Documenting Berlin’s Gay History
Deutsche
Welle, June 21, 2004
Public Broadcasting Service, Raderberggürtel 50 50968 Köln Germany
Fax: +49-221-389-3000 http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1441_A_1242635_1_A,00.html
Barry McKay
Berlin is gearing up for the celebration of gay culture
known as Christopher Street Day. The capital has long been known as a center
for Germany’s homosexual community, as documented in the city’s Gay
Museum.
Berlin’s Gay Museum is tucked away in the multicultural
district of Kreuzberg. Established in 1985, the museum is a private
institution dedicated to preserving, exhibiting, and discovering gay and
lesbian history, art, and culture.
Although many organizations around the world collect
historical material relevant to gay men and lesbians, the Berlin museum is the
only institution of its kind which is open full time and has a dedicated
building with changing exhibitions open to the public.
“We’re planning to open a permanent exhibit on gay
history from 1800-1970 this December,” said Gerrit Horbacher, the musem’s
spokesman. “People are often confused when they come here and only see art
exhibits. They ask us where the history is, so that’s something we’ll have
on show by the end of the year.”
Pioneer Hirschfeld
The museum’s extensive library includes a newspaper and
magazine archive, which includes editions of the first gay magazine, “Der
Eigene,” published in Germany in 1896. “Back then, the magazine was not
really sold very openly. Instead there was a list of where to send them, and
of places where people could buy them,” he said. “In the 1920’s, it was
a lot easier. Then you could find gay and lesbian magazines in kiosks
alongside newspapers and mainstream magazines.”
In 1897 in Berlin, the publishers of “Der Eigene,”
Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld and Adolf Brand, went on to form the world’s first gay
liberation movement. The Scientific Humanitarian Committee was a political
group that lobbied the German parliament to abolish the law forbidding
homosexuality known as “Paragraph 175,” which had been on the books since
1871. Modified in 1969 and again in 1973, the law was eventually abolished in
1994.
Hirschfeld was a Social Democrat, a Jew and a medical
doctor. He gathered support for the gay cause from German intellectuals and
liberal politicians of the time. The Gay Museum includes many of his
pioneering works.
“In 1919, Hirschfeld founded the Institute for Sexual
Science, with which he aimed to make people conscious of their sexuality and
allow people to live their sexual lives as they wanted, not just according to
rules that were dictated by society,” Horbacher said. “He also conducted
many surveys on homosexuality, and developed his theory of ‘the third
sex,’ as he called homosexuals.”
The Golden 1920’s
The founding of Hirschfeld’s institute coincided with
the suffragette movement, shorter skirts, cropped hair for women and the
so-called flapper look. Differences between the sexes were being bridged, and
gay culture in Berlin flourished. Much of the gay nightlife was centered
around Nollendorfplatz in the Schöneberg district of Berlin, and still is
today. One of the most famous nightclubs in the 1920’s was the Eldorado,
which featured a number of transvestite performers.
“We’ve got coins from the Eldorado, which customers
used to buy there. On one side, they show either a gay or lesbian couple
dancing together. The customers would give the coins to one of the
transvestites working there, to get a dance. And at the end of the evening,
the transvestites gathered all their coins, and were paid according to how
many they’d managed to collect,” Horbacher explained.
The Eldorado also regularly featured then up-and-coming
star Marlene Dietrich, who went on to achieve international fame. Dietrich had
left Germany by the 1930’s when the Nazis came to power.
After Hitler’s regime took control, all gay and lesbian
bars and meeting places in Germany were closed. Magnus Hirschfeld’s
Institute for Sexual Science was looted in 1933 by the Nazis and his books
were burned.
“Every gay person knew that the Nazis didn’t like
homosexuals, and that they wanted to get rid of them,” Horbacher said.
“They started to enforce Paragraph 175, so from 1935 on, it was punishable
just to glance at someone of the same sex too intensively. Gay people lived in
fear of being denounced by other people, and the police conducted raids,
arrested gays, and sent them to concentration camps.”
Contemporary history
While the museum contains much research material
documenting the lives of homosexuals in past eras, it also concentrates
resources on collecting material on important modern-day developments for gays
in Germany, such as the country’s new “registered partnership” law.
“Really, it’s just a kind of gay marriage,”
Horbacher said, “because there aren’t equal rights like in a heterosexual
marriage. There are quite a few couples who are doing it. In Berlin, there are
lots of gay marriages, and also the first divorces. It’s quite normal
here.”
Horbacher said that while the museum attracts many gays
and lesbians from Berlin and abroad, heterosexuals are also among the patrons.
“They see that there’s a gay museum, and think, ‘Let’s see what
they’ve got on display.’ It’s a fun thing for them. At least they’re
open to coming in, and that’s our aim—not only to have gay and lesbian
visitors, but also to be of interest to heterosexuals.”
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