Alex Ross on Robert Beachy’s new book, “Gay Berl: Birthplace of a Morn Inty.”
Contents:
- BERL & GAY LIBERATN LONG BEFORE STONEWALL
- 10 FACTS ON THE ORIGS OF GAY RIGHTS BERL
- GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
- QUEER & GAY BERL: YOUR GUI FOR LGBTQ+ BERL
- GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA
- BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL
- STANFORD SCHOLAR EXPLOR THE HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS GERMANY
- BERL MM SHEDS LIGHT ON GAY HISTORY GERMANY
BERL & GAY LIBERATN LONG BEFORE STONEWALL
* gay history in berlin *
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. Beachy, a historian who teach at Yonsei Universy, Seoul, ends his book by notg that Germans hold gay-pri celebratns each June on what is known as Christopher Street Day, honor of the street where the Stonewall prott unfold. 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 towerg legacy of German ialism and Romanticism, which helps to expla why the gay-rights movement took root Germany, has self bee somewhat obscure, pecially outsi the German school system. 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.
”) Schopenher proceed to expound the dub theory that nature promoted homosexualy olr men as a way of disuragg them om ntug to surprisgly, Karl Herich Ulrichs seized on Schopenher’s cur piece of advocy when he began his mpaign; he quoted the philosopher one of his g-out letters to his relativ.
10 FACTS ON THE ORIGS OF GAY RIGHTS BERL
Wh CSD and KCSD g up (Jun 27), glter and gaiety will be out on the streets full force, but Berl has always been ahead of the queer curve. Here's a timele of the LGBTQ rights movement gay ol' Berl. * gay history in berlin *
Ulrichs might also have mentned Wagner, who, “Die Walküre” and “Tristan und Isol, ” picted illic passns that many late-neteenth-century homosexuals saw as allegori for their own experience. Magn Hirschfeld, his 1914 book “The Homosexualy of Men and Women, ” noted that the Wagner ftival Bayrth had bee a “favore meetg place” for homosexuals, and quoted a classified ad, om 1894, which a young man had sought a handsome pann for a Tyrolean bicyclg expedn; was signed “Numa 77, general livery, Bayrth.
The most revelatory chapter of Beachy’s book ncerns Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hüllsem, a Berl police missner the Wilhelme perd, who, perhaps more than any other figure, enabled “gay Berl” to blossom. A week later, a grim irony, this enigmatic protector killed himself—not on acunt of his homosexual associatns but bee he was exposed as havg taken brib om a lnaire banker acced of statutory rape.
GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
Neteenth century Berl was the birthplace of gay rights. * gay history in berlin *
) Hirschfeld, who was born 1868, a year after Ulrichs’s speech Munich, began his radil activi 1896, publishg a pamphlet tled “Sappho and Socrat, ” which told of the suici of a gay man who felt erced to marriage.
His tert effemacy among homosexual men, his attentn to lbianism, and his fascatn wh cross-drsg among both gay and straight populatns (he ed the word “transvtism”) offend men who believed that their lt for fellow-mal, pecially for younger on, ma them more virile than the rt of the populatn.
QUEER & GAY BERL: YOUR GUI FOR LGBTQ+ BERL
The Nazi regime rried out a mpaign agast male homosexualy and persecuted gay men between 1933 and 1945. * gay history in berlin *
” There is no mentn, for example, of the theatre and mic cric Theo Anna Sprüngli, who, 1904, spoke to the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee on the subject of “Homosexualy and the Women’s Movement, ” helpg to gurate a parallel movement of lbian activism. Employg the alias Anna Rülg, Sprüngli proposed that the gay-rights and femist movements “aid each other reciprolly”; the prcipl at stake both stggl, she wrote, were eedom, equaly, and “self-termatn.
After Sprüngli gave her historic speech—one that may have exacerbated the spl between the “masculist” and the “sexologil” factns of the gay movement, as Beachy lls them—she said nothg more about lbianism.
GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA
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Yet her sudn silence suggts how quickly gas n slip the goln years of the Weimar Republic, which occupy the last chapters of “Gay Berl, ” gays and lbians achieved an almost dizzyg gree of visibily popular culture. They uld see themselv onscreen films like “Mädchen Uniform” and “Different om the Others”—a tale of a gay vlist driven to suici, wh Hirschfeld featured the supportg role of a wise sexologist. Disdaful reprentatns of gay life were not only lamented but also protted; Beachy pots out that when a 1927 Komische Oper revue lled “Strictly Forbidn” mocked gay men as effemate, a monstratn at the theatre prompted the Komische Oper to remove the offendg sk.
The openns of Berl’s gay scene attracted visors om more benighted lands; Christopher Isherwood lived the cy om 1929 to 1933, enjoyg the easy availabily of htlers, who, Beachy’s book, have a somewhat exhstg chapter to the gay muny, the masculist-sexologil spl persisted.
BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL
The right-wg rurgence Germany rells prewar Berl. It may signal an omo turn for the untry’s gay muny. * gay history in berlin *
Some of Brand’s associat were flirtg wh Nazism, and not jt a metaphoril sense; one of them later beme the lover of Ernst Röhm, the head of the Brown the First World War, a new figure entered the ay: Friedrich Radszuwe, an entreprenr who tablished a work of gay publitns, cludg the first lbian magaze, Die Frnd. Röhm never ma a secret of his homosexualy, and Hler chose to overlook ; although the Nazi lear had nounced Hirschfeld and the gay movement as early as 1920, he was too pennt on Röhm’s army of thugs to reject him.
1935: Two years after burng down Hirschfeld’s Instute of Sex Rearch, the Nazis step up their persecutn of homosexuals, expandg Paragraph 175 to clu “lewd acts” and sendg offenrs to ncentratn mps, where they are forced to wear pk triangl. 1971: Activist anisatn Homosexuelle Aktn Wt Berl is found outsi Ko Arsenal after a screeng of Rosa von Prnheim’s It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society Which He Liv, markg the begng of a new gay rights movement Germany.
STANFORD SCHOLAR EXPLOR THE HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS GERMANY
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. * gay history in berlin *
The guid tour about Berl’s History of Sex Augmented Realy starts jt like the history of the world’s first LGBTIQ rights movement: wh Karl Herich Ulrichs–a man born long before the emergence of the ia of a homosexual inty. In the guid tour, people learn how, 1864, Ulrichs published the first of a total of 12 wrgs lled “Forschungen über das Räthsel r mannmännlichen Liebe” (Rearch on the Mystery of Male-Male Love) – a masterpiece of gay history. For creatg the first gay inti and layg a rnerstone of gay history, Karl Herich Ulrichs is often referred to as “the first homosexual world history” by famo German sexologist Volkmar Sigch.
In the guid tour, people disver why von Meerscheidt-Hüllsem believed would be easier to enforce §175 and ntrol male homosexualy if gay and bisexual men were allowed to have their bars, clubs, and other lotns. 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).
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. A number of lbian women, cludg Johanna Elberskirchen and Toni Schwabe, take a pro-active stance and fight to bee actively volved the gay movement, argug favour of havg their say Magn Hirschfeld's Scientific-Humanarian Commtee. Magaz for gays and lbians are available at public ksks and the venu: they clu Die Frndschaft (Friendship), the Blätter für Menschenrecht (Magaze for Human Rights), Die Frnd (The Girliends), Frenliebe (Women's Love), and Das drte Gchlecht (The Third Sex) for transvt and transsexuals.
BERL MM SHEDS LIGHT ON GAY HISTORY GERMANY
There are now around 80 venu for gays and lbians Berl: beer-soaked div and distilleri, bourgeois rtrants, we bars and clubho, dance halls and dance palac, ballrooms and smopolan night-time bars.
Numero hotels and gut ho, bety and hairdrsg salons, tailors and photo studs, doctors and lawyers private practice, librari, cigarette and shoe shops, and even a r rental pany, a travel agency and a distributor for potency pills advertise gay and lbian magaz.