Berl Mm Sheds Light on Gay History Germany

Contents:

• SCHWUL MM (GAY MM)
• BERL MM SHEDS LIGHT ON GAY HISTORY GERMANY
• BERL GAY MM
• QUEER AS GERMAN FOLK: EXHIBN AT THE GAY MM BERL

SCHWUL MM (GAY MM)

Found 1985, the Gay Mm has been showg curated art as well as has displayed treasur om s own llectn temporary special exhibns ever sce.

The followg year, the "Associatn of Friends of a Gay Mm Berl" is formed wh a change of venue: a mm wh a library and archive is stalled a buildg belongg to AHA, a gay rights workg group. In the summer of 1984, the legendary exhibn Eldorado – the History, Everyday Life and Culture of Homosexual Women and Men 1850-1950 took place the Berl Mm, curated by the three iators llaboratn wh a group of lbian activists. In the offic of the “Allgemee Homosexuelle Arbesgemeschaft AHA” (General Homosexual Workg Group) Friedrichstraße, the foundatn was laid for a mm, a library and an archive.

The German Historil Mm, Berl and the Schwul Mm are jotly prentg “Homosexualy_i, ” which explor the gay history, polics, and culture Germany.

BERL MM SHEDS LIGHT ON GAY HISTORY GERMANY

The exhibn shows how same-sex and non-nformist genr inti were crimalized by succsive ernments over the last 150 years, pathologized by medice, and how gays were driven to the g of society. In ntrast to the social reprsn suffered by the German gay muny, the exhibn also documents the liberatn movement of gay men and lbian women, which succsfully changed social perceptns on same-sex relatnships and genr inty. “In the exhibn ‘Homosexualy_i’, the Dtsch Historisch Mm is grapplg wh this important disurse for the first time s nearly 30-year history.

Still, he had an effect: a few liberal-md lleagu accepted his notn of an nate gay inty, and a Bavarian official privately nfsed to siar yearngs.

BERL GAY MM

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. This msage may surprise those who believe that gay inty me of age London and New York, sometime between the Osr Wil trials and the Stonewall rts. 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.

” In the eighteen-eighti, a Berl police missner gave up prosecutg gay bars and stead stuted a policy of bemed tolerance, gog so far as to lead tours of a growg mimon. 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.

In 1929, the Reichstag moved toward the crimalizatn of homosexualy, although the chaos ed by that fall’s stock-market crash prevented a fal did all this happen Germany? 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.

QUEER AS GERMAN FOLK: EXHIBN AT THE GAY MM BERL

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. Lerary figur pursued a cult of iendship that borred on the homoerotic, although most of the time the fervid talk of embrac and kiss remaed jt talk.

”) 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. 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. He evintly was not gay, although his superr, Bernhard von Richthofen, the police partment’s print, is said to have had a taste for young soldiers. 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.

) 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. Although Frd profsed sympathy for gay people, Amerin psychoanalysts later fostered the stctive notn that homosexualy uld be cured through therapy.