Today, Germany is known for being widely accepting of LGBT+ people, with its capital, Berlin, famous for its vibrant and diverse gay culture. Pride celebrations happen yearly, full of parades, parties, and drag performances. Their first drag competition show, Queen of Drags, has two seasons going. Queens such as Gloria Viagra, Pansy, Hungry, Judy LaDivina, Katy Bähm, and Nina Queer are well known figures. In 2017, Germany legalized gay marriage and passed legislation giving full adoption rights to gay couples; that same year, they became the first European country to establish a legal third gender marker. LGBT+ discrimination, in general, in housing, and in employment, have all been illegal since 2006. Since 2011, transgender people have been able to legally change their name and gender markers, with no surgery required. Germany has made massive progress with LGBT+ rights and sex/gender diversity. However, Germany’s history with LGBT+ rights, sex/gender diversity, and drag, is a long and tumultuous history.
Naturally, the best place to start with this history is in the past. From 1871 to 1933, Paragraph 175 was the law prohibiting sodomy in what was then the Weimar Republic of Germany. It made same-sex sexual contact, specifically penetration, illegal and punishable by imprisonment. However, it’s enforcement levels varied widely, and by the late 1910s, Berlin had established a reputation as a place of wild immorality and unusually liberal law enforcement. Berlin had become Europe’s gay mecca. By the 1920s, Berlin was home to thousands upon thousands of gay and trans people, a thriving gay media scene, and about 100 LGBT+ bars and clubs.
One of the most infamous of these bars was the Eldorado nightclub- a Jewish-owned nightclub where trans women and drag queens performed. The Eldorado was a central location for Berlin’s gay and trans nightlife, with it’s banner stating “Hier ist’s Richtig” or “Here it’s right” plastered proudly above the front door. One account of a gay nightclub states “In one of the establishments, he had the pleasure of hearing the local bartender sing a song about ‘the third sex’ that one of the members had composed. As the bartender sang, he threw off his apron, pulled on a braided wig and woman’s hat, and ‘made all kinds of feminine movements and facial expressions that a professional female impersonator could hardly improve on.’ ” (Whisnant, para. 13)
Homosexual establishments were famous for throwing elaborate gay balls on regular occasions. Participants would show up wearing suits, “fancy dress”, costumes, with men in women's’ clothing not being unusual at all. Wealthy gentlemen would often come in elaborate dresses and would act like women for the entire night, all while wearing moustaches or beards. There would be hours of dancing and parading around, followed by coffee and performances by female impersonators/drag queens. Gay culture, trans culture, and drag culture were all alive and thriving in early 1900s Berlin and Germany. And when you look at the politics of the time, it’s no surprise why.
In the 1890s Magnus Hirschfeld, a gay Jewish physician and sexologist, organized the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee- the world’s first homosexual movement and organization. The committee’s goals were to use the latest scientific research to repeal Paragraph 175 and to promote a wider tolerance for homosexuals. Hirschfeld was the most important and prominent face of this movement. He published numerous studies on gay and trans people. Through his work, he argued for several points. Firstly, he argued that homosexuality was rooted in an individual’s biological makeup, thus because of the congenital nature of society, it legally and morally made sense to repeal all laws against homosexuality. Secondly, he argued that every person begins life as an asexual creature, then develop various sexual characteristics after being expoed to hormones and physical maturation; we all present slightly different mixtures of these characteristics and thus every person is a “sexual intermediary”. Lastly, he argued that (what was then referred to as) transvestism was a distinct sexual variation separate from homosexuality and that it had its roots in biological development. In 1909, he convinced local authorities in Berlin to experiment with “transvestite passes”, which enabled men and women to cross-dress in public without worry of being arrested for disorderly conduct. And in 1919, he opened the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or the Institute for Sexual Science, the first of its kind in the world. It became known as an institution providing counselling and treatment for “physical and psychological sexual disorders” and for “sexual transitions”. The Institut was one of the first medical
facilities in the world that could provide gender affirmation surgeries for trans people, and trans activists were prominent in the Institut. From the start, the Institut was defamed and denounced as “Jewish”, “Social-Democratic”, and “offensive for public morals”. It operated nonetheless until 1933, when Hitler became chancellor. That’s when everything changed.
Under the Nazi regime, punishment for sodomy and for being LGBT+ became much more severe than it had ever been before. All gay nightclubs were forced to close, including the famous Eldorado. The Nazis turned the Eldorado into Nazi SA headquarters, removing all of the signage from the building, but leaving “Here it’s right”. On May 6th, 1933, the Nazis raided and plundered the Institut and its libraries, then shut it down. They took and destroyed roughly 12,000 books and 35,000 photographs, which were burned in the streets several days later.
In a matter of days, 47,000 pieces of gay and trans history, gay and trans culture, and gay and trans research were destroyed; there were no copies. Gay men who were arrested were sent to concentration camps and labelled with a pink triangle. One estimate was that 6,000 gay men died in the camps. Another is that between 5,000 and 15,000 gay men were sent to the camps, and up to 60% were murdered. Because so many of the records were destroyed, there is no way of really knowing just how many were lost.
Even after the war ended, many of the men remained imprisoned because homosexuality was still illegal. West Germany kept the same Nazi-era sodomy laws, which criminalized any act perceived to be homosexual. East Germany repealed the Nazi-era laws and reverted to the pre-WW2 sodomy law. However they stopped prosecuting altogether by 1957 and repealed the law in 1968; West Germany followed suit in 1969. Germany was reunited as a nation in 1990 and four years later completely legalized homosexuality. However, it wasn’t until 2017 that Germany voided charges for gay people who had been arrested under those laws. It took decades for LGBT+ people in Germany to recover from the damage done by the Nazis, and recovery is still happening today. With the far-right growing in Germany, the LGBT+ community will have to continue to fight just like they always have. But if history has proven anything, it’s that no matter how many people deliberately try to silence, destroy, and erase us, the LGBT+ community will always survive.
Sources:
Whisnant, Clayton J. Queer Identities and Politics in Germany: a History, 1880#x96;1945. Columbia University Press, 2016.
Hutton, Alice. “Gay Life in Berlin Is Starting to Echo a Darker Era.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 12 Mar. 2019, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/12/germany-berlin-gay-life/578653/.
“Everyday Encounters with Fascism.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, perspectives.ushmm.org/item/photo-of-the-eldorado-club.
“Nazis Destroyed This Amazing LGBTQ Library in Germany.” Teen Vogue, Teen Vogue, 19 Sept. 2017, www.teenvogue.com/story/lgbtq-institute-in-germany-was-burned-down-by-nazis.
“The First Institute for Sexual Science (1919-1933).” Magnus Hirschfeld Und Das Institut Für Sexualwissenschaft, magnus-hirschfeld.de/ausstellungen/institute/.
University, Stanford. “Stanford Scholar Explores the History of Gay Rights in Germany.” Stanford News, 30 Dec. 2018, news.stanford.edu/2018/12/29/east-germanys-lenient-laws-helped-unified-germany-become-gay-friendly/.
Dilley, Ana. “From Persecution to Pride: The History of LGBTQ+ Rights in Germany.” Thelocal.de, 8 July 2019, www.thelocal.de/20190708/from-persecution-to-pride-the-history-of-lgbtq-rights-in-germany/.
TheAdvocateMag. “A Peek Inside Berlin's Queer Club Scene Before Hitler Destroyed It.” ADVOCATE, 19 July 2016, www.advocate.com/books/2016/7/19/peek-inside-berlins-queer-club-scene-hitler-destroyed-it.
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