Schöneberg

Rainbow illuminated Nollendorfplatz U-Bahn (subway) station by night, December 2013

The area near Nollendorfplatz, locally known as "Motzkiez", "Fuggerkiez", or "Nollendorfkiez" ("der Kiez" is a word for neighborhood in the local idiom, Berlinerisch), may be the best known of Berlin's roughly 4 neighborhoods with some explicitly LGBTIQ+ history, a reputation for being LGBT-friendly, and for having a large concentration of LGBTIQ+ locations. A hand drawn map from 1938 (5 years after the begin of Nazi rule) shows no fewer than 57 active or former gay and/or lesbian friendly spots hugging Nollendorfplatz and extending eastward down Bülowstraße.^[12] What is striking about the list is the relatively large number of lesbian oriented establishments relative to the more chic neighborhood of Charlottenburg to the west. Charlottenburg comes in, in a solid third, where LGBT friendly locals are concerned, with 52.^[12] Mitte tops the list with 99 places of LGBT interest at the time according to the chronicler.^[13] The comparison is somewhat skewed to Mitte's advantage however, as the area shown on the map of Mitte is larger. The venues mentioned range in style from the very posh Café Kranzler on Unter-den-Linden, to the somewhat more risque but no less fancy Moka Efti on Friedrichstraße, to the tiny bar and brothel Mulackritze in the Scheunenviertel that is so small (it still exists today in the basement of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf's Gründerzeitmuseum) that the entire bar with séparée fits in the basement of the Museum. The Gründerzeitmuseum is not a large building. Schöneberg is often called the world's oldest gay village, but in light of its history, perhaps "the world's oldest lesbian village" would be more accurate, were it not for the fact that there is only one single lesbian establishment left in the neighborhood, Begine, Potsdamer Straße 139.

In the first third of the 20th century the working-class neighborhoods lying roughly between Wittenbergplatz and "Bülowbogen" (the sharp curve in Bülowstraße where it turns southward toward Klumerstraße and Goebenstraße) were popular for their red-light character, racy cabarets, and dance bars, though they had likely already existed for half a century at the time. It can be assumed that Potsdamer Straße, as a main trading artery to the south and west, never had a time in which there were no brothels along it. Northern Schöneberg however, owes much of its post-World-War-II renown to an English-American writer Christopher Isherwood's Novels Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935), and Goodbye to Berlin (1939) which take place there, and to the Broadway musical Cabaret (1966) and later Film Cabaret (1972) based loosely upon Isherwood's novels. The author himself only moved to the neighborhood a year after he had followed fellow writer W. H. Auden to Berlin, and he and Auden spent the majority of their time in the area around Hallesches Tor where their regular bar became the (no longer existent) Cosy Corner on Zossener Straße.^[14][15] The area from the southern end of Friedrichstraße well into the district of Neukölln was known at the time for its inexpensive bars and café where people loitered in the hope of being picked for odd jobs, bartered and traded on the unofficial market, and engaged in prostitution. The area around Hallesches Tor, and the queer life that once boomed there is humorously immortalized in Claire Waldoff's song Hannelore (1928, M.: Horst Platen, T.: Willy Hagen). To Auden and Isherwood, both from upper class British backgrounds and educated in England's most prestigious schools, this relatively permissive and inexpensive atmosphere, where you could have a group of young men entertain you in the hope you might buy the next round of beer, must have felt like a manner of El Dorado. Isherwood's initially found lodging not far away from Hallesches Tor in Kreuzberg, before moving to a boarding house at Nollendorfstraße 17 near Nollendorfplatz in December 1930 where he remained until May 1933. Isherwood's The Berlin Stories did not come out until well into the Nazi era.

The Scala variety theater, Lutherstraße 22–24 (Martin-Luther-Straße 14–18), Berlin-Schöneberg (Willy Pragher, 1936)

During the 1920s and 30s, the area lying roughly to the south of KaDeWe gained notoriety through the German author of vice novels, Konrad Haemmerling's booklet, Führer durch das „lasterhafte“ Berlin (roughly Guide to licentious Berlin), published under the pseudonym Curt Moreck, Leipzig, 1931 (republished 2018). Führer durch das lasterhafte Berlin was aimed at higher income people "slumming", and promised to show interested visitors the "pleasures" of the "shadows".^[16] It is Haemmerling who initially made the cabaret Eldorado infamous, which in its Motzstraße 15 (present house number 24) location provided the inspiration for the cabaret in Isherwood's Berlin novels. When the slap-sticky show at the Scala on Lutherstraße ended, the more adventuresome could find "spicier" fare just around the corner. Not that Schöneberg's tingle-tangle clubs and makeshift brothels were necessarily unique to this area of Berlin. They could be found in all of Berlin's slums at the time. But northern Schöneberg was uniquely well situated close to Berlin's high income Neuer Westen with its fancy clubs and cabarets, and also easily accessible with the new Berlin subway (built 1909) which connected the fashionable eating and drinking establishments, and "serious" entertainment venues near Friedrichstraße and Unter-den-Linden to Berlin's new upper-middle class and upper-class neighborhoods in Berlin's South-West. And as opposed to places that were likely not dissimilar, such as the area around Hallisches Tor that was first hit by the bombs of 1943–1945, and then was the site of some of the most tenacious fighting of the Battle of Berlin, or places not far from Alexanderplatz, which was given a "car city" face lift in the 1950s through 1970s, history largely spared the area near Nollendorplatz the Battle of Berlin, and the bulldozing of the neighborhood in the 70s and 80s (as in the case of nearby Lietzenburger Straße in the 1960s^[17]) was prevented by the very determined West Berlin squatters' movement. The more fashionable establishments (hand drawn map of lesbian and gay "friendly" venues in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in 1938)^[18] of around Kurfürstendamm and Auguste-Viktoria-Platz (after 1947 called Breitscheidplatz) were not only heavily damaged by the air-raids of WWII, much of what little remained disappeared during the automotive city remodeling of Breitscheidplatz in the early 1950s and the plans to build Bundesautobahn 106, the so-called Südtangente ("Southern Tangent") by rerouting Lietzenburger Straße.^[19]

But the neighborhoods early 20th century heyday was to be cut short. Already in July 1932, Berlin's new Police President Kurt Melcher announced an "all-encompassing campaign against Berlin's licentious nightlife" (umfassende Kampagne gegen Berlins lasterhaftes Nachtleben) and in December of that year it was decreed that all "dancing events of a homosexual nature were prohibited" (Tanzlustbarkeiten homosexueller Art zu unterbleiben [hätten]), see, e.g., the closing of Eldorado. During the ensuing NSDAP rule of the German Reich (1933-1945) the neighborhood's nightlife was all but halted but for a few night spots left open to ensnare, and turn over to the police and Gestapo, those who according to the sharpened Nazi version of Section 175 of the German Criminal Code, "objectively offended the general sense of shame, and subjectively, the debauched intention was present to excite sexual desire in one of the two men, or a third" (objektiv das allgemeine Schamgefühl verletzt und subjektiv die wollüstige Absicht vorhanden war, die Sinneslust eines der beiden Männer oder eines Dritten [zu] erregen).^[20] The incendiary bombs of 1943/1945 turned most German cities into moon landscapes, so too the neighborhoods of northern Schöneberg. Nevertheless (or to a certain extent as a result there of), soon after World War II there was again thriving red-light district in the area, and also several venues popular with an LGBTIQ+ clientele. Waltherchens Ballhaus, Bülowstraße 37, or Kleist-Kasino, Kleiststraße 35 are frequently-named examples from this period.

Site of old Kino Arsenal, where in 1971 the Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin (HAW) was founded

Now in the American Sector of Berlin, queer people in northern Schöneberg were not spared the disruption of their lifes through the official atmosphere of suspicion associated with the so-called McCarthy era. LGBTIQ+ life does not come to a stand still, but there is an atmosphere of isolation and caution that pervades queer life in many parts of the world during this period, so too around Nollendorfplatz. For visitors today it may seem hard to imagine that Nollendorfplatz and its side streets were ever anything but quiet tree-lined streets with spruced-up facades and flower boxes. This was as little the case for half-century after WWII as it was in the half-century before. Well into the 1980s the fashionable bars and parties were to be found closer to Kurfürstendamm, and the somewhat queerer places there were to an extent near the eastern end of the grand boulevard roughly between Kurfürstendamm and Kantstraße. But for a very long time visible queerness, except in some very specific settings was discouraged, even to an extent, out of fear of reprisal, among LGBTIQ+ people themselves. It is not until the student revolts in Europe widely associated with the year 1968, that what has come to be called "queer visibility" becomes a liberation strategy and northern Schöneberg is no exception. As in many parts of the world, what was then called the Gay Liberation Movement gains momentum in the early 1970s. In North America the events in 1969 surrounding the Stonewall Inn are seen as the "beginning" of the Gay Liberation Movement. For the West German LGBTIQ+ movement, it is a movie screening in Kino Arsenal at Welserstraße 25 of Rosa von Praunheim's film It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives (Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt). Forty viewers were present. All were men, by all accounts. Most were more or less loosely associated with the protest movements of the period, in West Germany perhaps best described as Spontis. In the discussion ensuing the screening, the group decided to form a gay rights organization, which was to become the Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin (HAW). The founding meeting and naming of the Homosexual Action West Berlin (HAW), one of Germany's most influential lesbian and gay groups, took place on November 21, 1971, in the hand drugstore, Motzstraße 24, a cooperatively run space for young adults. The lesbian group Lesbisches Aktionszentrum Westberlin (LAZ) was founded out of this organization in the months that followed. Unlike in the U.S. where the Stonewall Inn has been made a national historical site, Welserstraße 25 is a childcare center today. Nothing about the building or the former cinema reminds passersby what was set in motion here. If you look very carefully above the door of the childcare center you can see where the former Kino Arsenal's marquee used to be. The original is in the basement of the Deutsche Kinemathek at Potsdamer Platz marking the entry way to the new Kino Arsenal, in the Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art. The original marquee is discreetly located in the underground portion of the foyer below the Deutsche Kinemathek marking the entry way to the new Kino Arsenal.

There is very little left of the original atmosphere of anarchism around Nollendorfplatz, nor of the raucous punk, alternative, rock and new-wave clubs that existed here up until the new underground club-scene in the eastern boroughs of Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, and Mitte became the places to be. The area is symbolic as Berlin' "Regenbogenkiez" (Rainbow Neighborhood), and is rife with history but it has, with several notable exceptions, as some of Berlin's best cruising bars are here, become sedate. Middle-aged and elder gentlemen tend pleasant shops. There are street cafés selling rainbow colored Bundt Cake. The fetish attire shops, though excellently assorted, have tourist prices. Nevertheless, or precisely because of it, Berlin's best known gayborhood is well worth the visit, and local pride is ardent, especially around the time of the Lesbian and Gay City Festival (Lesbischwules Stadtfest), Christopher Street Day, The Easter Berlin - Leather and Fetish Week, Folsom Europe, and all of the other festivities that take place in the "Regenbogenkiez" (Rainbow Neighborhood/District).^[21]

Other especially LGBT-friendly neighborhoods of Berlin are Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg, and Neukölln. And historically parts of Charlottenburg were known as "Artist's Quarters" (among other things a euphemism for LGBT). From the 1950s well into the 1990s the somewhat "more discerning" set could be seen in the more sedate locales of this tendentially petty bourgeouis part of town. Many places were, and still are in the area between and around Kurfürstendamm and Kantstraße's ends nearer Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten (The Zoo Station). Classics like the Vagabund, Knesebeckstraße 77 (est.: 1969) are still very much there.

• Northern Schöneberg / Tiergarten
• 
  "Königshof" (ca. 1898), later renamed "Nationalhof", site of lesbian and transvestite balls (mid- to late 1920s)
• 
  Motzstraße seen from Nollendorfplatz (1903)
• 
  Die Freundschaft (3rd from top, left) Magazine, Berlin Newsstand (1922)
• 
  Christopher Isherwood's lodgings Nollendorfstraße 17 (1929-1933)
• 
  Bülowstraße 37. Re-opening after WWII
• 
  Lesbian and gay bookstore Prinz Eisenherz, Bülowstraße 17 (1980)
  Standing: Prof. James Steakley (author / translator)
• 
  Begine women's café and cultural center est. by women in the West Berlin squatters' movement 1986
• 
  Music group Die Tödliche Doris (from left to right: Wolfgang Müller, Dagmar Dimitroff, Nikolaus Utermöhlen) in the bar Kumpelnest 3000, Lützowstraße 23 (1987)
• 
  Rainbow Column at Nollendorfplatz by Salomé, erected by the AHA (2000)
• 
  Theater O-TonArt, Klumerstraße 20a founded 2009 (address the 1st SchwuZ opened 1977)
• 
  Ichgola Androgyn and the O-Tonpiraten before CSD 2010 in front of Kurfürstendamm 219 (2010)
• 
  Rainbow painted Buddy Bear, Bruno's gay shop, Bülowstraße 106
• 
  Memorial "Pink Triangle", metro station Nollendorfplatz
• 
  The lights of Motzstraße, Tom's, Motzstraße 19 (2020)
• 
  Die Scheune (bar) / Frontplay (sportswear) No. 25, Eisenherz bookstore No. 23, Zaxx (Cruising) / Tom's Hotel / offices Dr. Jessen / Hafen (bar) / Tom's (bar) No. 19. Motzstraße (2022)

Kreuzberg

Kreuzberg still has some of the atmosphere of anarchistic rebellion that characterized the beginnings of the Lesbian & Gay Liberation Movement the 1970s and 1980s. Always a working-class neighborhood, and bordered by the Berlin Wall to the north and to the east from 1962 to 1989, Kreuzberg was, and still is to an extent a sociopolitical micro-climate. The history of Kreuzberg is well documented by the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum, Adalbertstraße 95a in Berlin-Kreuzberg, near many of Kreuzberg's queer / queer-friendly landmarks, like Möbel Olfe, SüdBlock / Aquarium, Café Kotti, Roses, AYO queer women's collective café, SO36 and others. The culture space and club SO36 remains the heart of "alternative" scene, and is implicitly and explicitly queer, with the clubs queer flag-ship event the regular legendary Gayhane parties organized by activist and artist Fatma Souad, and SO36 resident DJane DJ Ipek (İpek İpekçioğlu). When a Monika Herrmann (Alliance 90/The Greens) became district mayor in 2013, the fact that District Mayor Herrmann is a lesbian was no longer a topic of public debate even in the tabloid press. This is certainly in no small part due to Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit's (Social Democratic Party of Germany) bold example in 2001, where upon his nomination, against a backdrop of media speculation, candidate Wowereit took would-be detractors' wind out of their sails with the now legendary proclamation, "I am gay, and that is as it should be!" (German: Ich bin schwul, und das ist auch gut so!) at a public party caucus. Nevertheless District Mayor Herrmann's accomplishment was no mean feat even in tendentially liberal-minded Berlin.

Kreuzberg has also gained a certain of notoriety beyond the Berlin's city limits among LGBTIQ* people and others for having "its own CSD". The event has gone by among other names " TransGenialer CSD", "Kreuzberg CSD", and "X*CSD". It has taken place most years since 1997 on or around the date of the larger CSD parade. One on-line tourist information mentions the event in one sentence with ancillary Pride events like "Gay Night at the Zoo".^[22] Admittedly the event's coming into being is connected with animals, however not of the caged sort but with common rats. Not the rodents as such, but rats as an analogy for undesirables. Before the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin, on February 27, 1997, the chair of the Christian Democratic Union Party of Berlin, Landowsky expressed his impatience with what in his opinion was the city's hesitance to eradicate what he and his party associates viewed as the ills that afflict Berlin:

"Es ist nun einmal so, dass dort wo Müll ist Ratten sind, und dass dort, wo Verwahrlosung herrscht, Gesindel ist. Das muss in dieser Stadt beseitigt werden." Eklat bei Landowskys Rede

(Eng.: It just so happens that where there is rubbish there are rats and where there is neglect there are rabble. That needs to be eliminated in this city.)

This did not sit well with many committed citizens who strive day in and day out to make Berlin and the world a more livable place. For one, the word "Gesindel" (Eng.: rabble) has a decidedly 1933-1945 ring to it in German, and furthermore a great many of those who took offence to the statement were not entirely sure chairperson Landowsky was not thinking of them. Against the backdrop of an on-going factional dispute within the LGBTIQ* movement that dates back to the mid-1970s (see Tuntenstreit), and with tempers flaring over Landowsky's most recent remarks, the organizers of the larger CSD event decide that beginning that year there would be an entry fee for vehicles and floats taking part in the Berlin pride parade. At a meeting in Club SO36 a group of queer activists decided to construct their own float, dress as rats, and equipped with plenty of mud for the throwing, to pay an unannounced visit to the 1997 Pride Parade. The reaction was as was to be expected, and Berlin's "alternative" queer protest event Kreuzberg Pride was born.

• Kreuzberg
• 
  Mural depicting Rio Reiser, lead singer of Ton Steine Scherben, bard of the Spontis (and gay)
• 
  Club SO36, Oranienstraße 190, an anker of queer, "alternative" culture
• 
  Entrance to Schwules Museum*'s former Kreuzberg location 1988 - 2013
• 
  Südblock café & event space, founded by activist Tülin Duman, Richard Stein and others

Prenzlauer Berg

The East German Gay and Lesbian Movement has contributed greatly to LGBTIQ+ history and contemporary life. The East German HIB (Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin) (English: Homosexual Interest Group Berlin) was formed in 1973 not long after the West German HAW (Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin ) (founded 1971), and both groups were in close contact. Members of both groups shared a common cause in working for Lesbian and Gay Liberation. In addition, most in East and West were also interested in reforming socialism, and the societies they lived in - Marxist–Leninist "actually existing socialism" in the East, and liberal, social-democratic capitalism in the West. This fact brought the HIB to the attention of East German State Security Service, as it did the HAW to the attention of the Verfassungsschutz in the West. One further commonality is their shared initial spark. Both were conceived after a screening of Rosa von Praunheim's 1971 film It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives (German: Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt). Albeit in different places and with about 2 years between them but with some of the same members of the audience. Some of the West German fellow activist were also present at the private East Berlin screening in 1973.

Charlotte v. Mahlsdorf demonstrating pianola to a school group (1977)

The perhaps best known figure of the East German LGBTIQ+ movement is Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. She was an educator, trans* rights pioneer, and the creator of the Gründerzeutmuseum (Gründerzeit - a period of rapid industrialization and economic growth in the German Reich between 1873 and 1890) in the former manor house in Berlin-Mahlsdorf. Charlotte von Mahlsdorf was an organizer and crystallization figure of the LGBTIQ+ rights movements in East and West, as well as during the period after the political turn-around in the GDR. One of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf's long list of achievements was the salvage, restoration of the Mulackritze and its reconstruction on the premises of her Gründerzeitmuseum. The small early 20th century bar and brothel had originally been located at Mulackritze 15 in Berlin's historically poorest and historically Jewish district, the Scheunenviertel just north-west of Alexanderplatz. The Mulackritze was a typical establishment like many that where to be found in Berlin's slums of the late 19th early 20th century; so to in Schöneberg, whose fame is owed as much to Christopher Isherwood's Novels, and the Broadway musical Cabaret becoming queer iconography in the late 20th century, as it is to the boroughs uniqueness among Berlin's many impoverished neighborhoods, in which, in order to but food on the table and coal in the stove, paying guests were entertained in whatever way possible. In the Mulackritze, even the "Hurenstube" is still visible, a room set aside in a small bar or private flat to provide a bit of privacy when engaging in sex work. The little bar is still on display in Carlotte von Mahlsdorf's museum, which during her life was also her place of residence. Because renting a space for a meeting or a function was difficult in East Germany unless it was for a company party or some other officially sanctioned purpose, Frau von Mahlsdorf hosted many meetings of the HIB and other queer related events. Von Mahlsdorf's museum and grounds are still open to the public.

Sonntags-Club (English: Sunday Club) was an important part of the LGBTIQ+ movement in the GDR. It was formed in 1987. In the 1990s Sonntags-Club became a registered association under German law (German: eingetragener Verein). The henceforth Sonntags-Club e.V. remains an important event, information, and counselling center for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and trans* people, and for all allies and other interested parties.

Prenzlauer Berg was, along with neighboring Berlin-Friedrichshain, a center of dissent and critical thinking in East Germany. The ramshackle 19th century tenement buildings (part of a Wilhelmine Ring that hugs the city limits of Wilhelmine Berlin) were ideal havens for misfits of all kinds, and there was a squatters scene that developed here in some ways analogous to its counterpart in the Western boroughs of Charlottenburg, Schöneberg, and Kreuzberg. A major obstacle in East German LGBTIQ+ people's lifes was the distribution of housing. In as much as a person's income did not decide how, or whether or not a person was housed, some system of how to distribute this precious good had to be devised. East German decision makers decided, that should be along the lines of who was planning to start a family. When these policies were made "family" meant a woman and a man who married and produced children. In fact there are rumors to this day that young people would conceive a child precisely in order to be "forced" to marry and thereby become eligible for their own flat (and to be able to move out of their parent's home). How often that actually was the reason for having a child is not statistically studied, but it is the case that East German adults became parents at a significantly younger age.^[23] Clearly this was not the only reason young East Germans chose to have children at a younger age than their counterparts in the West. There were many ways in which having children was simply easier and less of an existential risk in the East than in the West. This did however have the effect that many LGBTIQ+ East Germans had children, and either had been or still were married (to someone of the other sex) when they began to self-identify as LGBTIQ+.^[24] The implication of the housing dilemma for queer people in East Germany, was however that chances of moving out of the parental home were in direct conflict with the possibility to live a non-heteronormative life. This explains in part the allure of the Prenzlauer Berg "alternative" scene for queer people. It was possible to squat, stay with other similarly minded people, while remaining officially residing with one's parent or spouse until a work-around (for which all aspects of life in the GDR were renowned) could perhaps be found. Prenzlauer Berg, for many of the same reasons was a neighborhood where many critical voices in the GDR could be heard, which in turn influenced and were influenced by the East German gay and lesbian activism. The East German environmental movement was very active in Prenzlauer Berg. Their Umwelt-Bibliothek archives are still curated by the Zion Church. Churches in East Germany were in a special position to provide meeting space for various purposes, so it was also Lutheran churches like the Gethsemane Church in Prenzlauer Berg or the St. Elizabeth's Church in nearby Spandauer Vorstadt who hosted meetings of the "Kirche von Unten" movement of the mid- to late-1980s. "Kirche von Unten" was vital to the critical movements who eventually broke the power monopoly of the SED, the state party of East Germany, though many activist were similarly critical of the West as they were of Erich Honecker's "actually existing socialism", and had hoped for a reform of "their" state the GDR, more than the (now seemingly) inevitable absorption of the GDR by West Germany which took place at the German reunification in 1990.

After 1990 many clubs, bars, and underground parties sprang up along the streets and alley ways of Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. The residents of Prenzlauer Berg had laid the groundwork for an art and oppositional scene that boomed there for over a decade after the German reunification. Some remains, though Prenzlauer Berg's reputation as Berlin's most gentrified borough is not entirely undeserved, and many a wonderfully odd haunt has become the stuff of urban legend.

• Prenzlauer Berg
• 
  Sonntags-Club at Greifenhagener Straße 29
• 
  Greifbar, Wichertstr. 10, a popular gay bar opened in the 1990s
• 
  The Midnight Sun, then Stahlrohr 2.0, then end of an era
• 
  Collectives Schwankende Weltkugel and Café Morgenrot, Kastanienallee 85
• 
  Art in front of the Tuntenhaus, Kastanienallee 85

Friedrichshain

The former East Berlin borough of Friedrichshain has a queer history somewhat similar to Prenzlauer Berg, to which it is somewhat analogous in many ways, were it not for the Stalin era prestige project Karl-Marx-Allee (1949-1961 Stalinallee) which runs north–south through the neighborhood, dividing it down the middle. The "workers' palaces" on Karl-Marx-Allee were reserved for meritable citizens of the "workers' and peasants' state" East Germany, in stark contrast to the buildings behind them on both sides.

Christian Pulz (middle) and Eduard Stapel (left) in an interview (2011) with filmmakers Jochen Hick and Andreas Strohfeldt, during the making of the film Unter Männern – schwul in der DDR

It is in Friedrichshain that a further major impulse in the East German Lesbian and Gay Movement arises in the context of the East German Peace Movement^[25] of the late 1970s / early 1980s. After having read Martin Siems: Coming out: Hilfen zur homosexuellen Emanzipation^[26] former seminarian Christian Pulz, theologian Eduard Stapel, and Matthias Kittlitz formed the first "'Arbeitskreis Homosexualität' in der Evangelischen Studentengemeinde" (English: "Work-group Homosexuality" in the Lutheran Students' Congregation) in Leipzig. First contacts between future members were made while "cottaging" at a "tea room" near Leipzig City Hall.^[27] Meetings were held in Christan Pulz's flat in Leipzig until Pulz relocated to East-Berlin in 1983, where he remained a driving force in the East-German Lesbian and Gay Movement, as well as the East-German Peace, Environmentalism and Human Rights Movement (Opposition und Widerstand in der DDR). Upon arriving in Berlin in 1983 Pulz founded an informal gay organization, and inquired with several church communities about the use of their space for meetings. In the Spring of 1983 Pulz turned to the peace work group of the Church of the Samaritan in Berlin-Friedrichshain (Samariterkirche (Berlin)). Though there was some support from members of the parish, no separate gay work group was established initially, the reason being the (logistical as well as political) pressure which already existed on the church community due to the peace work group and the so-called "Blues Masses" (Blues-Messe), Blues, Rock, and Punk church services already being held at the church. In spite of this temporary setback, lesbian and gay activist remained in contact the church community, and in April 1984, the first formal meeting of the "Schwulen- und Lesbenarbeitskreise der DDR" (English: Gay and Lesbian Work Group in the GDR) took place in the Samariterkirche (Berlin). Christian Pulz organized the first, public LGBT demonstration, sometimes hailed as the first Christopher Street Day in the GDR. The event took the form of a meeting on May 21, 1983 at the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum. Thirteen participants attended, not without being briefly detained by members of the Ministry for State Security.^[28] This demonstration was not only the first LGBT protest demonstration in the GDR, it was also the first known commemoration of the persecution of homosexuals under National Socialism by gays and lesbians in the GDR.

The protesters left the following entry in the Sachsenhausen Memorial's guest book:

"Today we commemorate the homosexual prisoners who were murdered in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. We were very much saddened that we didn't learn anything about their fate here."

In 1983 at the Church of the Samaritan's peace workshop, the group around Christian Pulz first appeared publicly under the motto "Lieber ein warmer Bruder, als ein kalter Krieger" (English: Better to be a "warm brother" (German pejorative for "gay man"), than a Cold Warrior).^[29][30][31] The slogan reverses a derisive remark made publicly by West German politician Franz Josef Strauss in 1970 in which Strauß expressed his conviction it would be better to be a Cold Warrior.^[32] It was at this peace workshop that the group met Pastor Walter Hykel from the Philippus Kapelle (Berlin-Alt-Hohenschönhausen) in Berlin-Alt-Hohenschönhausen. The first meeting of the work group took place at the Philippus Kapelle during that same year. In this context the group gave itself the name "Schwule in der Kirche – Arbeitskreis Homosexuelle Selbsthilfe" (English: Gays in the Church - Homosexual Self-Help Work Group), and Ulrich Zieger wrote the group's political position paper „Zur Schwulen Realität in der DDR“ (English: On gay reality in the GDR). With the assistance of Bärbel Bohley and Pastor Christa Sengespeick, the group then turned to the Bekenntniskirche (Berlin) church in Alt-Treptow.^[33] The church was spacious, close to the city center, and the church council had confirmed the group as an official work group. The parish pastor Werner Hilse was a committed ally to the group. As reform and protest movements inside East-Germany gained momentum in the mid to late 1980s, so too did the disruptive, repressive and surveillance activities of the East-German Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS) colloquially known as Stasi, East-Germany's secret police. Correspondingly great were the hopes and expectations East-German activists in particular rested on the political changes of the late 1980s / early 1990s. For former East-German Lesbian and Gay activists in particular the discrepancy between the promises made by West-German politicians and Western media and advertising, and the reality of life after the "Wende" is particularly marked. The general tendency in the official historiography to down-play the role of East Germans in the events of the time in favor of praise for the deeds of (primarily Western) politicians and invocation of the ostensible inevitability of this "End of History" as it is sometimes framed, pertains to LGBT East-Germans in manifold fashion. The phenomenon is nicely summed up by on the German language Wikipedia page about Christian Pulz himself under the heading "Rezeption des Arbeitskreises nach 1989":

German

Die Schwulen- und Lesbenbewegungen in der DDR wurden in der Forschung in den ersten 30 Jahren nach dem Ende der DDR von der wissenschaftlichen Forschung weitestgehend ignoriert. Insbesondere in den bekannten Schriftenreihen der Aufarbeitungseinrichtungen wie der BStU oder den wenigen universitär angesiedelten Forschungsinstituten gab es keine für die Forschungsarbeit weiterführenden Publikationen – weder in den thematisch noch in den biographisch orientierten Reihen. Ebenso ist angesichts der zahlreichen Veranstaltungen und Podiumsdiskussionen, die es zur Thematik des politischen Widerstandes in der DDR gab, auffällig, dass nahezu keiner der damaligen Protagonisten öffentlich in Erscheinung getreten ist. Dieses Fehlen der Thematisierung ist selbst ein Anzeichen für die noch andauernden antihomosexuellen Mechanismen, die für repressive Gesellschaftsformen charakteristisch, aber keinesfalls auf die DDR-Gesellschaft beschränkt sind. Bezeichnend dafür ist, dass die Nonkonformität schwuler und lesbischer Emanzipation gerade in Form der selbstbestimmten Gruppenbildung von Menschen, die nicht aufgrund einer speziellen Qualifizierung, sondern aufgrund ihrer persönlichen Betroffenheit politisch aktiv geworden sind, bisher nicht als ein Kernelement politischer und widerständiger Bewegungen unter den zusätzlich verschärfenden Bedingungen einer Diktatur zu einer grundsätzlichen Gesellschaftskritik und -theorie am Beispiel der DDR geworden ist. In den wesentlichen Verlagen dieser Schriftenreihen wie dem Ch.Links Verlag, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Edition Temmen, LIT Verlag oder dem Peter Lang Verlag ist bisher keine einzige wissenschaftliche Publikation zur Schwulen- und Lesbenbewegung in der DDR erschienen. Eduard Stapel veröffentlichte 1999 eine persönliche Auseinandersetzung mit seinem Engagement in der Schwulenbewegung und den Maßnahmen des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit.[16] Auf der Berlinale 2013 erschien der Film „Out in Ost-Berlin“ von Jochen Hick und Andreas Strohfeldt. Er dokumentiert das politische Wirken von Schwulen und Lesben in der DDR. Eine zentrale Rolle spielen dabei die Berliner Arbeitskreise um Christian Pulz und Marina Krug „Schwule in der Kirche“ und „Lesben in der Kirche“ sowie Eduard Stapel.

English

The gay and lesbian movements in the GDR were largely ignored by scientific research in the first 30 years after the end of the GDR. In particular, in the well-known publication series of the institutions for the "coming to terms" with the history of the GDR such as the Stasi Records Agency (German: Stasi-Unterlagen-Behörde (BStU)) or the few university-based research institutes, there were no publications geared toward academic research - neither in the thematically nor in the biographically oriented series. In view of the numerous events and podium discussions that have been held on the subject of political resistance in the GDR, it is also striking that almost none of the protagonists of the era were called upon to appear publicly. This lack of thematization is in and of itself an indication of the ongoing anti-homosexual mechanisms that are characteristic of repressive forms of society, but are by no means limited to GDR society. It is at the same time remarkable that the non-conformity of gay and lesbian emancipation, especially in the form of the self-determined formation of groups by people who have become politically active not because of a special qualification but because of their personal concernedness, as a core element of political and resistance movements under the additionally aggravated conditions of dictatorship, has not yet become a fundamental social criticism and social theory using the example of the GDR. The main publishers of relevant series of publications, such as Ch.Links Verlag, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Edition Temmen, LIT Verlag or Peter Lang Verlag, have not published a single scientific publication on the gay and lesbian movement in the GDR. In 1999 Eduard Stapel himself published a personal examination of his involvement in the gay movement and the sanctioning measures taken by the Ministry for State Security. The film "Out in Ost-Berlin" by Jochen Hick and Andreas Strohfeldt was released at the Berlinale 2013. It documents the political work of gays and lesbians in the GDR. The Berlin work groups around Christian Pulz and Marina Krug “Gays in the Church” and “Lesbians in the Church” and Eduard Stapel play a central role in this.
(translation by contributor)

Nevertheless, one of Germany's most influential LGBT organizations with strong ties to contemporary Germany's political establishment across the party spectrum, the Lesben- und Schwulenverband Deutschland (LSVD) was founded as the Schwulenverband der DDR^[34] (SVD) in East Germany by East German activists.

The neighborhood has gained sad notoriety for the frictions between far-right hooligans (often coming into the neighborhood looking for trouble from the neighborhoods to the south and east),^[35] and Friedrichhain's largely left oriented squatters and dissidents, frictions which date back well before 1990, increase in severity during the 1990s, and continue to smolder to this day (see death of Silvio Meier.)

Friedrichshain in East Germany was, however, also in some ways not unlike the West Berlin sister-borough of Kreuzberg. It too was pressed up against the wall between East and West, just across the River Spree from its sister borough with whom present day Friedrichshain now forms one borough as Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. When the dissidents, artists and squatters East and West met across the Spree after 1989 it sparked a creative outburst and atmosphere of coming together that defined the era. And the 1990 and early 2000s were a hedonistic, intoxicating, unrelenting and very, very queer time. Ostgut that went on to become Berghain and Lab.Oratory, and KitKatClub, are only the tip of the queer iceberg. Revaler Straße and the area to the south and east toward Boxhagener Platz are bursting with new creative projects, as well as culture and party spaces. Toward the end of the 1990s the RAW-Friedrichshain, a former Reichsbahn repair depot, becomes a culture space with ever changing projects, and its very own drag bar Zum schmutzigen Hobby. Now well-known tourist destination, Simon-Dach-Straße's Himmelreich has been serving customers since 2003. And the somewhat more traditional gay bar Große Freiheit 114 which opened in 2005 is as popular as ever.

Since the border between East and West Berlin was opened in November 1989 the police East and West have been trying to make Friedrichshain's squatters pay rent. Emblematic for this process, which has not lost its actuality to this day, was the struggle between the residents of Mainzer Straße and rent-seeking land lords represented by the local authorities and law enforcement. In October 2020, Berlin's last anaracha-queer-feminist house project Liebig 34 was forcibly remove from the building they were renting. Local police had assembled a force of approximately 4000 officers and special forces of the Landeskriminalamt Berlin (Berlin State Office of Criminal Investigations). The twenty members of the collective went quietly and calmly, under applause from their supporters.^[36][37]

• Friedrichshain
• 
  Arts & entertainment complex RAW-Friedrichshain, Warschauer Straße, corner of Revaler Straße
• 
  Drag Queen Nina Queer, owner of the bar Zum schmutzigen Hobby, Revaler Str. 99, and Ross Antony British singer/actor
• 
  Entance to Lab.oratory (bottom, left corner)
• 
  Anarcha-queer-feminist house project Liebig 34 (evicted October, 2020)

Neukölln

If Prenzlauer Berg is the Gen X-er of Berlin's gayborhoods then Neukölln is the Millennial. Over the past decade or two a young, creative, among other things queer scene has grown all around Weserstraße and southward toward Neukölln City Hall (Rathaus Neukölln). Not that the area was without its own LGBT spots in the past, but even the older bars are enjoyed by locals and ex-pats from around the globe, having made old strip clubs like Ficken3000 on Urbanstraße for example very much their own. But most notably perhaps, the old brass, and juggernaut of LGBTIQ+ culture center's and clubs, the club SchwuZ also moved to Rollbergstraße 26 in Neukölln in November 2013.

• Neukölln
• 
  Silver Future, Weserstr. 206, intersectional queer feminist bar
• 
  K-fetisch, Wildenbruchstr. 86, collectively run coffee house with Küfa and queer feminist (FLINTA*) events
• 
  SchwuZ 2015 - Gloria Viagra, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Jackie-Oh Weinhaus

A

• Nasser El-Achmad (*1996) - activist, first PoC member of the CSD e.V., Berlin Steering Committee, filed suite (2015) against father and uncle on the basis of Section 235 of the Strafgesetzbuch (German penal code) over an attempted forced marriage to a woman^[46]
• Bini Adamczak (*1979) - feminist, writer on communism and queer politics
• Seyran Ateş (*1963) - lawyer and women's right activist, founder of the liberal Ibn Rushd-Goethe Mosque (which expressly welcomes LGBTIQ+ worshipers) in Berlin, imam (one of the world's very few female imams)^[47]

B

Michael Brynntrup in his studio (1984)

• Jürgen Baldiga (*1957 - †1993) - photographer who documented gay West Berlin, and later the AIDS epidemic in the 80s/early-90s, legacy property of gay museum, Berlin (grave (Berlin): Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof ★)

Norbert Bisky painting in Berlin 2007 (Photo by Oliver Mark)

• Norbert Bisky (*1970) - a Berlin based artist, an important representatives of a new figurative painting in the 21st century.
• Tabea Blumenschein (*1952 - †2020) - actress and artistic polymath, perhaps best known for her role in the cult classic Ticket of No Return (German: Bildnis einer Trinkerin), Ulrike Ottinger (1979)
• Alf Bold (*1946 - †1993) - program director in the Arsenal Cinema, responsible for introducing Nan Goldin to the West Berlin art and music scene (first visit in 1982), Golding photographs Alf Bold's death photo Alf Bold Dead. Aug.18.1993^[48]
• Birgit Bosold (*____) - became first woman in on the Board of Directors of Schwules Museum* (SMB) in 2006, instrumental in bringing the Petra Gall collection to SMB, co-curator of such groundbreaking projects as Homosexualität_en (along with Dr. Dorothée Brill and Detlef Weitz, with research contributed by Dr. Sarah Bornhorst, Noemi Molitor and Kristine Schmidt)
• Adolf Brand (*1874 - †1945) - publisher of Der Eigene (The Unique) the first gay journal in the world, published Berlin, 1896 - 1932
• Michael Brynntrup (*1959) - media artist and pioneer of queer cinema
• Horst Buchholz (*1933 - †2003) – actor, voice-over artist, the German Alain Delon

C

• Heiner Carow (*1929 – †1997) - film director, screenwriter, director of Coming Out (1989), the first East German LGBT-themed film

D

• Martin Dannecker (*1942) - sexologist, author, early founder of the German Lesbian & Gay rights movement, co-counder of Queer Nations e.V.
• Vaginal Davis (*1969) - performing artist, painter, curator, composer, filmmaker, writer (residing in Berlin since 2006)^[49]
• Marlene Dietrich (*1901 - †1992) - German-born American actress & singer (grave (Berlin): III. Städtischer Friedhof Stubenrauchstraße, section 17–486)

E

Author Carolin Emcke, Green-Party celebration of Marriage Equality 2017.

• Carolin Emcke (*1967) - award-winning journalist and author, political theorist and activist
• Selli Engler (aka Selma Engler) (*1899 - †1972) - lesbian activist of the 1920s and 1930s, writer, publisher of Die BIF – Blätter Idealer Frauenfreundschaften (Papers on Ideal Women Friendships)

F

Matthias Freihof at the 25 Years Friedrichstadt-Palast Gala, Berlin, 2009

• Tim Fischer (married name: Tim Jiménez Domínguez) (*1973) well known chansonnier and actor
• Frederick the Great (*1712 - †1786) - Prussian ruler and expansionist, enlightened despot
• Matthias Freihof (*1961) - television actor and director, played the role of Philipp Klarmann in Coming Out (Heiner Carow, 1989), the first East German LGBT-themed film (interview in German with Matthias Freihof)^[50]
• Matthias Frings (*1953) - journalist, TV presenter and writer, well known to TV audiences in Germany as one of the moderators of the 1990s show Liebe Sünde - title is a pun on queer icon Zarah Leander sung song "Kann denn Liebe Sünde sein?" (English: can love be a sin?)

G

Sex-positive feminist Helga Goetze holding vigil in 1987 (Franz Will, 1987)

• Petra Gall (*1955 - †2018) - photographer, lesbian-feminist activist, culture manager, artistic legacy care of Schwules Museum*, click here for Schwules Museum* page
• Helga Sophia Goetze (aka Helga Sophia) (*1922 - †2008) - artist, writer, sex-positive feminist, from 1983 - early 2000s she held hourly "Ficken ist Frieden" (fucking is peace) vigils near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church^[51] (grave (Berlin): Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof ★★)
• Cihangir Gümüştürkmen (aka Lale Lokum) (*1964) artist, dancer, actor/playwright/producer, comedian, comic artist, drag artist, founded cabaret troupe Salon Oriental (1995) with Fatma Souad

H

• Lotte Hahm (aka Charlotte Hedwig Hahm) (*1890 - †1967) - prominent lesbian and trans* activist from the 1920 through the Nazi period into the mid-1960s, organizer, club manager.
• O. E. Hasse (*1903 - †1978) - film actor, director (grave (Berlin): Waldfriedhof Dahlem)
• Monika Herrmann (*1964) - politician (Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen), district mayor of Berlin-Kreuzberg (2013-2021)
• Magnus Hirschfeld (*1868 - †1935) - sexologist, reformer, founder of the WhK

I

DJane Ipek (İpek İpekçioğlu) at the Anne Klein Women's Prize ceremony 2012

• Christopher Isherwood (*1904 - †1986) - British-American author
• İpek İpekçioğlu (*1972) - music producer, Intersectional activist, resident DJane at SO36, regular DJane at Gayhane,^[52]

J

• Dr. med. Heiko Jessen (*____) - specialist for infections disease specializing in HIV

K

• Carina Klugbauer (*1988) - political theorist, gender theorist, exhibit manager at Schwules Museum* (SMB), co-curator of the project Homosexualität_en (along with Dr. Birgit Bosold, Dr. Dorothée Brill and Detlef Weitz, with research contributed by Dr. Sarah Bornhorst, Noemi Molitor and Kristine Schmidt)
• Katja Koblitz - chair of the Spinnboden e.V. lesbian archive, expert for the lesbian herstory of Berlin (brief overview on place2be.berlin)
• Ilse Kokula (*1944) - teacher, author, lesbian activist
• Elmar Kraushaar (*1950) - journalist, early gay activist & AIDS activist
• Kevin Kühnert (*1989) - politician (SPD), general secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and member of the Bundestag representing Berlin-Tempelhof-Schöneberg (since 2021)
• Dirk Kummer (*1966) - actor, plays the role of Matthias in Coming Out (Heiner Carow, 1989), the first East German LGBT-themed film
• Kitty Kuse (*1904 - †1999) – helped Gertrude Sandmann hide from the Nazis in WWII, co-founder of the group L 74 (Lesbos 1974), writer/publisher lesbian periodical UKZ – Unsere kleine Zeitung (grave (Berlin): Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof ★★)

L

• Klaus Lederer (*1974) - politician (Die Linke), member of the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin (since 2001), deputy mayor and senator for culture and Europe (since 2016)
• Yony Leyser (*1985) - U.S. born film director living in Berlin
• Audre Lorde (*1934 - †1992) U.S. black, lesbian-feminist writer and activist. During multiple stays in Berlin 1984-1992 strongly influenced German POC, and lesbian-feminist movements, documentary: Audre Lorde – The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992 by Dagmar Schultz, Ria Cheatom, Ika Hügel-Marshall and Aletta von Vietinghoff (2011) Watch trailer on Vimeo
• Marinus van der Lubbe (*1909 - †1934) - Dutch born, young vagrant who under mysterious circumstances admitted to and was executed for setting the Reichstag fire, 1933
• Dirk Ludigs (*1965) author, LGBT activist, TV producer, journalist with a regular column in die Siegessäule and frequent articles in taz

M

Sven Marquardt, Artist: Vhils, 2010, Potsdamer Straße 151, Schöneberg

• Jeanne Mammen (*1890 – †1976) painter and illustrator, well known for her illustrations of The Songs of Bilitis (grave (Berlin): III. Städtischer Friedhof Stubenrauchstraße, Columbarium, Urn room 45, No. 97)
• Sven Marquardt (*1962) - fashion photographer in East Germany for the GDR fashion magazine Sibylle, gay squatter, punk in East Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg in the 1980s, documentarist of Berlin's club culture from the 1990s on, member of the founding group of Ostgut / Berghain, best known as Berghain's door person^[53][54]
• Susanne Matthes (*1961- †1983) - a young women raped and murdered in 1983 on her way home from the lesbian disco Die 2 in Berlin-Neukölln - a crystallizing event of the (lesbian-)feminist movement of the early 1980s
• Inge Meysel (*1910 - †2004) - immensely popular and very outspoken actress, came out as bi at age 94 (2004)
• Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (*1928 - †2002) - East German preservationist, Trans* activist, author (grave (Berlin): Waldkirchhof Mahlsdorf, section: W 402/403/404)
• Ovo Maltine (*1966 - †2005) - political cabaretist, drag queen, AIDS activist (grave (Berlin): Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof ★)
• Erich Mühsam (*1879 - †1934) - poet, playwright, anarchist, revolutionary (grave (Berlin): Waldfriedhof Dahlem)
• Wolfgang Müller (*1957) - artist, musician, author, co-founder (with Nikolaus Utermöhlen) of the band Die Tödliche Doris, author of the manifesto of the young West Berlin music and art scene Geniale Dilletanten (Merve Verlag, Berlin, 1982) following the 1981 music festival Festival Genialer Dilletanten in the Tempodrom, the book contains contributions by Gudrun Gut, Matthias Roeingh (later known as Dr. Motte), Tabea Blumenschein, Blixa Bargeld and Frieder Butzmann^[55]

N

• Ella Nik Bayan (*1980- †2021) - 2015 fled Iran via Turkey and the "Balkan Route", self-immolation on Alexanderplatz to protest racism, trans*phobia, and the violent EU border practices (grave (Berlin): Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde (Socialist Cemetery))
• Johannes Nohl (*1882 - †1963) - author, anarchist, partner of Erich Mühsam
• Jan Noll (*____) - journalist, DJ, drag artist, activist, and chief editor of Siegessäule

O

Ulrike Ottinger, Q&A session for Ticket of No Return, BAMPFA, University of California, Berkeley, 2019

• Ulrike Ottinger (*1942) - filmmaker and photographer, well known for her Berlin Trilogy, Ticket of No Return (German: Bildnis einer Trinkerin, 1979), Freak Orlando (1981) and Dorian Grey in the Yellow Press (German: Dorian Grey im Spiegel der Boulevardpresse, 1984), (Ulrike Ottinger's website)

P

Cristina Perincioli (2011)

• Rosa von Praunheim (*1942) - pioneer of queer cinema, activist
• Cristina Perincioli (*1946) - film director, writer, multimedia producer and author, co-founder of West Berlin's first feminist health center the Feministische Frauen-Gesundheits-Zentrum e.V. Berlin (FFGZ) as Frauenzentrum Westberlin, Hornstraße 2, Berlin-Kreuzberg (former location) in 1973, and 1977 of West Berlin's Rape Hotline in 1977, Perincioli and her partner Cillie Rentmeister are the authors of the German TV film about a lesbian relationship, "Edith und Anna" aired on ZDF in 1975
• Christian Pulz (*1944 - †2021) - pioneer of the East German Lesbian and Gay Movement, instrumental in the founding of the "Schwule in der Kirche – Arbeitskreis Homosexuelle Selbsthilfe" (English: Gays in the Church - Work Group Homosexual Self-Help) in 1983, co-organizer of the first known organized gay protest on May 21, 1983 at the Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen (Sachsenhausen concentration camp Memorial and Museum)
• Nihad Nino Pušija (*1965) - photographer, Roma activist, documents "the queer, (post-)migrant night-live in Berlin of the 1990s" (das queere, (post-)migrantische Nachtleben im Berlin der 1990er Jahre)^[56] (More on Nihad Nino Pušija on roma-biennale.com)

R

• Hilde Radusch (*1903 - †1994) - resistance fighter, communist and Socialdemocratic politician, women's rights activist, lesbian activist (memorial: Winterfeldt- / Eisenacherstraße) (grave (Berlin): Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof ★★)
• Rio Reiser (aka Ralph Christian Möbius) (*1950 – †1996) - singer / songwriter, lead singer of Ton Steine Scherben, bard of the squatters movement and the Sponti protest movements in West Germany and Western Europe in general in the 1970s and 1980s (grave (Berlin): Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof ★
• Stefan Reiß (*____) - lawyer, early HAW activist and co-founder (with Sabine Lange and the publisher Bruno Gmünder) of the AIDS-Hilfe, Germany's largest AIDS-activism and community resource organization
• Cillie Rentmeister (*1948) - historian, culture scientist and researcher of cultural conditions of women and of gender, 1974-1977 member of Flying Lesbians, Europe's first women's rock band (more about Dr. Rentmeister on feministberlin.de (in German)^[57]
• Ernst Röhm (*1887 - †1934) - openly gay, early member of the NSDAP, leader of its paramilitary SA, murdered at Hitler's command in the internal purge, Night of the Long Knives
• Ruth Margarete Roellig (*1878 – †1969) – writer, author of the city guide Berlins lesbische Frauen (1928), Nazi collaborator

S

Sintenis bear (Bundesautobahn 9). Model for the Berlinale Golden Bear

• Gertrude Sandmann (*1893 - †1981) artist, lesbian Activist of Jewish background, co-founder of the group L 74 (Lesbos 1974) (Memorial: Eisenacher Straße 89 ) (grave (Berlin): Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof ★★)
• Manfred Salzgeber (*1943 - †1994) - activist, pioneer of queer cinema, founder of Edition Salzgeber, co-founder of the Teddy Award (grave (Berlin): Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof ★)
• Frank Schäfer (*1959) - hair stylist, began his career in the East German fashion industry, East German gay punk in the 1970s and 80s, well known figure of Berlin club culture after 1990, biography Ich bin nicht auf der Welt, um glücklich zu sein, Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf publishers, Berlin, 2018.^[58]
• Dieter Rita Scholl (*1952) - actor, author, chanson artist
• Dagmar Schultz (*1941) sociologist, filmmaker, publisher professor, maker of films on May Ayim (2007), and Audrey Lorde (2012), co-founder of West Berlin's first feminist health center (Feministische Frauen-Gesundheits-Zentrum e.V. Berlin (FFGZ), Hornstraße 2, Berlin-Kreuzberg (former location))
• Dr. Ursula Sillge (*1946) - Lesbian activist and sociologist, groundbreaking Lesbian activist in East-Germany, early and erstwhile only Lesbian activist in the Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin (Homosexual Interest Group Berlin, HIB), founding member of the Sunday Club, organizer of a 1984 Humboldt University of Berlin Department of Social Sciences study On the Situation of Homophile Citizens in the GDR prompting far reaching changes in the official GDR government stance on LGBT concerns, remaining an important LGBT activist, as well as chronicler and archivist (See: Lila Archiv e.V.) of LGBT history and reality in East and West
• Renée Sintenis (*1888 – †1965) - sculptor, medalist, graphic, creator of the Berlin Bear model for the Berlinale's Golden Bear (grave (Berlin): Waldfriedhof Dahlem)
• Juwelia Soraya (aka Stefan Stricker) (*1963) - Berlin drag artist, performer, painter, founder of Galerie Studio St. St.
• Wieland Speck (*1951) - activist, cinematic polymath, panorama coordinator at the Berlinale, co-founder of the Teddy Award
• Fatma Suad (aka Hakan Tandoğan) (*____) - cabaretist, culture manager, activist, founder of Gayhane^[59] event in SO36, regular participant in the organizing collective of the regular syndicalist Kreuzberg Pride (portrait photo of Fatma Suad by Nicolaus Schmidt)

U

• Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (*1825 – †1895) lawyer, jurist, journalist, writer, early sexologist, coiner of the term "Unanian", often cited as the "first gay man",^[60] Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Straße in Berlin-Schöneberg is named his honor (view on openstreetmap.org)
• Nikolaus Utermöhlen (*1958 - †1996) - Artist, musician, composer, founding member (with Wolfgang Müller) of the band Die Tödliche Doris (grave (Berlin): Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof ★)

V

• Gloria Viagra (aka Michel Gosewitsch) (*1966) - drag queen, activist, DJ(ane)

W

Klaus Wowereit in 2012, Governing Mayor of Berlin (2001-2014)

• Claire Waldoff (*1884 – †1957) - cabaretist and chanteuse
• Jacky-Oh Weinhouse (*1987/1988) (aka Sebastian Böhm) – drag queen and homo lobbyist
• Anne Will (*1966) - journalist, television moderator, host of Anne Will on NDR television - the most watched show on German TV in 2021
• Jürgen Wittdorf (*1932 - † 2018) - painter and graphic artist, best known for his book illustrations, and his wood cuts and lino prints, parts of his artistic legacy are in the collections of the Schwules Museum (English: Gay Museum), Berlin, and of the Kunstarchiv Beeskow for East-German Art (Link to artist's web-site)
• Klaus Wowereit (*1953) - politician (SPD), governing mayor of Berlin (2001-2014)

Z

Ades Zabel as Edith Schröder in 2010

• Ades Zabel (*1963) - cabaretist and drag Queen, co-founder of Teufelsberg Produktion queer, underground film and theater company

Key:
★ EFEU e.V. map of queer relevant graves in Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof, Berlin-Schöneberg (click here to visit EFEU e.V. web-site)
★★ EFEU e.V. list of graves of prominent Women in Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof, Berlin-Schöneberg (click here to visit EFEU e.V. web-site)