15 YEARS - PROPAGANDA GAY PARTY | Metropol Berl | December 30 to December 31

Contents:

• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME
• 15 YEARS - PROPAGANDA GAY PARTY
• GAY BERL
• GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA
• RSIAN LAWMAKERS MOVE TO TOUGHEN ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ LAW, BANNG ALL ADULTS OM ‘PROMOTG’ SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS
• RSIA PASS LAW BANNG GAY 'PROPAGANDA'
• RSIA: ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ LAW ENDANGERS CHILDREN
• BERL GAY SNAS
• BERL BEFORE THE NAZIS: GERMAN PAL WAS A LIBERAL HUB WH A THRIVG GAY SCENE 1920S

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

It is unclear how many of the men publicly or privately intified as gay or were part of gay muni and works that had been tablished Germany before the Nazi rise to power.

15 YEARS - PROPAGANDA GAY PARTY

However, the Nazi mpaign agast homosexualy and the regime’s zealo enforcement of Paragraph 175 ma life Nazi Germany dangero for gay men. The latter term dated to 1869, when a pamphlet advotg for crimalizatn of sexual relatns between men ed the term “Homosexualät” (“homosexualy”).

In ntrast, the work of gay men that veloped around thor Adolf Brand and his anizatn Gemeschaft r Eigenen (The Communy of Kdred Spirs) took a different approach.

GAY BERL

It was the relatively eeg atmosphere of the Weimar Republic that gay muni and works grew and veloped unprecented ways.

Some joed “iendship leagu” (Frndschaftsverbän), groups that polilly and socially anized gay men, lbian women, and others. Gay newspapers and journals, such as Die Frndschaft (Friendship) and Der Eigene (translated varly, but this ntext implyg “his own man”), ntributed to the growth of gay works.

Shortly thereafter, they sought to dismantle the visible gay cultur and works that had veloped durg the Weimar Republic. Nohels, the Nazi closur and creased police surveillance ma far more difficult for gay men to nnect wh each other.

GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA

In a further latn, the Nazis ed new laws and police practic to arrt and ta whout trial a limed number of gay men begng late 1933 and early 1934. Three events the years 1934–1936 radilized the Nazi regime’s mpaign agast homosexualy and led to more systematic opprsn of gay men. 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).

The notorly homophobic Himmler saw both homosexualy and abortn as threats to the German birth rate and th to the fate of the German people. In rarer s, the Kripo or the Gtapo would send a man directly to a ncentratn mp as a “homosexual” (“homosexuell”) offenr. For example, gay men tegorized by the Nazi regime as Aryan had far more optns than those tegorized as Jews or Roma (Gypsi).

Unverg the histori of gay men durg the Nazi era was difficult for much of the twentieth century bee of ntued prejudice agast same-sex sexualy and the ongog enforcement of Paragraph 175. The efforts of scholars and German gay rights anizatns have helped to brg the persecutn of gay men unr the Nazis to the public eye. In the 1990s, the German ernment acknowledged “persecuted homosexuals” (“verfolgten Homosexuellen”) as victims of the Nazi regime.

RSIAN LAWMAKERS MOVE TO TOUGHEN ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ LAW, BANNG ALL ADULTS OM ‘PROMOTG’ SAME-SEX RELATNSHIPS

For the first time, gay men who had suffered at the hands of the Nazis beme eligible for moary pensatn om the German ernment for jtic perpetrated agast them. 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.

In 2017, Germany’s Cabet approved a bill that would expunge the nvictns of tens of thoands of German men for “homosexual acts” unr that untry’s anti-gay law known as “Paragraph 175. That was jt before the Nazis me to power, magnified the anti-gay law, then sought to annihilate gay and transgenr Europeans.

Partly drivg this new era of tolerance were the doctors and scientists who started lookg at homosexualy and “transvtism” (a word of that era that enpassed transgenr people) as a natural characteristic wh which some were born, and not a “rangement. ” The Berl police gmbled that magaz aimed at gay men – which they lled “obscene prs materials” – were proliferatg.

RSIA PASS LAW BANNG GAY 'PROPAGANDA'

A Parisian town uncilor 1933 lled “a moral crisis” that gay people, known as “verts” at that time, uld be seen public.

Durg the followg year alone, the Gtapo arrted more than 8, 500 gay men, que possibly g a list of nam and addrs seized at the Instute for Sexual Rearch. Italy, wh a fascist regime obssed wh virily, sent at least 300 gay men to btal mps durg the war perd, clarg them “dangero for the tegry of the race. Still, if they had been proment members of the gay and trans muny before the fascists me to power, as Berl lbian club owner Lotte Hahm was, was too late to hi.

RSIA: ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ LAW ENDANGERS CHILDREN

Neighbourhood:SchönebergAddrs:Tentzienstraße 9-12U-Bahn: Kurfürstendamm or Zoologischer GartenBerl, --, Germany10789Phone:49 30 2574-0910Webse: Venue Dcriptn: perdic gay danc, mostly young/male, go-go dancers. 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.

BERL GAY SNAS

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.

BERL BEFORE THE NAZIS: GERMAN PAL WAS A LIBERAL HUB WH A THRIVG GAY SCENE 1920S

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.

”Read: It’s Time to Drop the ‘LGBT’ From ‘LGBTQ’Given the AfD’s homophobic reputatn, is perhaps surprisg that 39-year-old Alice Weil, s other -lear, is a lbian who liv wh her female partner and children. But stead of advotg for LGBT rights, the former vtment banker wants to protect gay Germans om “dangero” Mlims whom she has lled “headsrf girls, welfare-claimg knife-wieldg men and other do-nothgs. ” The party even has a vol LGBT group lled “Alternative Homosexuals” that oppos qutned about her ments, Weil has blamed the media for spreadg “propaganda” and sisted to Der Tagspiegel, a German newspaper: “I’m beg creded wh beg volved a supposedly homophobic party, but that's not the realy.

“You uld argue that we live a climate of hate speech, ” says Mark Ulrich, the spokperson for the Lbian and Gay Feratn Germany, an fluential lobbyg group. Rsian lawmakers agreed to toughen the untry’s discrimatory law agast so-lled same-sex “propaganda, ” movg to ban all Rsians om promotg or “praisg” homosexual relatnships or publicly suggtg that they are “normal.