Lesbians in Nazi Germany
In
Background
In Berlin, lesbian bars and night clubs opened up in the aftermath of the First World War. Notable amongst them was the Mali und Igel, run by entrepreneur Elsa Conrad. Inside the bar was a club called Monbijou des Westens. The club was exclusive and catered for Berlin's lesbian intellectual elite; one famous guest was the actress Marlene Dietrich. Each year the club hosted balls with up to 600 women in attendance.[4] A campaign to close all homosexual bars, including lesbian ones, began in March 1933.[5] All lesbian periodicals (such as Die Freundin) and organizations were also targeted for closure.[1][6]
Historiography
Historians investigating individual cases have come to varying conclusions.
Historian Laurie Marhoefer argues that "Though not the subjects of an official state persecution, gender-nonconforming women, transvestites, and women who drew negative attention because of their lesbianism ran a clear, pronounced risk of provoking anxiety in neighbours, acquaintances, and state officials, and that anxiety could, ultimately, inspire the kind of state violence that [Ilse] Totzke suffered"—imprisonment in Ravensbrück concentration camp.[7]
Memorials
In 2008, there was a controversy over the
See also
- Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany
- Margot Heuman
- Henny Schermann
- Ovida Delect
- Elsa Conrad
- Mary Pünjer
- Margarete Rosenberg (Holocaust survivor)
- Elli Smula
References
- ^ a b c Rupp 2009, p. 181–183.
- ^ a b c d e f g Huneke 2021, Conclusions.
- ^ Huneke 2021, abstract.
- ^ Lavie 2021, p. 81.
- ^ Lavie 2021, p. ??.
- ^ Hürner 2010, S. 38–43 & 46–52.
- ^ Marhoefer 2016, pp. 1193–1194.
- ^ Marhoefer 2016, p. 1167.
- ^ Huneke 2021, first section.
Sources
- Rupp, Leila J. (2009). Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women. Internet Archive. New York University Press. pp. 181–183. ISBN 978-0-8147-7592-9.
- Huneke, Samuel Clowes (2021). "Heterogeneous Persecution: Lesbianism and the Nazi State". Central European History. 54 (2): 297–325. S2CID 235760995.
- Hürner, Julia (2010). "Lebensumstände lesbischer Frauen in Österreich und Deutschland - von den 1920er Jahren bis zur NS-Zeit" (PDF). pp. S. 38–43 & 46–52.
- Lavie, Hilla (2021). Being a Jewish Lesbian in Berlin. transcript Verlag. pp. 77–96. ISBN 978-3-8394-5332-2.
- Marhoefer, Laurie (2016). "Lesbianism, Transvestitism, and the Nazi State: A Microhistory of a Gestapo Investigation, 1939–1943". The American Historical Review. 121 (4): 1167–1195. .
Further reading
- Huneke, Samuel Clowes (2019). "The Duplicity of Tolerance: Lesbian Experiences in Nazi Berlin". Journal of Contemporary History. 54 (1): 30–59. S2CID 151476660.
- Janz, Ulrike (2014). "Das Zeichen lesbisch in den nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern". In Schwartz, Michael (ed.). Homosexuelle im Nationalsozialismus: Neue Forschungsperspektiven zu Lebenssituationen von lesbischen, schwulen, bi-, trans- und intersexuellen Menschen 1933 bis 1945 (in German). De Gruyter. pp. 77–84. ISBN 978-3-486-85750-4.
- ISBN 978-3-486-85750-4.
- Schoppmann, Claudia (2014). "Zum Doppelleben gezwungen: Vermeidungsund Überlebensstrategien lesbischer Frauen im ›Dritten Reich‹". Forschung im Queerformat: Aktuelle Beiträge der LSBTI*-, Queer- und Geschlechterforschung. transcript Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8394-2702-6.
- Schoppmann, Claudia (2016). Nationalsozialistische Sexualpolitik und weibliche Homosexualität (in German). Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86226-853-5.
- Vendrell, Javier Samper (2018). "The Case of a German-Jewish Lesbian Woman: Martha Mosse and the Danger of Standing Out". German Studies Review. 41 (2): 335–353. S2CID 165243411.
External links
- "Lesbians and the Third Reich". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 22 December 2021.