How the Nazis stroyed the first gay rights movement

Contents:

• GAY LIFE BERL IS STARTG TO ECHO A DARKER ERA
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

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.

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

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.

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. ”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. 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.