LGBTQ Life in Weimar Germany (Radio Edit)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "LGBTQ Life in Weimar Germany" You're Dead to Me
Host: Greg Jenner
Guests: Dr. Bodhi Ashton (Research Fellow, Leibniz-Zentrum Zeit Historische Forschung, Potsdam) and Jordan Gray (Comedian)
Release Date: October 25, 2024

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Introduction to Weimar Germany

Greg Jenner opens the episode by setting the stage for an exploration of LGBTQ life during the Weimar Republic era in Germany. He humorously engages his guest, Jordan Gray, gauging her initial knowledge and excitement about the topic.

Founding of the Weimar Republic

Dr. Bodhi Ashton provides a historical backdrop, explaining the tumultuous circumstances leading to the establishment of the Weimar Republic in 1919. This period marked the transition from the German Empire to a democratic republic following Germany's defeat in World War I and the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Dr. Bodhi Ashton [04:51]: "With the Kaiser no longer being Kaiser, the whole edifice of the German Empire has collapsed... so what do we have now? Well, we have some adventurous people deciding that they're going to found a republic."

The Treaty of Versailles and Economic Challenges

The discussion delves into the immediate challenges faced by the fledgling republic, particularly the Treaty of Versailles. Dr. Ashton outlines the harsh terms imposed on Germany, including reparations, territorial losses, and military restrictions, which fueled economic instability.

Greg Jenner [07:22]: "But the peace conference itself is also a sort of mess because you've got the Italians, the Americans, the French, lots of different people, and they've all got different things they want."

Hyperinflation and Stabilization

Hyperinflation emerges as a critical issue, exacerbated by passive resistance from German workers and the subsequent response of the government. Dr. Ashton explains how these economic woes nearly led to political extremism, including the brief rise of early Nazi movements.

Dr. Bodhi Ashton [09:43]: "If you miss a reparations payment, the French and Belgian troops invade the Ruhr... the government starts printing more money, leading to hyperinflation."

Political Stability and Cultural Flourishing

Amidst the chaos, figures like Gustav Stresemann usher in stability by ending passive resistance and introducing the Rentenmark to curb hyperinflation. This stabilization period coincides with a flourishing of social welfare, human rights, and cultural experimentation.

Dr. Bodhi Ashton [11:22]: "Germany's got quite some stability... a time of experimentation... challenging conservative views about things like sex and gender."

The Emergence of the "New Woman" and Queer Rights

The concept of the "New Woman" symbolizes the shifting roles and visibility of women in society. This era also witnesses burgeoning discussions and movements advocating for queer rights, laying foundational work for future LGBTQ activism.

Dr. Bodhi Ashton [12:34]: "The new woman is related to the role that a woman plays in society... instantly recognizable by her fashion... more active and forthright in public life."

Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld and Early LGBTQ Advocacy

A significant portion of the conversation centers on Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a pioneering figure in sexology and LGBTQ advocacy. Dr. Ashton highlights his contributions, including founding the Scientific Humanitarian Committee and the Institute for Sexual Sciences, which advanced research and support for queer individuals.

Greg Jenner [13:22]: "Who is Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld?"

Dr. Bodhi Ashton [14:07]: "Magnus Hirschfeld is a Jewish man, he's a medical doctor, he's gay, and he's a pioneering figure in sexology... the first gay rights organization in the world."

LGBTQ Organizations and Publications

The episode explores the vibrant network of LGBTQ organizations and publications that thrived in Weimar Berlin. Publications like Girlfriend and Transvestide Biscuit Weekly provided platforms for community building, advocacy, and visibility.

Dr. Bodhi Ashton [23:51]: "Girlfriend, Die Freunden is published by Ratzeweit... circulations in the thousands with ads for queer spaces and businesses."

Berlin's Club Scene and Notable Venues

Berlin's nightlife is portrayed as a cornerstone of its queer culture, with establishments like the Eldorado and Violetta becoming iconic spaces for LGBTQ individuals. These venues not only offered socialization but also became landmarks for transgender and lesbian communities.

Dr. Bodhi Ashton [20:27]: "By 1930, there are between 80 and 100 gay and lesbian clubs in Berlin alone... the Eldorado is the most famous one."

Government Censorship and Legal Challenges

Despite the cultural advancements, the Weimar Republic grappled with censorship and legal restrictions. Laws like the "Law to Protect Youth from Trashy and Filthy Publications" targeted queer publications, reflecting the era's conflicting attitudes towards LGBTQ communities.

Dr. Bodhi Ashton [26:01]: "In 1926, the Law to Protect Youth... created the Filth and Trash List, restricting certain publications."

Nuance Window Insights

In a reflective segment, Dr. Ashton emphasizes the importance of contextualizing historical periods like Weimar Germany without allowing later events, such as the rise of the Nazis, to overshadow the era's complexities and achievements.

Dr. Bodhi Ashton [27:00]: "We have to understand Weimar in its own context... it was an exciting and deeply experimental time... not a simplistic 'queer wonderland.'"

Conclusion

Greg Jenner wraps up the episode by thanking the guests and reiterating the nuanced legacy of Weimar Germany’s LGBTQ history. The discussion underscores the vibrant yet complicated nature of the era, highlighting both its progressive strides and inherent contradictions.

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Notable Quotes

• Dr. Bodhi Ashton [04:51]: "With the Kaiser no longer being Kaiser, the whole edifice of the German Empire has collapsed."
• Greg Jenner [07:22]: "The peace conference itself is also a sort of mess because you've got the Italians, the Americans, the French, lots of different people."
• Dr. Bodhi Ashton [11:22]: "Germany's got quite some stability... a time of experimentation."
• Dr. Bodhi Ashton [14:07]: "Magnus Hirschfeld is... the first gay rights organization in the world."
• Dr. Bodhi Ashton [27:00]: "We have to understand Weimar in its own context... not a simplistic 'queer wonderland.'"

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This episode offers a comprehensive and engaging exploration of LGBTQ life in Weimar Germany, blending historical insight with comedic elements to illuminate a pivotal yet often overlooked chapter in queer history.

Transcript

[Greg Foote]

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[Jordan Gray]

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts hello and.

[Greg Jenner]

Welcome to youo're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are bobbing our hair as we learn all about LGBTQ life in Weimar Germany. And to help us, we have two very special guests in History Corner. They're a research fellow at the Lieblitzentrum Zeit Historisch Vorschung or ZZF in Potsdam. You'll remember them from our episode on Prussian King Frederick the Great. It's the equally great Dr. Bodhi Ashton. Welcome back Bodhi. Or should I say Wilkemann you can.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Say that, Greg, but you can't say Leibniz Zentrum, Fuzzeit, Historische Vorschung Potsdam.

[Greg Jenner]

I tried so hard.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

I know you did, and I'm very grateful for it. I'm also grateful to be here, so thank you so much.

[Greg Jenner]

Anne in Comedy Corner, she's a comedian, actor, singer and screenwriter. She is won the Next Up's biggest award in comedy. Her show Is It a Bird? Was nominated at both Edinburgh and Melbourne comedy festivals. You'll have seen her on QI late night Lyset, the Russell Howard Hour. Who is it? Is it a bird? No, it's Jordan Gray. Welcome to the show, Jordan.

[Jordan Gray]

Hello. Thank you for having me on your program. This is all very clever and German so far, and I'm enjoying it.

[Greg Jenner]

Do you like history? Please say yes.

[Jordan Gray]

There's a lot of it, isn't there? I like most of it. Most of it I am quite ignorant about.

[Greg Jenner]

What do you know about Weimar Germany? Do you know the name?

[Jordan Gray]

I know the name having just heard it from you. Honestly, I'm so excited. I've gleaned a little bit, but I know that it happened in Germany. This person was a person that what happened in Germany. Not about people. Isn't it? It's not, no. It's a place. Sorry. It's a place that had lots of people in it, I dare say. Probably.

[Greg Jenner]

So what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And I'm imagining that when I say Weimar Germany, you are thinking about Liza Minnelli in the 1972 film Cabaret or the raunchy revival currently running riot in the West End. Maybe you've seen Babylon Berlin on the telly, or Eddie Redmayne in the Danish Girl in the cinema. Or if, like me, you studied history, GCC in the uk, you're probably having some sort of fierce Pavlovian flashbacks to the very mention of the word Weimar. But besides the chaotic economics and the complicated politics, why was Weimar Berlin such a focal point in LGBTQ history? Jordan, do you know when the Weimar Republic was founded?

[Jordan Gray]

Well, if it's happening in the 20s and it was a successful movement, I suspect a little bit before the 20s, maybe in the 1911.

[Greg Jenner]

Good. Working through the problem, Bodhi.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Not that far off, but there's something that happens in between 1911 and when this happens, and that's a little thing called the First World War.

[Jordan Gray]

Oh, that old chestnut.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Yeah, you know, easily forgotten little thing. By 1918 so the last year of the war, everything's looking pretty bad for Germany on the battlefield. The German armies have basically been defeated. And the other thing is that the German economy is collapsing. And on the 9th of November, the Kaiser, the Emperor Wilhelm II, or Kaiser Bill, he's compelled to abdicate. With him no longer being Kaiser, the whole edifice of the German Empire has collapsed. And that also means that, at least for now, all of those conservative forces in politics have really been totally discredited. So what do we have now? Well, we have some adventurous people deciding that they're going to found a republic. And this German Republic is founded twice on the Same day, on the 9th of November.

[Jordan Gray]

Founding two things on the same day goes against what I understand about German efficiency.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. How do you issue a constitution twice?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

The Democratic Republic, which ends up being the republic, is declared by a moderate socialist by the name of Philip Scheidemann. And then a couple of hours later, a socialist republic is declared by a revolutionary called Karliebkneck.

[Jordan Gray]

Typical. It happens every time.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

So the thing here is that Scheidemann was actually eating lunch with his colleague Friedrich Ebert in the German parliament building, the Reichstag, and they heard at about the same time that the Kaiser had abdicated, but also that Liebknecht, who they used to work with, who was now in charge of something called the Spartacus League.

[Greg Jenner]

Amazing.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

He wanted to declare a republic. So Scheidemann basically runs out onto the balcony. He's like, no, no, no, I'm here first. We're having.

[Jordan Gray]

I'm Spartacus League. Exactly, I'm Spartacus League. Right.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

And so he's an important member of a party known as the spd, the Social Democratic Party of Germany. It still exists. In January 1919, the SPD comes to power in the first democratic elections. The reason that Weimar was selected here as sort of the namesake is because this is where the new constitution was negotiated.

[Greg Jenner]

What is in the Weimar constitution?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

It is meant to be a representative democracy with proportional representation.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

There are meant to be elections for parliament and the president every four years. Everyone over 20 can vote.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, that all sounds pretty good. Pretty modern. And Jordan, do you think this new republic gets off to a shiny new start?

[Jordan Gray]

Definitely, because we're here talking about it. So I bet it was all perfect and sunshine and rainbows from here on out.

[Greg Jenner]

I love your optimism, Bodhi. I'm going to mention the Treaty of Versailles.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Now, the Treaty of Versailles is a big thing here. So the problem that the Republic has is that basically the first thing that happens after it's founded is that there's the Paris Peace Conference, which leads to the treaty. They're effectively invited to agree to the terms of the treaty, and those terms include the war guilt clause. So basically to say, yes, it was entirely our fault that this war happened. We have to pay reparations, we need to reduce the army such that we can't actually run a war anymore in case we wanted to. We lose territory. And this is really, really unpopular. But Germany doesn't have a choice at this stage.

[Greg Jenner]

But the peace conference itself is also a sort of mess because you've got the Italians, the Americans, the French, lots of different people, and they've all got different things they want. Right.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

I mean, it is a big, big, big mess because there hasn't really been anything like it. The thing that was the closest to it happened a century earlier. That was the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic Wars.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

It's also a bit spectator sport. People come to watch the negotiations. Someone who does come to watch is a guy who then actually writes a petition to the Americans to say, you know, you should consider Vietnamese independence as well. He'd been a dishwasher in Paris and he signed this as Nguyen the Patriot. And we'd known him better as Ho Chi Minh.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, really? Oh, wow, Okay, I did not know that.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Yeah. So we've got all of these weird intersections happening. You mentioned the Italians. The representative is the prime minister, Vittorio Orlando. He's known as the Crying man because basically every time he doesn't get his way, he throws a tantru. The Romanian queen turns up. She becomes a bit of a style icon and she's basically there to look very beautiful.

[Jordan Gray]

Yeah, this is so cool.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

So, you know, it's a mess.

[Greg Jenner]

That is the sort of economic reality of what Weimar Germany is founded into. Bodhi. The moment you mention Weimar to anyone who did sort of English GCC history in the 90s like I did, they're going to hear that word and immediately think hyperinflation. Do you know hyperinflation, Jordan? Have you heard of it?

[Jordan Gray]

No, no, I know, Yeah, I understand the concept. Luck is proper inflation. Really inflated proper inflation.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Jordan Gray]

No, massive balloon.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean. I mean hyperinflation. I'm thinking of wheelbarrows full of cash to go and buy a loaf of bread. That sort of, sort of classic image. What is causing this?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Well, we said before that the Germans have got reparations to pay, so basically they have to pay back all of the countries that they had fought against for the damage that they've done in 1922, Germany misses a reparations payment. So I know that feeling. Yeah. Like, have you ever missed paying your credit card? I have, but what didn't happen with me was that in the case of Germany here, the French and Belgian armies then invade. But the French and Belgian troops come in, they occupy the Ruhr, which is the main industrial area of Germany. Obviously the workers there aren't particularly thrilled about having been invaded. So they do a thing called passive resistance. They just stop working. So the government, in trying to respond to this, just starts printing more money. And this does not necessarily work. As anyone who's got any basic idea of economics here might, might sort of be twigging to printing money. Doesn't necessarily mean that that money has any worth. And this also means that you've got loads of political instability at the same time. In 1923, we even get sort of a new group of ultra nationalists who we'll all be familiar with. They end up shortening their name so we know them as the Nazis. They attempt their own putsch in Munich. It's called the Beer Hall Putsch. It doesn't go particularly well.

[Greg Jenner]

We have a no Nazis policy on this podcast, so I'm going to move straight past them. Sorry, Jordan, I could see you want to ask, but like no Nazis here. So Nazi violence.

[Jordan Gray]

It's not a bad policy.

[Greg Jenner]

No, it's bad policy.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

A guy called Gustav Stresemann comes in as Chancellor in 1923. He's kind of a giant of German politics at this time, but a human.

[Jordan Gray]

That was the size of a human.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

He's a regular, ordinary, adult human giant. He ends the passive resistance. He negotiates with the French. The French troops end up leaving the Ruhr mostly because it's also very expensive for them to be there. He brings in a whole new currency which is called the Rentin mark, in order to get rid of hyperinflation of the previous currency. This sort of brings about that for the rest of the decade. Germany's got quite some stability. Emphasis on social welfare. You've got emphasis on rights, what we would now talk about as human rights. We've got cultural and artistic developments occurring here. So we've got a relatively free press, we've got very limited censorship. There's sort of a boom in theater and in film and in literature and music. And this is really a time of experimentation. And a big part of that was really challenging the standing conservative views about things like sex and gender. This is sort of the era of the so called new woman And. And discussions about the role of women in society, but also a discussion about queer rights in society.

[Greg Jenner]

I'm curious, what a new woman. What's a new woman?

[Jordan Gray]

You know, what does that mean?

[Greg Jenner]

What does that mean?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

This whole idea of the new woman is related to the role that a woman plays in society and how visible a woman can be in society. And so what emerges is this new woman who is instantly recognizable by her fashion. So she has a typical hairstyle, what's called a booby kopf, which is like a. I love that already. So isn't it a great word?

[Jordan Gray]

Whatever it is is great.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

It's a pixie bob. So they could be more active and more forthright in public life. So, for instance, we have the massive social change that women start asking men out.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, wow.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Something that was.

[Jordan Gray]

That's a bumble.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Yeah.

[Jordan Gray]

Other platforms, I imagine, are available.

[Greg Jenner]

I want to ask you a question, Jordan. Have you ever heard of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld?

[Jordan Gray]

Hirschfeld? I've not heard of Hirschfeld. What did he do? What was he up to, these guys? He's a doctor, so he's a smart man.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, he's a very, very big figure, Bodie. Not entirely unproblematic. So I think we have to put him in context, but really important in terms of his influence. So who is Dr. Hirschfeld?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Well, Magnus Hirschfeld is a Jewish man, He's a medical doctor, he's gay, and he's really a pioneering figure in sexology. So he founds, for instance, an organization called the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, or Wissenschaftlich Humanitarisk committee, or W Hak in 1897. And this is a group that advocates for queer emancipation. It's basically the first gay rights organization in the world.

[Jordan Gray]

Oh, it's so nice filling in those gaps in your understanding of, like, the lineage of that. That's so cool.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. 1897 is, you know, it's a long time, right?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Yeah, it's much earlier than I think most people would imagine. In 1919, after the war and after the founding of the Republic. He founds the Institut for Sexual, the Institute for Sexual Sciences, because he thought that science could show that sexualities or gender identities other than those that were established by societal norms were actually natural and could be demonstrated through science. And that policy should be based on research. And so he was very keen on this idea that science could lead to justice.

[Greg Jenner]

Do you know what's happening at the Institute, Jordan?

[Jordan Gray]

So far it doesn't sound problematic. I'm worried that it's going to go into More of a rat magical belief, like. So the arguments I hear all the time is that you ignore the lived experience of people and it's down to the science. And if you can give me numbers for it, then I'll believe you. And if not, then it starts to go astray. So where they're quite militant about the science of it all, there is this.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Sort of difficult legacy that we have here. So Hirschfeld and his institute are doing some really, really fascinating and important research into sexuality. But they do also, or he in particular does have these sort of essentialist ideas.

[Jordan Gray]

Right, that's what I was looking for. Thank you.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

For instance, he argues that bi and pansexuality doesn't really exist. He argues that lesbians clearly have a feminine and masculine partner. You know, he's basically the who's the man in this relationship guy.

[Greg Jenner]

Right.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

He comes up with concepts about people we would now term as transgender. And he uses a term called trans festitution, which I'll keep using the German term here because he means it's slightly different to the English term transvestite. Okay, I like it.

[Jordan Gray]

It sounds like a biscuit.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Delicious. But the institute starts developing treatments for trans patients. Like, this is the first sort of gender affirming medical intervention that we're seeing. So we're talking about things like, quote, unquote, ovarian and testicular preparations, other gender affirmation surgeries that are done particularly by a surgeon named Ludwig Levy Lenz. His institution does provide support for heterosexuals through marital counselling, through birth control, through discussions about contraception. There are some things, however, that we really do need to be critical about here with Hirschfeld. So he is a eugenicist, for one.

[Jordan Gray]

That's why I was worried this was creeping in.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, anyone in the early 1920s, there's a good chance if they're in that field. A lot of them were. What happens next in terms of the organization, the movement? What happens?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

This is sort of one of the interesting things about Hirschfeld, that in spite of the fact that he founds this gay rights organization, he doesn't believe in mass queer organization because he sort of thinks, well, what binds queer people together? There's no class identification here. They're not all working class, they're not all middle class, they're not all the same nationality. Early on in the Republic, there is a mass movement of queer liberation that focuses against, mostly on gay men and also so called queer friendship leagues that appear in Berlin and in Hamburg and in Dresden and in Dusseldorf, in Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart. There's another large organization, the League for Human Rights, the Bunvermenschenrecht. And here we see as well this connection with the idea of human rights. This has 100,000 members and a good quarter of them are women.

[Greg Jenner]

These Friendship Leagues, Bodhi, are they successful?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

The Friendship Leagues are in some ways successful and in other ways are a very difficult arena because there is debate in the beginning about whether or not assimilationism is actually a good idea.

[Jordan Gray]

What's assimilation?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Basically, are queer people just the same as everyone else? You know, it's sort of the antithesis of having pride. And Hirschfeld is part of this. He thinks that gay people basically need to go out of their way to show that they're not a threat. Just show that you're, quote, unquote, normal.

[Jordan Gray]

So difficult to go out of your way to show that you're not a friend.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Yeah, right. Proving something negative is.

[Jordan Gray]

I'm fine, I'm not gonna hurt you. You don't need to tell me that.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Actually, there are also discussions here about, you know, the people here, Schwerko's transvestiten. So nowadays probably mostly referred to as trans people. There are many discussions about how important it is for these people to, to use a problematic term, pass. So there was perhaps more tolerance for queer people as individuals, but really only if they were seen to be respectable and conducted their affairs privately.

[Greg Jenner]

So that would give the impression, therefore, that there is no out queer sort of culture.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Or there's the great German word for this, which is jein, which is yes, no, because, yeah, that's happening in policy and in law. But at the same time, we've got openly queer, queer rights movements. We've got a huge explosion in queer media. We've got clubs, we've got bars, we've got social organizations. A lot of these are focused mostly on Berlin. It becomes very, very famous for this. And in fact there's an international perception that Germany was actually a really good place to be gay. So Jean Renoir, the French film director, said that the fashionable entertainment in Berlin in the 20s and 30s was, as he puts it, boxing and homosexualism.

[Greg Jenner]

Well, we finally reached the moment we've all been waiting for. Welcome to Cabaret, old chums, or as I believe it goes. Vilkommen. Bienvenue. Welcome. It's the nightlife, it's the clubs, it's the music scene. Jordan, what are you imagining? The cabaret scene?

[Jordan Gray]

Lots of covers and feathers and we're in the middle of the roaring twenties right now.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, yeah, Roaring twenties, yep.

[Jordan Gray]

So, ah, I Don't know if I've mentioned feathers, roaring, flapping. Lots of liberation of all sorts of people coming together for the common good of a shared storytelling that sort of sneaks in an anti illusionist message at the same time getting across Change for the Nation.

[Greg Jenner]

Beautifully done. That's.

[Jordan Gray]

It was going well and then I tapered off at the end. I just put some more words on the end. Please tell me what it means, Bodhi.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, what are we talking about in terms of the club scene?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

By 1930, there are between 80 and 100 gay and lesbian clubs in Berlin alone.

[Greg Jenner]

Wow.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

And they're of all different kinds. They have different entertainment happening there as well as gay coffee houses. So there's quite a queer subculture happening here. One of the establishments that people might have heard of or we definitely should briefly talk about here is the Eldorado.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Because that is the most famous one. And often because you have straight visitors.

[Greg Jenner]

Coming to visit, like celebrities. Right. Are showing up. Yeah. Charlie Chaplin and people like, yeah, you've.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Got Chaplin, you've got the boxer Jack Dempsey, you've got Greta Garbo, you've got Marlene Dietrich. Is there herself a queer icon here. And it's really well known for the waitresses there who are for the most part trans lesbians. Had lesbian bars available to them and they could read about them because you would have guidebooks on Berlin nightlife. So in 1928 there's a book called Berlin's Lesbian Women or Berlin's Lesbische Frauen, which is probably the first lesbian guidebook ever published. There's also a prominent lesbian bar called the Violetta, which had 400 members by 1926.

[Greg Jenner]

So the Violetta is the kind of the great lesbian bar. And it's run by a fascinating person, Lotte Harm. Lotte Harm. What's Lotte? Lotte so short for Carla?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Charlotte.

[Greg Jenner]

Charlotte, okay.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Lotte Hamm considers herself to be a lesbian. Or we might actually look at Lotta as being an example of a gender non conforming person. At this time. She is possibly, might be considered these days to be a trans person. So they dressed in men's clothing, specifically a suit and tie, and occasionally went by a masculine name. Lotte. And the club attracted women who dressed as men as well as transmasculine people. Trans sex workers weren't allowed. It's again that sort of respectability position. And Lotterham really wanted to unite lesbians and trans people into a political movement. And there was an attempt to form an independent women's group which was The League for Ideal Women's Friends.

[Greg Jenner]

Does that suggest, therefore, that the government is targeting trans people and therefore there needs to be a pushback.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Most of the focus is on trans feminine people, that is to say, people who presented as women, but who the law and officialdom understood to be men. So in general, the police worked under the assumption that men have sex with women. And there's some do, though some that happens occasionally. Occasionally, yeah. So if someone the police understood to be a man dressed as a woman, as far as the police were concerned, this could only be because that person was seeking a man to have sex with. But there is sort of a way around this. We get back to our buddy Magnus Hirschfeld here, because in the first decade of the century, when he'd first been investigating trans people, he came up with something which was called a transvestitenschein. So a transvestite licence. It was basically a license that you could show to the police to say that you were in the language that appeared on it clinically, et, transvestite. So basically it said, no, I'm not a sex worker. This is just the way I am.

[Greg Jenner]

Let's talk about magazines. What would your guess be for the name of the most popular lesbian magazine in Weimar Germany?

[Jordan Gray]

The Cats in the Corner.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, that's a lovely name for it. That's good.

[Jordan Gray]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

It was called Girlfriend.

[Jordan Gray]

Oh, yeah. You get what you're given with that. It's quite straightforward, isn't it?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Founded in 1925 and we're not talking fringe publication here. This is got quite a large readership.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Yeah. So there's a whole publishing house, the Friedrich Ratzelweit Publishing House, which is based in Berlin and it's sort of very well known for doing queer publications at this time. So Girlfriend, Die Freunden is published by Ratzeweit. Ratzeweit also publishes a number of titles for gay men. So there's one called the island, there's one called Eros. There is a trans magazine called Transvestide Biscuit Weekly.

[Jordan Gray]

We gave up on the title with that one.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

And, you know, these are circulations in the thousands and there are ads in them for queer spaces and queer friendly businesses. It's also super important for a lot of people to see that there are actually other queer people who exist, that this is not something that is individual or weird about themselves. You also have, in Transvestite, for instance, trans writers who debate what it means to be trans. One of the trans writers, Tony Fricke, advocates for the use of different terminology. So Instead of using Trans Festival, maybe we should use the term transensible.

[Jordan Gray]

Oh, that doesn't describe me at all. Trans. Sensible. That's great.

[Greg Jenner]

Would you rather be. What? Trans? Reckless? Abandoned. What's your.

[Jordan Gray]

No, I quite like the biscuit thing that we've got going on. This Biscuit is different from the others. Would be my debut film.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

The magazines also help people find one another. So not just find themselves, but find other people. Girlfriend and Garcon regularly advertise meetings for like minded women in smaller cities. This sounds like there are lots of different magazines because of all of the different titles and certainly there are a few, but sometimes the editors are just a bit fickle and like changing the name. So I mentioned Garcon, but that was also in the six years that it was published, known as Frauen Liebe or Woman Love, or Frauen Liebe und Leben or Woman Love and Life.

[Jordan Gray]

That's not really worth changing the title, is it?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Or Lieben der Frauen Loving Women.

[Jordan Gray]

It's very on brand for a transgender magazine to change its name. To be fair.

[Greg Jenner]

We have crackdowns. Is there censorship?

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

So in 1926 there's a law that passes which is called the Law to Protect Youth from Trashy and Filthy Publications.

[Jordan Gray]

There's so many great T shirts.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

You're right. And what that creates is something called the Filth and Trash List, which is a list of publications that can't be sold to people under 18 and they can't be displayed in public.

[Greg Jenner]

We've rummaged through kind of a decade there, maybe a little bit longer.

[Jordan Gray]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

But quite an extensive history.

[Jordan Gray]

It's incredible. Like I say, it's really nice to fill in these gaps for me, walking around being a sort of a bit of a curly haired transgender idiot, just doing my thing. There's a big lineage there that I should be aware of that I should not take lightly.

[Greg Jenner]

The Nuance Window. This is where Jordan and I put down our copies of Girlfriend magazine, or whatever it's called this week, while Bodhi takes centre stage at the Cabaret Club for two minutes to tell us something that we need to know about Weimar. So my stopwatch is ready. Take it away, Dr. Bodhi.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

Weimar is a topic that is very, very close to my heart because it is such an exciting and vibrant and lively and living story. And it demonstrates to us just how alive history is and the implications that that history has for us. It's also a brilliantly illustrative example of why context really matters for historians. It's that cliche, that context is king. We can look, look at the Weimar Republic and we can see things like cabaret, we can see our understanding of Berlin, we can see all of these clubs, and we can conclude this was the queer Wonderland. And that leads us to some problems, because what we very often do, without really thinking about it, is that we put Weimar in the context of what comes after it. We know that at the end of the Weimar Republic, the Nazis came along. The point is that the people in Weimar didn't know that this was a history that hadn't happened yet. And it is tempting to look upon the Weimar Republic and say, well, this is about a decade and a half that is bookended by the Nazis at the end, and therefore it leads to the Nazis. But the Nazis were only around for 12 years, and so does that not necessarily mean that the Nazis were simply the precursor to the current Federal Republic? So what we really need to do instead is we have to understand Weimar in its own context, as its own thing. This was an exciting and deeply experimental time. It also was not perfect. It is not the thing that we want to fall back on and want to keep trying to emulate and to think that things were better back in the day because they were. Not necessarily. This was a highly, highly complex example of history with lots of internal and inherent contradictions. And just as we might want to look for a great story to be told, we definitely find that in Weimar. But if we're looking for a queer wonderland, that's something that we have to look for in the here and now.

[Jordan Gray]

Ah, Dr. Bodhi. God, that was gorgeous. I feel privileged to have been here while you're talking about this stuff. I feel enlightened and enlivened by this experience. Thank you so much.

[Greg Jenner]

Really glad to hear it. I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We had the brilliant Dr. Bodhi Ashton from ZZF Podsdam. Thank you, Bodhi.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

It's been such a pleasure to be here here again.

[Greg Jenner]

And in Comedy Corner, we have the fabulous Jordan Gray. Thank you, Jordan.

[Jordan Gray]

Thanks for having me. This is rather good podcast. I enjoyed myself very much.

[Greg Jenner]

And to you, lovely listener. Join me next time as we emancipate another historical subject from the shadows of obscurity. But for now, I'm off to go and found the Republic of Jenna, but for a third time. Take that, Weimar. Bye.

[Greg Foote]

I'm Greg and my podcast sliced bread from BBC Radio 4 is back to separate more science fact from marketing fiction.

[Greg Jenner]

We've gone from where there's some science and we've turned it sciencey.

[Greg Foote]

Each week I investigate one of your suggested wonder products, something that's promising to make you happier, healthier or greener. The cost is almost £200.

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[Greg Foote]

The new series of sliced bread, including our 100th episode where we'll be investigating the products promising to help slow the effects of age.

[Dr. Bodhi Ashton]

We can hopefully slow down the aging process and hopefully make people live healthier for longer.

[Greg Foote]

Slice bread with me, greg Foote on Radio 4 and listen first on BBC Sounds.

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