EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is by a grant recipient in a program launched in 2022 by The G&LR, the Charles S. Longcope Jr. Writers and Artists Grant, which was awarded to three recipients last year. Awardees are expected to produce an article for the magazine as part of their project, of which this is the first of three.
THE WORLD’S FIRST homosexual emancipation movement formed in Germany on the eve of the Nazi dictatorship. A vibrant queer subculture emerged in Weimar-era Berlin between 1919 and 1933, only to be fractured, driven underground, and its members persecuted for the twelve years of Nazi rule. In their aftermath, Cold War politics dominated Germany, and queer subcultures struggled with the repression that remained in force. The arc of early to mid-20th-century German history was a turbulent period for the queer Germans who experienced it, including Charlotte “Lotte” Hedwig Hahm, a prominent figure in Weimar Berlin’s LGBT subculture who covertly continued to create queer spaces under the Nazi regime.
Between the 1890s and 1914, several movements emerged that challenged Germany’s system of gender and sexual norms. Various women’s rights organizations campaigned for suffrage, access to higher education, divorce law reform, reproductive rights, and other reforms. A small but persistent homosexual liberation movement began mobilizing at the same time. In 1896, Adolf Brand began publishing the first homosexual magazine, Der Eigene, and in 1897, Magnus Hirschfeld founded the first LGBT rights organization, the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee (Scientific-Humanitarian Committee). The following year, Germany’s Social Democratic Party denounced Paragraph 175, the nation’s anti-sodomy law that criminalized intercourse between men. In 1906, German-Israeli author Karl Baer became the first person to undergo gender-affirming surgery. The Wilhelmian German state, which preceded the Weimar Republic, recognized his transition and issued a new birth certificate the following year.
The eruption of World War I in 1914 interrupted these efforts, but only temporarily. The German Revolution of 1918-19 inaugurated the Weimar era, during which many of the norms and laws concerning gender and sexuality were liberalized. Women gained the right to vote, the “New Woman” emerged, and Magnus Hirschfeld opened the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) in 1919. In the following years, Berlin became a queer epicenter in Europe, known for its sexual research and blossoming nightlife. This was one reason that Lotte Hahm was attracted to Berlin around 1920.
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During the latter half of the 1920s, Hahm became a prominent community organizer in Berlin’s queer spaces, particularly in the lesbian and trans communities. In 1926, Hahm founded the prominent Damenklub (women’s club) Violetta. It primarily functioned as a social club meant to facilitate activities and forge community among its approximately 400 members. Through Damenklub Violetta, Hahm frequently organized an eclectic variety of events, which included dances, balls, moonlight boat rides, cream-puff eating contests, and beach trips to the Baltic Sea. In 1928 Damenklub Violetta merged with the lesbian club Monbijou, and Hahm began working alongside one of its organizers, Käthe Reinhardt. Prior to the merger, the club often met at a variety of dance halls and opulent ballrooms. Afterward, Hahm and Reinhardt began holding Damenklub Violetta events at Monbijou’s previous home, The Magic Flute. According to contemporary accounts, the venue was large and spacious, with pastel green and blue armchairs for socializing around the periphery of a dance floor.
Hahm advertised the club and its events in lesbian magazines, including the world’s first such magazine, Die Freundin (“The Girlfriend”), which was published in Berlin from 1924 to 1933 by the LGBT organization Bund für Menschenrecht (League for Human Rights, or BfM). The Damenklub Violetta’s ads were also printed in the lesbian magazines Liebende, Ledige Frauen, and Garçonne. The Weimar-era lesbian press provided a space for queer women and trans people to share political news, poetry, short stories, essays, and event information to those inside and outside Berlin, creating a cross-country queer literary network.
Hahm often wrote for Die Freundin and other lesbian publications, and at least fifty of her articles have survived. Most of the club’s advertisements featured a photo of Hahm, often striking a masculine pose while wearing a dashing suit, with short hair slicked to the side. Notably, Hahm used her real name and photograph in ads and articles. This decision stands in stark contrast to the many lesbian and trans Germans who adopted pseudonyms in these magazines as a measure of self-protection. These magazines were often sold at newsstands, which made them available to the wider public, including the police. Even so, accepting this risk may have led to both Hahm and Damenklub Violetta’s successes.
A tune often sung at club events was the gay anthem “Das Lila Lied” (The Lavender Song). The song opens with a lamentation on the criminalization and stigma of homosexuality but retains a playful tone. The first verse expresses a familiar sentiment: “most of us are proud/ to be cut from a different cloth!” The chorus begins and ends with the phrase “we are just different from the others,” and the song concludes with a hopeful refrain: “then we won the same right/ we are no longer suffering—they must suffer us!” Even these short passages offer insight into the cultural momentum behind queer liberation. Despite only intercourse between men being explicitly criminalized under Paragraph 175, the popularity of this song among lesbian and trans Germans suggests a common identification and political motivation among many segments of the LGBT populace.
However, just how “political” women’s clubs such as Damenklub Violetta were remains contested. Historians, and certainly Hahm’s contemporaries, considered wo-men’s clubs to be apolitical social groups. A 1925 article in Die Freundin, written by BfM leader Friedrich Radszuweit and the magazine’s editor Aenne Weber, expressed frustration at the political passivity of Berlin’s lesbian scene. The article urged all homosexual Germans to unite under a common cause to combat Paragraph 175, which represented the marginalized status of all homosexuals. Other historians, such as Laurie Marhoefer, have argued that lesbian and trans clubs were intrinsically political due to their public nature. The Damenklub Violetta, while not explicitly focused on legal reform, aimed to provide a safe space that allowed its members to interact as they saw fit. However, at the end of the decade, Hahm’s goals expanded to the creation of an explicitly political coalition of lesbian and trans Berliners.
Weimar-era ideas about trans-ness were very different from those of today. Trans Germans referred to themselves using the word transvestit (transvestite). The term often conflated cross-dressing, drag, and what we would call trans identity. Determining which category Hahm belonged to in retrospect is challenging (if not anachronistic), but examining her gender expression can offer greater insight into the era’s conceptions of gender. On at least one occasion, she used the name “Lothar,” and she twice referred to herself with the masculine form of the German word for “captain” in ads for the moonlight boat rides. However, in most situations, she used the feminine name “Lotte” and the feminine form of words for titles such as “leader” and “friend.” This inconsistency could indicate experimentation, gender fluidity, or a dual identity as both a lesbian and a trans person.
However she identified, Hahm aimed to create a unified lesbian and trans movement. The club put out calls for trans organizing in Liebende Frauen in 1928, and Hahm reported to the magazine in 1929 that a small group had been meeting in her apartment. That October, Hahm led an organizing event held by the BfM that was attended by “approximately 60 ladies and gentlemen.” By 1930, Hahm was heading an organization that catered to trans Berliners regardless of their gender presentation or sex assigned at birth. At this point, she was recognized as a central figure of the broader trans community.
Hahm’s coalition-building efforts were not immune from infighting and exclusionary sentiments. A 1932 article written by a butch lesbian objected to the notion that masculine women such as herself were “transvestites” because they wished to remain women. She complained further about the presence of trans women at lesbian events, alleging that they would flirt with the cisgender women. (This conversation still occurs within queer spaces today.) Hahm ultimately caved to the pressure. After a few weeks, she began hosting events intended exclusively for cisgender lesbian women. But she continued to host events for trans Berliners as well, including balls, dances, and fashion shows.
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At this time, Hahm had begun her relationship with her longtime partner Käthe Fleischmann, who was Jewish. Together they opened two establishments in a short period: the Monokel-Diele (Monocle Hall) in March 1931 and the Manuela Bar in February 1932. Despite both bars operating under Fleischmann’s name, they were huge steps forward for Hahm. While the Damenklub Violetta and similar groups created temporary spaces for queer Berliners, these were Hahm’s first permanent establishments, and they would take up residence in the lesbian scene alongside bars like the famous Eldorado. Unfortunately, their ownership of Monokel-Diele and the Manuela Bar was short-lived. Like many other Jewish-owned businesses in late 1932, the Monokel-Diele was vandalized by rioting Nazi brownshirts in an anti-Semitic attack against Fleischmann. She sold the business to avoid further attacks. When the Nazis rose to power the following year, Fleischmann was forced to sell her property and liquor license at a large financial loss. By spring 1933, the Nazi regime had banned queer publications and ordered the closure of all LGBT establishments.
Over the next decade, the Nazis would destroy the networks and communities that queer Germans had created in the previous years. However, certain people, including Hahm, worked clandestinely to keep those connections alive. This was not an easy endeavor. With the eradication of their establishments and publications, queer people relied on snippets of unverified news, often spread by word of mouth. Confusion was not uncommon. Three contemporary witnesses, including famous anti-fascist lesbian Hilde Radusch, claimed to have witnessed or heard about Hahm’s arrest and imprisonment in the Moringen concentration camp between 1933 and 1935. Recent research has demonstrated that this was most likely not the case or, if it was, she was not confined there for an extended period.
In reality, Hahm was organizing underground events that would require a very low profile. She chaired a “women’s sports club” named Sonne that covertly held lesbian events. The club met twice a week in a Jewish lodge until December 1934, then in the Türkische Zelt restaurant in 1935. The authorities did not initially notice Sonne’s activities until the club was denounced a few months later. A Nazi policeman surveilled one of its events on July 17th and reported that there were about 65 attendees and that most of the women were so dressed that they “could be mistaken for men.” The officer noted that women were dancing together in a manner that gave a “revolting impression” and was particularly scandalized when he caught two women kissing in one of the booths. One week later, on July 24th, the Sonne club was raided, and 54 people were detained. However, police did not find Hahm. Instead, when they interrogated one of the women they detained, she informed them that Hahm was on the island of Hiddensee.
Hiddensee is in the Baltic Sea just off the coast of Germany. By 1935, it had developed a reputation among certain circles as a meeting space for lesbian women. Hahm had acquired a guesthouse on the island that the Nazi police suspected served a similar function to the Sonne sports club. If this were true, it could be an additional reason that other lesbian women recalled her absence from Berlin. Two distinct legal disputes attest to the existence of the Hiddensee guesthouse: First, records show that Hahm was sued by a Berlin friend for “breach of contract” when she was unable to make them the guesthouse manager; second, Hahm was charged in Hiddensee’s regional court with violating vegetable fat regulations at her guesthouse. These legal conflicts aside, Hahm was able to create an additional covert space for queer women to find safety, community, and possible romance in an immensely dark chapter of Germany’s history.
Hahm provided limited help for her partner. It is unknown whether Fleischmann traveled to Hiddensee with her, but Hahm had returned to Berlin by the end of 1936. In 1938, the Nazis confiscated all of Fleischmann’s possessions. The following year, the regime forced her to work unloading wagons at the Berlin East Harbor. Due to the brutal conditions, Fleischmann injured her foot in 1941, and she used her medical treatment as an opportunity to escape her forced labor. She relied on several people to help her escape, including Hahm, who accompanied her to the Saarland, where they rented an apartment in Saarbrücken near the French-German border. However, this was not a long-term solution. Hahm returned to Berlin in spring 1942 and Fleischmann was forced to find shelter elsewhere. She narrowly survived the Nazi regime and suffered medical complications for the remainder of her life. When asked in the 1960s, Fleischmann disclosed that she “felt abandoned” by Hahm and said they had separated by the end of the 1950s. It’s unclear why Hahm returned to Berlin before Fleischmann was safe.
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After World War II, around two-thirds of Berlin’s apartments were uninhabitable. Food scarcity, homelessness, and a growing black market for everyday necessities occupied the Allied authorities during Berlin’s reconstruction. Amid larger social concerns and confusion about which legal codes would remain in place, Berlin’s queer scene gingerly re-emerged from its Nazi exile. Records for Hahm after the war are scarce. In the immediate aftermath, she briefly became active again in Berlin’s lesbian scene. With Käthe Reinhardt, whom she worked alongside in the 1920s, Hahm attempted to again organize balls at The Magic Flute. Later in 1945, they opened the first queer bar in East Berlin, but their establishment closed in 1947 for unknown reasons. It was not uncommon to travel or relocate between different zones before a hard border rose between the east and western halves of the city, and Hahm eventually relocated to West Berlin.
Between 1949 and 1953, both East and West Berlin began cracking down on queer subcultures. Bars and dance halls were surveilled and raided. Queer magazines, mostly published in Hamburg, were seized and their publishers eventually shut down (with the notable exception of the gay magazine Der Weg). Perhaps sensing the need for political organization, Hahm joined several others in applying to re-establish the BfM in 1958—but this effort failed. She died on August 17, 1967, just short of West German’s homosexual liberation in 1969.
On balance, Lotte Hahm was an activist and community organizer for Berlin’s queer scene for most of her life, even under the Nazi regime, but she did not provide the support that her girlfriend vitally needed during a time of crisis and genocide. Alongside Käthe Reinhardt, Hahm expanded Berlin’s lesbian nightlife, and Fleischmann helped her to establish two venues for that purpose. After the war, Hahm attempted to rekindle that nightlife where she could, perhaps even igniting the sparks that would allow the next generation of Berlin’s queer organizers to take over. The narrative of her life offers insight into the human experience of Germany’s dramatically changing sociopolitical landscape from the Weimar Republic to the bifurcated Germany of the Cold War era.
References
Boxhammer, Ingeborg and Christiane Leidiger. “Offensiv – strategisch – (frauen)emanzipiert: Spuren der Berliner Subkulturaktivistin* Lotte Hahm (1890–1967).” Gender 1 (2021).
Dobler, Jens. Von anderen Ufern: Geschichte der Berliner Lesben und Schwulen in Kreuzberg und Friedrichshain. Bruno Gmünder Verlag, 2003.
Hansi. “Die Welt der Transvestiten.” Die Freundin 23 (October 1932), Forum Queeres Archiv München.
I.A. des Vorstandes, Kroneberg. “Die Welt der Transvestiten.” Die Freundin 18, October 1928, Forum Queeres Archiv München.
Kokula, Ilse. “Interviews mit Älteren Lesbischen Frauen,” February 4, 1985. Spinnboden Archive, AK/Kok/Eigene Text/16.
Marhoefer, Laurie. Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis. University of Toronto Press, 2019.
Raid Report, July 26, 1935, Landesarchiv Berlin, A Rep. 030-02-05 198a Nr. 106.
Surveillance Report, July 18, 1935, Landesarchiv Berlin, A Rep. 030-02-05 198a Nr. 106.
A complete set of references can be found online at GLReview.org.
Keira Roberson (she/they) is a PhD candidate at Georgia State whose research focuses on tactics used by queer Berliners to protect themselves and their communities under the Nazi regime and its aftermath.
