ‘70s and ‘80s are domated by that tragedy, which wiped out filmmakers like Marlon Riggs, Bill Sherwood, Derek Jarman, and Arthur J. The gay prostute who had sexual enunters wh Shrien Dewani says the fay of sla bri Anni treated him like a long-lost son when he met them as the 34-year-old lnaire faced a murr charge over the ath of his wife.

'After graduatg, Dewani traed as an acuntant and worked for Delote before jog his brother the fay bs as a fancial his early 20s, he had joed a gay datg webse lled Gaydar, g the name ‘asiansubguy’ – thought to be a reference to the fact that he liked to be submissive durg sex wh men. Later that night, Anni was shot ad after their r was hijacked a township outsi Cape Town, apparently on a sight-seeg tour bee, acrdg to Dewani, she wanted to see ‘the real Ai’ after her body was found, police found Dewani had logged on to Gaydar, the gay datg se, om the luxury hotel where they had been stayg Cape Hdocha, the uncle of Anni, told the Mail: ‘We uldn’t re ls if someone is gay or not.

Here, 11 gay movi, om the dramatic to the edic, om the absurd to the touchg, om the Weimer Republic to unified Berl, straight out of Germany.

GAY GERMANY

Madchen Uniform ("Girls Uniform"), 1931: While homosexualy was simply allud to the aforementned flicks, was on full display Madchen Uniform, the tale of a boardg school girl who falls for her teacher. Anrs als du und Ich ("Different From You and Me"), 1957: Not to be nfed wh the siarly gay 1919 movie Anrs als die Anrn ("Different om the Others"), this mid-20th Century narrative revolv around rich kid Kls's affair wh a lower-class peer named Maned. And drama also ensued when the picture me out -- not only were nservativ displeased wh the gay ntent, early gay activists were livid over an endg which, spoiler alert, Kls is "cured" of his homosexualy.

SHRIEN DEWANI'S 'GAY LOVER' AND WNS HONEYMOON MURR TRIAL FOUND HANGED

Nicht r Homosexuelle ist pervers, sonrn die Suatn, r er lebt ("It Is Not The Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But The Society In Which He Liv"), 1971: Perhaps one of the most ntroversial gay featur ever to e out of Germany, or anywhere else, this mouthful of a movie and s portrayal of gay men as shallow, fashn-obssed, limp wristed weaklgs created such a stir that the viotaped cricisms om gay activists nstute their own short. Fstrecht r Freihe ("Fox and His Friends"), 1975: Inic New Cema filmmaker Raer Werner Fassbr directed, wrote, and starred this story of a gay man who falls for a wealthy heir. Taxi zum Klo ("Taxi to the John", or "Taxi to the Toilet"), 1981: Frank Ripploh's semi-tobgraphil drama about a prim and proper school teacher wh a hardre after-hours sex life was groundbreakg and sensatnal for s time, and ed remas a cult classic (and one of the sexit gay films acrdg to director John Cameron Mchell).

Lola und Bilidikid (Lola and Billy The Kid), 1999: Wrer/Director Kutlug Ataman had hoped to film this story of a young man tryg to rencile his homosexualy wh Islam Turkey, the ma character's fay's homeland, but he uldn't shore up enough support. Instead, Sherry Hormann's rom- tackl homophobia sports by stg Maxiian Bckner as Ecki, a closeted soccer player who back strong after beg booted om his team for beg gay. 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.

GAY BERL

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 . 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.

Audienc, straight and gay, qued up at Eldorado, a Jewish-owned nightclub where trans women and drag queens performed and gave paid danc to visors. 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. 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.