Between World Wars, Gay Culture Flourished In Berl : NPR

Contents:

• NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY
• A SHORT GAY HISTORY OF GERMANY AND §175
• THE REVOLUTNARY WAR HERO WHO WAS OPENLY GAY
• STANFORD SCHOLAR EXPLOR THE HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS GERMANY
• BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL
• RACG TO PRERVE THE HISTORY OF MAE’S 1ST GAY RIGHTS ANIZATN

NETFLIX EXPOS THE SECRET GAY HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY

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.

A SHORT GAY HISTORY OF GERMANY AND §175

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.

THE REVOLUTNARY WAR HERO WHO WAS OPENLY GAY

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.

STANFORD SCHOLAR EXPLOR THE HISTORY OF GAY RIGHTS GERMANY

) 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. ” 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.

BETWEEN WORLD WARS, GAY CULTURE FLOURISHED IN BERL

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. 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.

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. Distancg himself both om Hirschfeld’s emphasis on genr ambiguy and om Brand’s predatory foc on boys, Radszuwe purveyed a visn of “homosexual bourgeois rpectabily, ” Beachy’s words. 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.

RACG TO PRERVE THE HISTORY OF MAE’S 1ST GAY RIGHTS ANIZATN

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). 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.

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.

Hirschfeld, a groundbreakg sexologist, both gay and Jewish and therefore a prime target of Nazi Germany, was thankfully not prent when his stute was ransacked by mardg Nazi youth (here aga, there are photos). Here we experience the nce that thrived before the fall, at a hiaway for those whose differenc would soon mark them for prison, exile, or, many s, ath ( is timated that between 5, 000 and 15, 000 gay people died the ncentratn mps for vlatg Paragraph 175).