Schöneberg is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg.
Lesben- und Schwulenverband in Deutschland (LSVD), German for the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany, is the largest non-governmental LGBT rights organisation in Germany. It was founded in 1990 and is part of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).
Friedrich Radszuweit was a German manager, publisher, and author and LGBT activist, who was of major importance to the first homosexual movement.
The Memorial to Homosexuals persecuted under Nazism in Berlin was opened on 27 May 2008.
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.
Die Freundin was a popular Weimar-era German lesbian magazine published from 1924 to 1933. Founded in 1924, it was the world's first lesbian magazine, closely followed by Frauenliebe and Die BIF. The magazine was published from Berlin, the capital of Germany, by the Bund für Menschenrecht, run by gay activist and publisher Friedrich Radszuweit. The Bund was an organization for homosexuals which had a membership of 48,000 in the 1920s.
Trude Fleischmann was an Austrian-born American photographer. After becoming a notable society photographer in Vienna in the 1920s, she re-established her business in New York in 1940.
Selma "Selli" Engler was a leading activist of the lesbian movement in Berlin from about 1924 to 1931.
Garçonne was a Weimar-era German magazine for lesbians. It was published from 1926 to 1930 under the title Frauenliebe and from 1930 to 1932 as Garçonne.
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 LGBT 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). Where as 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. Berlin's large LGBT events such as the Lesbian and Gay City Festival, East Berlin Leather and Fetish Week, Folsom Europe, and CSD center around Schöneberg, with related events taking place city-wide during these events. Nevertheless, with roughly 180 years of LGBTIQ+ history, and a very large community made up of members with very varied biographies, it is hard to find a place in Berlin completely without LGBT culture past or present. Berlin's present-day neighborhoods with a certain concentration of LGBTIQ+ oriented culture vary somewhat in terms of history, demography, and where the emphasis in each neighborhoods' queer culture falls along the LGBTIQ+ spectrum. Over the course of its nearly two centuries of queer history (herstory), definitions not with standing, Berlin's LGBTIQ+ culture has never ceased to change, not only in appearance and self-understanding, but also in where the centers of queer culture were located in the city. What is true about Berlin's "LGBT culture in Berlin" at one point in time, in a given place and from a given perspective, is almost certainly different the next.
Katharina Oguntoye is an Afro-German writer, historian, activist, and poet. She founded the nonprofit intercultural association Joliba in Germany and is perhaps best known for co-editing the book Farbe bekennen with May Ayim and Dagmar Schultz. The English translation of this book was entitled Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. Oguntoye has played an important role in the Afro-German Movement.
Hilde Radusch was a German political activist who became involved in anti-fascist resistance. As the 20th century progressed, she became increasingly prominent as a feminist and lesbian activist.
Ilse Kokula is a German sociologist, educator, author and lesbian activist in the field of lesbian life. She was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Die BIF – Blätter Idealer Frauenfreundschaften, subtitled Monatsschrift für weibliche Kultur, was a short-lived lesbian magazine of Weimar Germany, published from either 1925 or 1926 until 1927 in Berlin. Founded by lesbian activist Selli Engler, Die BIF was part of the first wave of lesbian publications in history and the world's first lesbian magazine to be published, edited and written solely by women.
Das 3. Geschlecht, subtitled Die Transvestiten ("Transvestites"), was a transvestite magazine of Weimar Germany, published from 1930 until 1932 in Berlin. Published by the Radszuweit publishing house, it is believed to be the first transvestite magazine in history. A predecessor to the magazine was Die Freundin, a more lesbian-focused magazine that nonetheless published some columns appealing to transvestites.
Ursula Sillge is a German sociologist and LGBT activist. She organized the first national lesbian gathering in East Germany, and between 1970 and 1990 was one of the main lesbian activists in the country, pressing authorities to recognize the rights and allow visibility of the LGBT community. In 1986, she founded the Sunday Club in Berlin. It was the only secular association representing homosexuals in the 1980s, though it was not officially recognized. The organization became the first legal association to represent the LGBT community in East Germany when it was allowed to register in 1990. Sillge resigned as director of the Sunday Club in 1991 to found the LGBT archive known as the Lila Women's Archives. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she was able to earn her doctorate. In addition to running the archives, she has published several works about homosexuality and women behind the Iron Curtain.
The Sonntags Club, founded in 1987, was the first secular LGBT group in East Germany. The group originated out of the HIB which was banned in the late 1970s by the socialist regime. The group became the Sonntags Club in the 1980s when it went underground and began renting a meeting space only available on Sundays, hence the name. The Club was located in East Berlin, and though never officially recognized in the German Democratic Republic, its members continued to advocate for LGBT rights and freedoms in the years to follow.
The DamenklubVioletta was one of the largest and most popular of numerous lesbian nightclubs and dance halls that existed in Berlin during Germany's Weimar Republic, with 400 regular members. It was owned and managed by Lotte Hahm.
Gerda von Zobeltitz was a German dressmaker and one of the first recognized transgender people in the late German Empire and early Weimar Republic.
Käthe 'Kati' Reinhardt, actually Katharina Erika Selma Reinhardt, was a German activist in the lesbian movement. She was a formative figure in Berlin's lesbian subculture from the time of the Weimar Republic to the early 1980s as an organizer of clubs, balls, and meetings, and as a bar operator. In the 1920s she ran the largest clubs for the lesbian movement with up to 2,000 people and worked, among others, together with Charlotte “Lotte” Hahm.
