Being gay in West Berlin
Background
After the end of the Nazi era and the Second World War, Germany lay in ruins. The social structures were equally broken, with the liberal advances and achievements of the Weimar Republic long buried. The historic endeavors of the scientific and humanitarian committees of Markus Hischfeld and other organizations to rid the country of the notoriously discriminatory paragraph § 175 in German law had long been forgotten. Shortly after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, the Nazis closed down most gay venues and in 1935, tightened laws criminalizing gays. Before this time intercourse-like activities
between men were already prosecutable, yet now even the more ambiguous notion of lusty arousal
between men became a criminal offense. The Nazis also introduced paragraph § 175a, which sent men to prison for up to 10 years in the case of a severe sexual offense
(such as sex with a minor or prostitution). The pink triangle that homosexuals were forced to wear in the concentration camps became a symbol for the immeasurable suffering, stigma, and State-run terror that gays and lesbians were subjected to.
Secret Love: the 50's & 60's in the era of paragraph § 175
After the war, the Federal German lawmakers carried over paragraph § 175 unaltered, just as the Nazis had written it in its 1935 version.* This was justified by the contention that the tightening of the law by the Nazis was not based on Nazi concepts. A parliamentary document from 1962 reads: Where same-sex fornication abounds, the degeneration and moral decline of the populace follows.
Within this legal framework, denunciation, raids, and summons were part of daily life for many homosexuals in West Germany. More than 50,000 men were convicted and served prison sentences under the provision of § 175 up until the 1960's. The efforts of some individuals to overturn the law through the dissemination of information and petitions to parliament, failed.
Gay West Berliners who grew up in the 50's and 60's knew that society not only disdained and condemned their sexual orientation, but also considered it criminal. However this was not something one talked about
, as Klaus Schumann, who grew up in Schöneberg's red triangle
district, states. Behind his back, Klaus was called a doll boy
. At the time, he didn't know what it meant, but understood that it was not a good thing when he witnessed his parents throw a fit about the reference.
Meanwhile a gay subculture was beginning to flourish in Berlin, hidden away behind closed doors and ambiguous doorbell nameplates. Berlin and Hannover were the only cities in West Germany, where dancing between men was not prohibited. Dozens of gay bars actively reinforced Berlin's reputation as the most libertine and permissive city in the country, among them the Kleist Casino. René Koch, who worked there as a bartender, describes the extravagant interior as ritzy, lavish, classy, and with chandeliers – it was all poofy baroque
.
One of the most prominent venues was the Eldorado, where drag artists like Marcel André performed. West Berlin abounded with public restrooms and parks that were well-known meeting places for gay sex. This licentiousness attracted young gays from across the country to West Berlin – students, draft dodgers, and hedonists of all colors.
Time of revolt: the gay and lesbian movement of the 70's
While the US was engaged in the Vietnam war during the late 60's, left-wing student movements were gaining ground throughout the Western world; and with them, the desire for more sexual freedom. On New York's Christopher Street in 1969, gays, lesbians, and transsexuals publicly took a stand against police discrimination for the first time. In the same year, West Germany overturned § 175 during a reform of the penal code. Four years later, a further amendment decreased the age of consent from 21 to 18 years. A Spiegel magazine cover from the time reads: Homosexuals: freed, but still ostracized
.
During the Berlin film festival of 1971, Rosa von Praunheim's film It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives
(co-author: Martin Dannecker) stirred up immense controversy and division in the gay world. While some homosexuals vehemently rejected the film as defamatory, others euphorically hailed it. The film's message was: Get out of the public toilets and into the streets!
Screenings of the film resulted in the formation of gay action groups in many German cities.
In Berlin, the group Homosexual Action West Berlin (HAW) was created. We wanted a gay revolution to overcome capitalism side by side with the working class and to free gays
, explains Wolfgang Theis, who was part of the group from its start. The HAW took part in leftist demonstrations, collected signatures for a reversal of § 175, and mobilized against occupational bans targeting gay teachers. For many of its members, the HAW became like a family. Some even went a step further and began living together in gay communes. The most important campaigns of the highly politicized group were filmed by the openly gay teacher Wilfried Laule with his Super-8 camera.
Since most of the HAW members were students, their political point of views were as colorful and diverse as the left wing of that decade was. In the early days, they created a close alliance with equally political and combative lesbians. Yet the women soon dissociated themselves from the domineering gays. Heated discussions arose in the gay community about what gays should be like. Should gays act like real guys
or rather be provocatively poofy? The painter and artist Salomé remembers: We created a drag
faction. We would meet at the HAW and decide to do an action in the metro on the weekend. We'd tell everyone to come as dolled up as possible in order to be more visible.
Yet this type of provocation was quite dangerous. I can remember a few situations when we had to jump out of the metro in order to avoid getting beaten up.
Activists from the HAW left their marks on society, some of which are still at work today. Gerhard Hoffmann was the creator of the magazine Die Schwuchtel (literally: The Pansy) and also started the gay café Anderes Ufer on a main street in Schöneberg in 1977. We opened the first homosexual bar that raised the blinds and allowed passers-by to look in
, Hoffmann remembers. It was modern, avantgarde, and open to everybody, with lots of art and events.
David Bowie, who lived two houses down the street, was a regular. The publishing house Pink Triangle, created in 1975 and headed by Egmont Fassbinder for over 20 years, published both fiction and non-fiction books on gay topics. Peter Hedenström and some friends opened the gay bookstore Prinz Eisenherz, which still exists today. In the mid 80's, Berlin's Schwulen Museum* (gay museum) was also founded by HAW members and co-founder Wolfgang Theis still works there today. The HAW also brought forth the gay center SchwuZ, which has also remained a trendy gay club and meeting place to this day.
The gay subculture that director Rosa von Praunheim had critically mirrored in his 1971 film continued to thrive throughout the 70's, with the annual drag ball being the most important event of the year for the bourgeois gay world. In 1974, the 26-year old transsexual drag artist Romy Haag opened the legendary club Chez Romy Haag. In the old West, there were no hierarchies or social classes. Everyone had to get along with everyone else
, is how she describes the atmosphere that predominated in her club and the area. In the mid 70's, the gay leathermen scene opened Die Knolle, the first venue in Berlin with a darkroom. Berlin's gay scene was beginning to diversify.
New Lifestyles: the 80's
In the late 70's, Wolfgang Müller, founder of the punk band Die Tödliche Doris
, came to Berlin and took part in the first CSD rally in 1979. West Berlin looked totally trashy and shoddy at the time. There were still all sorts of old former Nazis running around, who's views didn't fit into the culture of the West or the East, nor any other part of society.
Partly due to the emergence of the SO36 club and the Oranienbar, the district of Kreuzberg became the quintessential embodiment of alternative lifestyles and a refuge for gay punks, squatters, and avantgarde artists. The club Metropol in Schöneberg also emerged as one of the top party spots in West Berlin, with far reaching consequences, as DJ Westbam remembers: Music as a wave of energy! That is what emerged from Berlin's gay nightlife and what paved the way for the techno revolution.
In a highrise block in northern Charlottenburg, teenagers Ades Zabel and Bob Schneider shot their first film, which is still considered a cult film in the trash genre: Edith Schröder. A German housewife.
Bob Schneider describes the main characters of the film, Edith and Jutta, as: the absolute opposite of what Kreuzberg embodied. The opposite of house squats, rallies, and the left scene. They were a kind of a symbol for the square, middle-class narrow-mindedness of the other West Berlin.
The most important gay Berlin film of this era is Taxi zum Klo
(1980). Director, writer, and lead actor Frank Ripploh (1949-2002) was a school teacher in real life. It was a really freeing film because for the first time, the pain and suffering of being gay was just left out. Instead, anarchical pleasures and self-destructive behavior featured center stage
, remarks Wieland Speck, filmmaker and head of the Panorama section of the Berlin film festival since 25 years.
Disruption and the search for visibility: AIDS and its ramifications
Ripploh's film mirrored a new sexual freedom that was flourishing - unfettered by convention and partly fuelled by drugs - in Berlin's public toilets and throughout the increasingly self-confident gay scene. A freedom that was would be scrutinized and challenged anew with the arrival of HIV/AIDS in the mid 80's. The whole AIDS thing was like some sort of background noise for us at first. I ignored it, like many others
, explains the journalist and author Dirk Ludigs. Then came the first HIV tests and every third person tested positive.
The German AIDS-Help organization and its Berlin subsidiary were founded in 1983 and 1985, respectively. Prominent celebrities campaigned for better information and support for the victims of the disease – and against the demands of the center-rightwing CSU party to implement compulsory testing and the internment of HIV-infected people. In the late 80's, German activists addressed the public with media-savvy political campaigns, mimicking their American role model ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), created in 1987. One of the most spectacular campaigns took place during the final prayers of the Catholic Episcopal Conference in 1991. Berlin-based ACT-UP members disrupted the prayers to protest against the catholic church's prohibition of condoms and its stance on homosexuality and AIDS.
Many artists, including photographer Jürgen Baldiga (1959-1993), who grappled with the progression of his own disease on camera, were actively engaged in the struggle to shake up and galvanize society about AIDS. The AIDS crisis was a tragedy of momentous proportions that led to a greater visibility of homosexuality in society. To my surprise, AIDS actually gave us an opportunity to bring the topic of homosexuality to the center of society. Everyone knew someone who had died from AIDS. Many parents suddenly lost their sons. Celebrities were outed through the disease
, explains Gerhard Hoffmann, who lost his partner to AIDS.
Gay film buff Manfred Salzgeber (1943-1994) also wanted to reach the general public. In 1985 he founded the distribution company Edition Manfred Salzgeber to give films about AIDS a platform. He also founded the Panorma section of the Berlin film festival one year later, and created the gay-lesbian Teddy award with Wieland Speck in 1987.
The Berlin Wall fell in the midst of the AIDS crisis and with the sudden reunification of Germany also came the end of the unique sociocultural biotope of West Berlin. Berlin's lesbian and gay movements were suddenly faced with new challenges and possibilities. But that is the topic for a different film.
To this day, none of the victims who were sentenced under the Federal German Republic's § 175 have been exonerated or indemnified.
René Koch, born 1945 in Heidelberg. René came to Berlin at age 18 and worked as a dishwasher, bartender, transvestite performer, and co-owner of a food store. He began his formation as a make-up artist in 1969 and became the chief make-up artist for Charles of the Ritz in New York in 1971. He returned to Berlin in 1990 and made a name for himself as one of the city's most sought after make-up artists. Koch became actively engaged in AIDS support organizations and launched the working group 
Wolfgang Theis, born 1948 in Gärtringen, in Southern Germany. He trained as a cook, then completed his military service with the German Navy. He lives in Berlin since the late '60s – much of that time in a shared flat – and is a co-founder of the HAW (Homosexual Action Group). Wolfgang then launched his career as a film critic, and in 1984, he helped create the exhibition 
Egmont Fassbinder, born 1945 in Kippenheim. He lives in Berlin since 1965, where he moved at the end of high school in order to avoid doing his military service. Egmont studied social sciences in Heidelberg and at 
Peter Hedenström, born 1948 in Lübeck. After high school, he studied German literature in Göttingen, and beginning in 1969, in Berlin. He was one of the founding members of HAW, as well as co-founder of the publishing house 
Romy Haag, born in the Netherlands. After stints in Paris and New York, she moved to Berlin and opened the nightclub Chez Romy Haag in 1974, where she performed as a drag artist. The club was extremely popular up until 1983, when it closed its doors. Romy also acted in films, had her own TV show, and released several albums as a singer. To this day, she is considered one of the most versatile queer artists in Germany. She has been a member of the board of trustees of the Berlin AIDS support organization since the late 80's.
DJ Westbam, born 1965 in Münster, was a major fan of punk music as a teenager. He moved to Berlin in 1983 and began his career as a DJ in the Metropol nightclub. In 1984 he published the text What is record art, in which he describes the DJ as a musician who composes entirely new pieces from existing albums. As a producer, Westbam is considered one of the pioneers of techno music. His name is short for Westfalia Bambaataa, a reference to the famous New York hip hop DJ Afrika Bambaataa.
