Alex Ross on Robert Beachy’s new book, “Gay Berl: Birthplace of a Morn Inty.”
Contents:
- BERL BEFORE THE NAZIS: GERMAN PAL WAS A LIBERAL HUB WH A THRIVG GAY SCENE 1920S
- HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
- GAY BERL, BEFORE HLER CAME TO POWER
- LGBTQ+ BERL – THE CY’S BT GAY BARS, CLUBS AND SNAS
- BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL
- GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA
- QUEER & GAY BERL: YOUR GUI FOR LGBTQ+ BERL
BERL BEFORE THE NAZIS: GERMAN PAL WAS A LIBERAL HUB WH A THRIVG GAY SCENE 1920S
Durg Prohibn, gay nightlife and culture reached new heights—at least temporarily. * gay clubs in berlin 1920s *
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.
HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
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. * gay clubs in berlin 1920s *
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.
GAY BERL, BEFORE HLER CAME TO POWER
Ready for Berl's LGBT nightlife? From top techno clubs to kky fetish bars and trendy cktail venu - this is THE bt of the Berl gay scene. * gay clubs in berlin 1920s *
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. He sold the adly dg for 5 Dtschmarks small psul, and the man his background is workg wh him to warn the dg aler when a stranger approach, May 1929Drag Queens were also spotted at balls and afternoon teas venu across were also around 30 separate gay German-language perdils that were circulatg Berl, weekly or monthly. They created polici enuragg the birth of Aryan children and prohibg sexual relatns between Germans and anisatns were banned, scholarly books about homosexualy, and sexualy general (such as Berl's Instut fur Sexualwisenschaft) were burned and any LGBTQ people wh even the Nazi Party self were murred.
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. Whisnant:As early as the turn of the century, Berl's gay scene was attractg such notoriety that equently was mentned tourist lerature, liftg up the cy's gay scene as proof of the evils of urban life and the dangers of morny; them, Berl beme the untry's Sodom and Gomorrah put together, a sure sign of the land's the stag of Berl, the Tiller Girls showed off their legs, dancg a Rockett-style performance that amazed and tillated spectators.
LGBTQ+ BERL – THE CY’S BT GAY BARS, CLUBS AND SNAS
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 clubs in berlin 1920s *
By far the most famo was the Eldorado a nightclub whose ftive atmosphere attracted not only homosexuals but also artists, thors, celebri, and tourists wantg to admire a piece of "nt" Berl or tch a glimpse of someone Lbian Club SceneLbians uld also be found some of the bars that were voted mostly to gay men [and were] often seen the larger clubs of the 1920s, such as the Topp and the Eldorado. The atmosphere was generally refed; the lightg was soft and sentimental mic played the of the most famo was Chez Ma Belle Sor on Marburger Strasse, rated Greek-style and furnished wh private booths, where upl uld take refuge behd the gay bars, many of the lbian bars were segregated somewhat by class.
They would s down to eat at tabl led wh flowers; the director, drsed a "gay velvet jacket, " would greet the guts and give a short dner, the tabl would be put away, and the orchtra would beg playg waltz and other lively dancg mic while the upl would dance through the night. We talked wh Robert Beachy, thor of Gay Berl: Birthplace of a Morn Inty and a historian at Yonsei Universy, to fd out about the liv the characters Bent—Max and his boyiend, Rudy, bar owner and drag queen Greta—might have led before Hler me to power.
Durg the “Pansy Craze” om the 1920s until 1933, people the lbian, gay, bi, trans and queer (LGBTQ) muny were performg on stag ci around the world, and New York Cy’s Greenwich Village, Tim Square and Harlem held some of the most world-renowned drag performanc of the time. “They didn’t see a nflict between not beg openly gay at work and sort of only beg gay durg their leisure time, ” says Heap, addg that a person’s class was likely ditive of how you might participate gay and lbian culture at the time. ” In the mid ‘30s, productn s were put to effect that rtricted and prevented performanc of openly gay characters film or theater, and the followg s, thoands of LGBTQ people were arrted post WWII for equentg their own clubs.
BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL
* gay clubs in berlin 1920s *
At the begng of the 21st century, the slogan beme “arm, aber sexy” (“poor but sexy”) – an iative by mayor Kls Wowere, the first openly gay top-tier polician of the BRD – but that motto would have been equally apt for a tourism mpaign the 1920s. 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.
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. * gay clubs in 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.
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.
QUEER & GAY BERL: YOUR GUI FOR LGBTQ+ BERL
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.