Rainbow flags fly everywhere, laughter and music emanate from numerous bars and pubs, and in the evenings, there are sometimes even queues outside some clubs and shops with darkrooms. City guide Katja Koblitz shows where and how people celebrated back then and reveals how you can go in search of historical traces.
With these words, Ruth Margarete Roellig describes in her city guide, 'Berlins lesbische Frauen' Berlin's Lesbian Women - published in - the importance of Berlin in the s, especially for women who loved women.
Thanks to their own organisations, meeting places, magazines, and events, they became increasingly visible from onwards, encouraged by the social liberalisation in the first German democracy. There were thirteen lesbian meeting places here alone - not to mention the numerous homosexual pubs and bars that were used by gays, lesbians and trans people alike.
We continue down the street towards the U2 elevated railway line and see on the right, at number 57, a residential and commercial complex from the s. Between and , this was the location of the 'Dorian Gray', whose name alluded to the famous novel by the writer Oscar Wilde, who was convicted of homosexuality in Richard Bytomski opened it as a dance and event venue, advertising it with its own "new band From onwards, the 'Dorian Gray' evolved more and more into a lesbian venue.
At the beginning of the National Socialist dictatorship, Franziska Bytomski was still able to sell the pub to Karl Bergmann, the founder of the ladies' club 'Monbijou des Westens', in January , but the 'Dorian Gray', like all homosexual pubs, had to close in March At number 37, in the s, there was the 'Nationalhof', a ballroom in the backyard, which also managed several large dance halls in the era of the Empire. Its female members remained on site even longer; other women's clubs were added, which gradually transformed the 'Nationalhof' into a lesbian ballroom.
