"Same sex love was a natural, inborn characteristic and not merely the perversion of a 'normal' sexual tendency." — Robert Beachy
Part One of CBC's three-part series Legendary Sin Cities (2005)
Further ReadingsBeachy, Robert. Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. Vintage Books, New York, 2015.
Marhoefer, Laurie. Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis. University of Toronto Press, Buffalo, Toronto. 2015. Morgan, Peter. "Coming Out in Weimar: Crisis and Homosexuality in the Weimar Republic." Thesis Eleven, vol. 111, no. 1, 2012: pp. 48-65. Prickett, David J. "Defining Identity Via Homosexual Spaces: Locating the Male Homosexual in Weimar Berlin." Women in German Yearbook, vol. 21, no. 1, 2005: pp. 134-162. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2847643/Berlin-liberal-hotbed-homosexuality-mecca-cross-dressers-transsexuals-male-female-surgery-performed-Nazis-came-power-new-book-reveals.html |
During the 1920s, Germany was a "liberal hotbed" for LGBTQ rights, particularly in Berlin. It was not only a place of freedom for the homosexual community, but it also served as a pioneer for gay rights world-wide. With the aid of prominent figures such as Magnus Hirschfeld, homosexual progress began to flourish in Berlin. Places such as the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, which was established by Hirschfeld in 1919, pioneered sexual research and helped to defend homosexuality as a normal aspect of human sexual behavior. The institute offered medical and psychological counseling for homosexuals, cross-dressers and transsexuals and was the driving force for sexual research. The institute even performed the worlds first male-to-female sex-reassignment surgery in 1925, when Dr. Arthur Kronfeld of the institute removed the testicles of a 23 year old man. This surgery allowed his hormones to balance, his facial hair to disappear, and to pass as the woman he had always believed he was (Howe, 2014). Moreover, it was at Hirschfeld's institute where the term 'transsexuality' was created.
Besides the scientific advances happening in Berlin during the 1920s, society was open to the LGBTQ community. Homosexual bars, nightclubs and cabarets flourished, as well as male prostitution and cross-dressing. Berlin emerged out of World War I as a liberal utopia; a place where one could live the lifestyle they wanted and embrace "anything goes" attitudes. Despite the advances made during the 1920s, the economy took a turn for the worst and people began to suffer. The economic struggles of the 1920s helped bring Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists to power in 1933. This marked a turning point for German LGBTQ rights. With the destruction of documents and harsher punishments for homosexuality established by the Nazis, Germany went from a gay utopia to a gay dystopia by the 1930s. |