Queer history of Berlin and its links with France

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Berlin and France do not share the same queer history, but they often cross. Here are some landmarks to understand where we come from. (This page is a summary: sources and places to visit are at the bottom.)

Berlin, 1871 to 1933: a movement is born

1871: "Paragraph 175" of the German Empire's penal code punishes sexual acts between men.
1897: Magnus Hirschfeld founds the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee in Berlin, often described as the world's first homosexual association. Its aim: to repeal Paragraph 175.
1919: Hirschfeld opens the Institute for Sexual Science, near today's House of World Cultures (Tiergarten).
1920s: Berlin becomes a capital of queer nightlife. The Eldorado cabaret opens in 1924 and moves in 1931 to the corner of Motzstrasse, in the area that is still Schöneberg's "Regenbogenkiez" (Rainbow Quarter) today.

1933 to 1945: persecution

1933: the Nazis close and loot Hirschfeld's Institute; the places of the queer scene are shut down.
1935: Paragraph 175 is toughened. Thousands of men are imprisoned or deported, and marked with the pink triangle in the camps. Lesbians and trans people are not targeted by Paragraph 175, but they too suffer repression and erasure.
After 1945, some survivors go back to prison to finish their sentences.

After the war: reforms, activism, visibility

1968 (GDR) and 1969 (FRG): homosexuality between adults is decriminalised, with a higher age of consent than for heterosexual relationships.
1971: the Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin is born in West Berlin, after a screening of a film by Rosa von Praunheim.
1977: opening of SchwuZ, Berlin's first alternative gay club.
1979: first German Christopher Street Day, in Berlin.
1985: the Schwules Museum opens its doors.
1994: Paragraph 175 is finally removed from German law.
2001: the registered partnership ("Lebenspartnerschaft") gives same-sex couples almost all the rights of marriage.
2008: inauguration of the memorial to homosexuals persecuted under Nazism, in the Tiergarten.
2017: same-sex marriage becomes possible in Germany; the same year, a memorial to the first homosexual emancipation movement is inaugurated at Magnus-Hirschfeld-Ufer.

France, step by step

1791: the revolutionary penal code no longer treats sodomy as a crime. France is often cited as one of the first countries to decriminalise.
After June 1940: under the Vichy regime, homosexuality enters the penal code as a form of discrimination (a different age of consent).
1977: first Pride march in Paris, on 25 June, organised notably by the Groupe de libération homosexuel and MLF activists.
1982: the law promulgated on 4 August 1982 removes the article that discriminated against homosexual relationships.
1999: the PACS (civil partnership) is created and the first ones are signed at the end of 1999.
2013: marriage and adoption are opened to all couples.

Where Berlin and France meet

Magnus Hirschfeld, exiled in France. Driven out of Germany by the Nazis, the founder of the Institute for Sexual Science ended his life in exile in France: he died in Nice in 1935.
Cinema, a Monday link. Since 1997, the "MonGay" series pays tribute to "Coming Out", the first gay film of the GDR, shown in 1989 at Kino International. For years, BleuBlancRose offered its members a reduced price at this Monday-evening screening.
Two calendars, two countries. Berlin's Christopher Street Day (1979) and the Paris Pride (1977) have answered each other for more than forty years, and many of us know both.
BleuBlancRose, since 2004, is one of these meeting points: a queer Franco-German association in Berlin, with a foot in each history.

To see and to read

Schwules Museum: the museum and its exhibitions.
Memorial to the persecuted homosexuals and places of queer history in Berlin (Visit Berlin, in German).
A short history of LGBT Berlin (The Berliner).
Droits des LGBT+ : 40 ans de luttes (Fondation Jean-Jaurès, in French).
MonGay cinema series (Yorck).

A mistake, a place or a date to add? Write to us.