Mathias Foit
Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919-1933) saw the emergence of probably the world’s first organized, mass, public queer movement with its own institutions and fervent political activity. Its roots, however, can be traced back to the second half of the nineteenth century. Some of the movement’s major actors had already been active since the 1890s, with a lively queer culture — consisting of meeting points, nightlife and stage performances, among others — that had flourished in cities big and small and are still celebrated in popular culture to this day. While the movement itself might have failed following the 1933 Nazi rise to power, its enduring legacy can teach us valuable lessons about social progress, with important practical implications for contemporary (queer) social movements.
Judging from the standpoint of liberal reforms only, we might arrive at the same conclusion as German historian Martin Lücke who described the early queer rights movement as characterized by “apparent achievements and an emancipatory stalemate”. But it would be misguided to consider it as a failure. In fact, the early German queer movement created positive patterns of individual and collective self-identification for queer people—a group consciousness that extended beyond local, regional or even national boundaries, and the German queer press sparked the establishment of groups across the country. They were not only political, but also social in character. A fellowship of like-minded people formed who could, sometimes for the first time in their lives, exchange thoughts, strike up friendships and even romantic or sexual relationships. This, in itself, is a success worth celebrating because progress is not just about rights.
The extravagant Weimar queer nightlife, as depicted, for example, in Cabaret or Babylon Berlin, is usually associated with Berlin, which Robert Beachy has called Berlin the “birthplace of a modern [gay/queer] identity”. However, queer public life was not limited to the German capital but was present in other metropoles including Munich or Cologne, and, as my own research has shown, extended to middle- or small-sized cities and even some villages. Legal persecution, however, was higher in cities than in the countryside, as was blackmail and violence against queer people, in part because of the greater visibility of queer public culture and individuals in urban areas. Many queer people, therefore, knowing that there was life beyond Berlin decided to stay away from the queer public culture of great cities, which they might view with ambivalence, skepticism, condemnation or simply indifference.
Although the outburst of queer activism and culture of that time was unprecedented, this view usually obscures the oftentimes harsh reality that queer people faced; we must not romanticize Weimar Germany. Legal persecution against queer groups included not only anti-sodomy or anti-sex-work laws, but also indecency and obscenity laws. Blackmail was rife, as were queerphobic tropes of the “fairy” and homosexual vampire (the latter examined in detail by Javier Samper Vendrell). Censorship of the queer press as well as threats from law enforcement and anti-vice organizations all remained. It also needs stressing that some of the major figures and leaders of the queer movement were far from being above reproach. Magnus Hirschfeld, hailed as the father of queer emancipation, was implicated in colonialism, racism and eugenics, and, despite publicly avowing women’s rights, he also marginalized female scientists and their knowledge—as works by scholars such as Laurie Marhoefer, Heike Bauer, and Kirsten Leng have shown. Adolf Brand, publisher of Der Eigene, amongst the earliest queer periodicals, was a fervent misogynist and anti-Semite. Friedrich Radszuweit, who built the largest queer organization of the Weimar era while excluding sex workers, the jobless and other non-respectable social “elements”, even attempted to curry favor with the Nazis.
The queer movement in Weimar Germany was, in fact, extremely fragmented and conflicted. It consisted of a number of rival political camps, which differed not only on ideological, but also on strategic grounds, as recounted by Clayton Whisnant, among others. Instances of cooperation were rare, but usually successful. Following a joint campaign for the decriminalization of sex between men in 1929, legislation was passed that same year although political circumstances meant that it was never implemented. The action also had a downside: while the proposed reform was intended to abolish the long-standing and infamous anti-sodomy law, it would have criminalized male prostitution and set a very high age of consent (21) for male-to-male sexual behavior. At the same time, various queer organisations barred sex workers, those without jobs, and “fairies”. Too often this was a strategic ploy to win approval and support from the heteronormative majority, even if at the cost of solidarity—Laurie Marhoefer has referred to this as the “Weimar settlement on sexual politics”. Queer historians and activists today would no doubt agree that we need unity rather than divisions: it is impossible and counterproductive to fight for the emancipation of some at the expense of the more marginalized among us.
On July 5, 1930, members of a Berlin-based queer organization clashed in a brawl with a local police sports club in front of an inn on the Rauchfangswerder peninsula in south-east Berlin after being exposed to provocative behavior and harassment from the sports club. The Rauchfangswerder Incident as I call it, first described by Jens Dobler, predates the 1969 Stonewall Uprising and was (also) a riot. Just like Stonewall, there were also transgender individuals at Rauchfangswerder, including Gerda von Zobeltitz. But rather than backdating modern queer emancipation to an “earlier” Stonewall, the true lesson of Rauchfangswerder lies in reframing the conversation around queer historical narratives and who they include.
There is a tendency in queer (German) history to present queer people always as victims: of societal discrimination, oppression and repressions. This is hardly the full story. Across time and place, queer people have proven themselves resilient, and historians such as Alexander Zinn have revised traditional narratives of victimhood and agency in the Nazi period. Historical sources record individuals accused of sodomy seeking aid from queer organizations or fabricating testimony of other non-punishable behaviour with “accomplices.” Cross-dressing individuals charged with causing a public nuisance defied state oppression by appearing in court in the apparel of their choice. Their resistance also led to the introduction of so-called “trans* certificates” in some cities in Germany. These allowed them greater freedom on the streets and remained in use until the 1960s, as pointed out by Andrea Rottmann. History’s traditional focus on victimhood further obscures the fact that some queer people made bad choices too, whether by blackmailing or reporting former lovers to the authorities or sabotaging the work of queer groups. There were also queer Nazis, but this is a story for another time.
History shows us time and again that no democratic achievements can be taken for granted and they must be defended at all times. The Nazis succeeded in destroying the almost 40-year-old movement’s successes in just a matter of months. And it wasn’t until 1994 that the infamous Paragraph 175, which criminalized sex between men, was finally and definitively erased from the German Penal Code (although it had been reformed in the 1960s and hadn’t been widely enforced ever since). However, modern legislation pertaining to legal gender recognition is still outstanding; homo-, trans- and queerphobia are on the rise; queer refugees, migrants and people of color are facing systemic racism and multiple discrimination; and some right-wing groups are contesting the German LGBTQ+ community’s achievements such as marriage equality. Our progress and our (queer) history is never linear.
Mathias Foit received his PhD from the Free University of Berlin, Germany. His book Queer Urbanisms in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany: Of Towns and Villages (2023) charts a previously undiscovered world of queer social, political and cultural life in the easternmost provinces of the German Reich. He also graduated in English studies from the University of Wrocław, Poland, and is engaged in cultural projects relating to local and regional queer histories in Central-East Europe.
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Interesting.