"Das lila Lied" (German for "The Lavender Song") is a German cabaret song written in 1920 with lyrics by Kurt Schwabach and music by Mischa Spoliansky and is considered one of the first gay anthems. [1]
The song is a product of Germany's Weimar Republic, during which time lesbians and gay men enjoyed a short period of improvement in quality of life when the government established basic democratic rights that covered the LGBT community and abolished censorship.[ citation needed ]
The song was written after the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) under Magnus Hirschfeld made worldwide news with its "First International Conference for Sexual Reform" which called for regulations on sexual behavior to be based on science instead of religion or other unscientific tradition.[ citation needed ]
The first line of the chorus, "Anders als die Andern" (English: different from the others) is the same as the title of a 1919 gay rights film issued by Magnus Hirschfeld. This has been seen as the affirmation of a differentiated queer identity outside the hetereosexual mainstream. [2]
Was will man nur? | What do they want? |
Weimar culture was the emergence of the arts and sciences that happened in Germany during the Weimar Republic, the latter during that part of the interwar period between Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 and Hitler's rise to power in 1933. 1920s Berlin was at the hectic center of the Weimar culture. Although not part of the Weimar Republic, some authors also include the German-speaking Austria, and particularly Vienna, as part of Weimar culture.
Magnus T. Hirschfeld was a Jewish German physician and sexologist, whose citizenship was later revoked by the Nazi government. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and World League for Sexual Reform. He based his practice in Berlin-Charlottenburg during the Weimar period. Performance Studies and Rhetoric Professor Dustin Goltz characterized the committee as having carried out "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights".
The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was an early private sexology research institute in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The name is variously translated as Institute for Sexual Research, Institute of Sexology, Institute for Sexology, or Institute for the Science of Sexuality. The Institute was a non-profit foundation situated in Tiergarten, Berlin. It was the first sexology research center in the world.
Different from the Others is a silent German melodramatic film produced during the Weimar Republic. It was first released in 1919 and stars Conrad Veidt and Reinhold Schünzel. It was directed by Richard Oswald, and the story co-written by Oswald and Magnus Hirschfeld, who also had a small part in the film and partially funded the production through his Institute for Sexual Science. The film was intended as a polemic against the then-current laws under Germany's Paragraph 175, which made homosexuality a criminal offense. It was one of the first sympathetic portrayals of gay men in cinema.
The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee was founded by Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin in May 1897, to campaign for social recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and against their legal persecution. It was the first LGBT rights organization in history. The motto of the organization was "Per scientiam ad justitiam", and the committee included representatives from various professions. The committee's membership peaked at about 700 people. In 1929, Kurt Hiller took over as chairman of the group from Hirschfeld. At its peak, the WhK had branches in approximately 25 cities in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.
Kurt Hiller was a German essayist, lawyer, and expressionist poet. He was also a political journalist.
Mischa Spoliansky was a Russian-born composer who made his name writing cabaret and revue songs in the Weimar Republic of the 1920s and early 1930s. He was forced to emigrate to London in 1933 when Hitler rose to power and stayed in Britain for the rest of his life, re-inventing himself as a composer of film scores.
Ruth Margarete Roellig was a German writer, she is known for documenting Berlin's lesbian club scene of the late 1920s during the Weimar Republic. Additionally she published support of Nazism starting in the 1930s, and she stopped writing after the end of World War II.
This is a list of events in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQ+) history in Germany.
Berlin was the capital city of the German Empire from 1871 to 1945, its eastern part the de facto capital of East Germany from 1949 to 1990, and has been the capital of the unified Federal Republic of Germany since June, 1991. The city has an active LGBTQ community with a long history. Berlin has many LGBTIQ+ friendly districts, though the borough of Schöneberg is widely viewed both locally and by visitors as Berlin's gayborhood. Particularly the boroughs North-West near Nollendorfplatz identifies as Berlin's "Regenbogenkiez", with a certain concentration of gay bars near and along Motzstraße and Fuggerstraße. Many of the decisive events of what has become known as Germany's second LGBT movement take place in the West Berlin boroughs of Charlottenburg, Schöneberg, and Kreuzberg beginning in 1971 with the formation of the Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin (HAW). Whereas in East Berlin the district of Prenzlauer Berg became synonymous with the East Germany LGBT movement beginning in 1973 with the founding of the HIB. Schöneberg's gayborhood has a lot to offer for locals and tourists alike, and caters to, and is particularly popular with gay men.
Gesetze der Liebe: Aus der Mappe eines Sexualforschers is a 1927 film produced by Magnus Hirschfeld, a sexologist who ran the Berlin Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, Hermann Beck and the Humboldt-Film-Gesellschaft.
A transvestite pass was a doctor's note recognized by the governments of Imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic, under the support of sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, identifying a person as a transvestite. Transvestite at this time referred to all individuals whose gender identity or preferred clothing was discordant to that associated with their assigned sex, and so included both cross-dressing and transgender people. As gender-confirming surgery was only an emerging practice in the early 20th century, obtaining a Transvestitenschein, along with an official name change, represented the maximum extent to which many trans individuals could transition.
The German Democratic Republic, or GDR, a state in Central Europe that existed from 1949 to 1990 before being absorbed by the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), was dominated by heterosexual norms. However, East Germany decriminalised homosexuality during the 1960s, followed by increasing social acceptance and visibility.
The Eldorado was the name of multiple nightclubs and performance venues in Berlin before the Nazi era and World War II. The name of the cabaret Eldorado has become an integral part of the popular iconography of the Weimar Republic. Two of the five locations the club occupied in its history are known to have catered to a gay crowd, although attendees would have included not only gay, lesbian, and bisexual patrons but also those identifying as heterosexual.
The first homosexual movement was a socio-political confluence in Germany criticizing Paragraph 175, the 1871 criminalization of sex between men. German writers coined the word homosexual, while the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee was founded in 1897 by Magnus Hirschfeld to improve public tolerance of homosexuality and repeal Paragraph 175. The movement was restricted to an educated elite during the German Empire, but greatly expanded in the aftermath of World War I and the German Revolution.
Gerd Katter was a German apprentice carpenter, insurance agent and patient of the notable German physician and sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld.
Li Shiu Tong was a Hong Kong medical student, sexologist, and LGBTQ activist in the early twentieth century, known as the companion of German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld.
Vienna, the capital of Austria, has an active LGBTQIA+ community. Vienna is considered Austria's queer capital, with several LGBTQIA+ spaces, organisations and a history of LGBTQIA+ activism going back to the late 19th century.
In Nazi Germany, transgender people were prosecuted, barred from public life, forcibly detransitioned, and imprisoned and killed in concentration camps. Though some factors, such as whether they were considered "Aryan", heterosexual with regard to their birth sex, or capable of useful work had the potential to mitigate their circumstances, transgender people were largely stripped of legal status by the Nazi state.
Gerda von Zobeltitz was a German dressmaker, noblewoman, and one of the first recognized transgender people in the late German Empire and early Weimar Republic.