Table of Contents

Title Page
Dedication
PREFACE

ONCE IN BERLIN
Mythological Roots of Weimar
“Berlin is Still Berlin”

THE COLLAPSE
The Kaiser’s Wand
The Home Front
Trench-Life and the Etappe
The Paper Republic
The Great Inflation

CITY OF WHORES
“Controlled” Prostitution
“Berlin Is Becoming a Whore”
Topology of the Sex Trade
On the Line
Indoor Varieties
Acquired Tastes
Child Prostitution
Kietz

GIRL-CULTURE AND THE ALL-NIGHT BUMMEL

“Girl-Culture”
Cabaret
The Erotic Revue
Theme Restaurants and Pleasure Palaces
BERLIN MEANS BOYS
The “Homosexual Question”
German Gay Responses
“Origins” of Homosexuality
Homosexual Life in Weimar Berlin
Wandervogel and the Wild-Boys
Male Prostitution
Gay Dielen and Entertainment

HOT SISTERS
A German-Speaking Lesbos
Paris and Berlin
Berlin, the Lesbian Eldorado
Lesbian Nightlife
Lesbian Social Clubs

CROSSED BOUNDARIES
“The Erotic Urge to Cross-Dress”
The Transvestite Demi-Monde
Transvestite Nightlife

LAUGHING NUDITY
German Life Reform and Nacktkultur
Nude Berlin
Adolf Koch and the “Society of Free Men”
“League of Free Body Culture” and Surén’s “Suncult”
“New Sunland League” and Birkenheide

THE NEW CALCULUS OF DESIRE

“The Einstein of Sex”
“Sexual Intermediates”
Derangements of the Sexual Instinct
The Institute of Sexology
Hirschfeld’s Enemies

ALGOLAGNIA
 Metatropism
The Raised Buttocks
“Morbid” Fetishism
“Scientific” Pornography

SEX MAGIC AND THE OCCULT

The Failed Crusade
The Hauptstadt of Satan
Aryan Love Cults and Barefoot Prophets
Into the Fourth Dimension
The Haeusser Revolution
The Gottesbund Tanatra
Dr. Musallam’s Adonistic Society
Karezza and Mazdaznanism
Hypnotic and Paranormal Suggestion
Ernst Schertel’s Magic Dreamtheater
Erik Jan Hanussen, The Magister Ludi of Sex
The Ordo Templi Orientis
The Great Beast Devours the OTO
Fraternitas Saturni

CRIME ON THE SPREE

The Curious Career and Untimely Death Of Fritz
Ulbrich
Criminal Rings and the Underworld

A WORLD IN FLAMES
Nazi Cleansing
Nazi Sex
Revisionist History

A DIRECTORY OF EROTIC
AND NIGHT TIME BERLIN
GIRL-CULTURE VENUES
HOMOSEXUAL VENUES
LESBIAN VENUES
NUDIST VENUES
SEX MUSEUMS
TRANSVESTITE VENUES
UNDERWORLD VENUES
WEIMAR NAZI VENUES
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Copyright Page
 This book is dedicated to Barbara Ulrich, my co-
conspirator. It is also dedicated to three Weimar
wildchildren, Henry Marx, Felicity Mason, and Tonio Stewart.
Each was a master raconteur. They spent much precious
time with me, telling me about their Berlin years and their
many adventures there and in exile. All of them passed
away before I finished this project. They will be sorely
missed. Greatly appreciated was assistance from Michael
Thaler, Ulrich Sacker, Tony Kaes, Jean-Marie Pradier, Ingrid
Eggers, Christophe Bourseillier, Nina Hagen, Ute Kirchhelle,
Shade Rupe, Jennifer M. Kapczynski, Rosa von Praunheim,
Greg Day, John and the boys upstairs at Moe’s.
PREFACE
Voluptuous Panic began as research for an out-of-control
theatre piece. In 1994, I wrote and directed a nightclub
extravaganza for the German Queen of Punk Rock, Nina
Hagen, entitled The Seven Addictions and Five Professions
of Anita Berber. The theme of the production was the tragic
and dreamy life of Anita Berber, the most glamorous
decadent personality from Berlin’s Golden Twenties.

Berber consciously broke every social and theatrical

convention of her time, and then proclaimed some startline
theory to justify her provocative, outlaw behavior. She
haunted the Friedrichstadt quarter of Berlin, appearing in
hotel lobbies, nightclubs, and casinos, radiantly naked
except for an elegant sable wrap that shadowed her gaunt
shoulders and a pair of patent-leather pumps. One year,
Berber made her post-midnight entrances looking like a
drugged-out Eve, clad only in those heels, a frightened pet
monkey hanging from her neck, and an heirloom silver
brooch packed with cocaine.
 On Berlin’s cabaret stages, Anita Berber danced out
bizarre erotic fantasias—scenic displays, fueled by noxious
concoctions of ether-and-chloroform, cognac, morphine
injections, and a chic, pan-sexual disposition. Satiated
Berliners, after a few riotous seasons in the early Twenties,
finally tired of Berber’s libidinous antics. The high priestess
of choreographic decadence died a pauper’s death in 1928,
the result, more or less, of a desperate attempt to quit cold-
turkey from her most beloved of addictions, cognac.

Nina Hagen and I rejected the notion of Anita Berber as a

doomed flapper or artistic victim of Berlin’s uncaring,
patriarchal public, For us, she was the first postmodern
woman: a vibrant Marilyn Monroe with the devious,
adolescent mind of Norman Mailer. Her life needed to be
celebrated.

I decided to organize the performance like an invented

German cabaret evening with discrete units of wild 1920s-
going-into-the-1990s, Weill-Hollaender music; erotic
Expressionist sketches, hardcore Berber dance (with sacred
dildos and morphine syringes as props); smutty poetry-
recitations-in-the-nude, and loops of Weimar pornography—
all running in a side-show sequence and introduced by an
evil, beyond-Joel-Grey MC, delivering witty, narrative
commentary.

Finding authentic erotic images of Twenties Berlin for my

show would be the simplest of a dozen directorial tasks. I
figured two of three days (tops) in the public library would
suffice. To my initial surprise, there were relatively few lurid
Weimar pictorials, other than the obvious George Grosz and
Otto Dix etchings of grotesque whores, war-cripples, and
bald-headed exploiters.

The authoritative history of racy men’s periodicals, Mark

Gabor’s The Pin-Up (Bell Publishing: New York, 1972)
maintained, “In Germany, there were no girlie magazines of
consequence until after 1945.” [In fact, I later learned over
80 such mags could be found in Berlin kiosks in 1930.] The
researchers for Bob Fosse’s film Cabaret, which was shot on
location in Berlin in 1971, also reported a remarkable lack of
erotic documentation; one of them complained to The New
York Post, only literary routines and political satires
remained of the old cabaret milieu. Even contemporary
German-language books on the subject of interwar Berlin
contained pitiful numbers of the provocative visuals that the
production concept demanded.

My brain reeled. Did the Nazis or frightened Berliners

destroy every suggestive publication during the politically
sobering Thirties and Forties? Were Allied firebombings
equally responsible for the incineration of Berlin’s
debauched past? Or maybe such print or photographic
material from the orgiastic Weimar era never really existed
as I imagined them.

Relying on private European contacts and antiquarian

bookstores, I launched a feverish search for all bits of data
and representations from pre-Hitler Germany. Within a few
months, I had acquired dozens, then boxes, of extraordinary
Weimar Berlin paper items, erotic news magazines, cabaret
postcards and playbills, sexy hotel brochures, Galante
journals, verboten travelogues, illustrated “Moral Histories”
(Sittengeschichten), underground tabloids, popular crime
weeklies, and naughty, what-to-do-after-midnight
guidebooks. These saucy remnants contained not just
pictures and photographs but descriptions, exposés, and
print enticements of every sort.

The living ephemera of a lost Berlin, if only a few hundred

scraps, had fallen into my hands. Now I had considerably
more than a cache of weird material to brighen up a wild
performance project. Scattered around my copy stand was
enough arcane junk for a book. Or two. ■
Self-strangulation, Speedy Schlichter, 1928
A disgusting city, this Berlin, a place where no one believes
in anything.

Cagliostro, 1775

And now we come to the most lurid Underworld of all cities—

that of post-war Berlin. Ever since the declaration of peace,
Berlin found its outlet in the wildest dissipation imaginable.
The German is gross in his immorality, he likes his Halb-Welt
or underworld pleasures to be devoid of any Kultur or
refinement, he enjoys obscenity in a form which even the
Parisian would not tolerate.

Netley Lucas, Ladies of the Underworld, 1927

ONCE IN BERLIN

Berlin means depravity. Moralists across the widest

spectrum of political and spiritual beliefs have condemned
by rote this chimerical metropolis as a strange city, built on
strange soil. Even the alkaline air around the Prussian
capital (Berliner Luft) was said to contain a toxic ether that
attacked the central nervous system, stimulating long-
suppressed passions as it animated all the external tics of
sexual perversity. In the center of Europe, mesmerized
audiences were warned, sits a nightmare municipality, a
human swamp of unfettered appetites and twisted prurient
proclivities. The American writer, Ben Hecht, self-described
bon vivant and one-time foreign corespondent for the
Chicago Daily News, characterized the expansive pre-Nazi
cityscape succinctly as the “prime breeding ground for evil.”

Amazingly, the legend of wicked Berlin, the international

sex-tourist Mecca of the Twenties and early Thirties, endures
into the twenty-first century. Two full generations after its
Sodom and Gomorrah-like demise in March 1933, hundreds
of American and British filmmakers, pop novelists, fashion
photographers, playwrights, academics, I and twenty-
something website designers still play out the enchanting
tale of a debauched, twentieth-century Eldorado that
disappeared in flames. With Babylon and Nero’s Rome,
Weimar Berlin has entered into our topological thesaurus as
a synonym for moral degeneracy.
Sebastian Droste, the husband of Anita Berber,1923
Anti-German propaganda, London, 1915
 Mythological Roots of Weimar

Contemporary knowledge of life in Twenties Berlin

principally springs from mass-market films and plays. But
the number of Lost-in-Weimar costume-dramas is
surprisingly small. Motion-picture shorthand normally brings
to mind the haughty personas of Marlene Dietrich, Lotte
Lenya, Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli—each iconically attired in
a lacy garter belt, black silk stockings, and shiny, elevated
footwear.

Although Josef von Sternberg’s early talkie The Blue Angel

(shot simultaneously in German, English, and French in
1930) was based on Heinrich Mann’s 1905 novel, its dark
atmospheric rendition of sexual debasement at least
belonged to a then present-day Berlin. In fact, the Blue
Angel cabaret of the movie title was directly modeled on a
Berlin North dive known as The Stork’s Nest. Even Marlene
Dietrich’s chair-straddling Lola-Lola character had more than
a passing physical likeness to the Nest’s real-life star fatale,
Lola Niedlich, who was not above hawking her own dirty
postcards between other singers’ acts.
A sexual exposé, The Forbidden Book, 1929

(Dietrich, of course, later claimed her glamorous, cold-

hearted inspiration was sparked by a nameless male
transvestite, an anonymous fashion-plate she admired at the
Silhouette, Berlin’s HQ for glam-dom gender-benders.
Maybe, maybe not.)

Another émigré, Lotte Lenya, the diminutive Viennese

chanteuse, arrived in New York in 1936 with equally high
hopes. Although her composer husband Kurt Weill dutifully
pushed her career forward, Lenya’s star rose only in the
post-World War II period when the Weill/Brecht Weimar
confection The Three-Penny Opera became the surprise Off-
Broadway musical hit of 1954. Lenya achieved immediate
cult status as a novel avatar of Berlin sexuality—the saucy
shrew with the delectable, whiskey-and-cigarette rasp.
Everything about Lenya radiated High Camp (not yet
defined but rapturously appreciated in the Greenwich
Village habitat of the time) from her ironic stage delivery to
her evil-if-matronly bisexual predilections. Moreover, Lenya
herself disturbingly epitomized the cartoonish whores from
George Grosz’ pornographic oeuvre, another Weimar import
that was gaining popularly in the Eisenhower-Marlborough
Book Club-Kennedy era.
Sites of Berlin Prostitution, 1930

I The writer most responsible for the myth of “Sodom on

the Spree” was, of course, the British Peter Pan, Christopher
Isherwood. His semi-autobiographical Berlin Stories were
written in the Thirties but only found a wide readership
decades later when they were appropriated for Broadway
and Hollywood vehicles.
Popular representations of wicked Berlin
 The first dramatization of the Isherwood vignettes, I Am a
Camera (staged in 1951; filmed in 1955) introduced the
American public to the character of Sally Bowles and the
sinister “demonic Berlin-Nazi takeover” theme. These
adaptations, however, were essentially cerebral renderings—
in the inimitable “Playhouse 90” black-and-white television
style—not helped by their tame erotic imagery (nary a
nipple or garter in sight) and conventional Fifties scenario:
serious, artistic type lands in a dangerous and sexually-
charged environment (usually a foreign stand-in for
Manhattan), becomes involved with a promiscuous female,
realizes the folly of his ways, and returns with newly-minted
enthusiasm to his trustworthy wife/fiancée/home (that is,
the domestic tranquility of Levittown).
Contemporary accounts of Berlin’s nightlife, 1929 and 1931
 Hal Prince’s Broadway musical version of the Isherwood
stories, Cabaret (staged in 1966) provided an entirely fresh
and titillating look at nocturnal Berlin. His scenic designer,
the Russian-born Boris Aronson, actually spent several
months in the city during the depths of the 1923 Inflation.
And the book by Joe Masteroff attempted to both restore the
“divine decadence” of Isherwood’s about-to-be-fascist Berlin
while updating

Guide to “Decadent” Berlin, 1931 its obvious message

toward a middle-class/middle-aged (largely Jewish) New York
audience.
 Prince’s Cabaret was shot through with the anxieties of
1966 America in Year Three of the Great Society.
Counterculture live-in arrangements, drug use on campus,
The Factory, and debutantes-gone-wrong were already
stock-in-trade Life magazine features. Censorship in
Hollywood and on the newsstands was fast eroding, thanks
to the ACLU, which helped suburbanize the Sexual
Revolution. Halloween-masked radicals paraded down Fifth
Avenue while Silent Majority hard-hats menacingly chewed
their hoagies. Inner-city teens torched and looted without
consequence. Feminists talked a lot about their bodies.
Towering drag queens in ever-swelling groups sauntered
through the big-city night. Prince’s Cabaret really hit home.
Sally Bowles could have been any investor’s (or reviewer’s)
daughter from the suburban North Shore.

Nazi Sexuality expanded into a hot S&M and leather

subset of mail-order pulps and 16mm smokers. The
backstreet Ventura County shlockmeisters, naturally, were
just following in the footsteps of Fifties’ Men’s magazines,
which long bandied about the sick-sex by Germans-in-
wartime scenario. Finally, highbrow European film directors
mounted the Berlin-to-Auschwitz bandwagon, notably with
The Damned (1969), The Night Porter (1973), and The
Serpent’s Egg (1976). Like Edwin S. Porter, Christopher
Isherwood had unwittingly devised a free-wheeling
multinational staple that knew no cultivated bounds or
embodied much historical truth.

Fosse’s Hollywood musical Cabaret (1972) jettisoned the

sweet comic interludes of the Masteroff stage script. He
sharpened the juxtapositions of fetish-strewn Berlin with the
smartly-uniformed avengers of the New Germany. Yet again
mass audiences were allowed to partake in the
polymorphous confusion of old Weimar—via a doll-faced Joel
Grey in nifty drag and big-eyed Liza in shameless, junior
Marlene getup—while rationally condemning it. Although
the Fosse film laboriously plotted out the dangers of female
promiscuity and predatory homosexuals (of the duplicitous
cross-dressed or monocle-wearing varieties), its harsh social
message was less apparent to Seventies adolescents.
Cabaret (and, by extension, Weimar Berlin) signified nothing
more than wild clothing and wild sex. Bad Boy, Bad Girl,
mean, mocking, in-your-face Sex.

This newest trend in Weimarism was a kick, imparting

graphic life to Karl Lagerfeld, David Bowie (on his third go-
round), German neo-noir costume film-epics, the Plasmatics,
Macy’s lingerie ads (especially preceding Mother’s Day),
Marquee-“O”-and-Skin glossies, Madonna-in-Gaultier-garb, a
mini-genre of gay Holocaust weepies, Marilyn Manson, and a
smash, brothelized import of that old workhorse, Cabaret.
Berlin: What’s Not in the Baedeker Guide, 1927
So It Seems—Berlin! 1927

For the erotic trailblazers of the pre-millennium, the

reimagined Weimar Berlin remained a cutting-edge, mythic
terra firma. But even their heightened visions were still not
as fantastic as history’s erotic metropolis.
 “Berlin is Still Berlin”

How Berlin transformed from a minor neoclassical outpost

in Goethe’s time to the third largest city in the world (with
over four million registered citizens in 1930) is the subject of
an immense body of urban-studies literature. While the
external and sociopolitical factors of Berlin’s development
have been analyzed in stupendous detail, one ineffable
aspect has been largely ignored in these academic tomes:
the unconventional religious profile of native Berliners
throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Ruth Margarete Roellig, Berlin’s Lesbians, 1928, a guidebook
with an introduction by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld

If it was possible to objectively measure the spiritual life of

a city—through the language of its municipal charter, the
legislative influence of its church leaders, the ratio of
religious institutions to residents, its weekly church
attendance, the judicious enforcement of Blue Laws, and so
forth—then Berlin (with Montevideo and San Francisco)
would have to be considered as one of the most faithless—or
heathen—cities in the Western world. Much of the
unvirtuous Berlin ethos can be explained by global events
(the mass influx of French Huguenots and Central European
Jews; the rise of modern capitalism) and ideological shifts
(the weakening of Lutheran doctrine; trickle-down faith in
scientific inquiry and Nietzschean vitalism); but, mostly by
the creation of a self-conscious urban identity.

Before 1900, the archetypal Berliner was characterized by

his crude—almost American—demeanor and breezy attitude
toward aristocratic codes of conduct. He was deadly cynical,
possessing a Berliner Schnauze (Berlin snout or “trap”),
spoke in a side-of-the-mouth patois, and never missed an
occasion to deliver a schpritz of wiseguy wisdom. A city of
such characters was a distinct liability to the stodgy
monarchy.

The harsh imposition of Wilhelmian law and threats of

Prussian discipline kept the anarchistic urban-swamp in
check. But in 1919, with the Kaiser gone and a democratic
constitution about to be proclaimed in Weimar, those legal
strictures basically expired. The tapped-down moral
restraints of bratty Berlin suddenly burst at the seams. The
once quaintly roguish German metropolis was now an open
city—open for sex. Or, as its many provincial detractors
decried, “a new Hell on earth.” ■
Manassé, The Forbidden Book
Keystone, Berlin
The Great War was the greatest sexual catastrophe that has
ever befallen civilized man.

Magnus Hirschfeld, The Social History of the World War,

1930

An ecstasy of eroticism cast the world into chaos.

Hans Ostwald, The Social History of the Inflation, 1931

THE COLLAPSE

All wars, in the iron cosmology of Berlin’s leading

sexologists, were a function of the male sex impulse and
civilization’s attempt to manipulate it. Even the declarations
of hostility, victory, conquest, and defeat have been
oedipally recast into clear eroticized language and imagery.
National opponents were said to be not mere adversaries but
rampaging savages and demons, hell-bent on torture,
violation of defenseless communities, and mass rape. Armed
teenagers fighting in the service of their motherland were
praised by writers of epics (or modern propagandists) as de
facto protectors of the race, guardians slumped up against
the bedroom doors of frightened mothers.
Play Money, 1924
G. Sieben, Balkan Torture
 Few national conflicts have been fought without these
psych-war stratagems, or, more to the point, erotic
inducements and rewards for its soldiers. The elevated levels
of testosterone that biologically steel post-pubescent bodies
and cloud the instinct for selfpreservation also increase
sexual desire in young men. So it is little wonder that
societies have traditionally accorded their warrior class (and
consorts) dispensation from chastity and monogamous
regulation.
 The Kaiser’s Wand

The Great War, World War I, exaggerated the erotic fears

and longings of its warring nations. For one, the heroic
enterprise stretched out endlessly, endangering the morale
and mental stability of both the conscripted soldiers and
civilian populations. What was to be a five- or six-month,
lightning-like military campaign, according to the Central
Powers and Allied High Commands, soon stagnated into a
battlefield morass. The wholesale human slaughter, thanks
to the new technology of weaponry, actually hardened
political attitudes and impeded the war’s conclusion. Given
the astronomical numbers of casualties sustained in combat,
no government could tolerate a defeat. There were also the
perceived sexual issues, heightened by skilled
propagandists.

When the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sofia were

assassinated by Serbian nationalists in Sarajevo in 1914,
much was made in the world press about the fanatical
character of Balkan politics, Austrian arrogance (Ferdinand
deliberately chose June 28th, the Serbian national day of
mourning, to tour newly incorporated Bosnia), and the Great
Power consequences. But during the six weeks between the
shooting of Austro-Hungary’s heir apparent and the actual
war, German propaganda played up one minor aspect of the
Saravejo event: the Serbian Black Hands had needlessly
murdered an aristocratic woman. This was further proof of
the sexual perfidy of Slavic men. Serbs, Russians,
Ukrainians, Macedonians, Poles, and all their lesser cousins
were in need of the civilizing canon of the German army and
its partners.

Manassé, War
Ernst Hiller, Revolution
 More than any country in Europe, Imperial Germany was
prepared for war. Its High Command, over a tense decade,
assiduously mapped out the grand project. And a circus
atmosphere reigned in Berlin during the August
mobilization. Kaiser Wilhelm II waved madly to the enlistees
while a tennis racket dangled listlessly from his withered left
hand. Yet the conflagration that erupted in September was
anything but sporting.
 The Home Front

The war years of 1914-1918 upended everything in

Germany proper. Trainloads of young women from the 14
provinces were delivered to work destinations in Berlin’s war
ministries and federal bureaus, filling minor positions once
held by male secretaries and clerks. A kind of radical
feminism and shared sisterhood, long dreaded by
conservative elements in the German government, began to
form in the epicenter of the Wilhelmian Empire. No longer
wide-eyed innocents, these newly enfranchised women had
also witnessed an implosion of moral values in their own
native villages and cities.

As the national euphoria and jingoistic enthusiasm for

modern warfare waned, even in the patriotic countryside, an
insidious Chicago-style corruption spread. Butchers who
honorably served families for generations were noticeably
pressing their thumbs on the edges of regulated meat
scales; formerly virtuous small-town mayors and church
officials were implicated in preposterous scams and bizarre
sexual improprieties. For the first time in a century, black-
market survival and fears of illegitimate pregnancies
became more than just neighborhood gossip for middle-class
households. Worst of all, Germanic faith in the sacrosanct
world of mustached, steely-eyed men—that is, the Kaiser
and his General Staff—began to erode.
Doodles by a German soldier on the Western Front, 1915

The pernicious hypocrisy and murderous bluster of the

ruling patriarchs at every social level, the inescapable sights
of disfigured and hollow-eyed soldiers wandering Berlin’s
streets and parks, the long-delayed (if heavily censored)
official postings of the millions dead, missing, or captured
created a novel and creepy psychosexual vacuum. The
realm of shared national purpose and manly virtue was
challenged by more primitive philosophies of day-to-day
survival.

For most German families, trade—either in heirlooms or

stolen merchandise—earned subsistence to endure the
month or week. But eventually these items became scarce or
obsolete. Only foodstuffs mattered. The profiteering and
theft of them were abetted by a distracted government,
intent on victories in the field. Those poor souls without food
sources or connections had just one other commodity to
haul to the public market: sex.
Otto Griebel, A Slice of European Ham (Made in Germany),
1922

At first, young war brides, branded “strawwidows,” offered

their carnal services to the available males of Berlin, then it
was the provincial youth of both sexes, and finally the
children of bourgeois families. Prostitution lost its exact
meaning when tens of thousands were involved in complex
sex attachments, all of a commercial nature. The vaguely
Wilhelmian underpinning of middle-class Berlin slowly
cracked and, over time, collapsed.

Alexander Szekely, Scene from a German Brothel in Ghent

Postcard, Behind the Lines

Venereal disease, not flesh-peddling, threatened the

immediate well-being of the capital. Syphilis and gonorrhea
spread at an alarming rate. The city fathers, once proud
watchdogs of the moral code, turned to Berlin’s public
health officials and social workers for help. The war had
spiritually corroded the old order at home.
 Trench-Life and the Etappe

In the conquered areas of Belgium and Polish Russia,

German servicemen behaved strangely, too. Hundreds, then
thousands, experienced a headlong release from all peace-
time constraints. Homosexual affection and cross-dressing
amusements became commonplace activities in the musty
trenches and isolated campsites. Instead of pictures of their
sweethearts to inspire them, pockets of combat-weary troops
stared in frozen rapture at S&M and fetishistic photographs
that they cradled in their palms. Public and habitual
masturbation, manifestations of shell-shock, grew to epic
proportions, shaking morale as well as becoming an
embarrassing disciplinary problem. In the countryside, the
brutal corralling and rape of foreign women, usually peasant
girls, by German recruits was reported with some frequency
in the early dispatches. Some nationalistic officers defended
their underlings’ misbehavior as a healthy discharge from
the tedium of building fortifications and other
noncombatant duties.

The High Command, alarmed that the Imperial Army was

aping the uncouth ways of their despised Serb and French
brethren, responded with Prussian efficiency. They permitted
local brothels to open under the strict supervision of military
physicians. Every frontline soldier was issued a ration book
of sex coupons; the frequency of contact, number of
minutes, time of day, and class of whores allowed was
determined mathematically by rank and combat unit. The
booklets were as treasured as tobacco.

In the staging grounds behind the active theatres of war,

or the Etappe, senior officers also engaged in nightly
debaucheries. Local pretties were treated to luxurious
outings, champagne dinners, risqué naked recitals, and
crates of pilfered goods. Roman-style orgies became
synonymous with Etappe life. Female spies, like the
legendary Mata Hari, sometimes frequented these command
centers, wrangling battlefield secrets from lust-smitten
German administrators and military leaders.

Postcard, The Price of Flesh Has Fallen

Sex, the historical lubricant for rallying a nation to armed

conflict, was destroying the Kaiser’s war.

Other unforeseen factors, like the American Expeditionary

Forces and mutiny in the hinterlands, also undermined
General von Hindenburg’s scheme for the occupation of
eastern France and military triumph. By 1918, it was evident
that the Central Power alliance had splintered irrevocably
under the onslaught of Allied armies. Each nation was ready
to sue for a separate peace.
 The Paper Republic

On November 9th, 1918, a German republic was declared,

replacing the Wilhelmian Second Reich. Within 24 hours, the
Kaiser abdicated his monarchy and fled with his family to
the Netherlands. Two days later an Armistice was signed
with the Western powers. All fighting ceased. Germany had
lost the Great War.

A. Szekely, The Settlement

 Now a stunned populace, reeling from new economic
chaos and terror in the form of revolution and counter-
revolution, watched in disbelief as top-hatted politicians
attempted to transform their vanquished nation into a model
constitutional republic. Germany in 1919 had no traditions
of democratic consensus, only an embittered electorate in
search of quick political fixes. Extremist parties of the left
and right attained immense power in the first national
election and ultimately dominated the workings of the
Weimar Assembly.

Some radicals opted for a Soviet solution. But Lenin, the

supreme revolutionary commander, already knew what the
seditious leaders of Bavaria and Hamburg would soon
discover to their regret: Germans were incapable of
fomenting Socialist revolution; when ordered to storm a
railroad station, they would stand in line first to buy tickets.
By March 1919, the period of romantic left-wing insurrection
had been checked. Private Nationalist militias, in league
with the centralist authorities, had assassinated the Red
leaders and overturned their “peasant-proletariat”
communes. Berliners then returned to their business of
pleasure.

The municipal chiefs of the great city had little to say

about prostitution, which, resulting from an oversupply of
females (primarily war-widows), had shown a massive
increase since the Armistice. The dignitaries had other moral
concerns. Two public acts were now strictly forbidden:
fishing by hand grenade in the lakes and rivers around
Berlin, and social dancing inside the city bounds. On a
single day in January 1919, five dance halls were raided by
Berlin vice squads while frumpy streetwalkers and cocaine-
Schleppers watched in bemused stupefaction.
 Through much of 1919, Berlin waged a war against the
promoters of popular dance. But the universally reviled
campaign was doomed from the start. A delirium for social
dance (Tanztaumel) had swept the city and much of
Germany since the cessation of fighting. Klaus Mann, the
son of the Nobel Prize laureate, recalled the choreographic
outbreak as “a mania, a religion, a racket.” Secret dance
parlors, hidden in the Friedrichstadt and in Berlin North,
became the craze. In workers’ quarters, Apache-like tango
dances, cakewalks, and foxtrots played out under
streetlights and in parks. Life in postwar Berlin had become
bizarrely eroticized and dance-madness was its improbable
visible symptom.

Social and popular dances took place in an array of

venues: at lavish balls (like the Bad Boys’ Ball or the Pretty
Leg Festival), in sleazy corner bars, at private clubs near
resort areas, but mostly it was stimulated by imported
American music and the new women’s fashion that
emphasized silk stockings and revealing skirts. What was
once the shocking mode of film stars and drunken
aristocrats now availed itself to everyone. Even at formal
dances, clothing shrank to practically nothing. Variety
houses and cabarets featured rows of naked women, but
many found it impossible to compete with the risqué styles
in the audience.
Carlo Jung, A Fine Family
 At first the city made a purely Kantian appeal: if every
Berliner tripped the light fantastic, full economic recovery
could never be achieved. But there was a growing sense of
prosperity in Berlin anyway. Despite the ubiquitous presence
of beggars and hideous war-wounded, demobilized
aristocrats and the children of Germany’s affluent classes
gravitated to the country’s financial and cultural center.

W. Krain, Berlin Illustrirte Zeitung, Naked Dance, 1920

Then thousands of posters from the health ministry

warned, “Berlin, Your Dance Partner is Death!” The
admonishment in garish Expressionist script weirdly coupled
brain-damaging syphilis with all-night tangos. In no time,
the slogan inspired trunkloads of caustic sketches by
cabaret artists and provided the ideal catchphrase-refrain for
dozens of dialect song parodies.
 In April 1919, a new tactic was tried. A few of the largest
dance halls were allowed to reopen. However, ballroom
dance remained verboten elsewhere in Berlin. Closures of
defiant bars, mass arrests, and costly law-suits resulted. By
late fall, the entire civic enterprise had to be abandoned.
The city fathers discredited themselves with their silly
exercise in extreme social rectitude. Dance was made legal
and censorship in Berlin basically ceased.

A dizzying panic overtook Berlin in October 1919. Not

since Paris in the 1860s had a European city experienced
the Edenic flush of total erotic freedom. With prostitution
and all-night dancing already accepted features of
contemporary Berlin life, what else could be added? Drugs
and over-the-counter pornography appeared first.

Cocaine powder, morphine solution in vials, and opium

balls were hawked on street corners. Chinese entrepreneurs
from the former German concession of Kiaochow installed a
string of opium dens in Friedrichstadt cellars, but these were
far too claustrophobic for German tastes. Invented sedatives
—like Anita Berber’s breakfast elixir, chloroform and ether—
seemed more modern and daring. (The C-and-E cocktail was
ingested by swirling white roses in the potion and then
biting off the frozen petals. Really the designer drug of its
time.)

The most sought-after pornographic postcards and films

had been imported from Paris or Budapest before the war.
Now Berlin was patriotically producing its own brands in
oversized graphic portfolios, “bachelor” Galante magazines,
photo-sheets, and smokers. Even German nudist journals
that were published for decades took on darker tones. The
sweet qualities of Gallic porno were supplanted in Berlin
studios by the psychopathic scenarios from Krafft-Ebing.
Forced, intergenerational, scatological, and obsessive fetish
sex prevailed. Sunny pics of bob-haired, smiling French
beauties in nude repose (often in sylvan settings before
gleaming, immobile sedans) gave way to queasy, regressive
fantasies—Gymnasium masters and nannies administering
instruments of torture and humiliation to their naked
charges. The distinct erotica of Berlin was sold in specialized
bookstores and here and there on the street.

The Nachtlokal, or private nightspot, was another crude

expression of the new era. In 30 or so Berlin hideaways,
gentlemen and sophisticated couples could encounter the
latest erotic sensation, the Naked Dance. Cynical journalists
compared these postwar Berlin “nightclubs” to Tingel-
Tangels, ugly Wilhelmian whore-bars where honky-tonk
entertainers intermingled with their equally lowbrow clients.
In truth, the Nachtlokals catered to a much more naive class
of patron.
Erich Schütz, Raiding the Nacktlokal
 Usually the potential customer was discovered on a
midnight Bummel (urban stroll) somewhere near the
Friedrichstadt. A scruffy teen working for the Lokal, the
Schlepper, would then approach the target, luring him with
promises of covert erotic entertainment and, if alone, female
companionship. A picturesque journey through a Byzantine
circuit of courtyards and passageways followed. Finally, the
disoriented sucker was delivered to the secret club hidden in
an out-of-the-way apartment complex. Once inside, the
Suitor paid a horrific tariff (in the form of an overpriced
bottle of German champagne, Sekt) just to sit at a table. An
improbably upbeat Russian balalaika band normally filled
the air with musical static.
 Around one or two in the morning, a smutty revue
commenced. The nature and duration of the show varied
considerably, mostly consisting of few naked whores and
their daughters, prancing in mock Isadora abandon. Poor
sightlines and erratic seating arrangements were offset by
the itinerant activities of the performers, who would
erotically tease Suitors at their tables and join free-spending
customers for more brazen contact. Genital frisson in the
form of lap-dancing or foot-sex (with the woman perched on
the tabletop) was a customary enticement.

Newspapers and magazines had a field day exposing

these tourist traps. The kitschy symbol of a nineteenth-
century orgy, bald-headed men downing Sekt from the
shoes of giggling whores, appeared repeatedly in their
pages as sidebar photographs and sketches. (Waggish
columnists opined that such a practice must have enhanced
the inferior quality of the foaming swill.)

Neither a source of fine entertainment nor a legitimate

venue for intercourse, the Nachtlokals were lambasted as
embarrassingly ersatz. But they provided Berlin with a
psychic opening. Wild sex and all-night antics could be
made anywhere. In private flats, hotel rooms, and rented
halls, drug parties and nude “Beauty Evenings” were
constantly announced and held. A gala atmosphere
enveloped 1919 and 1920. The entire city transformed into
a Nachtlokal for its liberated youth and still comfortable
bourgeoisie.

The stimulants and fashions changed too. “Radium

cremes” and tincture of yohimbé bark from West Africa,
which augmented female and male desire, were
manufactured in little shops and advertised in Galante
monthlies. Seamstresses—mostly White Russians and former
noblewomen—added a Berlin touch; they reinvigorated
Flapper-era couture by utilizing materials associated with
male fetishism and slashed dresses to mimic pornographic
renderings. Exhibitionism competed with voyeurism as the
city’s outrageous draw. Every single Berlin night before June
1920 began to resemble New Year’s, or Sylvester’s, Eve.
 The Great Inflation

When the Weimar Republic signed the Treaty of Versailles

in 1919 there was a mutual understanding that the
emotional issues of German national boundaries,
demilitarization, and war reparations would be negotiated at
future parleys. But the subsequent conferences in the early
Twenties proved disastrous for the Republic. Angered by
German bickering that rejected their resolute demands for
immediate disarmament and sharply redrawn borders,
French and English politicians tripled the amount Germany
would owe the victors—six billion gold marks in raw
materials and industrial goods to be paid over a 42-year
period.

The terms of the 1921 Reparation Act more than

bankrupted the German federal treasury; it ensured the end
to any hopes for a stable commercial life in the struggling
Republic. Its currency would eventually become worthless.
But the scope of the monetary freefall was not clear at first.
Seven marks bought one American dollar in January 1921,
then the rate of exchange tumbled to 550/1 in August. In
the summer of 1922, a mere dollar traded for 7,500 German
marks. By January 1923, the official rate was 22,400/1, then
in May the mark slid further to 54,300 per dollar. An all-time
low was reached on October 12, 1923 when the once-
vaunted German note plummeted to the staggering
equation of 4.2 billion marks to the dollar.
Paul Kamm, 1923

Germans on fixed incomes and pensioners lost everything

in those years. Once again wartime barter was a favored
means of livelihood. Religious charities, like the Catholic
Relief and the comically American Salvation Army, fanned
out across Berlin. Crank indigenous cults also dished out
thin soup with apocalyptic homilies.
George Grosz, Down with Liebknecht, 1919
 Most urban employees were paid by the day and scurried
to exchange-banks in the morning before the value of their
salaries declined by half in the late afternoon. German towns
issued emergency paper scrip for its bewildered citizens; by
the bitter fall of 1923, the nationwide legal tender was
valued chiefly as a combustible for apartment furnaces.
French newsreel-cameramen captured mustached Burgers
hauling wheelbarrows of marks to pay taxes or purchase
bread while their grandchildren built toy fortresses in
alleyways, using stacks of the discarded bills as architectural
blocks.

The Great Inflation complicated Berlin’s sexual folkways

but did not really alter them. The so-called moral collapse
had already occurred. Erotic amusements, prostitution, and
narcotics were all readily available before the inflationary
madness. But now the purveyors of commercial sex and
other decadent offerings had a more acute economic
incentive. Berlin was suddenly inundated with hard-currency
tourists, looking for Jazz Age bargains. Swedes, Dutch,
French, and detested hordes of Turks and Japanese flocked
to the open city. Their modest assets in the form of kronen,
guilders, francs, lira, and yen metamorphosed the plucky
foreigners into multimillionaires the moment they
disembarked at the Stettiner Bahnhof.

In postwar Paris, a traveler could engage the services of a

streetwalker for five or six dollars; but during the Inflation in
Berlin, five dollars could buy a month’s worth of carnal
delights. The most exquisite blowjob or kinky dalliance with
a 15-year-old never cost more than 30 cents, or 65 million
1923 marks. The widows of famous Wehrmacht generals
rented their bodies and bedrooms for a few precious kronen.
Even upright bourgeois couples exhibited themselves in
marital embrace for a solid hour if anyone was interested in
that kind of theatre.

Ilya Ehrenburg, the Russian writer, remembered going to a

flat in a respectable neighborhood during the Inflation and
discussing Dostoyevsky with the excited middle-class
residents. After a glassful of lemonade mixed with spirits,
the staid Berliners brought out their young, nubile
daughters, who promptly executed a striptease before the
shocked eyes of their celebrated guest. For American
money, the mother proposed to the Communist ideologue,
there was much more to be had that evening.

The Nachtlokals in particular teemed with non-German

speaking thrill-seekers. For the newest clientele, humiliation
and sexual degradation served as an equal attractant as the
old Naked Dance revue itself. In one Lokal favored by Dutch
vacationers, businessmen and their wives tossed foreign
coins to any female German in attendance willing to strip
completely nude. Outside the tourist hotels and downtown
pensions, knowing gigolos and pretty boys, dolled up in
rouge and mascara like wax mannequins, displayed their
androgynous wares. To the merry-making Ausländer, Berlin
was conducting a clearance sale in human flesh. Sex was
everywhere and obtainable on the cheap. The Kaiser’s
Germany, in the minds of many, was finally repaying its war
debts.
Wolfram Kiesslich, Queen of Currency, 1922

On November 20th, 1923, the financial dementia lifted.

The administration in Weimar introduced a new currency,
the Rentenmark, which overnight stabilized the internal
economy and Germany’s standing in the international
marketplace. Worth about 20 cents, or one trillion marks, the
Rentenmark was itself replaced by the Reichsmark in 1924.
But confidence in Weimar governance, at least until 1929,
was restored. The glorious period known as Germany’s
“Golden Twenties” catapulted into history with champagne
toasts and an intoxicating roar. ■
Sex is the business of the town.

Anita Loos, 1923

 There were men dressed as women, women dressed as men
or little school-girls, women in boots with whips (boots and
whips in different colors, shapes, and sizes, promising
different passive or active divertissements). [...] Young, well-
washed, and pretty females were abundantly available. They
could be had for the asking, sometimes without asking at all,
often for the mere price of a dinner or a bunch of flowers:
shopgirls, secretaries, White Russian refugees, nice girls
from decayed good families. Some of them pathetically wept
on the rumpled bed after making love when they accepted
money.

Luigi Barzini, The Europeans, 1983

CITY OF WHORES

The end of the Great Inflation did not stanch the perv
invasion did not stanch the perv invasion of Berlin. In fact,
fascination with the amoral city intensified as soon as the
Reichsmark proved a stable currency. Weimar Berlin, while
shedding the scintilla of menace and social volatility,
retained its transcendent reputation as Europe’s newest
illicit playground. Along with cruises down the Rhine and
Munich’s Oktoberfest, the Grieben guidebooks added
Berlin’s Friedrichstadt at midnight as a must-see tourist
adventure.

The very first thing foreigners noticed in Berlin were

whores, thousands of tarted-up females on the streets, in
hotel lobbies, and seated at cafés and clubs. How many
Beinls made their living in Berlin during the Golden Twenties
was impossible to calculate. The estimates ranged from a
low of 5,000 to the oft-published figure of 120,000 (which
didn’t include the 35,000 male prostitutes). It all depended
on one’s definition of the term. Berlin was like no other
European city when it came to the sheer magnitude of
sexual possibility.
Böhm, Stocking Gold

BERLIN PROSTITUTE TYPES

(OUTDOORS)

BOOT-GIRLS—Identified by their furs and calf-length,

Wilhelmian-era, black-leather boots or (after 1926) in
shiny, patent leather versions. Lacquered gold, cobalt
blue, brick, “poisonous” green, or maroon, the iridescent
footwear indicated the Girl’s specialty. Freelance
Dominas, they attracted frugal provincial German
Suitors, who were led to nearby pensions. Estimated
numbers (in 1930): 300-350.

GRASSHOPPERS—Lowly streetwalkers without “room

money,” who serviced men in the corners of the
Tiergarten and around Bülowplatz. [Ironic variant name:
FRESH-AIR WOMEN.] Estimated numbers: 600.

GRAVELSTONES—Unattractive sex-workers on
Oranienburgstrasse. Included women with missing
limbs, hunchbacks, and other deformities. [Also known
as WOODCHUCKS.] Estimated numbers: 400.

HALF-SILKS—[literally “Half-Baked”] Amateur,

occasional prostitutes, the vast majority of the Friday-
night trade. Often secretaries, shopkeepers, and office
clerks supplementing their incomes after work. [During
the Inflation Era, they were called DODGERS due to their
unregistered status and FIVE O’CLOCK LADIES because
of their preferred time of contact.] Estimated numbers:
40,000-55,000.

KONTROLL-GIRLS—Three defined classes of legal

prostitutes who reported to the Berlin vice authorities on
a regular basis and were checked for venereal disease
by police physicians. Before 1927, they were
concentrated in the Friedrichstadt and Berlin North.
Typical romantic opening: “So, sweetheart?” [Variant
names: BONE-SHAKERS, LINE-GIRLS, and JOY-GIRLS.]
Number of Berlin “Control Books” issued to street
prostitutes and CHONTES in 1930: 8,750.

MÜNZIS—Pregnant girls and women who waited under

the lampposts on Münzstrasse for “old money” clients in
search of this erotic specialty. Very expensive sessions.
[Also known as KABNIS (from Viennese Romany argot)].
Estimated numbers: seasonal, under two dozen.

NUTTES—Boyish, teenage girls. Coquettishly dressed

and working in secret from their families, they treated
prostitution as a form of dating. Often traveled in pairs.
Thought of as primarily gold diggers. Standard pickup
line: “Don’t you think we should have a coffee first?”
Estimated numbers: 25,000-30,000.

TAUENTZIENGIRLS—Bubikopfed streetwalkers in the

latest fashions (sometimes in mother-and-daughter
teams), who silently solicited customers on
Tauentzienstrasse, south of the Memorial Church. T-Girls
were celebrated for their down-to-earth, brash attitude.
Beloved species to Berlin’s press corps, even those
working for Conservative and Nationalist dailies.
Estimated numbers: 2,500.

CHONTES—[From Galizianer-Yiddish] Low-grade Jewish

whores. Polish-born. Mostly found in the Alex near the
police station or in Transient-Quarters. [Also known as
LUBLINS (illegal immigrants from the Polish industrial
city)].

DEMI-CASTORS—[From French underworld jargon—

literally: “half-beavers,” or “amateur hookers.”] Young
women from good families who supplemented their
allowances by working in secretive, high-class houses in
Berlin West. Normal hours of operation were late
afternoon/early evening. [Variant name: MANNEQUINS.]
Estimated numbers: 500.

DOMINAS—Leather-clad, mesomorphic women who

specialized in whipping,

humiliation, and other forms of erotic punishment.

Active in lesbian nightclubs that permitted kinky
heterosexual couples and free-spending male clients.
Also found in phony “Body-Culture” clinics. Estimated
numbers: 1,500.

FOHSES—[Corruption of French underworld argot for

“vaginas.”] Independent whores, who advertised in
newspapers and magazines as manicurists and
masseuses. Sometimes seen by Kudamm outdoor
display cases. [Also known as QUALITY WOMEN.]
Estimated numbers: 2,500.
MEDICINE—Child prostitutes, ages 12-16, who were
“prescribed” by pimps, posing as physicians. The
“patient” indicated the “length of his illness” (requested
age of the girl) and color of pills (hair tint). Transaction
took place in Berlin West “pharmacies.” Estimated
numbers: less than 100.

MINETTES—[French for “female cats.” A common

Parisian expression for independent, sexually active
women.] Exclusive call girls who enacted S&M fantasy
scenes, often involving foot worship, bondage, and
forced transvestitism. Located in all the large
Friedrichstadt hotels. Estimated numbers: 350.

RACE HORSES—Masochistic prostitutes who enjoyed

being beaten or whipped. Worked in “Institutes for
Foreign Language Instruction,” where the “schoolrooms”
were equipped with instruments of torture and bondage
furniture. Patrons were carefully screened before their
first session. Estimated numbers: 200.

TABLE-LADIES—Berlin’s version of the Geisha.

Employed in private nightclubs on the Kudamm, Table-
Ladies were reputed to be ravishing and multilingual.
Each conformed to a specific national type: Demonic
German, Exotic Eurasian, dark-eyed Gypsy-Girl, blonde
Nordic, or Spanish Aristocrat. A favorite of politicians,
movie moguls, bigtime capitalists, and Scandinavian
tourists. Customers paid “table-money” to the club—
often in excess of 100 marks—for an evening of
champagne, fancy canapés, scintillating gossip, and a
private backroom encounter. Estimated numbers: 400-
500 before the 1929 Crisis; half as many after.

TELEPHONE-GIRLS—Child prostitutes, ages 12-17, who

are ordered by telephone and then delivered to clients
in limousines or taxis. Usually given the names of stage
or film stars, like Marlene Dietrich or Lilian Harvey, that
described their prepubescent physical features. Often
billed as “virgins.” Extremely expensive. Estimated
numbers: 3,000.
 “Controlled” Prostitution

During the late Renaissance, most German towns

established boundaries for free-wheeling bathhouse-taverns,
brothels, and street prostitution. These areas were marked
by Striche, painted lines or stripes. Draconian punishments
awaited sex traffickers and adulterers caught outside the
Line. Wayward prostitutes
Kamm, Minette
were tied naked to a pillory, which usually stood in the
village commons. Special constables administered public
floggings. And afterward, citizens could taunt the culprits,
beat them, spit on them, or even urinate on them.

In western and southern cities, female violators of the

Strich were confined to stocks. A thick leather strap was
laced around the woman’s neck and hollows of her knees,
and then tightened. In this excruciating, fetal-like position,
the offender was placed in a woodenstock frame, which had
openings for her head and naked posterior. The sex criminal
was finally subject to a hail of brutal blows and kicks to her
exposed areas during the course of an afternoon. The
upright Burgers and their women often inflicted permanent
damage to the prostitute’s body.

Inside the Strich, a counter-ecclesiastic world reigned.

Pleasure enterprises, although controlled and highly taxed,
provided a bit of heaven for sinners. Food and intoxicants,
gaudy entertainment, and sex were all available for a price.
A furtive jargon—a mix of vulgar Yiddish, thieves’ argot,
Romany, and low-German dialects—developed into the
Strich’s lingua franca. In each town, separate rules and
folkways emerged.

During May celebrations in Mainz and Nuremberg, a

“Whore-Queen” was chosen in a free-for-all competition.
According to the upside-down culture of the Strich, the
foremost attributes of a Queen revolved around her sexual
mastery (evidently vaginal and manual skills) and a quick
wit; the conventional standards of physical beauty were
eschewed here. Interestingly, the local lawmakers
recognized the authority of the Queen and made her
responsible for enforcing their ordinances throughout her
sovereign rule.

Hans Baluscek, A Nutte at the Carnival, 1923

 Municipally-confined areas for commercial sex traffic in the
German-speaking world evolved naturally from the Strich
concept. A single neigh borhood, under police supervision,
delimited and contained all the city’s lewd merrymaking.
Urban centers elsewhere in Western Europe designated
similar “Zona Rosas” to control their vice problem. Most
endured into the 1930s.
Minette at work, 1932

No visitor doing the town in Paris, Rome, Barcelona,

Hamburg, Vienna, Budapest, Antwerp, or Marseilles in pre-
World War II Europe could avoid traversing these notorious
“Red” or “Chinese” districts. Depending on the current
political climate, their integration into the local culture, and
financial boon to the civic coffers, each of these Zonas
varied considerably in size and public toleration. To a great
degree, they defined the secret and cosmopolitan life of the
city. And among them, Pigalle (in Paris’ colorful Montmartre
quarter) bustled with the most naughty panache, Ooh-la-la
fashion, and Bohemian picaresque charm. One could
honeymoon there.
A Half-Silk, 1926
 Only Berlin, among the great metropolises, lacked a Strich
or Zona Rosa.
 “Berlin Is Becoming a Whore”

A 1792 statute (with 24 clauses) from the time of Friedrich

II gave rise to Berlin’s exceptionalism in all matters sexual.
In keeping with strict Prussian decorum, no brothel quarter
could be legally sanctioned within the city proper.
Commerce in sex was declared illegal but—according to the
confusing edicts—female and male prostitution itself was to
be placed “under government surveillance” (in effect,
authorized). The unintended consequence was whimsically
clear to the inner-city inhabitants and the newly-arrived
Napoleonic authorities: by default, unregulated street vice
and whorehouses surfaced everywhere in city (although
they were most visible in the Friedrichstadt and the areas
just north of it).
Jeanne Mammen, Boot-Whores

Sex for hire was stated to be unlawful but, bafflingly, also

technically permitted. The city administrators were of
several minds in dealing with this judicial conundrum.
Whoring was, through the Wilhelmian era, alternately
tolerated, then banned, then yet again “placed under
surveillance.” No matter what was decreed, however,
prostitutes and the citizenry who engaged their services
always found ingenious ways to circumvent the murky
codes. Only two sanctions were consistent: 1) Berlin refused
to allot a legal district for the practice of harlotry—the
“Mediterranean” solution, and 2) public solicitation for sex
was strictly prohibited.

A relatively small number of prostitutes—around 4,000 in

1914—were granted Kontroll-cards, which subjected them to
monthly inspections by eight vicedoctors, or Pussy-Pressers.
This allowed the certified sex-workers to maintain their
vocation on the Line (which in Berlin was anywhere). How
they were supposed to drum up business in outlying or
unfamiliar quarters was solved with inimitable Berlin logic:
because streetwalkers could only be arrested for verbal
solicitation, an elaborate gestural and dress code quickly
arose. Customers could recognize the compliant goods
instantly by their characteristic packaging. In other words,
whores would promote themselves by looking like whores.
Fritz Burger, Off the Track
Casparius, A Grasshopper

The problem, unfortunately, became acute in the Weimar

period when prostitute fashion was widely imitated by
Berlin’s more virtuous females. For instance, one historical
badge of shame for Strich-violators, short-cropped hair,
became the common emblem of the Tauentziengirl (a variety
of Berlin streetwalker)—at least for a year or two. Then in
1923, the short pageboy coif, or Bubikopf, achieved
universal popularity as the stylish cut for trendy
Berlinerinnen.

Prostitutes had to change and update their provocative

attire constantly in order to retain a legal means of
solicitation. Dress also communicated sex practice. Boot-
Whores near the Wittenberg Platz, for example, advertised
their services pedalogically through a semaphore-like
language. Black, green, scarlet, red, and brown leather
footwear promised different mise en scènes of sexual
torment and debasement (i.e., green boots and gold
shoelaces meant an evening of enslavement with a
scatological conclusion; red-on-maroon denoted flagellation
and discipline; and so forth). Naturally only devoted
aficionados could decipher such specific messages with
confidence. Other potential clients had to buy special
primers, where Berlin’s complex street semiotics were
thoughtfully decoded for the uninitiated.
 Topology of the Sex Trade

Altogether, there were eleven or twelve major sex zones in

Berlin during the Twenties, none of them “officially”
delineated, but each with distinctive attractions and an
overall licentious atmosphere. The most conspicuous was
called the “Alex,” a ten-block slum centered around the
Alexanderplatz in Berlin North. Site of the lowest-grade
whores in the city (Class Three Kontroll-Girls, Chontes, and
Gravelstones) as well as the central police station and a
luxurious brothel for straight women, the Alex contained at
least 320 houses of ill repute. Only a dozen or so resembled
tranquil maisons de tolérance of the Parisian variety. The
rest were essentially fuck pads, where street prostitutes
serviced their clients. The sex was quick and cheap. In an
“Hour Hotel,” the John paid about one dollar for the use of
the room and 35 to 75 cents for the Kontroll-Girl. At the 200-
plus “Transient-Quarters,” or mini-brothels, money (usually
in the dollar range) was paid first to the Kupplerin (house
madam) and then the Flea was directed into a bare room for
a ten-minute transaction. Hygiene levels were notoriously
un-Germanic. The wash basins in a typical Quarter were
emptied only once when the madam closed in the early
morning; towels and linens sometimes went unchanged for
days.

G. Hahn, The Flowergirl

Kontroll-Girls on the Friedrichstrasse, 1930

Innocuous storefronts in the alleyways around the Alex

and coal cellars also doubled as Transient-Quarters. One
celebrated ice cream parlor on Mehnerstrasse transformed
into a handjob factory precisely at ten o’clock in the
evening. (A jaunty travel writer suggested that the hum
from the freezers must have acted as a powerful stimulant
for Berlin’s hardcore cold fetishists.) The whole operation
was finally busted when a local Kontroll-Girl complained to a
sympathetic Bull (vice-officer) that her brood of children was
spending far too much idle time at the all-night
confectionery.

The Friedrichstadt beckoned with more elevated

temptations. A mile-square downtown precinct,
compromised of federal ministry buildings, “grand” hotels,
state-funded museums, revue-houses, and high-rise
compounds for financial and publishing conglomerates, the
Friedrichstadt doubled as a tawdry Luna Park when the
workday concluded. Between five o’clock tea and three in
the morning, this was home to hundreds of Nepp-Lokals,
strip clubs, gay Dielen (bar-lounges), massage parlors,
greasy Wurst restaurants, and the Linden-Passage, a
dilapidated arcade lane where two to three hundred Doll-
Boy(underage boy prostitutes) posed before hesitant Sugar-
Lickers (gay pederasts). Hardfaced Minettes applied their
psychodramatic skills in top-floor rooms of pensions and
tourist hotels.

The Tiergarten, Berlin’s dimly-lighted park preserve at the

city core, attracted young freelance Line-Boys and
Grasshoppers (female specialists in BJs), who congregated in
groups near the park’s edge after dark. South of the
Tiergarten peered fashionable Berlin West and its elegant
midway, the Kurfürstendamm (or the Kudamm). At this
nexus of expensive nightclubs, pleasure palaces, lesbian
cafés, transvestite cabarets, and American-style bars, high-
end call girls, or Fohses, by the dozens, positioned
themselves between the free-standing display cases set in
front of glitzy Kudamm boutiques. (“Shiny merchandise by
shiny merchandise” one guidebook ballyhooed.) Half-Silks
(amateur prostitutes) and Boot-Whores respectfully staked
out their claims slightly eastward, in the esplanades and
street corners by the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church. Fancy
whorehouses and sham fronts for underage sex were tucked
away in the quiet neighborhoods abetting the Potsdamer
Platz.

The Nolldendorfplatz, an out-of-the-way section in Berlin’s

proletarian South, featured Erwin Piscator’s Communist
theatre as its best-known nighttime draw. One could also
find a surfeit of cocaine and S&M clubs just to the south of
Walter Gropius’ temple of Red art. Another six blocks further
south and east was the clandestine land of black-curtained
homosexual lounges and Racehorse salons for the
delectation of straight sadists.

Posed photograph of a Racehorse

Kontroll-Girl
 On the Line

Kontroll-Girls crowded Berlin’s streetcorners in flush times

and bad. They formed the nucleus of the 30,000 round-the-
clock itinerant whores. By 1930, nearly 9,000 possessed
Kontroll-Books that testified to their fine venereal health.
(The others had allowed their medical papers to lapse or
ignored the Pussy-Pressers altogether.) The Bulls
categorized the K-Girls into three grades based on
appearance, age, and number of clients per day.

The lowest (or Class Three) were known on the street as

Bone Shakers. Older and most experienced than the others,
they looked down upon the undocumented Grasshoppers (or
Fresh-Air Girls), who performed similar duties under the
inviting skies of the Tiergarten. Class Two included
Tauentziengirls, a vivacious streetwalker type, found on the
Tauentzienstrasse and characterized by their flapper-style
wardrobe and bathing cap-like hats. Curt Moreck, a
Sittengeschichte chronicler, compared them to swamp lilies
and praised them as “an iridescent, demonic perversity.”
Because of their fresh attitude (Berliner Schnauze) and
frequent pairing with identically dressed daughters,
journalists enjoyed quoting their droll responses to
otherwise complex, current-event issues and national trends.

Boot-Whores , although relatively few in number (300 or

350), provided Berlin nightlife with its most ubiquitous local
color. Arriving in Berlin during the Inflation, Klaus Mann
remembered walking past a group of the outdoor
dominatrices, “Some of them looked like fierce Amazons,
strutting in high boots made of green, glossy leather. One of
them brandished a supple cane and leered at me as I passed
by. ‘Good evening, Madam,’ I said. She whispered into my
ear, ‘Want to be my slave? Costs only six billions and a
cigarette. A bargain. Come along, honey!’” Eight years after
Mann’s encounter, Moreck reported on the same corner:
“One favorite tourist site is located near the Passauer and
Ansbacher streetcorners, west of Wittenberg Platz. There, a
trio of six-foot tall Boot-Girls are garishly cos-tumed in red
and black attire like nineteenth-century horsewomen.
Snapping a riding crop, the tallest Amazon bellows
menacingly, ‘Who will be my slave tonight?’”
Tauentziengirl team
 First-Class Joy-Girls were generally the youngest and most
desirable of the K-Girl bunch but they faced enormous
competition from yet another unique Berlin erotic
phenomenon, Half-Silks. Mostly fresh-faced secretaries,
minor government clerks, department-store employees, and
salesgirls by day, these amateur hookers roamed Berlin West
by the tens of thousands in the early evening. They were
easily recognized by their girlish makeup and unusual
accoutrements, like large cloth handbags (where they
secreted their daytime apparel) and, in summer months,
teddy bears. It was said that the majority engaged in serious
prostitution only during the last third of the month or in the
difficult period just before payday.
A Chonte
 Nuttes was a term used to describe very young, kittenish
flappers. Sometimes it referred to teenaged Joy-Girls or
coltish Half-Silks . Most Berlin sexologists viewed Nuttes as a
separate prostitute type. Physically they resembled
androgynous boys with short hair, flat chests, and long legs,
accentuated by extremely short skirts, lustrous silk hosiery,
and high heels. Usually rebellious teens from bourgeois
families, the Nuttes, through their flirtatious demeanor and
playful manners, inhabited an enticing middle ground
between the brash Kontroll-Girls and often fickle Half-Silks .
A successful Berlin Alphonse (pimp) liked to have a handful
of Class 3s and one or two Nuttes in his intimate stable.
 Indoor Varieties

From Renaissance times, Gypsies and Jews were closely

identified with white slavery in Central Europe. By 1920,
their participation was largely vestigial in Germany. Romany
culture became submerged in gooey Viennese, Hungarian,
Parisian, and Spanish renditions. Gypsies themselves
disappeared from German urban life although they were the
theme of a vast, mostly invented, erotic literature.

Posed photograph of a Münzi

 Weimar Berlin had a large Jewish population (around 9% if
one includes Ostjuden [immigrants from Eastern countries]
and thoroughly assimilated/converted /hidden Jews). While
they dominated certain cultural fields in pre-Nazi Berlin,
especially publishing, law, medicine, theatre, graphic art,
cinema, music, architecture, and popular entertainment,
relatively few Jews were still involved in common
prostitution with the exception of two picturesque types:
Kupplerinnen (procuresses) and Chontes—zaftig whores from
southern Poland. In general, Chonte-Harbors (Jewish
brothels) were not well regarded in Berlin’s sex guides but
they appeared to attract a sizable working-class and
indigenous clientele.

The other varieties of indoor Berlin prostitutes were

substantially higher-brow. Fohses frequently made their
initial contacts in public gatherings, negotiating prices and
scenes, but were never considered streetwalkers since their
work fell under the (even then) comic rubric of “Massage
Therapists.” Upscale Demi-Castors were essentially the
picky Half-Silks of the closed-door brothel set. And Table-
Ladies (Berlin Geishas) applied their exclusive trade in
snooty nightclub backrooms and at bachelor pads.
Albert Birkle, Fohses
 Acquired Tastes

Sophisticated het tourists came to Berlin for erotic

“specialties.” Luigi Barzini’s social memoir, The Europeans,
captured this Weimar excess best in his farcical recollection
of the Alex:

I saw pimps offering anything to anybody, little boys, little

girls, robust young men, libidinous women, or (I suppose)
animals. (The story went around that a male goose of which
one cut the neck at the ecstatic moment would give you the
most delicious, economical, and timesaving frisson of all, as
it allowed you to enjoy sodomy, bestiality, homosexuality,
necrophilia, and sadism at one stroke. Gastronomy too, as
one could eat the goose afterward.)

Actually, in Berlin North, Alphonses and independent

whores organized their perverse attractions in the manner of
market-day vendors: like-with-like. Mehnerstrasse (site of
the ice cream/masturbation shop) was known as “Old
Mädchen Street.” For those with an itch for mature K-Girls
(40- to 60-year-olds but looking considerably older) or a
sympathetic motherly touch, there were three infamous
Transient-Quarters and a few storefront chambers of the
same. On Landwehrstrasse were only beautiful stout Beinls.
Weighting an average of 220 pounds, these gorgeous street
creatures in groups of three and four provided ideal subject
matter for smirking painters of the Neue Sachlichkeit ilk.

Other corners near the Alex (like the faraway

Tauentzienstrasse) were talking grounds for mother-and-
daughter crews. In Berlin North, however, the age difference
between the parent and child was striking and even
exaggerated. The amusing twin-sister look of the T-Girls
faded on Gollnowstrasse into a dark incestuous fantasy. One
French journalist, Jean Galtier-Boissiere, described, in sickly
pornographic detail, the creeping horror of feeling a nine-
year-old’s tiny, but proficient, fingers stroking his upper
thigh while her broken-toothed mother covered with his face
with hot sucking kisses.

Two street types were deemed important enough to be

granted a separate nomenclature: Gravelstones and Münzis.
Like Berlin’s war-wounded, the Gravelstones had their own
hideous allure. Outcast prostitutes with grim deformities—
acid-scarred faces, hunchbacks, crippled or missing limbs,
disfiguring skin conditions—they created their own informal
society on Oranienburgstrasse in Berlin North. By the late
Twenties, the Gravelstones came into their own; men in
chauffeured limousines appeared with some frequency to
chat with them and if their malformation proved compelling
and unusual enough, an all-night arrangement was gamely
struck.
Waiting at the Bridge, 1931

Münzis were knocked-up streetwalkers who advertised

their condition on Münzstrasse, about seven blocks from
Gravelstone territory. Conscious of their temporal appeal,
the Münzis charged triple rates for sessions and organized
themselves on the “Münz” (“Coin”) according to their stage
of pregnancy. Like the Boot-Whores , the Münzis became a
much in-demand tourist sight.

S&M prostitutes publicized their presence in trade

newspapers and hotel flyers. Dominas were to be found in
“Body Culture” clinics and sometimes approached randy
foreign couples in lesbian and transvestite nightclubs. More
discreet were the Racehorses, young masochistic
prostitutes, who were billed as “teachers” at “Institutes for
Foreign Language Instruction” or “masseuses” in Berlin
South “Beauty Salons.” Minettes, unlike their French
namesakes, enacted standard domination and fetish
scenarios (i.e., angry boarding-school mistress; new
secretary; enraged customer; Madga Lupesco and King
Carol; best friend’s mother; industrial spy; blackmailing
student; boss’ sadistic daughter; old girlfriend) for hefty fees
in fashionable hotel suites.
A Domina
 Child Prostitution

Child prostitution was a searing social issue long before

and after the Inflation era. It involved both female and male
children, sex-workers’ progeny, runaways, and troublesome
adolescents. There seemed to be almost no bottom age for
those seeking physical companionship with children. And
virtually no end to willing girls and boys.

One unsettling example: In January 1932, a Berlin tabloid

exposed a “prostitute ring” of ten-year-old girls who worked
independently at the Alex U-Bahn Station. Each girl stood
demurely inside a subway entrance foyer, hoping to catch
the eye of an impulsive Cavalier (heterosexual pederast) on
his way to work. Astonishingly, the prepubescent vixens had
been whoring unimpeded for months before the story broke.

Of course, all major cities had to confront this pressing and

psychologically debilitating civic problem, particularly
during hard times. But in Berlin the quandary of kiddy-
prostitution was partly resolved by a more cynical, free-
market approach: the opening of child brothels.

How many children were actually pressed into sexual

service/slavery is unknown. Magnus Hirschfeld reported on
one such lucrative operation on Alexandrienstrasse, where a
“rapacious harem” of 14-year-old Russian girls “lewdly
beguiled” wealthy Cavaliers from Berlin’s industrial elite.
The house was, remarkably, shut down by the municipal
court after a sensational trial shrouded in political intrigue
and late-night government machinations.

Medicine, 1932

Other child dens of iniquity sidestepped the Bulls through

a ruse of codewords and cheesy disguises. On Bülowbogen
in Berlin West, a pederast could enter a storefront
“Pharmacy,” where he would be asked to enumerate the
exact years he suffered from some malady—although the
nature of the illness was always left unnamed. The answer
had to be in the 12-to-16 range since it signified the age of
the child-prostitute he was requesting. The attending
“physician” (who had a diploma in hairdressing on the wall)
then responded by searching the back cubicles for the
properly aged Medicine, which was dispensed in hourly
“tablets” of “blonde, brown, brunette, or Gypsy-black.”
Telephone-Girls
 More popular (and far more profitable) was the trade in
Telephone-Girls. Attractive 12-year-old girls and young teens
were made up and dressed to resemble adult female
celebrities—typically Lya da Putti, Marlene Dietrich, Dolly
Haas, or Lilian Harvey. Lonely Cavaliers telephoned one of
six or seven agencies to purchase the services of the “child-
star,” who was whisked in a waiting motor vehicle to his
domicile. What would appear to be a rather singular
perversion among the Berlin’s high society was in fact a
favored divertissement. Theatricality, pederasty, star-
fucking, and technology all meshed in ways that would have
likely startled the wizened flesh-peddlers of Nineveh and
Shanghai.
 Kietz

The Kietz, or underworld life of the Berlin prostitute, was

presented in countless ways during the Weimar era. Songs,
revues, film melodramas, faits divers all doted on the loony
spectacle. Police reports and tabloids emphasized the Kietz’
ugly and dangerous nature. Religious leaders and health
officials warned of its spiritual and physical repercussions.
And graphic artists naturally recorded the Kietz’ ironic
juxtapositions as a telling panorama on human mendacity
and deceit.

Like other workers in debased professions, the people who

inhabited the Kietz saw it differently. They felt nothing but
contempt for outsiders (except for the Bulls, who normally
treated them with good-natured respect). Most prostitutes
claimed their lives were infi-nitely more liberated and
interesting than those of their lumpenprol sisters. The Kietz
had its own system of justice, language, familial
relationships, annual customs, sources of satisfaction,
entertainments, taboos, and codes of honor. For four years, it
even produced its own weekly newspaper, Der Pranger
(“The Pillory”).
Telephone-Girls
A Domina
 And while public servants ranted about infectious venereal
disease, for instance, the average Kupplerin could cite
statistics from League of Nations studies that found Berlin to
have rather low rates of syphilis and gonorrhea, compared
to, say, London and Paris. “Big and Little Jelly” were
occupational hazards but so was mangling a hand in a
stamp-press or daydreaming while brushing down a wheat-
thresher.

Life in Weimar Berlin could be unpredictable and very

unpleasant, but real street violence—a sure catalyst for
inner-city anxiety and dread—was exceedingly rare, at least
until the political situation outside the Kietz began to sour.
■
A Nutte and pharmacist on the town
 Berlin nightlife, my word, the world hasn’t seen anything
like it! We use to have a first-class army; now we have first
class perversions.

Klaus Mann, The Turning Point, 1942

Everyone Once in Berlin!

City of Berlin Tourist Slogan, 1927

GIRL-CULTURE AND THE ALL-NIGHT

BUMMEL

Berlin glorified in its image as Europe’s showcase of sin. Its

own police commissioners often boasted that vice and
debauchery were the city’s prime industries. (Actually
manufacturing, finance, and publishing produced more
revenue.) But over 150,000 Berliners made their living in
the Kietz or were employed in related businesses, notably
Nachtlokals, seedy hotels, pornographic studios and
cinemas, unlicensed casinos and bars, naked boxing and
wrestling arenas, private torture dungeons, and like-minded
flimflam operations.

On any given weekend in Berlin, six to seven hundred

emporiums promised nonpareil sexual pleasures and sights
—indulgences unknown even to the orgy-seeking miscreants
of ancient Rome and Asia. In each nighttime establishment
there was a conspicuous effort to appeal to a specific and
novel perversion or erotic taste. Lesbians alone in 1930
could select from 85 same-sex Dielen, risqué nightclubs, and
dancehalls. Some of these private concerns barred straights
and gay men outright, others welcomed them, and still
others restricted their female clientele to circumscribed
types or tribadic couplings.
Uhu, 1931

Schlichter, Tingel-Tangel , 1920

 The carnal advantages of class and wealth intensified in
Sodom, although they appeared at times to be replaced by
more fluid categories of dress, bodily appearance, age, and
sexual disposition. Even the standard categories of desire—
male/female; gay/straight; normal/abnormal; latent/public—
were shaken in such fundamental ways that they astonish
even now.

Hidden away in Berlin East, for instance, was a tiny honky-

tonk, the “Monte Casino,” where working-class husbands
partook in boy sex. While their understanding, prole wives
sipped beer and applauded the transvestite revue, the
otherwise straight men quietly excused themselves and
tramped back to the greenroom cubicles. There they
negotiated oral sex with the sweaty, bewigged kid
performers. A few Reichsmarks lighter, the lusty stevedores
eventually retired to the dining tables of their ever-patient
mates. Life was truly a cabaret then.

French journalists, in particular, were impressed by the

diverse throngs of harlots and exotic Strich trade that the
German Gotham featured. But their Descartesian minds
boggled at the sporting menu of bizarre classifications and
typologies that substituted for natural local color. In the
thinking of these fun-loving Frenchmen, wicked Berlin was
overly determined and taxonomical, devoid of romantic
camouflage, leeringly ironic, intentionally perverse, and far
too Germanic. The ancient human exchange between
money, sex, and psychic fulfillment had never been so
complicated, they claimed; it required a new calculus.

Fortunately there were books for the uninformed.

Directories of nocturnal Berlin (in adventurous straight,
S&M, gay, lesbian, or nudist versions) could be had at any
train station, hotel lobby, or downtown kiosk. Foreigners and
provincials alike could plot out, with a thumb-flip, where or
where not they were wanted, calculate what to expect and
spend, and fantasize how their dream Bummel or session
might unfold. These lurid Baedekers of the night were
indispensable pilots for lost souls.
 “Girl-Culture”

Not every Berliner—or tourist—was swept away in the

Weimar sex-rush. But the aggregate who participated in
some commercial aspect of the Kietz, especially during the
Inflation or the approaching depression, was extraordinarily
high. Probably 20 to 25 percent of adult Berlin dabbled in
the midnight amusements in the year before Hitler was
anointed Reichschancellor. While newcomers thought the
erotic madness was, more or less, a function of the uncertain
economic times, Berliners themselves jokingly blamed it on
their amphetamine-like air (that Berliner Luft), which many
swore kept their hearts racing at night and then thoroughly
revitalized them for the morning commute.
Poster for The Crooked Mirror cabaret, 1928

Poisonous fumes or no, the Sittengeschichten scholars of

the time understood how the whore milieu permeated
workaday Berlin. Advertising, music, mass-market
periodicals, clothing styles, stage interpretations of
Shakespeare and Schiller, high literature, dining
arrangements in restaurants, and election propaganda were
all indelibly stamped with this new image of female
sexuality and the independent woman. In the mid-Twenties,
it acquired a name: Girlkultur.

An abiding brainstorm of Flo Ziegfeld, the eponymous

American producer, “Girl-Culture” redefined the psychology
and bodily form of the desirable female. In heavily-promoted
publicity campaigns and on the stage of his New York Follies,
Ziegfeld advanced and constantly reshaped this modern
fantasy creature. She was urbane, slim, not much interested
in children, socially irreverent, leggy, charmingly vain, and a
sexual predator. The Ziegfeld Girl had all the basic physical
attractions of the Parisian Flirt, but her gold-digging
motivations were refreshingly undisguised and externalized.
 The American Flapper persona fit snugly into the
unsentimental machine-age Zeitgeist. It universalized
femme-fatalism. Sex appeal was no longer a mysterious
inborn construct but a purchasable commodity, available to
the entire female-of-the-species. And seduction could be
played out for better rewards than bourgeois marriage—and
far longer—when its ultimate goals were money (or
diamonds, gold jewelry, furs, penthouses) and emotional
dominance.

Berliners, far more than Manhattanites, adapted Ziegfeld’s

provocative concept to their mentality and lifestyle. It
glamorized and extended the war between the sexes.
Women and men each possessed something the other
passionately desired in the big-city tango. In fact, Berlin’s
professional Beinls were often looked upon as the heartfelt,
unadorned subset of the New Woman. The dazzling sex
cards they held were short-lived and not a danger to the
gender status quo. The roles of good and bad women in
Weimar had become reversed. Any Bubikopfed teen was a
potential Lulu, or Nutte.

Heinz von Perckhammer, A Nachtlokal on the Friedrichstadt

Girl-Culture also referred to the precision chorus line,

which Ziegfeld’s choreographers contrived from a blend of
French Can-Can and the American fascination with Taylorist
motion economy. Stunning Girl-Groups from Anglo-Saxon
countries demonstrated synchronized kick displays that
beat the hell out of the prewar Tangel-Tingel leg shows. Each
angelic dancer, the identical duplicate of the other,
resembled an interchangeable machine part or a blank-
faced soldier in a Prussian army drill. Here, the New Woman
was automated, made trainable, streamlined, remolded into
a robotic doll. Both aspects of Girl-Culture—the Demonic Sex
Object and the Rationalized Sex Object—enthralled and
animated Berlin.

Walter Pantikow, Berliner Leben, 1928

 The pairing or struggle between these modern archetypes
largely replaced the old brunette/blonde conflict inside
Berlin’s venerable theatre prosceniums. Male characters in
sex farces and jazzy operettas no longer had to deal with the
classic dilemma, the penis versus the heart. The ingenues-
in-question were each beddable hellcats. Which succubi to
wed or follow to Paris became the novel contentious
denouement.

In Fritz Lang’s epic film, Metropolis (1927), where Berlin’s

social and cultural conflicts were projected into a science-
fantasy future, the theme of Girl-Culture was handled with
recondite humor and a hokey melodramatic touch. One year
later, Brecht and Weill bested the movie with their avant-
garde musical, The Three-Penny Opera. By adding cynical
dollops of Berliner Schnauze and restituating the Berliner
erotic typology to Victorian London, the unlikely modernists
perfected the titillating master narrative. Virtually the entire
Berlin press corps hailed the brilliant rendering. The Marxist
poet Brecht insisted, in his contrarian manner, that the play
was a comic, left-wing indictment of capitalism, but the
critics knew better. Three-Penny was Girl-Culture in song.

What Berlinerinnen felt about Girl-Culture is a contentious

subject for feminist scholars. Interviews (that I conducted)
with women who were teenagers and 20-year-olds in Weimar
Berlin and a perusal of popular women’s magazines of the
period indicate a high degree of personal satisfaction.
Suddenly females from Wilhelmian families were accorded
social and carnal opportunities that made them the envy of
their older sisters. One woman called Girl-Culture sexual
suffrage. Female novelists and Berlin’s feminists, as was
their wont, were considerably more critical of the invented
revolution.
 Cabaret

Cabaret was, of course, the signature entertainment form

of Weimar Berlin. Born in the backhalls and miniature
variety-houses of fin-de-siècle Montmartre and Vienna, the
cabaret melded lowly amusement genres to Bohemian
sensibilities, in the service of a middleclass audience on the
slum. In Berlin, the “tenth muse” unraveled, returning to its
maverick roots: the brothel and concert-café.

Of the 150 Berlin commercial outlets that advertised

cabaret revues, only a dozen or so were traditional cabarets
in the Parisian mode: shows with alternating acts of musical
comedy, poetry reading, topical monologues, torch songs,
sleight-of-hand routines, dramatic sketches, and the like. In
a sense, these were hip Music-Halls presented within an
intimate restaurant setting. The evening’s mood in these
houses shifted expeditiously, from laughter to tears to awe
to artistic appreciation and finally back to laughter, with
each succeeding act. In the standard Jägerstrasse Kabarett,
however, there were only two moods: the bitterly sardonic
and the heart-thumpingly erotic.
Max Liebermann, Erotic Grotesques, 1920
CELLY DE RHEIDT DANCE TROUPE IN
A TYPICAL EVENING: “THE DANCE
OF BEAUTY” (1923)

Harry Seveloh, the husband of the lead dancer,

delivers a short introduction to the program. He
enthuses that Berlin high society has now grown mature
enough to enjoy the sights of naked female performers
without lewd, sensual stimulation. The spectator’s
appreciation of the girls’ exposed beauty should be of a
purely intellectual or aesthetic nature.

Scattered applause from the mature audience. The

curtain is drawn, exposing a tiny stage.
 Oddly enough, Kander and Ebb got this part right. The
literary and political cabarets, because of their high artistic
content and celebrity casting, received substantial print
coverage, which survived (in bits and drabs) to be analyzed
and deconstructed by post-World War II historians. The more
popular erotic cabarets hardly merited notice, except in the
downtrodden Galante monthlies.
Rudolf Koppitz, 1925

One sensational production mounted at the Black Cat

Cabaret, “The Dance of Beauty,” achieved widespread
notoriety due to its novelty during the Inflation and the legal
problems that dogged its creators. Described in remarkable
detail by Hirschfeld, Paul Markus (ʺPEMʺ), and several Berlin
newspaper reporters, the performance revealed a relatively
early attempt to stitch the naughty cabaret impulse to the
protective frame of Ausdruckstanz (Expression Dance).

Celly De Rheidt’s brazen troupe was forced to disband

shortly after this engagement. Her entrepreneurial husband,
Seveloh, a former army lieutenant, was penalized 1500
Inflation marks, which he managed to delay paying until the
following summer when the fine’s actual dollar value
approached a near-zero decimal. Celly divorced him,
remarried in Vienna, and settled down to be an upstanding
Hausfrau, never to heard from again.

Scene from the Haller-Revue

Gypsy violin music slowly ushers in a line of female

artistes.

A waltz, danced by Celly de Rheidt and her ballet

group, wearing short transparent dance-dresses,
commences. A violet light illuminates them as they float
across the dance floor, slowly in the beginning, then in a
furious pace. Their bodies freeze, silhouetted against the
background of the closing curtain.
 A short violin interlude. Again the Girls appear and
dance a wild bacchanal under a reddish-purple light.
They wear transparent dance-dresses that expose one
breast. The wild twirls are followed by a brightly
illuminated dance scene: a spring serenade with the
music of Lecombe, performed by Celly and a young
attractive dancer. Each wears a short, fluttering chiffon
skirt below a nude torso. The girl suddenly collapses.
She is startled out of her dream state and begins to leap
rapturously in a flower movement. Her body sways
outward, as she lifts her breasts to the warm, life-giving
sun.

The stage darkens as a circle of barefoot girls in

peasant dresses rush forward to execute a vibrant
Hungarian folk dance.

An erotic pantomime, the “Opium Slumber,” ensues in

quick succession. It begins with the shadow of a
Chinaman smoking wanly on an opium pipe. After a few
minutes, an evil femme fatale appears and seductively
enslaves him to be a victim for her mélange of
sadistically lewd games. The club spectators watch this
with a special intensity.

This is followed by a carnal “Bullfight,” performed to

the clicking of castanets. Celly, the female matador,
disrobes with exquisite deliberation and uses her
diaphanous garb to sexually torment and subjugate the
hapless beast. The dance concludes with the defeated
bull lying supine next to the high heels of the
triumphant—and now naked—matador.
 After the Black Cat affair, naturally, no Berlin cabaret was
stupid enough to flaunt its fleshy wares as high art in the
face of the authorities or, if it did, forget to compensate the
local Polenta for their impeccable critical faculties.

Foreign tourist guides, true to their calling, championed

the Kabarettwelt’s indecent rep. Jägerstrasse, the home to
14 or 15 Nachtlokals, was publicized as Berlin’s hothouse
citadel of forbidden sights. Yet, around 1927, a natural
downturn occurred. The dark hedonism of the erotic cabaret
could be explored in other, more comfortable and accessible
surroundings: in ritzy dinner clubs, private Dielen, a few
showy restaurants, the “Pleasure-Palaces,” even on an
evening’s Bummel of the Kudamm.

Most “Golden Age” Berliners patronized the non-literary

cabarets for their ineffable atmospheres, the cynical mood
(Berliner Stimmung) that enveloped the stale, smoky air,
and only occasionally for the overpriced intoxicants and
nude tableaux. Usually, the cabaret conférenciers, or
Masters of Ceremonies, were the chief draw. These tuxedoed
wits did not exist anywhere else.

While Friedrichstadt Lokal producers experimented with

endless sexual and thematic innovations, one out-landish
idea succeeded. A malicious conférencier, Erwin Lowinsky,
known in the trade as “Elow,” rented the for-mer Weisse
Maus cabaret on Jägerstrasse from its new lesbian owners.
Running only on Café Monbijou’s dark night, Monday, Elow
called his enterprise the “Cabaret of the Nameless.” Instead
of hiring professional entertainers, Elow did just the
opposite; his stage was open only to amateur performers, 15
per evening.
Poster for the Celly de Rheidt Ballet Beauty Dances
Comic “Jack the Ripper” scene in a cabaret, 1926
 Elow chose for his off-night cabaret the most thoroughly
talentless types he could possibly find, including—for the
greater delight of his demented public—utterly delusional
and rapturous sickies. Berlin intellectuals compared the
milieu of the Nameless to the Roman Coliseum where
Christians were savagely martyred, to neighborhood
bullfighting rings in Mexico City, and to the execution of
criminals by guillotine on Paris’ sidestreets.

The menacing cadence of an Inca sacrificial ceremony

is pounded out by the orchestra. On a mountain plateau,
a bevy of pearl-necklaced, naked virgins are forced to
participate in the ritual murder of their sisters and then
given drugs by a High Priest so they may delight in
erotic worship with the nubile corpses.

Finally, a fully orchestrated Spanish mystery play,

based on Calderon’s The Nun, is enacted. A cello solo
establishes the somber mood. Then a procession of nuns
and monks, led by a bishop, moves through the
audience to the stage, which is arranged like the interior
of a church and lit in dark purple columns. The
procession is accompanied by the sound of harpsichord,
violins, and the cello. A trembling young Sister, played
by the histrionic Celly, is brought before the altar of the
inquisitorial court. The Father declares her unchaste,
worthless. Despite her mad pleas, the errant “Daughter
of Christ” is mercilessly expelled from her Order. Before
a statute of Mary, the distraught teenager rips off her
habit and begs for divine intervention. The Holy Virgin
magically steps forth, passionately kisses the Nun,
fondles each of her breasts with a slow, icy touch, and
then presents the Sister with a silver crucifix—all before
the eyes of a stunned clergy. Lights out!
 The majority of Elow’s nonprofessionals were cajoled into
believing that their appearance would hurl them into
cabaret stardom. Generally, they were Berlin’s losers: Gogol-
like office clerks who believed that their true calling was
comic recitation or juggling; frustrated housewives who once
trained in Bayreuth; incompetent teenage magicians; tin-
eared composer-and-lyricist teams; hypnotists who were
banned from the variety circuit because of their chronic
inability to bring their volunteer subjects out of deep trance;
mad Napoleonic-posturing poets; and psychologically
impaired dilettantes who assumed their renditions and
imitations of Wintergarten headliners were superior to the
originals.

James-Klein Revue, The World Unveiled, 1924

“Indian Goddess” in revue sketch
 At the low point in each act—and Berlin’s journalists
reported many such moments—Elow jumped on the stage
and mockingly polled the audience whether or not to allow
the “artiste” to continue. Only the most pathetic and
hopeless creatures were encouraged to complete their
number. (A few really schizophrenic or severely
incapacitated performers were told by an effusive Elow that
their painfully conceived routine was so absolutely smashing
that they should restart the whole thing.)

The toxic Stimmung at the Nameless was further

enhanced by Elow’s abusive taunts directed at the hard-
drinking spectators, who often responded with hearty anti-
Semitic invective. The Cabaret of the Nameless played to full
houses almost into the Nazi period. Elow, the peripatetic
imp, ended up in Hollywood, where he vanished into
American show-biz obscurity, leaving behind just an archive
of his Berlin press clippings.

Grit and Ina van Elben’s dancing-machine at the Tingel-

Tangel, 1931
 The Erotic Revue

In the mid-Twenties, erotic revue, another Ziegfeld

invention, supplanted cabaret as Berlin’s stylish Jazz Age
destination. It combined the lavish features of operetta and
Music Hall in the old cabaret format. Like the variety show,
its principal competitor, the program of the revue unfolded
in episodic set pieces. Olio acts followed spectacle numbers;
comic interludes punctuated the space between extravagant
choreographic and musical displays. In the revue, however,
an underlying aesthetic and dramatic thesis held the
evening together. A single team of creators assembled and
molded the production. Foreign dance troupes or renowned
starlets could be dropped into the show at any time, but
their independent routines had to further the revue’s “plot.”

Although conceived in Paris and New York, the erotic revue

blossomed in sensation-hungry Berlin. It was mammoth,
hectically paced, thoroughly cosmopolitan, and oozed Girl-
Culture sex. Berliners flocked to the revue-palaces, bought
the Tin Pan Alleyish recordings, marveled at the chorus girls’
legs (which became iconic images in

The Tiller Girls

the pictorial monthlies). Revues were a testament to Berlin
sophistication—what other city had its own
Gesamtkunstwerk erotica? But the revue structure also
spoke, in a subterranean way, to the Germanic need to
control desire through objectification and derision.

Each of the eight major revue-theatres had its own distinct

appeal and style of presentation. One was noted for its
exquisite dance numbers and kaleidoscopic scenery; one
hired better composers and Schnauzer lyricists; another
veered to the experimental or hot topical issues; still
another was famed for using only glamorous Girl-Groups
from aboard. But no revue-producer was more detested by
his colleagues or more beloved by the voyeuristic public
than James Klein, who excelled in mounting season after
season of hit shows blanketed with excessive amounts of
gratuitous female nudity.
 A typical James Klein Revue began with a simple dramatic
premise: an obese Oriental prince learns that he will be
disinherited in five years if he does not marry and produce
male heirs. (Big naked harem number.) The chubby,
disgruntled simp immediately enlists his lackey Cohen
(incidentally all the revue directors were Jewish) to find the
finest specimen of raw feminine beauty on the entire planet.
Cohen then subcontracts the onerous task to two Berlin
playboys, who obediently traverse the world’s fleshpots in
order to win the million (post-inflationary) mark reward.
Their journey takes them to every continent, although the
nude aboriginals are always milky-white and look
suspiciously French, with stopovers in Berlin’s Kietz and a
heavenly apparition of 74 perky, rouged breasts. (Count
‘em!)
Scala Revue Girl
 The 1929 depression brought down the curtains on Klein’s
erotic dreamscapes. His last show was titled Goddamnit!
1,000 Naked Women!, which might have been a tad
ambitious. Klein remained in Berlin in the Thirties, contented
that he avoided his creditors and bankruptcy proceedings.
Nothing is known about his fate afterwards. It was assumed
that he fell victim to the Nazi genocide.

Futuristic fashions from Klein’s Everyone Naked, 1927

Klein’s fellow revue-directors lost their theatres as well

during the economic tailspin. Yet the hard-partying denizens
of Berlin were unfazed. They discovered a new venue for
their pursuit of the extraordinary: environmental restaurants
and Gargantuan nightclub retreats.
 Theme Restaurants and Pleasure
Palaces

In 1932, the city of Berlin approved licenses for 119

“luxury-class” nightclubs, 400 bars or Dielen, and 20,000
restaurants. This meant Weimar Berlin had one dining
establishment for every 280 residents (the ratio in New York
City in that year was 1 to 433). For the most part, the food in
Berlin was not of great interest to the non-German tourists;
Paris, Vienna, and Rome satisfied that craving in spades.
Instead, Berlin had dozens of “theme” and “event”
restaurants. They rivaled the cabarets and revue-houses in
popularity.
James-Klein Revue program cover, Take It Off!, 1928

One unusual joint was the “Hackepeter,” north of the Alex.

Named after the Rheinish specialty (chopped raw pork and
minced onion drizzled in hot, bubbling lard), the restaurant
featured a “Hunger Artist.” Encased in a sealed glass booth,
Jolly sat in his underwear and chain-smoked cigarettes. Two
funeral-attired “observers” alternated during the 24-hour
proceedings, ensuring no food ever graced the hunger
artist’s lips. During dining hours, a midget announced the
number of days and hours that Jolly fasted in his binge of
voluntary starvation. Usually the Hackepeter regulars
showed their appreciation by tapping against beer steins
with their greasy utensils.
G. Breuer-Courth, She Admires Her Beauty

Besides being an object of carnival-like fascination, Jolly

was also considered a romantic idol. Starry-eyed Nuttes
came to the Hackepeter just to marvel at their unshaven
prince-in-a-cage. (Male columnists thought he looked more
like a frozen lizard than a hunk.) Among the worshipping
female hordes was the young American heiress, Evelyn
Rockefeller. In a lovesick plea leaked to the press, Evelyn
proposed immediate marriage, a Monte Carlo honeymoon,
and eventual retirement on her New York estate.

In March 1926, Jolly completed a 44-day fast, surpassing

all known records. To celebrate, Lotte Schulze, the
Hackepeter’s owner and a war widow, invited the entire
corps of city-desk editors to a sumptuous banquet of
Rheinish delicacies. Jolly’s observers and the midget joined
in the festivities but the champion hunger artist absented
himself. He was with Evelyn.

At the end of the month, Jolly rejoined his place at the

Hackepeter and issued a public statement, rejecting the
millionairess’ marital offer. Jolly maintained that he had
fallen into a deep “spiritual depression” after his 44-day
ordeal, which was why he foolishly agreed to the
engagement in the first place. Jolly since realized that no
hunger artist can both wed and be true to his calling.

The Berlin journalist Adolf Stein (a.k.a. Rumpelstilzchen)

thought Jolly changed his mind once more, years later, and
followed Evelyn to her Long Island mansion. Where Jolly—
and Evelyn—really wound up is unclear, since Evelyn’s
name does not show up in the Rockefeller dynasty’s family
tree (as far as I can tell) or in the New York Social Registry of
the period.
Jolly on display

The theatricalization (or eroticization) of Berlin restaurants

took many peculiar forms. “Heaven and Hell” dropped the
two afterlife locales side by side, like movie-sets, within a
single restaurant-nightclub, supplying separate menus and
styles of service. “Café Braun” masqueraded its help as
world leaders and show-business personalities. The “Quick
Bar” brought a bit of exotic Americana to European shores.
At its oval counter, one could order just milkshakes or
Martinis from a toothy, white-capped soda-jerk. In the Quick
dining hall, breath-taking beauties, incongruously dressed in
Puritan-Shaker outfits, took orders for dubious Blue Plate
Specials.
Manassé, The Unconscious in the Mirror
 Theme-restaurants, nightclubs, and dance halls began to
overlap in the Twenties to form the newest enclaves of
Berlin’s nonstop action. But among the fortresses of Girl-
Culture, still anoaher modern concept was added to the
glamorous melange, the department store. Instead of
cabbing from Diele to restaurant to nightclub, one could
experience everything in a single, multi-leveled building.
Two of these Pleasure-Palaces became world-renowned,
“Haus Vaterland” and the “Resi.”

Occupying an entire city block, Haus Vaterland radiated

modernism. Like a still from Metropolis, the domed roof of
Vaterland was crowned with a Futuristic ring of neon bands.
The arresting sight was said to resemble the head of a giant
phallus. Inside its five floors were twelve
restaurant-“environments” and a separate variety house.
The Vaterland issued its own magazine, The Berolina, and
could accommodate 6,000 patrons at any given hour.
Lutz Ehrenberger, At the Nightclub Heaven and Hell
 The twelve dining arenas were devoted to international
and provincial cultures—mostly fabricated—and appropriate
culinary spreads. One could select from Turkish, Bavarian,
Spanish, Viennese, Baden, Rheinish, Japanese, North
German, Italian, Hungarian, Prussian, or American cuisines.
And the amusements were site-specific too. The glittering
motto of the Vaterland illuminated the Potsdamer Platz
entrance, “Every Nation Under One Roof!”

Images of Haus Vaterland

 The theatricalization in Haus Vaterland was extreme. For
instance, in the Rhineland Wine Terrace, an artificial river
flowed at the edges of a 70-foot panorama of the Rheinish
countryside and a castle ruins. Stationed inside the mock
fortification stood a student a cappella group, the “Cologne
Boys.” For 55 minutes of each hour, the Terrace was bathed
in sweet synthetic sunshine; suddenly, on the hour, the
music stopped and “the Storm on the Rhine,” a five-minute
environmental “event,” started up. First, an ominous cloud-
cover darkened the entire room—so dark that partygoers
couldn’t even locate the sauerkraut on their plates. Charges
of simulated lightning and a huge clap of thunder
resounded. Then a mechanically operated rain shower swept
across the entire vine-garlanded enclosure. The “Storm”
concluded with a blinding sunburst from a battery of electric
apparatuses and a cheery rainbow. These five minutes were
said to be the best theatre in Berlin.

The Resi offered another kind of diversion. It was an

interactive pickup bar-cum-wired nightclub. Designed in
another monstrous Baroque style, Montmartre Music Hall
crossed with UFA spaceship, the Resi sported several tiers of
dining, dancing, and infantile play. One of its many ceilings
was a motorized glass dome, painted with images of
squawking birds and exotic flora. Mechanical geysers
erupted with three-foot streams of sparkling, dyed water and
100 mirrored-balls continuously revolved and then split
open, like welcoming orchids, when the overhead lights
went down. There was a downstairs private rendezvous
wine-room, competing bands and bar counters, a parquet
dance floor for one thousand box-steppers, even a gigantic
“Carousel and Shooting Gallery” for drunken revelers,
attempting to relive adolescent Luna Park memories.
Images of the Resi
 Mostly patrons came to the Resi for its promiscuous
atmosphere and helpful technology. On 150 tables and 50
balcony stations, numbered telephones allowed celebrants
to dial up complete strangers from across the palace and
converse in naughty word-play or whisper instructions which
bar to meet at. Additionally, an ingenious pneumatic
system, built into the Resi handrailings, allowed guests to
send small goodies to potential comrades-of-the-evening. On
request, waiters brought gift-menus. Lovestruck customers
selected from a list of 135 pocket-sized presents, like a
bottle of perfume, cigar-cutter, or travel plan for a secret
weekend (encased in leather). The luxury item was then
placed in a sealed container, rocketed through hidden
pneumatic tubes, and finally landed with a dramatic whoosh
in a basket at the edge of the intended’s table.
 Resi flyers assured the nocturnal public that this was
“Berlin at its most beautiful.” The institution outlasted
Weimar and became a favorite attraction during the 1936
Nazi Olympics. Allied bombers smothered its randy charms
in a devastating nighttime raid in 1944. The last Pleasure-
Palace of Berlin finally imploded. ■
Manassé, Das Magazin, 1931

Along the entire Kurfürstendamm powdered and rouged

young men sauntered and they were not all professionals;
 every high school boy wanted to earn some money and in
the dimly lit bars one might see government officials and
men of the world of finance tenderly courting sailors without
any shame.

Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday, 1943

Berlin has become the paradise of international

homosexuals.

Ilya Ehrenburg, 1931

BERLIN MEANS BOYS

Prussian military garrison for most of its history, Berlin

had long been identified with soldierly “sex inversion” and
homosexual prostitution. The “shame of Berlin” and its “ever
increasing vice”—a subject that caused Lutheran ministers
to contort in apoplectic rage—referred explicitly to uranic (or
homosexual) activity, not to the more prevalent sight of
Beinls carousing in Strichless taverns. 180 years before
Christopher Isherwood bade bittersweet farewell to the city
of smooth-skinned Line-Boys , Berlin had already been
tagged a “bugger’s daydream.”

In the 1750s, Friedrich the Great, the father of modern

Prussia, decreed that his Praetorian Guard must forgo the
august rites of marriage. German women, he proclaimed,
weakened the fighting skills of his Spartan-trained regiment.
Following the example of their chivalrous leader and his
effeminate brother, Prince Heinrich, the Guardsmen turned
to boys for their sexual pleasure—as did much of the
Prussian Officer Corps and the elite cadets from Gross
Lichterfeld, who could wed without dishonor.
A Line-Boy , Der Eigene, 1924

BERLIN GAY TYPES

ANDROGYNES—Highly refined male homosexuals with
distinct feminine features. Often recognized by their
plucked eyebrows, “Belladonna” eyes, face powder,
lipstick, and heavy use of perfume. They sported sleek
Bubikopf or Eton haircuts and modeled themselves after
Rudolf Valentino and Conrad Veidt. AUNTIES—Older,
large-framed gay men. Usually cross-dressers attired in
oversized dressing gowns. [Variant pejorative names:
FAT DADDIES, HAUSFRAUS, MALE MENSTRUATORS, or
PAWNBROKERS.]

BAD BOYS—Mostly 20-year-olds who traveled in packs

of six to eight. Often costumed in garish, leather fetish
outfits. On weekends, they moved from Diele to Diele,
carrying their own stimulants.

BUBES—Handsome, well-built, working-class men.

Typically open-faced and cheery. [Variant names:
BURSCHEN or BUTCHERS.]

BRESLAUERS—Men with large penises. [After the

German city.]

CELLAR-MASTERS—Top men. [Also known as CANAL-

MEN, MOUNTERS, or YOUNG BUCKS.]

COOLIES—[Originally from the Hindi, referring to a low-

working caste.] Older Gymnasium or university students
who hired LINE-BOYS. Frequently claimed to be straight.
DOLL-BOYS—Youngest gay hustlers, from nine years
old to 13. Virtually penniless, most worked solely for
food, cigarettes, or lodging. Favorite hangout was the
Anatomical Museum in the Linden Passage. Estimated
numbers in 1930: 2,000-3,000.

KITTY-RECEIVERS—Bottom men. [Also known as KITTY-

SUCKERS.]

LADIES—Male transvestites. [Variant name: SISTERS.]

LINE-BOYS—[Sometimes translated in British

guidebooks as “Avenue-Boys,” “Trick-Boys,” and “Game-
Boys.”] Teenage male prostitutes, from 15 to 19. Seen
everywhere in Berlin, most conspicuously in gangs of
four or five in fancy hotel lobbies, gay Dielen and bars
near the Alex, and in the Tiergarten. [Also known as
BLUE BOYS and YOUNG LIONS.] Estimated numbers:
20,000-25,000. PISS-ROOM BAIT—Predatory Line-Boy
pimps.

SCHWULEN—Generic slang term for all overtly gay

men. [Variant names: HOT BROTHERS, HOT UNCLES, 1-
7-5ERS (after the infamous paragraph of the German
Penal Code), and SOUTHLANDERS.]
In the Bathroom, 1925

Homosexual attachments were freely acknowledged and

officially tolerated at Berlin’s military academies. It was
rumored that half the Potsdam militia could be found in the
arms of boy prostitutes in the Tiergarten on any Saturday
night. Prussian penal codes formally forbade sodomy, calling
it “purposeless and obsolete,” but its effect on barracks’
couplings or anonymous street encounters was nil.

Throughout the nineteenth century, Berlin acted as a

magnet for pretty German boys from the countryside,
bisexuals, and cross-dressers. The city’s jumbled record on
Strich regulation and its proximity to the garrison
encouraged a growing traffic in Line-Boys and the slow
establishment of a homosexual subculture.

All males at the Marienkasino

By the end of the Wilhelmian era, it was impossible to

ignore Berlin’s distinctive queer nightlife, which suddenly
flaunted its size and diversity. Socialists, advisors to the
Kaiser, schoolboys, federal judges, and pickpockets all
participated in it. (Some to their public disgrace and sorrow.)
In the Friedrichstadt and adjacent neighborhoods alone, one
could count 38 Dielen and cabarets that were devoted to a
same-sex male clientele. (After the Collapse, these numbers
tripled.) Every dreaded vision that the village preachers had
predicted came frightfully true and then some; German-
speaking faggots had found a home and an arena for
experimentation.

Otto Schoff, Boys’ Love, 1925

 The “Homosexual Question”

During the 1860s and 1870s, when the old Napoleonic

and local ordinances were being revised, German doctors
and jurists began to grapple with the physiological and
social issues of “man-to-man love.” The questions they
raised were remarkably prescient

SOCIETY MEN—Outdoorsy and heavily-bearded men.

Mature, over-50-year-olds. Elaborate facial hair. Bears.
SUGAR-LICKERS—Nighttime gay pederasts.

TREE-STUMPS—Middle-aged homosexual clients in

working-class gay Dielen who passively observed the
preening boy trade.

WILD-BOYS—Homeless, 12-to-18-year-old gang

members. Lived and traveled in small groups on the
outskirts of Berlin. Traded sexual favors for cigarettes
and meals in low-class Dielen. Estimated numbers in
1929: 1,500-2,500.
Photograph from Die Insel, 1931
and crucial to the overall development of German sexology
and organized gay life in Berlin.

First, the medical and psychological inquires: Was

homosexual lust an inborn or inherited condition? Were
there “constitutional” portents of the pederast character?
(Many physicians believed then that an unusually tapered
penis or an anus with a funnel-shaped cavity were clear
biological indications of the uranic personality.) Did an
“unhealthy” family dynamic arouse male-bonding and a
physical rejection of female sexuality? Could a lifetime of
same-sex attraction be acquired through brief exposure to
an all-male environment, say, during camping or military
school?

Then the legal issues: Under which circumstances should

sodomy be considered a criminal offense? Only
Christian Schad, On the Corner, 1929

when it involved children? Could homosexual desire be

reversed through medication, behavioral reconditioning,
hypnotic suggestion, or penal threats? And if male seduction
was a premeditated transgression—and not the product of
biological orientation—what punishments were appropriate
and effective?
Sergei Eisenstein, Spoiled Berlin, 1933

In 1871, the judicial aspect of homosexuality was finally

resolved in the new Federal Criminal Code. Germany had
consolidated into a single Wilhelmian state, the Second
Reich, and immediately formalized its statutes and
regulations according to the dictates of the Kaiser’s
Assembly.

Paragraph 175 covered homosexual relationships:

“paracoital” activities between males subjected them or the
“habitual seducer” to imprisonment and fines. (Female-to-
female sex was utterly ignored in the Code.) Unfortunately
for the puritanical German magistrates, the precise meaning
of “paracoital” was left undefined. In the Weimar era, it was
understood to be just anal penetration and “intercrucal
intercourse” (leg and thigh humping). Street-smart Nazi
legislators immediately added oral sex, mutual
masturbation, and other forms of gay sexual contact,
including flirtatious glances, to the Paragraph in 1935. They
also considerably augmented the punishments for second-
time offenders.

GERMAN GAY MAGAZINES

Blätter für Menschenrecht—(“Journal for Human

Rights”), “Official Paper of the League of Human Rights,
‘the Organization of 12,000.’” Motto: “For Truth and
Justice.” Weekly edited by Friedrich Radszuweit, head of
the “German Friendship Union.” Serious publication with
united goals for gay, lesbians, and transvestites.
Alternated between Third-Sex and Libertarian
philosophies. [1922-1929]

Der III Geschlecht, Die Transvestiten—(“The Third

Sex, the Transvestites”), a periodical for “ordinary”
transvestites. Lots of fashion tips. Published by
Radszuweit. [1929]

Die Ehelosen—(“The Unmarried”), unidentified gay

monthly. [1927]

Der Eigene—(“The Exceptional”), “the Journal for Male

Culture,” later “the Newspaper of Friendship and
Freedom.” “A Book for Art and Manly Culture.” First
homosexual periodical in the world. Small intellectual,
but highly influential, periodical edited by Adolf Brand
and Konrad Linke. It contained color drawings,
philosophical essays, photos of nude boys, adventure
stories, and manifestos. Circulation 3,000 to 6,000.
Affiliated with the “Society of the Eigene.”
[Intermittently published from 1899 to 1929.]

Ernst—An artistic journal devoted to boy-love. Poetry,

short stories, and uncommonly hardcore drawings.
Probably influenced in style by Die Schönheit. [circa
1919]

Eros—“Magazine for Friendship and Freedom, Love and

Life-Art.” A gay pictorial edited by Brand. Militant
Homosexualist competitor to Der Insel—[1930-1932]
Extrapost des Eigenen—A continuation of Brand’s Der
Eigene. [1929-1931] Die Fanfare—“The Official Organ
of the Cultural Cartel.” Motto: “For a Liberated
Humanity.” A stylish one-man effort opposed to the
“League of Human Rights.” Gay monthly edited by Curt
Neuburger. [1924-1926]

Der Freund—(“The Friend”) A decoy gay publication of

Der Freundschaft during a brief period of censorship.
[1924-1925]

Die Freundschaft—(“The Friendship”) Motto: “For the

Liberation of Differently-Inclined Men and Women.” First
Weimar paper with nude photographs, openly gay
personals, and advertising. Between 1923-1926, it
functioned as a weekly info sheet for Magnus
Hirschfeld’s Scientific-Humanitarian Committee. Edited
by Karl Schultz. Later a popular monthly. [1919-1933]
 German Gay Responses

Paragraph 175 provoked many political and scientific

responses among German intellectuals and ultimately
galvanized homosexuals in Central Europe to organize for
the protection of their legal rights and communal lifestyle.
(This was two generations before the Stonewall Revolution in
New York.) “One-Seven-Five” gave urgency, new definition,
and a common goal to Germany’s estimated two million gay
men, who otherwise lived in civic isolation from one another.
 From the start, however, bickering over the
“psychogenesis” of their orientation, public persona,
strategic style, political alignment, use of language, attitude
toward women, and sexual tastes divided German queer
leadership. Essentially, three schools of thought emerged:
the Militant Homosexualists, the Third Sexers, and the
Libertarians. Each grouping had its own organizations
(which seemed to change names every half-decade),
periodicals, notion of fair play, artistic sense, and
theoreticians.
 Led by Adolf Brand, the indefatigable editor of Der Eigene,
the Homosexualists envisioned a new Nietzschean
hierarchy, along an imagined, antiquitous Greek
classification. Wise and muscular Aryan pederasts with their
admiring boys headed the Homosexualists’ proposed social
order, followed by grades of straight men, based on
physiognomy, racial purity, and intelligence; then women.
(These lessers were necessary for replenishing the race.) At
the very bottom were effeminate men—the sexually
enfeebled, the sissies and cross-dressers, all those who gave
sodomy its reviled façade of weakness, narcissism, and
emotional hysteria.
Popular account of gay prostitution in Berlin, Men for Sale,
1932

The Third Sexers attempted to explain homosexuality as a

normal genetic phenomenon. Men with “female souls”—and
women with male sexual dispositions—were normal
“miscues” in the process of natural selection. Rather than
pathological beings, homosexuals formed a “Third Sex,”
neither “full man nor full woman.” According to Magnus
Hirschfeld, Berlin’s renowned sexologist and human rights
leader, gay men and women inhabited an “intermediary”
zone on the wide spectrum of human sexuality. In the radical
ideology of the Third Sexers, all sexual behavior (which
involved consenting adults) was worthy of individual respect
and state protection.

Der Eigene cover

Die Freundschaftblatt—(“The Friendship Paper”)

Libertarian journal for the umbrella gay organization,
“German Friendship Society.” Published by Radszuweit.
Short-lived, sister publication in Chicago was titled
Friendship and Freedom. [1920-1933]

Freundschaft und Freiheit—(“Friendship and

Freedom”) “A Paper for Male Rights Against Bourgeois
Morality, Clerical Authority, and Female Rule.”
Homosexualist monthly edited by Brand. Later
incorporated into Der Freundschaft. [1921-1922]

Der Führer—(“The Leader”) Another Homosexualist

monthly. [1923]

Hellabote—(“Greek Messenger”) “For a Liberated

Humanity Against Injustice and Ignorance.” Liberal
homosexual monthly edited by Hans Kahnert, a former
writer from Der Freundschaft. [1923-1925]
 The Libertarians, the vast majority of Germany’s gay men
and women, followed neither the Nationalist nor
International-Socialist rhetoric of Brand and Hirschfeld.
Represented by Friedrich Radszuweit, an organizer from
Hamburg and Al Goldstein-like publisher, they pursued their
same-sex endeavors through social ties and apolitical
means. Other than working for the abolition of Paragraph
175 and related censorship laws, the Libertarians eschewed
the superheated cauldron of Weimar politics. Relatively few
dabbled in reactionary or progressive causes and then only
as German voters who happened to love members of their
own sex.
Marcel Vertès, Parisian Night at the Lokal
 “Origins” of Homosexuality

While Brand, Hirschfeld, and Radszuweit conducted a

battle royale for the allegiance and support of Germany’s
gay community and its many sympathizers, straight
psychologists in Berlin promulgated their own theories
which they thought explained the baffling origins of adult
male-to-male desire. Strict Freudians acknowledged the
innate bisexual nature of the human organism; homosexual
feeling was a normal and short phase in a healthy boy’s
development. For those who never outgrew the emotional
stage, the Freudians subscribed to a flipped formulation of
the master’s prized Oedipus complex: Growing up in the
household of a domineering mother, the budding
homosexual over- identifies with his emasculated or absent
father. After puberty, the boy projects his own image onto
his male consort as he unconsciously performs the double
role of a sexually caring mother.
Renée Sintenis, Boys, 1923
Der Insel—(“The Island”) Libertarian monthly published
by Radszuweit. Featured provocative photos, gay fiction
and news, and ads for gay books and “massage
services,” personals, and Dielen. Largest queer
periodical with a print run of 150,000. Originally “Island
of the Lonely” section from the Blätter für
Menschenrecht. Brother zine to the lesbian Die Freundin.
[1925-1932]

Der Kreise—(“The Circle”) Swiss gay intellectual

journal, which outlasted the Weimar and Nazi eras. Good
source for exile queer literature and postwar ideology.
[First year 1932]

Der Merkur—(“The Mercury”) Literary gay monthly.

[1922]

Mitteilungen des WhK—(“Bulletin of the S-H C”) News

periodical of Hirschfeld’s Scientific-Humanitarian
Committee. [1926-1933]

Neue Freundschaft—(“New Friendship”) “Weekly for

Friendship, Pictures and Enlightenment.” “Organ of the
German Friendship League.” Edited by Max H.
Danielsen, a former editor of Der Freundschaft. [1928]

Phoebus-Bilderschau—Gay pictorial magazine from

the Phoebus Verlag. Edited by Kurt Eitelbuss. [1927-
1929]

Rundbrief—(“Round Letter”) Homosexual literary

journal. [1932]
Die Sonne—(“The Sun”) Queer monthly from Hamburg.
[1920-1921]

Der Strom—(“The Stream”) Politically-radical gay

monthly. [1920]

Die Tante—(“The Auntie”) An offprint of Der Eigene. For

Aunties. Filled with anti-Hirschfeld invective. [1924-
-1925]

Uranos—Literary gay journal edited by René Stelter.

Later merged with Der Freundschaft. [1922-1927]

Wochenblatt für Aufklärung und gesitige Hebung

der idealen Freundschaft—(“Weekly Paper for the
Enlightenment and Contemporary Improvement of Ideal
Friendship”), gay newspaper with Third-Sex orientation.
Edited by Schultz. [1919-1922]
Hildebrand, The Inspection
 Disciples of Wilhelm Stekel took a more primitive
psychoanalytic approach. Homosexuality was quite simply
the penultimate rejection of women, a reaction formation
against oedipal cravings and traumatic memories of a
parent’s coital activity. Adlerians, of course, saw same-sex
love as an advanced tactic to attain power and status. In
their analysis, the physically weak boy discovers that his
self-ideal of superiority cannot be based on normal feelings
of masculinity and aggression. He learns to assert himself
sexually by exciting and controlling other homosexuals.

Wilhelm Reich, who arrived in Berlin in 1930, advanced an

even more hostile psychogenetic theory. The Passive-
Feminine Homosexual (“Subject Homosexual”) reacts to the
hysteria of his mother through passivity and an
identification with female sexuality. Contaminated by an
emotionally-inert emotional core, he deals badly in daily
interaction, which typically manifests itself in a pronounced
weakness of body movement (especially in the shoulders
and arms). The Aristocratic Homosexual (“Object
Homosexual”) develops a different character armoring—
corporal rigidity and hyper-aggressive behavior. Each
struggles with the hidden fear that his father will one day
savagely punish him for his inadequate heterosexual
longings.

Even Carl Jung, working in faraway Switzerland, saw

homosexuality in a negative light as well. He believed that
the perverse attitude began with an over-protective mother
(“the Female Shadow”) who sexually tied her image to a
confused and desperately insecure infant son. The boy
would be condemned to discover that true fidelity to his
mother meant sexual avoidance of all other females later in
life and sexual congress only with men.
Ernst Gerhard, Friends, 1925

Interestingly, the psychoanalytic and related

psychogenetic theories—largely because of their straight
and Jewish associations—were ignored by Berlin’s queers,
who appeared content with their orientation. Only anxious
bisexual men and fellow social scientists showed obvious
interest.
Hildebrand, The Dinner
 Homosexual Life in Weimar Berlin

The idyllic gay portrait of dapper German Army officers in

capes and peaked caps transfixed by demure Line-Boys on
the Tiergarten benches disappeared from view in 1919. It
was beggars who retained the combat dress of the defeated
army. Berlin’s gay community at the beginning of Weimar
adopted a different wardrobe, the sailor’s blouse and cap
(alongside the tailored morning-coat of the perfumed
dandy). In homosexual Dielen, middle-aged Sugar-Lickers ,
Coolies, Doll-Boys , even crotchety waiters wore the crisp
blue-and-white insignia of jaunty marines on shore leave.
The change of uniform had various meanings. Partly, it was
matter of identification—straights didn’t wear them—and
they were a Wilhelmian echo of adolescent androgyny. More
significantly, Berlin’s core homosexual community had
expended far beyond the units of the Potsdam garrison.

In 1922, one of Berlin’s police commissioners estimated

the total number of gay men to be in excess of 100,000 and
teenage male prostitutes (whom he did not consider to be
truly queer) around 25,000. Over the next eight years, the
numbers of resident queers sky-rocketed. Partly because of
more sophisticated polling methods and real growth, the
homosexual populace was determined to be over 350,000
by 1930.
 Unlike Berlin’s lesbians, the gay community was
noticeably invisible during daytime hours. At various times,
homosexual men supported a gay-themed playhouse, “The
Theatre of Eros,” a bowling league, stamp-collecting society,
poetry readings, and a handful of other artistic enterprises,
but mostly closed-door, nighttime venues, like winter-balls,
cabarets, dance halls and Dielen were their traditional
haunts. Berlin queers lacked a resolute sense of political and
social cohesion, despite the intensive efforts by the
Homosexualist and Third-Sex organizers. (Probably less than
ten percent belonged to all-male clubs.) Fear of public
exposure and unadorned hedonistic concerns guided the
majority of deviant lifestyles.

Hildebrand, On the Town

Schad, Zauberflote, 1930
 A former Line-Boy , only identified as “Erich” in an
interview conducted in 1978 (and later transcribed in Gay
Voices from East Germany), recalled the closeted, if
exhilarating, times:

Amateur fantasy drawing

In the Twenties there was scarcely an occupational group

that was not represented at the famous drag balls in the big
Berlin ballrooms. We “simple lads” came dressed as Asta
Nielsen or Henny Porten [European film stars] and let
ourselves be served champagne by coarse, cursing taxi
drivers or man-servants. It was part of the craziness of the
setting that these tough servants and taxi drivers
exchanged their gear next morning for the judge’s robe or
the doctor’s white coat. It even happened that an “Asta”
would be sent to the clink for shoplifting a week later by her
“manservant.”

The Linden-Passage at Friedrichstrasse corner

Erich likened Weimar to a mad carousel ride, where

centrifugal forces blew some youthful participants into the
gutter, while other teenage daredevils leaped on the
treacherous merry-go-round to replace them.

Still, the sexcapades of homosexuals more than rivaled the

piquant Bummels of the het Girl-Culture. For some straight
Berliners, queer promiscuity and sexual bravado was a
cause for envy and erotic introspection. Curt Riess captured
this covetous relationship sardonically in his Berlin memoirs.
Two distinguished-looking men at a table in the Nachtlokal
“Schwannecke”:

Walter Steinthal (editor of the 12-Uhr Blatt and a

famous womanizer), “I could see myself fucking a boy.
But he’d have to be young. Fourteen or fifteen.”

Hans Heinrich von Twardowsky (a flamboyant gay

actor), “Why not?”

Steinthal: “He would have to be a natural blonde.” Von

Twardowsky: “Why not?”

Steinthal: “And he couldn’t have too much hair on his

body.”

Von Twardowsky (staring at Steinthal in icy disgust

before making a fast exit): “Goddamnit, man, you might
as well fuck a woman!”
 Wandervogel and the Wild-Boys

Implied and overt forms of male homosexuality, of course,

had other public outlets in Berlin. The military, the elite
Gymnasiums and academies, the Life Reform (or
Nacktkultur) movement were all embroiled in florid
accusations of male pederasty and sex scandal throughout
the Wilhelmian era. But one mass association in particular
was thought to be rife with man-boy love: the unique
German Youth Movement known as the Wandervogel
(“Wandering Bird”).

Winnetou, Wild-Boy Chieftain of the Wild and Free gang,

1932
 Although it resembled the Anglo-Saxon Boy Scouts in
popularity and appearance, the Wandervogel, astonishingly,
evolved in a strange Pied Piper fashion. This was an
overnight phenomenon, created by male teens for male
teens. Its institutional founding took place in the Berlin
suburb of Steglitz in 1896 and grew exponentially across the
nation for the next 35 years.

A product of Pan-German and Naturalist sentiments, the

Wandervogels proselytized a Romantic back-to-nature
doctrine, railing against deleterious urban lifestyles and the
consumption of alcohol and meat. Forty-kilometer hikes over
mountainous paths, the robust singing of German folk
ballads, countryside overnights, and frolicking male
camaraderie were the signature activities of the
Wandervogel. Curiously, the steadfast movement eschewed
politics. But its appeal just before the Great War struck a
deep patriotic chord. Nationalist, Catholic, and Socialist
leaders fielded their own Wandervogels with separate flags,
anthems, and uniforms. Five years into the Weimar period,
Nazi, Red Front, and German Zionist organizations also
created corresponding versions of bronzed warrior-youths,
marching in place. These ideologically opposed squadrons of
husky German teenagers often crossed paths in desolate
terrains and pitched camp within bonfire sight of one
another.

Despite its wholesome image, the Wandervogel movement

could not avoid the stigma of male-to-male sex and gay
seduction. In fact, the original organization nearly expired
when one of its adult chaperones was accused of being a
supporter of Der Eigene’s Militant Homosexualist philosophy.
The counselor quickly resigned and some all-female units of
Wandervogel were hastily assembled but neither action
really cooled the sexually-charged atmosphere. The entire
Wandervogel experience, according to the autobiographies
of its precocious founders, was shot through with homoerotic
tension.

Even more obviously gay were the Wild-Boys , teenaged

members of anti-social gangs that lived in the outlying
districts of Berlin. Working in groups of six or eight, these
14- to 18-year-old runaways established Peter Pan-like
encampments in park sites, warehouses, and abandoned
apartments. Led by punkish-dressed chieftains called
“Bulls,” each Wild-Boy association had its own elaborate
blood-oaths and ceremonies of ritualized sex.

Typically, a young initiate would forced to box (or knife-

fight) with the toughest member of the crew, be gang-raped
while bound and gagged, ordered to masturbate publicly
and then ejaculate on command, or act as a living commode
for his drunken associates. Some newly-inducted boys were
chosen by the Bulls as their “queens” or designated shared
“girlfriends” for the pack. Most Wild-Boys sported pirate-
style earrings and garish tattoos. While the majority of
gangs flaunted their ragtag, hobo garb, others paraded
around in distinctive group costumes, like top hats and
shabby tuxedoes, American trapper outfits, college
graduates in mortar-boards, or paper buffalo heads. The
gang names alone testified to the influence of Karl May’s
North American frontier novels and other staples of German
pulp fiction: “Fear No Death,” “Indian Blood,” “The Forest
Pirates,” “Wild West,” “Girl-Shy,” “Santa Fe,” “Gypsy Love,”
“The Dirty Boys,” “Red Apaches.”
Winnetou’s Queen
Wild and Free’s Test of Strength, 1932

The Wild-Boys subsisted through a host of criminal

enterprises, mostly cat burglary, smash-and-grab robberies,
car theft, and unglamorous forms of boy prostitution. Boosts
(unscrupulous proprietors of low dives) procured the
services of the prettiest and youngest of gangs for Sucker-
Lickers seeking passive Kitty-Receivers . Other 14- and 15-
year-olds were sent out independently by the Bulls for a
Bummel on the Alex Kietz. Although sometimes confused
with eccentric Wandervogel groups by the Polenta, the
authentic Wild-Boys —200 crews in Berlin North alone—fell
seamlessly into the city’s notorious gay demi-monde.
 Daniel Guérin, a French gay anarchist, visited a Wild-Boy
outing near Berlin’s Lake Lehnitz in September 1932. There
he interviewed Winnetou, the group’s Bull, and recorded
Wild-Free’s campfire pastimes and initiation rites (Vu, “A
Return to Barbarism,” March 8, 1933). Winnetou gamely
explained to the foreign journalist his sado-sexual ethos:
occasionally, naked newcomers were tied to the tops of trees
and violated with phallic-looking sticks; other times the
would-be nomads were gangbanged on Stoszsofas, or fuck
couches.

Remarkably, the sociopathic Winnetou showed up on a

Berlin thoroughfare one year after the Vu tête-à-tête. Then
he had the familiar bearings of a menacing Nazi tough.
Winnetou, however, recognized one of Guérin’s left-wing
colleagues and greeted her warmly as his old happy-go-
lucky, Wild-Boy self.

Wild-Boy sexual initiation

 Male Prostitution

The enormous volume of sex-traffic in boys and very

young men differentiated Berlin from all previous centers of
debauchery and “decadent” tourism. Nearly every Western
metropolis in the interwar period, naturally, had a
substantial number of clandestine homosexual bars and
backstreet arenas where gay men could secure the
ministrations of male prostitutes. Hamburg, in 1930 for
example, claimed the second greatest concentration of Line-
Boys in Europe at 5,000 strong and growing. But Berlin, the
acknowledged leader then, had at least seven times that
many; a figure which, according to the calculations of its
vice commissioners, was also growing by the month.

Christopher Isherwood wasn’t exaggerating when he

wrote, “Berlin meant boys.”
Amateur photo, The White Linen Shorts
Guy de Laurence, The Lust House of Boys, 1922

Most foreigners attributed the spread of male prostitution

to the Republic’s fiscal malaise and political failure to stem
the plummeting employment rate among Germany’s
unskilled laborers. The congested corners of rowdy Wild-
Boys, Bubes (or “Butchers”), Line-Boys , and Doll-Boys in the
Friedrichstadt, to them, was only one appalling symptom of
the national moral collapse. Others saw a link to Berlin’s
female prostitution problem: young whores were constantly
introducing their junior male siblings into the lurid
profession. While both theories contained a bit of dismal
truth, municipal statistics, in general, supported neither the
economic nor the corrupt familial arguments. Male
prostitution in Berlin continued to swell for a simpler market
reason: the demand for it increased.

Beginning at nine in the morning, hundreds of Line-Boys

were already on the Strich as they waited in and around the
public lavatories of the city’s luxury hotels. British
businessmen were the early morning targets; shy American
tourists in the afternoon, followed by stingy German
provincials before evening hours. By dark, Berlin’s
homosexual Kietz was in full swing. The Tiergarten, the Alex,
and the Linden-Passage were first destinations of Suitors
seeking Doll-Boys (under 14) or run-of-the-mill Line-Boys . In
Berlin South, slightly more mature Wild-Boys and Bubes
were available at gay pick-up Dielen.
Schoff, Boy’s Love

The only quarter identified with adult homosexual trade

was in the West. There, an unknown number of “Massage
Parlors”—around two dozen repeatedly advertised in gay
publications—featured erotic specialties. Like their sister
straight houses to the east and south, the queer Parlors
offered sessions in B&D, flagellation, and costumed roleplay
but with a much greater emphasis on scatological scenes.
While adding variety to the local color, they certainly never
amounted to more than five or ten percent of Berlin’s
wholesale trafficking in male flesh.
 Gay Dielen and Entertainment

The heart of Berlin’s indigenous gay life was its Dielen and
bars. The exact number of these varied from guidebook to
guidebook. The commonly cited figure was 65 or 80. But if
one included restaurant backrooms, unlicensed
Kaschemmen (criminal dives), and lounges that
accommodated separate gay, lesbian, straight, and/or
transvestite patrons, the sum easily doubled.

Many of the Dielen shocked outsiders due to the casual,

unsalacious atmosphere. They were just bare bones pick-up
bars—dimly lighted joints for queers with beers. More
gratifying to tourist tastes, of course, were lounges that
featured human displays of Berlin exotica; “Café Monbijou”
and the “Dé Dé” both adorned their cabaret platforms with
naked hermaphrodites, who did nothing more than
nonchalantly smoke and smile wanly from their elevated
chairs. The “Lion Cub” Diele, which was decked out as a Wild
West saloon, offered interactive delights. The pumped-up
waiters, or “cubs,” were attired in sailor or butcher-boy
dress. On the menu was a extensive list of international
beers and the names of the service staff. For just a few
pfennig more, one could cop a sensuous feel from the biceps
or hairless chest of a lusty Bube.
In the Field, 1928
 Other gay amusement sites restricted their paying guests
to an identifiable clientele or ones adhering to a special
dress code, like elderly, fat men who dressed in schoolboy’s
knickers or tight-fitting sailor suits. The “Nürenberger Diele”
and the “Kantdiele” catered exclusively to balding
stockbrokers, who spent their picturesque evenings dancing
with “elegant pansies.” At the swanky “Hollandaise”
nightclub, homosexual couples appeared, at first, to be
straight fashion-horses; the men in tuxes, their mates in
understated velvet and pearls. Only at close listening range
could an inexperienced observer unscramble the daunting
gender puzzle.

Each Diele and ballroom had its little quirks and protocols.
Isherwood immortalized one of them, the “Cosy Corner,” in
his series of “Berlin Stories” and increasingly confessional
memoirs. Between 1929 and 1933, the expatriate Isherwood
became obsessed with the bar and its denizens. He talked
about it in London and Paris, wrote about it, and made it the
first point of interest for his queer colleagues touring Berlin.
Even the incorrigible bisexual occultist Aleister Crowley was
dragged there by Isherwood. Within a moment of entering
the Cosy Corner, the “wickedest man in the world” walked
up to one of the open-shirted Bubes and clawed the boy’s
chest with his razor-sharp talons. A horrified Isherwood
immediately persuaded Crowley to offer the tough some
money before they made a fast getaway. On the street, both
were relieved; Isherwood because his quick thinking
prevented a retaliatory assault, and Crowley because he
made his indelible mark on the “City of Satan.” ■
Margit Toth, Hot Sisters

Lesbian emotional needs are truly inordinate. They build a

world of their own—in their houses, in their lounges, in their
 literature, and especially in their love practices. Lesbian
desires reel over stars, aromas, sounds, and luminous colors.
Caresses of soft and pliant hands, nail and tooth, soft bites
and pulling of hair, and finally, after great tension, an utter
free-fall and drowning until their own egos are dissolved into
a moment of measureless bliss.

Ruth Roellig, Lesbians and Female Transvestites, 1929

“We are the New Spirit.

We do it with Brazenness.”

Sign above the ladies room in the Toppkeller, 1930

HOT SISTERS

Before the First World War, a rigid classification of lesbian

types was already well established in the Central European
mind. Frumpy, sexless aunts, monstrously ugly town gossips,
and man-hating adventuresses—each understood to be a
tribadic archetypal figure—appeared with some frequency in
the popular fiction and stage melodrama of Berlin and
Vienna. These images of unmarried females were repeated,
with shocking naiveté, in widely-published psychological
portraits that examined urban dementia and female
criminology. Even among the new breed of sexologists, the
spectrum of lesbian behavior was grossly delimited to the
freakish, the misguided, and the intentionally perverse.

The characterology of non-heterosexual women followed a

common delineation, beginning with the Constitutional
Lesbian. A hormonally unbalanced matron, the
Constitutional Lesbian was immediately recognized by her
shapeless contours and unflattering mixed-gendered
apparel. Depending on the grotesqueness of her body and
degree of sexual inertia, she could be a harmless “Old Maid”
or the trouble-making Tadpole, an embittered mannish
concoction with facial hair and a destructive revolutionary
disposition.
A Garçonne, 1928
 BERLIN LESBIAN TYPES

BUBIS—Masculine, or butch women. Often wore male

clothing, especially fedoras and leather ties. Recognized
by their long leather coats in winter and ubiquitous
cigars. Some Bubis sported delicately drawn
“mustaches” (imitating Spanish aristocratic women).
Reputed to be the best automobile drivers in Berlin.
Attracted to Mädis, who referred to them as Daddies.

DODOS—Tuxedoed, sophisticated power women.

Identified by their immaculately coiffed dark, curly hair,
which hung loose, Gypsy style (called Titus-kopfs). Their
faces powdered ivory-white, they often wore horn-
rimmed eyeglasses or monocles. Serious and ironic.
Attracted to Garçonnes.

GAMINES—Pert, saucy femmes. Usually attired in

exaggerated French street urchin clothing when
clubbing.

GARÇONNES—Young women with Bubikopf haircuts and

shaved, penciled-in eyebrows. Stylishly dressed in
French male fashions. Had their own weekly magazine,
Garçonne; motto: “For Friendship, Love, and Sexual
Enlightenment.” [Also known as BACHELORETTES or
HANSIS.]

GIRL-FRIENDS—Generic name for homosexual women.

[Variants: HOT SISTERS.]
 GOUGNETTES—[From French underworld argot]
Expensive lesbian callgirls, who appealed to both
genders. Found in many lesbian clubs and fancy tourist
hotels in the Friedrichstadt.

HOT WHORES—Heavily made-up professional prostitutes

who serviced only female clients. Frequently seen on
barstools in lesbian lounges, facing the dance floor with
a vacant stare and long cigarette-holders in their hands.
[Variant name: SALVATION ARMY GIRLS.]

MÄDIS—Ultrafemmes. [Variants: LADIES, LITTLE MEN, or

SWEET MOMMIES.]

SHARPERS—Sexually aggressive but refined and

socially well-positioned Bubis. Characterized by their
androgynous “Diana” features. Exhibited a perverse
taste for confused, working-class Mädis. A staple of
lesbian romantic fiction. [Known as SCORPIONS in the
Wilhelmian and Inflation periods.]

TADPOLES—Unattractive, career Bubis. Defined by their

shapeless exteriors, mannish attire, and facial hair.
Tadpole sexuality was often sublimated into progressive
social causes and artistic pursuits.

A second variety, the Situational Lesbian, provided more

hope for social redemption and visual appeal. This included
young bourgeois women who, during their wayward
adolescence, were cloistered away from normal social
interaction with virile males. Those extended periods of
female isolation (particularly in all-girl boarding schools or
sinister nunneries) and exposure to the teachings of
predatory lesbians were thought to pervert the girls’ natural
inclination for heterosexual courtship and marital happiness.
Petty female criminals and prostitutes as well were prey to
sexual inversion due to long-term male mistreatment and a
learned contempt for societal mores. (At least, these types
could be saved with sympathetic instruction and the
adornment of proper female attire.)
A Gougnette, 1926
 Finally, there was the Scorpion—a hopelessly evil femme
fatale who took sick delight in the corruption of unworldly,
ego-shattered girls. The menacing Scorpion was a made-up
vampire who not only enjoyed the taste of virgin blood but
the creation of man-hating progeny—“When she walked into
the room, all the young women knew they were in abject
moral danger!” The Scorpion was more than a defiling
agent, a succubus who castrated men without their
knowledge or physical presence, she was the living symbol
of a new social order without erotic boundaries or familial
conventions. Now heterosexual men had an additional day-
to-day worry: sexual competition from females—especially
from haughty aristocrats (particularly those with mixed
Spanish or French lineage), vengeful widows recently
returned from Paris or Budapest, and overly attentive
Bohemian artistes.
A 17-year-old Mädi, 1931
The artist Renée Sintenis and a Hot Sister
 A German-Speaking Lesbos

Around 1917, in the third year of the Great War, the

iconography of lesbian life in Berlin underwent a sea
change; suddenly, male graphic artists and writers
presented women with same-sex cravings as desirable and
darkly exotic. What was once universally considered
sexually repulsive or threatening now provided an erotic jolt
for heterosexuals, an amusing if mysterious (and therefore
titillating) insight into another form of female sexuality. It
was as if the lush German South Seas colonies—already lost
in the war, together with their dusky, bare-breasted maidens
—had come home to Berlin, an emotionally unsettled city,
waiting for new voyeurist sensations.

Female secretaries, clerks, and daughters of shopkeepers,

most of whom never even heard the word “Sapphic” before,
started to spend sisterly time with one another, especially at
night. An erotic community, independent of and
unconcerned with men’s desires, was coalescing in the
center of Europe. Interestingly, after the Armistice, foreign
journalists remarked that post-Wilhelmian Berlin seemed
different, that whole sections of the city, especially in the
West and South, appeared to be devoid of sexually potent
males, if one excluded pimps and other criminal riff-raff.
Kamm, The Sharper
 Paris and Berlin

Long before Berlin’s lesbian heyday, turn-of-the-century

Paris had infamous same-sex female bars and clubs, mostly
tucked away in the Montmartre distinct, and chic balls where
top-hatted women flaunted their tribadic lifestyles with
shocking nonchalance. In fact, before the Collapse, Berlin
lesbians looked to Paris as a cultural Mecca, a mythic capital
of elegant liberation and delicious sexual ambiguity. French
idioms, often mixed with Apache argot, haute street-urchin
fashion, and teasing representations of Parisian female
beauty percolated through the German queer nightlife in
the early Twenties. But, by 1924, everything became
reversed: it was the Parisian lesbians who longed for the
freedom and sexual chaos of Berlin. The international center
of female homosexuality slid eastward and changed
languages.
Karl Arnold, Which Door? 1925

Lesbian Novel, The Clever Young Women, 1927

 Trends in sexual behavior sometimes evolve in half-year
cycles but the topography of lust rarely budges in any one
decade. So the transformation from Paris to Berlin as the
playground for women seeking the love of other women can
only be described as extraordinary and unprecedented. Of
course, Berlin’s growing status as a Hauptstadt of
commercial sex had a part in it. Yet other factors should be
considered.

A Dodo
Schad, On the Bed, 1927
 Berlin, the Lesbian Eldorado

Like its male counterpart, Berlin’s lesbian population was

said to be enormous, large enough to support several dozen
social clubs, two ice-skating leagues, a nudist retreat and
three outdoor sports associations, six journals, and (as the
guide books in the tourist hotels proudly announced) 85
nightclubs and lounges. But exactly how many women
actively participated in Berlin’s lesbian subculture is difficult
to assess. Magnus Hirschfeld estimated in 1930 that Berlin
was home to some 400,000 lesbians, but that figure appears
to be grossly inflated if we adhere to current definitions of
sexual orientation. (Today not every female who engages in
a short-term, same-sex relationship would accept the lesbian
tag.)

Based on other criteria, like club memberships and

magazine subscriptions, the number of Hot Sisters in Berlin
(excluding Kontroll-Girls and Chontes) was closer to 85,000.
Paris, in the same years, could never tally more than 5,000
lesbians—again if one discounts female street prostitutes, of
whom 25% were said to be constitutionally (or situationally)
homosexual.

Nearly every social class and profession that allowed

women was represented in the Berlin all-girl queer
subculture. While most lesbians were employed in typically
straight industries like government, publishing,
entertainment, manufacturing, fashion, advertising, low-
level commerce, and education, many worked exclusively in
establishments that catered only to their own community. In
other European cities, lesbianism was a choice allotted to
just the very wealthy, glamorous, or patently avant-garde; in
Berlin, any woman could pursue a same-sex lifestyle and
find thousands of like-minded partners. Never in European
history had women seeking the companionship of other
women been so open and adventurous.

Hellmuth Stockmann, Lesbian Joy, 1920

Mammen, At the Bar (Salvation Army Girls), 1926
 The German penchant for classification and uniforms
further differentiated the Berlin lesbian milieu. Bubis, Dodos,
Gamines, Garçonnes, Gougnettes, Hot Whores, Mädis, and
Sharpers were the expressive orders tha one was supposed
to inhabit by reason of sexual outlook and sexual affect. And
even those types contained distinctive categories based on
class status, political affiliation, perceived affluence,
romantic interest, and appearance. The lesbian Dielen and
associations, for the most part, appealed to specific
couplings, for instance, only Dodos and Garçonnes, Sharpers
and underclass Mädis, or like-minded Gamines.

LESBIAN SOCIAL CLUBS

“CLUB MONBIJOU OF THE WEST”—An organization

of six hundred Garçonnes. Its headquarters was MALI
AND INGEL, which they attended on weekdays. [For one-
year the Monbijou Westies met at the HOHENZOLLERN
LOUNGE.] Only chi-chi fashion-conscious Garçonnes
were eligible for membership status. Tickets for the
Monbijou West’s two annual winter balls at the Scala
Variety theatre were said to be the most sought-after
items on the Berlin lesbian social calendar.

ʺCLUB OF THE GIRL-FRIENDSʺ—Small auxiliary lesbian

faction of “Association of Human Rights,” the powerful
male homosexual Berlin organization. “Girl-Friends”
coordinated many cultural projects, including lesbian
sporting activities, outdoor health weekends, Sunday
book-club readings, informative lectures, and a score of
private educational classes. Its members contributed to
the influential gay newspaper, Blätter für
Menschenrecht. Less successful were its social events
and winter-time celebrations.

Divided into two sections, a “Southwest” club, which

held Wednesday dances at the ZAUBERFLÖTE, and a
sister “Northeast” unit that met at the ALEXANDER-
PALAST and KÖHLER’S DANCE HALL twice a week. Partly
because of their over-developed intellectual nature, Girl-
Friends’ planning of costume parties suffered from vastly
overhyped advertising, weak leadership, and a general
“North German” stiffness. Highpoint of the balls was
always the Tyrolian “Choo-Choo” dance, in which the
dancers assembled in a long line, and the “Wash Waltz,”
where participants mimed scrubbing down their partners
with imaginary brushes.

ʺLADIES CLUB ERATOʺ—An exclusive Jewish club of

Gamines, which met on Monday afternoon at the
ZAUBERFLÖTE. It was also an affiliate of the “Association
of Human Rights.” At their annual September ball and
dinner, the “Ladies’ Pearl Festival,” each Erato member
received a pearl-necklace. Headed by feminist writer
Selli Engler, the editor of the monthly BIF, the Journal of
Ideal Female Friendship.
 Also a vitalistic philosophy of lesbian superiority animated
both the separatist and apolitical associations. Ruth Roellig,
a highly regarded journalist and colleague of Hirschfeld,
wrote in 1929, “Lesbian love arises from the refinement and
depth of emotional experience where all the forces of body
and soul become fused, and then unfolded. Not to perform
sexually when God has blessed one with an ideal love-soul
would be to deprive oneself and others of a great pleasure.
Among lesbians, there may exist love affinities which no
longer vacillate desperately between angel and brute, but in
a love that is sacred, pure, and beautiful in itself.”
“LADIES CLUB MONBIJOU”—A member of the
“German Friendship Association,” the Monbijou
encouraged Garçonne cultural activity, especially the
reading of private poetry and contemporary erotic
literature. Met weekly at the CAFÉ DORIAN GRAY and
was long associated with the lesbian news publications
Frauenliebe (after 1928 called Garçonne) and Neue
Freundschaft.

ʺLADIES CLUB PYRAMIDʺ—A loosely-organized society

of Garçonnes, the Pyramid officials created exciting
social gatherings every Monday evening at the
TOPPKELLER but without the heterosexual prostitutes,
men, and other gawkers. Ongoing lovers’ quarrels,
especially those between club members who were
working-class Garçonnes and artistic types (including
actresses from Erwin Piscator’s theatre collective)
erupted through the night and were generally settled in
the Topp courtyard with “heartfelt apologies, tender
embraces, and impassioned kissing.”

ʺLADIES CLUB SCORPIONʺ—Organized by the

charming Bubi-meister Walterchen, the Scorpion held
relatively sedate dances at the downbeat TAVERNE on
Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings. Thought to
be named after the bestselling German lesbian novel,
The Scorpion by Anna Weinauch, the prewar generic
name for lesbian temptresses, or Walterchen’s
astrological sign. (Or all three.) A place for not so
elegant Bubis and Mädis.

ʺLADIES CLUB VIOLETTAʺ—A militant lesbian

organization of 400 working-class women, female
transvestites, and their supporters. Established by
super-Bubi Lotte Hahn, a legendary fighter for lesbian
legal rights, the Violetta contemptuously looked down
its nose at the social rostrum of more insular
associations. It was critical of the emphasis on physical
appearance (“Sex-Appeal”) and the cult of stardom that
many Berlin lesbian clubs consciously promoted. To
counter that exclusionary world view, Hahn threw
frequent Sunday picnics in the Tiergarten and organized
“beach party” outings in the summer. Violetta also
supported a feminist Body Culture regimen for indoor
workers. More than any other Berlin society, the Violetta
dealt with the problems and needs of full-time female
transvestites.

Heavily advertised as an ideal meeting-place for

lesbian singles, the Violetta organized its own dances
three times a week at the RHEINISCHER HOF, MANUELA,
NATIONHOF, or ZAUBERFLÖTE halls. Particularly well
received were its “Sailor Parties,” “Transvestite Parties”
(cross-dressing was mandatory for admittance), and
“Fun Evenings,” where each Violetta member had to fill
out a card indicating her wildest sexual fantasy. The
violet and the popular lesbian “Lilac Song” were the
club’s emblem and signature theme. Always
championed in the oldest German lesbian newspaper,
Die Freundin, a biweekly much respected in straight
leftist circles.

ʺSOCIETY CLUB LAMETIERʺ—A little-talked about

organization of Sharpers, Lametier members met
socially at the SCHUBERT HALL in Berlin West on Sunday
evenings.
 Artistic types, like the lesbian Body Culture enthusiasts
Hedwig Hagemann and Dora Menzler, claimed that women’s
sexuality was much more complicated and dense with erotic
possibilities than that of men; therefore, at their semi-
mystical demonstrations of young naked female dancers,
male spectators, with very rare exceptions, were prohibited.
Although there was some tactical individual empathy with
gay men and male transvestites, most lesbians in Berlin
lived in a utopic environment separate from and
independent of men.
 Lesbian Nightlife

Like other Berliners, lesbians were internationally

esteemed for their unusual nightlife. “Married” or single, the
Girl-Friends played out their vivacious lifestyle in seemingly
promiscuous capers and taunting public displays of
affection. Sexy personal columns and highly detailed stories
of brief romantic affairs were the basic fillers of all lesbian
publications. And nearly every lesbian organization,
especially ones with serious political agendas, advertised
late-night, hard-drinking weekly parties and exclusive
masked balls from late December to February.

These spirited affairs were restricted to dues-paying

members, but a half-dozen lesbian clubs also welcomed a
curious tourist trade. In fact, the English Cook Travel Agency
featured such tours after 1928. Precisely at midnight, special
coach buses picked up kinky sightseers at each of the major
Berlin hotels and delivered them to the “Toppkeller” and
other late-night sapphic emporiums in the Berlin West, near
Bülowstrasse. For straight British couples, in particular,
these anthropological excursions were the memorable high
point of their Continental revelry.
Mammen, The Siesta, 1931
Von Perckhammer, Ecstasy
 The Toppkeller opened its arms to sensation-hungry
outsiders and “only-in-Berlin”-quoting journalists. Visually
the nightclub bristled with intriguing contrasts and its
entertainment atmosphere radiated high deviance, even by
the proudly wacked-out standards of the city.
Rumpelstilzchen, who was accorded carte blanche privilege
there, noted that his fellow newspapermen affectionately
referred to the three-storied funhouse as the “Les-Botanical
Gardens.”
 The Topp was hidden away from the street. Customers had
to cross a dark courtyard and three gates (the first bearing a
symbol of a toilet) and then negotiate a narrow stair-well
before they reached the club’s ante-chamber. In the foyer,
each guest was inspected by two enormous, cigar-smoking
Bubis, holding court at a ticket table. Once approved, female
customers were expected to bend forward (depending on
their state of dress) in order to receive a complimentary kiss
from one of the Bubis. Men, after paying admission, were
merely waved through.

Schlichter, Women’s Club (The Topkeller), 1925

Inside, the Topp shook with libertine excess. The place

swarmed with pouty glam dolls, club girls, whores of every
stripe, foreign dignitaries, star-struck Nuttes, and in-the-
know pervs. “Beauty” contests (where patrons voted on the
shapeliest body parts of otherwise cloaked volunteers)
opened the evening. Lesbian reel-dances and spin-the-bottle
type party-games filled the dance floor until midnight. Then
under the conductorship of a statuesque Domina named
Napoleon, dizzy Hot Sisters warbled their way though the
“Lilac Song,” Berlin’s unofficial lesbian anthem.
 The proprietor of the Topp was the gorgeous blonde,
“Gypsy-Lotte.” A dynamic Sharper, she was said to know the
exact erotic preferences and favorite drinks of her Diele
regulars. Lotte’s liberating wit and scintillating personality
drew together the Topp’s broad and variegated audience.
And whenever the carnal atmosphere began to dim, Lotte
scolded the clubgoers with her much-remembered
catchphrase: “Mood, mood, children!” On “Elite-Women’s
Night,” a monthly feature, Lotte donned a fortuneteller’s
costume and transformed into her alter-ego character,
“Princess Nana Hama,” a man-crazed, Gypsy clairvoyant.
Lotte’s parodies of sexually fiendish straight women
especially delighted her many doting lesbian fans.
Vala Moro, Young Newlyweds
 Lesbian Social Clubs

More typical of Berlin’s Girlfriend nightlife was its unique

institution of lesbian social clubs. There were at least three
dozen of these and they ranged in size from 600 to less than
ten. The smallest clubs functioned more like extended
families than determined political cells or narrowly-focused
women’s associations. The club members socialized on a
regular basis, took holidays together, often pooled their
money, and made a conscious attempt to forge a group
identity. The activities of the lesbian social clubs were
relatively easy to track because of their openness and the
lesbian press’ coverage of them. A good example was “The
Whistle Club,” a hard-partying crew, consisting of seven to
twelve Gamines.

Beginning in 1928, the Whistle Club met every Thursday

at the “Princess Café,” a Berlin West nightspot and
gemütlich restaurant. Mostly secretaries and fed-eral clerks
during the day, the Whistlers banded together to open a
joint savings account, shared a wacky lottery-betting
scheme, and, in winter, registered as a skating society. Their
madcap activities at the café included out-of-key sing-alongs
with the conférencier Erich Fuchs, line dancing, and
constant erotic funhousing with all-work bar-maid Liselotte.

Gamine club on an outing

 Each Whistle Club member transformed into an erotic
play-character at night, and none more so than the
entertaining Irma, a tiny flirtatious boy-girl with striking
Slavic features and a brown Bubikopf. Always dressed in an
adorable sailor suit, Irma was known for her favorite pastime,
“rag-doll.” She sprang from chair to chair, allowing her
clubmates to fondle her flagrantly and play with her body as
if she were a mechanical, wind-up toy soldier or lifeless (if
spectacularly sexy) puppet.

Another public amusement involved the meticulously

groomed, blonde Liselotte. She was actually a fastidious and
highly secretive male transvestite. Her gender dysphoria
was the target of practical jokes and smutty teasing from the
lesbian regulars and a source of confusion for the casual
straight drop-ins. Broken-toothed Grete Nissen, the
proprietor of the Princess Café, often accompanied the
Whistle Clubbers in their choral performances and actively
encouraged their sexual torment of Liselotte, apparently her
son. ■
Muguette, female impersonator from the Eldorado, 1931

Those who study the problem of transvestitism more closely

and have the opportunity of meeting many transvestites, are
surprised again and again at the extent and intensity of this
peculiar phenomenon.

Magnus Hirschfeld, Sex Knowledge, 1928

I was told that some of those [prostitutes] who looked most

handsome and elegant were actually boys in disguise. It
seemed incredible, considering the sovereign grace with
which they displayed their saucy coats and hats. I wondered
if they might be wearing little silks, under their exquisite
gowns. Must look kind of funny I thought—a boy’s body with
a pink, lace-trimmed shirt. Not very pleasant, though. Were
there Russian princes among those picturesque, if somewhat
revolting hermaphrodites? Or sons of Prussian generals,
who, in such a bizarre mode, protested against the rigid
principles of their fathers?

Klaus Mann, 1942

CROSSED BOUNDARIES

Rouged Line-Boys in female garb plying their trade near the

Passage, Aunties in long gowns quietly sharing a beer in
darkened lounges, and raucous transvestite nightclubs in
the Berlin West were among the most common
representations of Berlin decadence. German provincials,
foreign sightseers, and gossip columnists alike gravitated to
these baroque displays of gender mystification. Both sexual
freak show and a high-class amusement, public drag scenes
provided a comic relief from the more threatening forms of
erotic behaviors on Berlin’s ever-widening spectrum. Most
Berliners and fellow tourists, straight or gay, could share a
judgment on this one resplendent perversion: cross-dressed
men and women were ridiculous, pathetic, harmless creators
—contemptible, beyond the pale of serious sexuality. They
were truly queer.

There were political implications as well: for the National

Socialist Movement and the growing reaction in the early
Thirties, male transvestism was the most ubiquitous sign of
a weakening morality and sexual degeneracy of the
Republic under democratic rule. Mustached Aunties were
comical figures but also disturbing and concrete symbols of
Germany’s psychological evisceration. Like ragged circus
clowns who inexplicably bring tears to children, male
transvestites furtively evinced an underground fraternity of
ineffectual, castrated fathers.
A Lady, 1925
 OUR EXCURSION TO “EL DORADO”
(1930) by Bernard Zimmer (Le
Crapouillot Special Number 23)

While we check our overcoats, a pretty young woman

makes her charming entrance in front of us. She
removes her hat, slides out of a big sable coat, applies
red polish to her lips, and flirtatiously brushes back her
platinum-blonde bangs.

“What an entrancing mademoiselle,” I remark.

We enter after her. The Eldorado reminds us of little

bar-restaurants from the French countryside: a bit of
theatre, a bit of dancing. We catch sight of our ravishing
blonde friend, who sits down at a nearby table. It is filled
with a dozen strangely dressed companions.

“You know,” our waiter points out,” all those pretty

girls sitting at the table over there are really men!”

That is the attraction of the house.

These false ladies, beautifully decked out, dance with

each other, and gladly waltz with the club customers.
We scrutinize them, itemizing each body part. Every
time we seem to discover one glaring defect. Some of
these camouflaged Eves are betrayed by a neck too
muscular, a hand too wide, an ankle too thick. Others
attain near perfection: Two lovely girls, one blonde, the
 other auburn, dance the Valse Boston faultlessly. They
are slim, nearly without hips; their slender frames are
extenuated by their long dresses, which reveal exquisite
pairs of shapely legs. Unfortunately, they are men!

The most bewildering of these perverts are not the

most perfectly feminine. There are, in the crowd, two or
three big dondons (fat women) with short, thick-fingered
hands, drooping breasts, huge behinds, Adam’s apples,
and five o’clock shadows. One oversized dondon says
about another, “The poor girl, how seedy she appears
tonight!”

The life of these “transvestites” is interesting to

observe: Most live in couples with a thousand jealousies
and intrigues. Some are small-time prostitutes, others
husbands, and a few are fathers with families. And the
prostitutes are treated like members of any other
respected profession.

Militant Homosexualists shared this one hateful belief with

the right-wing and religious opposition. Ladies (and
feminized males in general) were despicable; their soft,
depilated bodies and mocking antics were an affront to
German strength and German manhood. In the ethos of
Brand’s disciples, male transvestites projected a weak,
jaded, and mocking reflection of same-sex male desire; a
dangerous and irreparably haunting challenge to
phallocentric gays and their Hellenistic theories of male
supremacy and the soldierly rectitudes of man-boy love.
Men in drag were regarded as disgusting Untermänner.
Women were born into their hapless gender. Aunties and
Ladies enthusiastically adopted the dress, “soul,” and even
the Christian names of the lowly sex.

The Rocky Twins impersonating the international stars, the

Dolly Sisters, 1930
Androgyne cross dresser

Still a hardcore community of transvestites flourished in

Berlin despite all efforts to suppress and sharply restrict
their presence and nighttime pursuits. In fact, it was drag
entertainments in the forms of balls and Dielen that
customarily marked Berlin Weimar’s erotic vitalism, its
taunting masquerade of tangled and flipped carnal lust.
Deco line-drawings of men in taffeta dresses and women in
top hats signified only one Jazz-Age metropolis. The actual
demographics of sometime drag queens and kings in Berlin,
however, remained a mystery. (There were probably more
secret cross-dressers in London and New York during the
Twenties.) What made the city Transvestite Central was the
sexological work of Magnus Hirschfeld, who did for cross-
dressing what Freud had already done for modern neurosis:
define it.
 “The Erotic Urge to Cross-Dress”

The impulse to dress and exhibit oneself in the clothing of

the other gender was thought to be a transcultural
phenomenon. In the preliterate world, wonder-working
shamans traditionally wore garments forbidden to those of
their sex. In Asia, court theatres alternately encouraged and
savagely proscribed gender-reversed presentations. Severe
Biblical prohibitions against cross-dressing attested to its
ancient Western roots. And Roman chapbooks famously
detailed orgiastic spectacles where demented emperors
openly flaunted their peculiar lusts, disguised in the
perfumed wraps of mythic fertility goddesses or bejeweled
harlots.
Aunt and niece living together as men

In the room are some bourgeois couples and curious

families from the neighborhood. They look upon the
spectacle with wonder and fascination, like going to the
movies.

The other Eldorado [on Motzstrasse] is more elegant.

Sophisticated types spend the evening there for the
performances and to savor a bottle of German
champagne. On a small stage, some danseuses in tutus
twirl on point: Again transvestites. (Many are from Paris.)

The main attraction is the “Dance of Héliogabal,”

executed by a lissome and naked eighteen-year old
beauty. Not a disciple of [André Gide’s] “Corydon.” One
can easily recognize that he is a little-cousin of Nijinsky.
His golden body and coltish grace are not unpleasant to
watch.

At an adjoining table, before a small cup of “mokka,”

sits a redheaded woman with Persian eyes. “Is this a
man?” I ponder. After almost a half-hour, I still can’t
decide, for the red-head has delicate hands and very
pretty legs. When our mokka-drinking neighbor stands
up to leave, I observe her from behind. Her forearms
reveal the ruddy smooth complexion of a female chef
but her posterior displays something different: the
unmistakable solidity of a male buttocks. So? So, one
doesn’t know anymore!

Bewildered, we leave for the lesbian lounges, the

“Domino,” “House of My Sister-in-Law,” and “Mali and
Ingel.” In these nightclubs, women dress like miniature
gentlemen. At three in the morning, tired of deciphering
the perpetual riddle of “who is what sex,” we depart for
the safety of our hotel, confused and frustrated.
 The New Eldorado, 1928

From the early Renaissance onward, a great folklore

developed in Europe about cross-dressed women who lived
fantastic lives as men, including great military and religious
figures. In general, transvestism was viewed as an expansive
form or feature of sexual inversion. The need to parade in
the accouterments of opposite sex graphically “disclosed” a
homosexual inclination. Central European psychologists, at
the end of the nineteenth century, published hundreds of
case histories establishing the obvious link between cross-
dressing and classic uranism, or homosexuality.

Dr. Hirschfeld had a different take on these puzzling

enactments. He also studied hundreds of cross-dressers in
Berlin (but with surprising empathy) and theorized that the
irrepressible urge to costume oneself with articles of clothing
identified with the opposite sex fell into a new and
independent erotic category. In 1908, he coined the word to
describe this “intermediate sexual” behavior as transvestism
and further popularized the provocative theory with his
influential text, Transvestites: the Erotic Drive to Cross-
Dress.

According to Hirschfeld, only 35% of the male and female

transvestites he observed could be classified as practicing
homosexuals; an equal percentage were, more or less,
congenital heterosexuals, with the remaining 30% being
split between cross-dressers who exhibited bisexual
tendencies and “auto-monosexuals,” a narcissistic type for
whom the very act of pasting up an artificial beard or
sporting false breasts before a mirror accompanied an
autorerotic rush. Even among the cross-dressing bisexuals,
Hirschfeld found a strong psychological tilt toward
heterosexuality: they were mainly married men, who
reluctantly allowed themselves to be penetrated by Cellar-
Masters because of a desperate need to wear feminine
clothing during intercourse. By engaging in this particular
activity, bisexual transvestites claimed that they had
maintained a heterosexual fidelity to their unknowing
spouses.

Hirschfeld culled from the literature of cross-dressers and

explored the wide, and naturally hidden, world of
transvestite life in Berlin. In doing so, he was able to devise
discrete typologies and innovative classifications for gender
reidentification and illusionism. These were based on the
intensity of the erotic fixation and its relationship to sexual
release (some male transvestites, for instance, desperately
needed female attire to maintain erectile status; others
suffered from spontaneous ejaculation when lipstick or other
female makeup was forcibly applied to their faces); the
duration and scope of activity (“Silk panties worn only after
office-hours, sir?”); the full, partial, open, or veiled nature of
the clothing or behavior (“What do you feel when the young
woman seated next to you realizes that your arm is not that
of a man’s?”); and significantly, how the altered gender
appearance transformed the transvestite into a more
authentic, sexually charged and psychologically fulfilled
individual.
Kamm, Training
Mammen, Masked Ball, 1928
 At his Institute of Sexology, which opened in 1919,
Hirschfeld employed several transvestite maids and servants
of both genders. Hundreds of Berlin cross-dressers, including
Nazi Party members, received private counseling there,
filling out cards that described their erotic compulsion in
minute, near-pornographic detail. And it was long rumored
(and reported in the reactionary press) that the otherwise
strait-laced medical physician and cultural celebrity himself
metamorphosed into a charming full-figured Auntie at
Institute tea parties and secluded, smutty evening
gatherings.
 The Transvestite Demi-Monde

Despite Hirschfeld’s scientific announcements, male and

female transvestites were universally seen as a colorful
subset of queer Berlin. Cross-dressed heterosexuals, except
as one-time Doll-Boys or girlish Line-Boys , remained
closeted and invisible to the general public. Straight and
bisexual transvestites, reportedly the majority, had little
interest in socializing or even communicating with one
another. Der dritte Geschlect (“The Third Sex”), Friedrich
Radszuweit’s upbeat periodical for “ordinary” [straight?]
cross-dressers, couldn’t find a reading public and folded
after two or three issues in 1929.

Heterosexual Ladies, according to Hirschfeld, often

married women with pronounced masculine traits (often
themselves partial cross-dressers). Shame and fear of social
ridicule kept straight transvestites’ distinct peccadillos
indoors or coyly sublimated except during Carnival season.
Undecided or borderline types were, of course, a lucrative
cash cow for Minette callgirls, who graciously offered their
special therapeutic services.

The normal life of queer male transvestites, the obvious

drag queens and divas, who frequently lived as couples, was
further complicated by Paragraph 168, a Prussian statute
that forbade the appearance of cross-dressers on Berlin’s
thoroughfares. This gave rise to private transvestite Dielen
and bars, where patrons entered as dowdy men and women
and then re-emerged from the bustling restrooms as
splendid specimens of the opposite sex. On occasion—and
as a favor to crime reporters, usually their drinking buddies
—Berlin vice commissioners staged phony raids on these
establishments, maliciously forcing the transvestites out into
the street, where they were subject to instant arrest and a
battery of tabloid paparazzi.
Expressive drawing by Voo-Doo, a Lady dancer
 Transvestite Nightlife

Private lounges and nightclubs formed the nucleus of

Berlin transvestite social activity and interaction. The first
club that catered to cross-dressers, the “Hannemann,”
opened in 1892 on Alexanderstrasse, and welcomed both
men and women. It was also a Boy Bar, and its mixed queer
clientele typified a communal openness of same-sex pursuits
in the Wilhelmian era. Frequented by off-duty German
soldiers, low-level bureaucrats, Line-Boys , and hard-
drinking Bubis, it was soon replaced by the infamous
“Mikado Bar” and the “Bülow-Kasino” (on Bülowstrasse).

Lustige Blätter, 1932: Left figure: “Careful, I’m not a man!’

Right: “That’s okay, I’m not a woman.”
 After the Collapse, drag queens appeared everywhere and
added much to Berlin’s local color. The American writer
Robert McAlmon, who visited the city during the desolate
winter of 1923, reported, “Several Germans declared
themselves authentic hermaphrodites [sic—transvestites],
and one elderly variant loved to arrive at the smart cabarets
each time as a different type of woman: elegant, or as
washerwoman, or a street vendor, or as a modest mother of
a family. He was very comical and his presence always made
for hilarity.”
 Yet there was a corresponding pathetic side to that
transgender illusionism: boys forced into the role of
Situational female whores. Again McAlmon on a
melodramatic note: “At nights along the Unter den Linden it
was never possible to know whether it was a woman or a
man in women’s clothing who accosted one. That didn’t
matter, but it was sad to know that innumerable young and
normal Germans were doing anything, from dope selling to
every form of prostitution, to have money for themselves
and their families, their widowed mothers and younger
brothers and sisters.”

Transvestite acts, a standard feature of nineteenth-century

German music-hall and variety, became more plentiful after
1919 and could be found in most gay cabarets and
amusement halls. Performing before a mostly young, randy,
and mostly liberated queer audience absolutely changed
the outré nature of the enactments and their dramatic
meanings. But growing political tension between the
organized gay community and the theatrical drag queens
and kings in the mid-Twenties forced a mass exodus of cross-
dressers from homosexual Dielen to a different Berlin
sensation, the public transvestite nightclub.

Although there were never more than a dozen such

“licensed” outlets at any one time, transvestite
entertainment palaces and cabarets quickly revamped the
city’s boastful “Once in Berlin” nightlife. And since straight
tourists were usually cherished customers, transvestite clubs
appropriated the hard-currency draw of less humble and
physically insecure posts of “divine decadence.” Hotel
brochures, tourist guidebooks, even intellectual monthlies
promoted the major drag clubs, and in return received
substantial advertising. The Nationalist, middle-of-the-road,
and Catholic political parties, of course, raged. Again the
greatest opponents of the clubs were Berlin’s militant gay
organizations and societies, who found them so distasteful
and degenerate that not one male homosexual publication
ever accepted a paid ad from them.

On the other hand, many hip Berliners and foreign tourists

wrote admiringly about the transvestite vestibules. Typical
description of the hotsy-totsy “Eldorado” from a Berliner:
“You’d see always famous people there, like Max Pallenberg.
Not much of a show, but the most fascinating thing was ...
you had lesbians looking like lesbians with short hair,
lesbians looking like beautiful women, lesbians dressed
exactly like men and looking like men. You had men dressed
like women so you couldn’t possibly recognize they were
men, it was so realistic. Then you would see couples dancing
and you wouldn’t know any more what it was.” (quoted from
Mankoff’s Lusty Europe).
Benari, Eldorado Dancers
New Eldorado wine cards

Melchior, Meyer-Stube
 Among Rumpelstilzchen’s many journalistic gimmicks was
his annual fall Bummel, where he accompanied his fuddy-
duddy uncle from the sticks to some bizarre or naughty
Berlin institution. In September 1931, the roguish, Schnauze
columnist brought Uncle Artur to the Eldorado at midnight.
Artur, of course, got everything wrong but Rumpelstilzchen
understood the old man’s otherworldly enchantment with
the place. Leaning between the club’s backroom columns
were the Eldorado’s stunning males in drag. To the
provincial Artur, they resembled nothing so much as pale
princesses out of children’s storybooks. The raucous
atmosphere of gender confusion, for one guileless German,
had crossed over into the realm of poetic theatre.

American Vogue also attempted a sendup of Berlin’s

transvestite clubs. For their May 1932 issue, a reporter
scoured the city in search of Berlin’s single most perfect
female. Starting with the grand hotel lobbies, the voyeuristic
safari took the writer through an assortment of chi-chi cafés
and Pleasure Palaces. Using a beauty chronometer that
rated everything from up-to-date shoe accessories to ideal
nose length, Vogue’s travel specialist failed to detect a
stylish Berlinerin worthy of the title. Then, at the suggestion
of a local, he took a chance at the old Eldorado, where a
non-biological femme finally complied with the American’s
exacting requirements.
 Vogue did not know it but, by the time their sardonic piece
was published, Berlin’s drag Dielen had already been
banned and shuttered. The growing Nazi and Nationalist
menace nationwide began to affect the Berlin social climate.

In March 1932, the city’s frightened liberal vice

establishment declared male transvestite nightclubs an
affront to public morality and, under Paragraph 168, used
their authority to close them permanently. Seven months
later, the Nazis made a poignant effort of transforming the
Eldorado on Motzstrasse into one of their district electoral
headquarters. It was as if a desecrated Nordic temple had
been thoroughly cleansed of polluted influences and re-
sanctified for the virtuous torch-bearers of Adolf Hitler’s New
Germany. ■
Muguette
 I have just come back from the Land of the Naked, where
men, women, children, oldsters, fathers and mothers of
families, virgins and adolescents come and go quite nude,
where they bathe, laugh, eat, drink and cook their meals, in
a state of total, stark, utter nakedness. Do not go and search
for this earthly paradise at the Antipodes. It is situated at a
distance of twenty hours from Paris. In the very heart of
Europe, in Germany, to be exact.

Louis-Charles Royer, Let’s Go Naked, 1932

“MORE SUN + MORE AIR + MORE NUDITY = MORE LIFE!”

Berlin Naturalist Slogan, 1926

LAUGHING NUDITY

Modern nudism, or Nacktkultur, developed into a mass

German movement shortly after the Armistice and continued
well into the Nazi era. Like many Central European social
innovations, it fused modernist and reactionary beliefs in
such a way that it defied easy definition and appealed to
people on the political fringes who had little else in
common. Hirsute revolutionaries, primitive Christians, Aryan
mystics, middle-of-the-road Socialists, free-thinkers,
Nationalist academics, health fanatics, eye-fluttering gurus,
unrepentant feminists, pseudo-Buddhists, and flat-out
hedonists all joined arms to promote the cult of the naked
human body.

The peripatetic leaders and theoreticians of the

Nacktkultur program adroitly stitched together a dedicated
underground community of “Life Reformists” and visionary
utopians from Germany’s disaffected. Their web extended
everywhere. It was particularly strong in Northern Germany,
where several dozen nudist sites and colonies dotted the
North and Baltic Sea coastlines. By 1931, even land-locked
Berlin had some 40 competing Nacktkultur societies and
clubs.
GERMAN NUDIST AND LIFE REFORM
MAGAZINES
Die Aufklärung (“The Enlightenment”), “a Monthly
Journal for Sex and Life Reform.” Edited by Magnus
Hirschfeld and Maria Krishe from the Institute for
Sexology. An upbeat zine designed in a pop/Bauhaus
format, it mixed enthusiasm for Nacktkultur with
sexological exposés and anthropological/historical
material. Supportive of Adolf Koch’s “Free Men, Union for
Socialist Life Reform” and sympathetic to homosexual
and lesbian aspects of nudism. [1929-1931]

Der Eheberater (“The Marriage Counselor”), a

“Monthly for Hygienic People’s Instruction.” A women’s
magazine that promoted nudism, natural medicine,
graphology, and sexy fashions. Interesting advice
columns. [1928].

Das Freibad (“The Open-Air Bath”), a “Monthly Journal

for the Promotion of Naked Bathing.” A glossy magazine
with a nonpolitical and clearly hedonist appeal.
Affiliated with Birkenheide. Edited by Charly Straesser.
[1927-1932] Figaro, “Bi-Monthly Journal for Politics and
Culture.” Motto: “Fights in Word and Picture for Cultural
Freedom.” Illustrated popular magazine promoting
Nacktkultur from both historical and international
perspectives. Famous for its satirical faits divers and
political cartoons. Affiliated with the FKK. [1924- 1932]

Freikörperkultur und Lebensreform (“Free Body

Culture and Life Reform”), “Magazine of the Reichs
Union for Free Body Culture.” Conservative intellectual
journal open to middle-class and Catholic points of view.
Affiliated with the New Sunland League. [1929-1930]
Die Freude (“The Joy”), a “Monthly Journal for Free Life
Reform.” Artistic journal, embracing both Socialist and
Nationalist points of view. Expressionist in design and
thought. [1924-1925]

Ideal-Ehe (“Ideal Marriage”), a “Monthly for Spiritual

and Corporal Education in Marriage.” Edited by Edgar
Schulz. A glam women’s magazine with a progressive
slant. Lots of articles on modern living, nudism, body
development, and problems in marriage. [1927-1929]

Körperbildung/Nacktkultur (“Body
Development/Naked Culture”), the “Organ of Free Men.”
An Adolf Koch periodical devoted to intellectual currents
in the Nacktkultur movement. Filled with manifestos and
recipes for good health. Especially concerned with
children and women’s issues. [1925-1933]

Kraft und Schönheit (“Strength and Beauty”), “Journal

for Body Culture.” Edited by Heinrich Pudor. An early
Nacktkultur monthly magazine that increasingly
promoted nudism as a form of regeneration for the
“Nordic” race. Mostly drawings and text. [1900-1919]

Lachendes Leben (“Smiling Life”), a “Magazine for a

Healthy World-Philosophy.” A nonpolitical, nudist
pictorial with short upbeat pieces, celebrating the family
Nacktkultur lifestyle and Rhythmic Gymnastics. [1925-
1933]

Leben und Sonne (“Life and Sun”), a “Monthly of the

Free Body Culture.” An independent intellectual Socialist
journal concerned with children’s health, sports, and
nudity. Not affiliated with the Union of Free Men. [1925-
1926]

Der Leib (“The Body”), “Picture Book of Ideal Nudity,”

[Earlier, “Organ for the Understanding of Spiritual Living
Through the Knowledge of the Body.”] Artistic journal
edited by Max Tepp. Concerned with social issues, like
female health, prostitution, and the Jewish Problem.
Promoter of Rhythmic Gymnastics and Ausdruckstanz
(Expressive Dance). [1919-1927]

Licht-Land (“Light-Land”), “the “Official Organ for the

League for Free Life Improvement.” A magazine with
innocuous nudist photographs but increasingly National
Socialist orientation in text and design in the Thirties.
[1923-1933]

Licht-Luft-Leben (“Light-Air-Life”). Combined with Der

Mensch, “Monthly Journal for Beauty, Health, Spirit,
Body Development.” Nacktkultur supplement of Die
Schönheit. A cooperative journal for twenty-some
German and Swiss organizations. [1920-1933]

Nacktsport (“Naked Sport”), “Illustrated Journal for the

Theory and Praxis of Healthful Development Through
Sports.” Edited by the German Nationalist Artur Fedor
Fuchs. [1919-1923]

Die Neue Zeit (“The New Era”). International Body

Culture journal with color photographs. Edited by Swiss
nudist Edi Frankenhausen. [1929-1933]
 Pelagius, a “Monthly with Beautiful Photographs from
the Naked and Free Air Movement.” Small glossy zine
with virtually no text or political point of view. [1931-
1932]

What united the multi-hydra leagues, associations, unions,

and brotherhoods was a shared enemy: modern capitalism.
The weakening of blood ties and individual purpose,
excessive fluctuations in birth rates, factories spewing toxic
wastes, prostitution, the inhuman rationalization of medicine
and education, alcoholism, the unbridled accumulation of
paper assets, and a general decline in physical health and
happiness were the inevitable products of the Industrial
Revolution and the rampant urbanization that followed.

The Nacktkultur philosophers wanted nothing less than a

wholesale reformation of German life. In their nude
encampments, they promised, sacred space and time—
beyond the numbing boundaries of work and pew—could be
reestablished. By merely removing their clothing, strangers
could shed their social markings, toss aside all sexual
taboos, and enter into an exalted state of Adamite
consciousness. Peace, emotional tranquility, physical health,
and corporal beauty would reign in the Naturalist
communes.
Daughter of Adolf Koch and friend, 1932

The message of organized nudism spoke compellingly to

the nascent radicalism of the German-speaking world.
Already there were separate attempts, like the Wandervogel
movement, to rethink the conventional patterns and
hierarchies of bourgeois life. Holistic methods of healing and
amateur sporting leagues challenged the notion of high
professionalism and the feudal divisions of labor. The
Nacktkulturists, however, offered, in addition, spiritual uplift,
community values, and all the wallop of a new religion.

Urban youth, according to Naturalist precepts, could attain

a more profound sense of well-being without the
blandishments of clergy or Gymnasium master. German boys
and girls needed only nature (in the form of clean water, air,
and sunlight), vigorous exercise, an improved diet, and the
new awareness that the naked human body alone radiated
perfection and supreme beauty.

Beginning in 1919, the illustrated periodicals and

manifestos of Nacktkultur movement, of course, harped on
the contrasts between their hale and robust lifestyles and
those of decadent Berlin. One pictorial theme appeared
repeatedly: the Naturalist Girl and the Bad Girl. Typically, a
photo-montage spread would juxtapose a series of carefree
women in the nude tossing medicine balls with nighttime
shots of smirking Tauentziengirls posed before the display
windows of the Kadewe Department Store. The disparities,
for the Life Reformers, could not be presented more starkly.

To most Berliners, accustomed to the vagaries of erotic

dissonance, Nacktkultur and its celebration of the naked
body manifested another interesting possibility in the ethos
of sexual freedom. Nudist debates over chaste living, racial
hygiene, “healthy desire,” and moral purity, however, irked
the free-spirited city dwellers. And, in the minds of the Girl-
Culture consumers, these provincial platitudes wrapped the
movement in an antiquated Puritan code.
Member of Artur Fuchs’ Nationalist FKK
Johannes Arz, Weekend

Die Schönheit (“The Beauty), the most popular

German monthly promoting all aspects of Body Culture.
Edited by Karl Wanselow. Noted for its striking Art Deco
design and aesthetic depictions of female nudity. Many
articles on artists and scientific discoveries. Only
Nacktkultur periodical with an interest in science fiction
and sexual aids. Great classified section. [1902-1936]

Sonneland (“Sun Land”), “a Journal for Air Body

Culture.” [1931]
 Sonniges Land (“Sunny Land”), “the Great, Illustrated
Journal of the Free Body Culture Movement.” A general
nudist pictorial devoted to outdoor life. [1929-1933]

Urania, a “Monthly for Nature-Consciousness and Social

Learning.” Socialist periodical with a heavy emphasis on
nudism, German mysticism, and Buddhist teachings.
[1925-1926]

After all, Naked Dance and “Beauty Evenings,” which the

Nacktkulturists vehemently condemned, also exhibited the
nude body. But their prurient appeal violated the essence of
modern German nudism. The healthy naked physique was
not meant to be an object of male/female gaze or lewd
entertainment, according to German Life Reform doctrine.
Men and women who patronized Berlin’s Nachtlokals and
Dielen were obvious perverts, sick relics of a commodity-
driven society. In the stirring words of the Nacktkultur
manifestos, shame and guilt—which unnaturally stimulated
the sexual impulse—needed to be uncoupled from the
display of the exposed human form.
At Birkenheide, 1926

Unfortunately, thrill-seeking Berliners too often reveled in

their shame and guilt. With the air, it animated their nightly
Bummels. And, during the Weimar period, at least two
versions of organized nudism arose in the city: one for
prudes (allied with the national federations) and one solely
for Berlin’s primitive sophisticates.
 German Life Reform and Nacktkultur

The jumbled and contradictory nature of the Weimar

German Life Reform and Nacktkultur movement is usually
explained by its divergent nineteenth-century roots.
Between 1870 and 1900, over 200 alternative therapies and
patented health regimens—some fantastic and others with a
scientific underpinning—sprang up in Central European
clinics and spas. Homeopathy, mud and sea-air baths,
hydrotherapy, “curative gymnastics,” medical massage,
physical culture programs, colonic cleansing and supervised
fasts, sun worship, whole-grain, sour-milk or single-fruit
diets, naked swimming, hypnotic and electrical wave
treatments, all competed with the conventional medical
wisdom for the soul and physical restoration of the German
people.
Cover of Die Schönheit nudist calendar

In 1903, Heinrich Pudor, a devotee of air-bathing, combed

the alternative, commercial muck and extracted from it the
most outdoorsy and naturalist elements. He gave these
nude therapies and philosophies an intriguing modernist
name, Nacktkultur (Naked Culture), which effectively
separated them from their folk and quack-cure sisters. Two
artistic monthlies, Die Schönheit and later Kraft und
Schönheit, advanced Pudor’s vision of natural health and
extolled his Manichean division of Germany into wholesome,
young nudists—or potential nudists—and their envious
opponents.

Boys from New Sunland

 Naked-bathing was the most ubiquitous activity of the
early Nacktkultur groups. The nude human body in free-
flowing water provided arresting photographs for the
aesthetic journals and echoed the German Romantic notion
of man in joyous harmony with nature. Pudor even attacked
the over-the-chest bathing suit as a Philistine invention. He
harangued swimming trunks as the contemporary “mark of
Cain,” created and worn by people ashamed of their
genitals. No wonder the most popular color was red, Pudor
wrote; the anti-Naturalists who covered their pasty bodies
with them were in a perpetual state of blush.

Several private Nacktkultur lodges in Berlin opened in

1907 as a result of Die Schönheit’s persuasive propaganda.
The same year, Richard Ungewitter published Nudity and
Culture, the first in a long string of intellectual pamphlets
(with a total sales of 100,000) that lauded Pudor’s dream.
Ungewitter also affixed mystic Aryan and temperance
features to the simple Nacktkultur philosophy: nudism,
abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, and vegetarian diets
were the means by which the German race would regenerate
itself and ultimately prevail over its neighbors and the
diabolical Jews, who were intent on injecting putrefying
agents into the nation’s blood and soil.

While Wilhelmian Germany’s vice police checked the

growth of the Nacktkultur societies and their ability to
proselytize, Ungewitter turned the movement upside down
with his cultist screeds. Nacktkultur enthusiasts were forced
to consider the deep political meaning of their Edenic
pursuits. The German Life Reform league splintered into
hostile ideological camps in those years. Even the apoliticos
had to explain their national purpose.

At first, the linkage of nudity to the dogmatic issues of

German public policy and social renewal seemed
overreaching and blunted its unvarnished allure. The
Nacktkultur, for the most part, was a reaction against the
stultifying bourgeois existence, an indolent lifestyle that
corporally terminated at the shoulder-blades. Bathing naked
in a stream with one’s family didn’t normally attract the
mokka-and-newspaper crowd from Berlin’s smoky gentlemen
clubs. But, starting in the Weimar period, everything
changed. Nudism joined the political struggle and
Germany’s extremist parties embraced the Nacktkulturists.
 During the Twenties, nudist societies formed in
Scandinavia, the Baltic countries, Austria, Czechoslovakia,
and France, but their overall membership was quite small.
Only in Germany did Life Reform
 AN AFTERNOON AT ADOLF KOCH’S
“SOCIETY OF FREE MEN” (1929)

I saw one of the worst groups: skeleton-like

adolescents and varicose old men; women with
pendulous breasts and others whose posteriors might
well vie with those of a Hottentot Venus. There were
even consumptives who came back from their “sun
showers” with great red moons on throat and backs.

Koch makes them dance—and they dance.

Awkwardly at first—and pitiful, it is, to see such efforts

towards harmony made by these unshapely creatures.

They dance ...

And gradually, it seems to me, the charm begins to

work. The pervading rhythm, Koch’s persuasive words,
the warm emanations given forth by all these bodies,
intoxicate them. The pace quickens. They forget their
ills, which yet permit them this physical lightness.

Some have lost their look of sad resignation; that

expression of envious revolt, which characterized others,
falls away. One of the women, with gnarled legs but with
beautiful breasts, tenses her torso as though in
dedication to some invisible male.
 These too, then, amid the intoxication which music
and feverish dance arouse in all their senses, these too
may dream for one instant that they are—who knows?—
beautiful and strong, or at least like their fellows.

“When they are together,” Koch tells me, “they suffer

less from their infirmities. They are mostly poor devils
who toil hard for their daily bread. Some are ‘pariahs.’
They come here to forget their miseries, all their
miseries. They feel equal, being naked. I believe they
leave this place, not only the better for their bodies, but
for their souls as well.”

from Louis-Charles Royer, Au Pays des Hommes nus

(Paris: Editions de France, 1929)

organizations and their many periodicals enter into the

public sphere. It was claimed that at the end of Weimar over
one million German families belonged to Nacktkultur
societies.
 Nude Berlin

While Hamburg weighed in as the demographic champion

of the Nacktkultur movement, Berlin claimed its intellectual
heart. Quartered all through the Friedrichstadt were the
national offices of the left- and right-wing nudist
associations and their publishing arms. In Berlin’s parks,
enclosed swimming pools, and rehearsal halls, societies of
the naked conducted weekly exercise classes in full public
view. And, outside the city, surrounding Lake Motzen
emerged 40 to 50 individual nudist “territories.” Jan Gay, an
American journalist, wrote in 1932, “A stranger in Berlin
desiring to visit a nudist group has an embarrassment only
of choice.”

The Berlin groups heralded fanciful names that rarely

disclosed their political leanings or size. (Only the Socialists
included their party’s affiliation in their Nacktkultur
mastheads.) A few titles of the Nationalist and proto-Nazi
outfits: “Berlin League of Free Body Culture” (FKK),
“Concerned Community of Free Sunland and Naked Sports,”
“Federation of the Faithful,” “League for Free Life
Improvement,” and the “Union of Free Sunland.”
Independent Marxist and Communist organizations:
“Federation for Body Culture and Nature Indoctrination,”
“Federation for Body Culture and Nature Refuge,”
“Federation for Free Body Indoctrination,” “Federation of
Itinerant Youth,” “German Air Bathing Society,” “Sparta
Sports Union,” “State Federation for Free Body Culture”
(AFK), and the “Union of Social Life Reform.” Centralist,
Catholic, Republican, and apolitical groups: “Federation for
Natural Healing,” “Federation of Free Light,” “Friends of
Nature,” “Light-Federation Fairy Meadow,” “New Sunland
League,” “Reichs Federation of German Youth Nudist
Colonies,” “Reichs Union for Free Body Culture,” “Union for
Body Culture,” and the “Youth Reform Birkenheide.” Socialist
groups included: “Circle of Free Men,” “Free Men, Union for
Socialist Life Reform and Free Body Culture in the Federation
of People’s Health,” “Socialist Cultural Society,” and the
“Workers Society of Outdoor Campers.”

Free Sunland

Many of the heroic-sounding—in fact the most heroic-

sounding—“Federations” were one-man or one-shot affairs
with vivid logos and impressive promotional packaging. In
Berlin, three men dominated the authentic Nacktkultur
scene and were well known to the foreign press. Each
represented a corner point on the Socialist, Nationalist, and
anti-political triangle. These were Adolf Koch, Artur Fuchs,
and Charly Straesser.

Territory Adolf Koch

 Adolf Koch and the “Society of Free
Men”

Adolf Koch, like many of the founders of Nacktkultur

associations, began his career in scandal. A principal in a
state-run elementary school outside Berlin, he insisted that
his young wards arrive in the classroom with clean hands,
then clean feet, and finally thoroughly washed bodies. After
introducing public showers, Koch noticed the giddy
excitement it caused when students ran around naked to
warm up. He introduced nude mat-exercises as a substitute
and, to combat vitamin deficiencies in the proletarian
children, brought the drill sessions outdoors under the
health-giving sun.

When a government observer made a scathing report, with

pedophilic overtones, on his students’ rhythmic gymnastics
—she called them “nude dancing”—Koch decided to resign
rather abolish the program. Like other pedagogues in the
Nacktkultur project, he was troubled about the physical and
spiritual well-being of German youth and sought a means to
elevate it.

In 1920, Koch inaugurated a Nacktkultur school in Berlin,

which combined elements of Swedish Physical Culture, a
pale form of Ausdrucksgymnastik (Expression Gymnastics),
nudity, and hands-on socialism. Everyone was addressed in
the familiar German form of “Du” and under artificial, indoor
lighting they exercised, listened to political and hygiene
lectures, and swam naked. Later schools in five other cities
and an outdoor campground on Lake Motzen, “Territory Adolf
Koch,” were added.

Koch’s Body Culture schools recruited from Germany’s

powerful Socialist Party and the politically uncertain working
class. All were welcome, without regard to income,
profession, ethnic background, physical shape, or age. “Free
Men” members were tithed five percent of their income as
dues; the unemployed attended for free. The entire
enterprise, which soon included nudist magazines and
books, was a tremendous success. The Socialist “Alliance of
People’s Health” boasted 300,000 paid members in 1932.

The village schoolmaster, however, never left Koch. His

classes began punctually and were highly structured.
Although he personally trained his growing staff and often
gave individual attention to special problems, his
professional attitude was usually officious and chilly. The
lecturers he chose pontificated on serious social and medical
stuff. Nude adolescent boys were admonished for
uncontrolled erections and compelled to attend a
psychosexual clinic, where their churlish behavior was
“studied and addressed.” For the politically correct Koch, the
naked torso was not to be an instrument of sexual desire.
 Despite its institutional, chaste environment, Koch’s Body
Culture Schools and their public demonstrations were
sometimes viewed by outsiders as highly erotic. The mayor
of Chicago, Anton Cermak, visiting Berlin in August 1932,
remarked to Sefton Delmer during one demonstration, “You
know somep’n? In Chicago, you couldn’t get a show as good
as this for a thousand bucks!” Nationalist and Nazi
politicians agreed with the crime-busting American’s humble
assessment. Two months later, they adjoined the Berlin City
Council to close down Koch’s establishments, citing they
inspired nude orgies among the young and hundreds of
spectators “to slake their carnal thirsts.” Koch, like the
Ladies club owners, fought the municipal injunctions, but
the skies were darkening over freewheeling Berlin in the late
fall of 1932. In three months’ time, the Alliance’s legal
maneuvers against censorship and accusations of lewd
behavior would hardly matter.

Hans Surén, 1928

 “League of Free Body Culture” and
Surén’s “Suncult”

Koch had many adversaries in the Nacktkultur world of

Berlin. His tendentious Socialist teachings, skill for
generating publicity, acceptance of all body types, and
astonishing prosperity disturbed his opponents, who
promoted nudism as an aesthetic as well as a health
regimen. Mostly it was the reactionary Nacktkultur
organizations that defined their programs in counter-
distinction from the “Free Men.”

In 1920, the Nationalist physician Artur Fedor Fuchs

attempted to draw members for his “League for Free Body
Culture” (FKK) from the same family and Lumpenprol pool
that Koch had already reached. Staking out the first
Nacktkultur Territory on the Lake Motzen army and offering a
full calendar of sporting activities in the nude, Fuchs did find
a lower- and middle-class audience. But it was limited.

Over the next few years, the FKK attracted a considerably

more upscale and fashion-conscious crowd, Berlin’s Girl-
Culture denizens. At Fuchs’ “Free Sunland” encampment,
professional athletes, balding aristocrats, and glam film
starlets—wearing just gold bracelets or sexy flat footwear—
mixed on the volleyball and tennis courts. While the portly
and bespectacled Fuchs himself had the reputation as a
morose ideologue, the FKKers were basically apolitical and
sexually hip. Unlike Territory Adolf Koch, Free Sunland
provided ample opportunities for gawking at the eye candy
during daylight hours and swinging in the nudist “fuck huts”
at night. The food, although vegetarian and still Germanic,
was several notches above the mucky Socialist fare.

For his can’t-get-away-from-the-city members, Fuchs

rented the multi-storied Luna Bad in Berlin East. There every
Sunday and Wednesday, naked FKKers exercised, swam,
received electrical tanning and massage treatments, and
ate. The sight of moneyed aristocrats dining in the semi-
nude (most retained one small indication of class, like a
monocle or silver hair brooch) amused foreign journalists,
looking for those Only-in-Berlin social mores. Former military
officers, sans uniform, bowed to kiss ladies’ hands and then
dashingly clicked their bare heels together. Society types
maintained their elegant manners although their protruding
flesh sometimes got in the way.
 A cynic writing for the American newsweekly The Outlook
spotted a fat society matron at the Luna Bad one morning
who became so engrossed in her companion’s repartee that
she failed to notice the soft-boiled egg matter falling from
the spoon she held in front of her mouth. The errant yolk
drops rolled down her breast, hung from her nipple for an
instant, and then splattered over the folds of her stomach.

As the FKK expanded, its softcore Aryan message became

more stringent and pronounced. Nacktkultur, lecturers
illustrated in pulldown charts, was a natural reversion to pre-
Christian folkways. Once the solar rays of the Nordic sky
alone strengthened and healed the warrior nation. German
tribes spent most of their summer daylight hours naked and
carefree until evil missionaries from the south forcibly
covered their bodies in shame. The awakening of Aryan
might required a restoration of ancient forest practices.

New Sunland, 1927

Another German Nationalist, Hans Surén, pulled the

reactionary Nacktkulturists even farther to the right. In his
Berlin studio and influential publications, Surén proposed a
cult of the sun and the naked male body. A celebrated officer
from the German colony of the Cameroon, Surén instilled his
followers with strict military discipline and designed a
vigorous system of gymnastic drills. For Surén, Nacktkultur
living was not a therapy for the weak and undernourished
but a means of soldierly conditioning and sun worship. The
salvation of the German people did not depend upon
weekend armies of nature-lovers and naked sunbathers; it
demanded a race of toned and greased-up supermen.
Surén’s first book Man and the Sun (1924) sold over
235,000 copies and was reissued in 68 editions by 1941.
Despite its unmistakable homoerotic imagery—floppy-dicked
muscle-men wrestling bright-eyed boys on the grassy plain
—Man and the Sun was a favorite Aryan read for the Hitler
faithful and Nazi culture-mavens.
 “New Sunland League” and
Birkenheide

Between Naked Marxism and Naked Fascism stood the

bulk of the Berlin Nacktkultur supporters. They came from
solid middle-class backgrounds and equated nudity with
recreation and pleasure. The first Territory established for
Berlin’s nude hedonists was Fritz Gerlach’s “New Sunland.”
Unlike the FKK Free Sunland, from which it seceded, the New
Sunland had few rules or political slogans tacked to birch
trees. Hanging over its admission table in front was a poster
declaiming: “HAPPINESS—the Imposed Order of the Day.”
Instead of shaming boys out of their erections or stealing
away in “fuck huts,” New Sunlanders were encouraged to
display their affections quite openly. All in all, the
atmosphere in the New Sunland was unpretentious and
pleasant, like the nudists themselves.

Less respectable was Hans Heinz Rassow’s “Naked Club,”

which limited its membership to only the most beautiful and
socially-connected youths. Meeting in Rassow’s spacious
Berlin West quarters, the Naked Club clique traveled en
masse to Wandervogel sites, where they swam, hiked, sang
folk songs, and generally partied nude in the woods.
Surén followers

Charly Straesser, a sometime participant in New Sunland

League and the Rassow group, decided to create his own
nude Territory on Lake Motzen in 1924. He called it
“Birkenheide.” Here Nacktkulturists could do anything they
pleased. There were no official-looking identity cards, annual
fees, psychological questionnaires, lessons in hygiene,
group diets, campfire anthems, or political-ethnic profiles.
Birkenheide’s nudists weren’t even required to have fun.

Photographers and gawkers who refused to disrobe were

not admitted to Birkenheide. Anyone else was welcome.
Patrons merely had to pay at the gate and agree to perform
a short work assignment during their stay. Consequently,
Birkenheide had the most varied and unconventional
nudists. Straight perverts and gay men conducted their
consensual activities unimpeded. Gigolos from the Resi and
Femina nightclubs found Birkenheide most congenial to
their daytime occupation. And Berliners out for a nonurban,
fresh-air Bummel swore by the place. Charly Straesser’s
invention was a bit of libertarian paradise. It prospered until
Berlin’s Nacktkultur societies and Territories were
reorganized as National Socialist institutions. ■
Hirschfeld
 I was led into the office of the “Wise Man of Berlin” (as he
liked to be called) and what I saw filled me with horror.

Sitting on a velvet armchair, his legs crossed beneath him

like a Turk, was a man with bloated lips and crafty, lust-filled
eyes. He offered me his fleshy hand and introduced himself
as “Dr. Hirschfeld.”

Hans Blüher, Works and Days, 1952

Christopher giggled nervously when Karl Giese and Francis

took him through the Institute’s museum. Here were whips
and chains and torture instruments designed for the
practitioners of pleasure-pain; high-heeled, intricately
decorated boots for the fetishists; lacy female undies which
had been worn for ferociously masculine Prussian officers
beneath their uniforms.

Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind, 1976

THE NEW CALCULUS OF DESIRE

During the Great Inflation, as Berlin metamorphosed into

Europe’s garish midway of smut, a different, more
respectable enterprise surfaced in the erotic city: “Sexual
Science.” A hodgepodge field that had its origins in
Wilhelmian times, Sexology was nothing less than a
mammoth attempt to excavate, classify, and then cobble
together all things sexual into a single body of knowledge.
Nearly every area of the humanities and medical science fed
the novel endeavor: cultural anthropology and folklore;
anatomy, biochemistry, and eugenics; endocrinology and
psychotherapy; religious and art studies; social psychology
and public health, criminology and prison reform. Even
hypnosis, graphology, folk medicine, and nineteenth-
century phrenology were analyzed for their sexual
relevance.
Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld and his assistant Karl Giese, 1933
Ernst Haeckel-Hall at Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute of
Sexology
 SAMPLE QUESTIONS FROM DR.
MAGNUS HIRSCHFELD’S “PSYCHO-
BIOLOGICAL QUESTIONNAIRE”

No. 17: In your immediate family, are there any females

who look like men; or males with obvious female
characteristics? Do any of your siblings exhibit any
aspects of the opposite sex?

No. 44: Can you whistle?

No. 61: Are you left-handed?

No. 90: How do you feel about the Great War? What
part did you play in it?

In Vienna’s scientific circles, particularly among the

bickering founders of psychoanalysis, there was great
skepticism (later mixed with envy) over the ever-expanding
scope and public acceptance of Sexual Science. The Berlin
upstart, according to the Freudians, received far too much
lay support and renown during its recklessly short period of
incubation. The infant science had merely hacked off tiny
offshoots from established disciplines (as it highlighted all
their fringe minutiae) and grafted them onto some hulking,
synthetic beast.

More irritating was the professional attitude of Sexology’s

leading practitioner, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld. The Berlin
educator acknowledged the opinions of his many detractors,
considered their scientific validity, and frequently embraced
them. “Papa” Hirschfeld was the liberal spirit of the infinitely
tolerant metropolis. Debating him was an exercise in
maddening futility, like passing bad notes on to an old-time
counterfeiter or boxing an ancient but improbably nimble
kangaroo.
 “The Einstein of Sex”

Trained as a physician, Hirschfeld acquired other skills

during his long career as the international spokesman for
Sexology. He was an energetic defender for sexual minorities
and women, prolific science writer, legal authority, behind-
the-scenes politician, and master showman. Hirschfeld was
widely credited in his lifetime and after as the primary
inventor of marriage counseling, Gay Liberation, artificial
insemination, surgical gender “reassignment,” and modern
sex therapy.

In 1897, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian

Committee, the first organization anywhere devoted to the
protection of homosexual rights. As a young doctor, he
studied the riptide affects of alcoholism and unwanted
pregnancy on Berlin’s families and their neighborhoods.
Prussia’s comprehensive program for health and social
welfare, considered to be the most enlightened in Europe,
was designed by Hirschfeld in 1916. He also served as the
first President of the World League for Sexual Reform.

Hirschfeld’s judicious writings included more than 200

titles. Their range was broad and the research insightful.
Besides sexual variation, Hirschfeld methodically
investigated pornography, traditional aphrodisiacs and
sexual aids, the relationship between crime and illicit
sexuality, social mores and fetishism, the etiology of
pleasure, and the erotic basis of warfare. His goofy persona
and conscientiousness transformed Sexology from an
anthropological curiosity into a popular German science. The
Berlin monthlies, starting in the mid-Twenties, referred to
Hirschfeld solicitously as “the Einstein of Sex.”

Hirschfeld exhibiting a hermaphrodite’s genitals

Paperback book on sexual pathology, 1930
 “Sexual Intermediates”

Hirschfeld embraced a doctrine known as “sexual

relativity.” He wrote that it was “unscientific” to speak of
only two sexes. Between “full man” and “full woman” was an
infinite string of sexual/gender possibilities. Male and female
hormones, which Hirschfeld believed determined basic
sexual type, were never carried in the blood as pure agents
within any individual.

No. 92: Do clothes occupy an important part of your

thinking? Do you prefer a simple or multi-layered look,
tight or free-flowing garments, high-collared or open
shirts? Do you wear any accessories or jewelry? Do you
have a favorite color? Which?

No. 93: Do you normally carry in your pockets or purse:

a knife, make-up kit, lighter, or photographs? What
objects do you like to always have with you?

No. 97: Have you ever been aroused by a member of

your own sex?

No. 99: Which sexual partners do you normally prefer:

people older than yourself, younger, or—more or less—
the same age? What was the most extreme difference in
age of someone to whom you were attracted? Do
differences of age and generation have no importance
for you?

No. 100: Which do you find more exciting: the naked

body, the clothed body, or the partly-clad body? Does
the smell of perspiration from certain people ever excite
you? Repel you?

No. 102: Have you ever fallen in love with someone

solely because of an idiosyncratic trait, like the way that
person wore something, their body shape, hair color, or
spiritual demeanor?

No. 104: During sex, have you ever fantasized you are
with another partner?

No. 123: Have you ever wished that your beloved

treated you in such a way as to cause physical pain?
Allowed or commanded him/her to hit you?

No. 131: Have you ever been tempted to have

intercourse with three partners? In which combination of
men and women?

No. 132: Have you ever been sexually aroused by an

animal?

No. 133: Does it bother you when someone refuses to

talk about their sexual peculiarities?
 Each body manufactures andrin and gynecin (male and
female) compounds in various proportions. When the glands
that regulate these secretions produce too few andrins or
gynecins—or are metabolized incompletely—a sexual
“indeterminacy” develops, according to Hirschfeldian
analysis. By puberty the hormonally-imbalanced individual
exhibits psychological or physical signs of the opposite
gender.

Around 1919, Hirschfeld estimated that two percent of

humanity could be characterized as constitutional Sexual
Intermediates. But his field studies in Berlin and use of more
refined typologies during the Twenties and Thirties caused
him to upgrade that initial calculation repeatedly. Toward
the end of his career, he believed that about 15 to 20% of
any observed population manifested aspects of Sexual
Intermediacy.

At first, Hirschfeld identified four main Intermediate

groups: Hermaphrodites, Androgynes, Transvestites, and
Homosexuals. And within each of these classifications were
many subgroups and lesser categories. For instance, he
divided Hermaphrodites into: 1) men with female organs, 2)
women with male organs, 3) people with both sets of sexual
organs, appearing in some rudimentary or arrested state,
and 4) people possessing functional duel male-and-female
genitalia.
Gynacomasts, men with breasts
 BAUER’S SHOE-AND-WHEEL
MASTURBATION MACHINE
(AUGSBERG, 1926)

Herr Bauer (41) confessed that he built this

Masturbation Machine. He willingly demonstrated its
unusual mechanism and allowed himself to be
photographed while doing so.

At an earlier age, Bauer was observed rubbing his

penis against a cow’s stomach until it became fully
erect. He then inserted his member into the vagina of a
nearby calf. On another occasion, Bauer’s 72-year-old
mother was found naked and unconscious with her legs
spread open. Authorities suspected the son had
intercourse with her. These allegations of bestiality and
incest were, of course, vehemently denied by the young
Bauer.
Description of the Pictures.
Bauer built the Masturbation Machine with the following
items:

1. Two Sewing Spools

2. A Bicycle Rim
3. Three Pairs of Used Women’s Shoes
4. One Chain Gear
5. Two Leather Ties

Bauer strapped the first leather piece around the small

of his back—with the slack taken up by a spool over the
spine. The other spool was placed vertically near his
anus. The second leather piece held the soles of the
three shoes firmly against his stomach. This allowed the
head of his penis to penetrate the middle shoe. By
rolling the bicycle rim forward and back, Bauer created
the proper thrust and friction for a full ejaculatory
release.
Institute displays

What united all types of Hermaphrodites, Hirschfeld

maintained, was their confused sexual self-definition, a
psychological state that was conditioned by a sustained
ability to shield their abnormality from the world around
them. He found cases of female-with-male sexual
characteristics (Number Twos) particularly difficult to
investigate because such individuals habitually altered their
sexual identities two or three times during their troubled
adolescence and adulthood.
Collection from a homosexual lust murderer and hair
fetishist. Berlin police found this board made from the
braided hair of his male victims.
 One of Hirschfeld’s many astonishing case studies on
Hermaphroditism: “Bertha D.,” a seamstress, was taunted as
a child for her masculine voice. Later when she discovered
that her face was sprouting facial hair, “D.” soon tired of
shaving twice a day and began wearing male clothing and
assumed a male identity. By 18, “Bert” successfully engaged
in sex with teenage girls, but she suffered from fierce,
premature ejaculations. Around age 20, “D.’s” sexual
orientation included boys as well. Although “D.” was unable
to maintain an erection with the young males, her engorged
clitoris-penis discharged spermatic fluids during intercourse
with them. “D.” told Papa that her desire for men peaked
right after menstruation but she normally derived more
intense sexual pleasure from female partners. Was “D.” a
true bisexual, a lesbian with male homosexual tendencies,
or a pansexual with straight urges? Hirschfeld merely
assured her a coveted point on his Intersexual spectrum.
“D.” was what she was (Hermaphroditismus femininus
#1,982).

Hirschfeld’s other Intermediate types cropped up more

frequently in the general population. Androgyny involved
the growth or adaptation of secondary sexual characteristics
from the opposite gender. Male Androgynes, typically,
lacked facial hair, had feminine breasts, sensitive nipples,
soft fatty skin, and rounded pelvises. Female Androgynes,
correspondingly, had flat breasts, little sensitivity around
the nipple, and possessed a masculine build, vocal range,
and distribution of hair. Unlike Hermaphrodites, both male
and female Androgynes were likely to enhance, rather than
hide, their constitutional state and seek the sexual company
of their heterosexual or homosexual complements.
Amateur film photographed by a buttocks fetishist
 Hirschfeld punctured the Renaissance myth that
Androgynes were divinely bisexual creatures—the vast
majority he met were utterly “straight.” One of Papa’s
favorite patients was a bearded lady who appeared in local
freak shows. In spite of her super-masculine appearance, she
was a tender and self-sacrificing mother. (When she was
about to give birth to her fourth baby, the midwife naturally
mistook her for the father.)

A Mother’s Love, an incest novel

Transvestites were psychological Androgynes, people who

voluntarily acquired the look of the opposite sex through
dress, exaggerated mannerisms, and corporal deformation.
While an apparent psychic phenomenon, Hirschfeld believed
Transvestitism required an entirely separate psychosexual
nomenclature, since its practitioners were neither
exclusively heterosexual or queer. Among his clients, for
example, was the Chief of Police of a Central European town,
who was married and fathered several children. While
normal in every other aspect, the Chief was never content in
masculine attire. He liked to visit Papa during his vacations
and spend the rest of the day dressed as a woman on the
welcoming streets of Berlin.

For other Transvestites, only particular costumes satisfied

their deepest urges. One Lady confessed to Hirschfeld that
his mother’s cream-colored damask dress, which he furtively
wore on the day of his church confirmation, stimulated his
first erection and was a necessary sex aid ever since.
Another patient wrote that the mere donning of a frilly lace
skirt caused him to orgasm uncontrollably. No other clothing
or sexual companionship did the trick.

Viktor Leyrer, The Good Uncle

 Hirschfeld’s designation of Homosexual men and women,
the so-called Third Sex, as Sexual Intermediaries, created
the most controversy. He believed they, like the other
Intersexuals, were constitutionally predisposed in their
sexual desires as “incomplete” mature males and females.
The theory enhanced queers’ legal status as helpless victims
of faulty chromosomes—and the mass struggle against
Paragraph 175—but its scientific and social value was
challenged on every front. Militant Homosexualists ridiculed
the secretive Papa as “Auntie Magnesia,” a cross-dressing
sissy and cosmopolitan Jew. Of course, it was hardly
noticeable to Hirschfeld’s antagonists, that the ever-protean
and devoted sexologist incorporated their scientific
objections into his evolving grid of transsexuality.
 Derangements of the Sexual Instinct

Hirschfeld also conducted extensive research in more

traditional sexual behavior, especially in the field of sexual
pathology, which he cataloged as the “Derangements of the
Sexual Instinct.” His sweep here ran from the study of self-
castration and impotence to “hypereroticism” and “coital
hallucination.” Why individuals would choose to obliterate
or compulsively bind their sexual desires to inanimate
objects or childhood/sadomasochistic/power-exchange
scenarios fascinated Hirschfeld. For Central European
psychologists, the answer touched upon the fundamental
twentieth-century issue in human behavior: how much anti-
social activity is caused by “natural” elements (genetics and
chemical imbalances), and how much by sheer nurture. In
other words, were glove fetishists people with obsessive
inherited or hormonal traits, like Transvestites, or did some
event in their childhood eroticize their morbid attachment to
the charged article?
Exhibitionist displaying his “working uniform”
Flagellation drawing by a 17-year-old sadist, 1930

To explore the problem, Hirschfeld prepared an exhaustive

140-part “Psycho-Biological Questionnaire.” The 18,000
Berliners who responded to the survey were asked to reveal
their innermost erotic secrets and family background, as one
would expect. But also in the sexual profile were inquiries on
seemingly isolated topics like shoplifting, color preference,
stuttering, feelings on capital punishment and war, left-
handedness, and diet. For Hirschfeld and his trained
associates, their candid replies were the initial step in
correlating heredity, child-rearing, and education with
everyday expressive behavior and unconscious sexual
desire.

The Psycho-Biological Questionnaires served several

purposes, besides their obvious research benefits. Hirschfeld
used them clinically to diagnose deeply imbedded sexual
disturbances and for premarital counseling. The Einstein of
Sex proclaimed that he could help prevent unhappy
marriages through his interpretation of the sex surveys.
Long-term attraction involved the joining of complementary
erotic temperaments. Once the “false fire of passion”
diminishes, Hirschfeld stated, coital disappointment
naturally occurs. By gazing into the “sexual souls” of the
couples, scientific predictions about their overall
psychological and physical relationship could be made.
While not infallible, Sexual Science at least attempted to
point out the barriers to and possible aids for wedded bliss.
My Invention, fantasy drawing of a sadistic intellectual
Pedal-driven female masturbation machine manufactured in
Dresden, 1926

In a famous quote, “Happy marriages are not made in

heaven, but in the laboratory,” Hirschfeld inaugurated hard
science’s entry into the matchmaking business. According to
the publicity-savvy Papa, even love-at-first-sight did not
have a real physical basis. At the end of the day, it was all
genes and chemicals, racing through the bloodstream, that
kept relationships intact and produced babies.
Female “Self-Gratifier,” which squirted milk into the
participant, 1900
 The Institute of Sexology

In July 1919, Hirschfeld opened his Institute of Sexology in

Berlin. It quickly became one of the city’s most curious
attractions. The Institute’s buildings, including a former
mansion, were divided into areas for lectures, consulting
offices, study rooms, laboratories, medical clinics, and a
museum space devoted to sexual pathology and erotic
folkways. George Gershwin, Ben Hecht, Douglas Fairbanks,
André Gide, Sergei Eisenstein, Anita Loos, and Christopher
Isherwood (who worked at the Institute) were among the
many enthused visitors to Hirschfeld’s Institute, leaving
fascinating accounts about its strange inhabitants and
artifacts.

Hirschfeld’s Institute functioned as a hospital and a free

university under one roof. Medical advice was offered
without charge, and scientific lectures by leading sexologists
were open to the general public. The Institute’s library,
which contained the largest sex and pornographic book
collection in Europe, remained accessible to all readers. The
Institute also housed Germany’s first Marriage Bureau and
clinics for the treatment of venereal disease and other
sexual maladies. Politically, the Institute provided a forum
for progressive lawyers and government officials who sought
to eradicate the laws against homosexuality and defend
Germany’s legal abortion rights from the growing onslaught
of fascist and religious parties. Most of the legal work
involved suits protecting gay men against threats of petty
blackmail. These services were also rendered pro bono.

Above the gate of his Institute was the inscription: “Amori

et dolori sacrum” (“Sacred to Love and to Sorrow”). It was
one of many rather banal mottos and plaques that
Hirschfeld posted around and inside his foyers and offices.
Other Hirschfeldian banners: “Justice Through Science,” “To
Understand All is to Forgive All,” “Nature Does Not Make
Leaps,” “What the World Calls the Soul, We Call the
Endocrine System!”

The Institute itself was a font of sexological activity.

Pediatric care, abortions, “sexual rejuvenation” and sexual
“correction” operations were conducted on the lower level of
the main building. Psychological consultations and tours
took place on the upper levels. In the adjoining Ernst
Haeckel Hall, films, demonstrations, and public health
panels were held for the 1100 physicians who visited the
Institute annually. Hirschfeld himself produced and advised
on several groundbreaking medical documentaries and
silent features, including Richard Oswald’s Different From
Others, a film à clef about the torturous life a closeted male
violinist. (The title of the 1919 melodrama was later
immortalized when it resurfaced as a refrain for the
Toppkeller sing-along, the “Lilac Song.”)
Fantasy drawing of a 12-year-old masochist

Mostly what visitors remembered from Hirschfeld’s

Institute were the museum exhibits displayed in the “Gallery
of Derangements of the Sexual Instinct.” Hanging from
ceiling hooks were wooden boards that illustrated
Hirschfeld’s case studies. The multitudinous sexual personae
of his Sexual Intermediaries were disclosed in arresting
photographic series. Glass cases of fetishistic objects and
sex aids from preliterate, Asian, and European cultures filled
two other rooms. In the open counters and boxes were
collections of Mandigo dildos that squirted a milky solution,
Moché water bottles with penis-shaped spouts, Sanskrit sex
manuals, miniature shoes worn by bound-foot Chinese
courtesans, medieval chastity belts, torture instruments
from a German brothel, sadistic drawings and assemblages
created by Lustmord convicts, an entire picture window of
ankle boots donated by a local fetishist, antique steam-
driven vibrators, fake rubber breasts and vaginas taken from
transvestite prostitutes, lacy panties found on the corpses of
von Hindenburg’s heroic officers, and other such
incontrovertible evidence of Hirschfeld’s new calculus of
desire. There were also free-standing sex machines and
masturbation devices of every shape and variety.

Eisenstein especially enjoyed the Institute’s collection of

sailor-dolls—homemade paper toys that German
homosexuals fashioned during the Great War. The figures
were drawn naked, except for their caps and boots, and
designed to show off the marines’ aroused genitals and
smiling faces. Tiny red paint drops were splattered over the
blithe forms to give the incongruous appearance of deadly
wounds. After bringing them out of their case, a delighted
Papa asked Eisenstein and his friends if they carried any
penknives in their pockets. When the entourage failed to
turn up any, Hirschfeld explained the reason for his inquiry:
homosexuals rarely packed them.
Therapeutic drawing of an imprisoned rapist

Hirschfeld employed Sexual Intermediaries for his museum

docents and assistants. “Herr Alfred” was a slim, fortyish
Bavarian peasant woman, the mother of one child with a
normal het sex interest. Her only abnormality was wanting to
live in the clothing of a man. The Institute hired her along
with two dozen other inside-the-spectrum types. André Gide
almost bolted from the Institute when Papa had a “Sexual
Intermediate: Grade Three” employee unbutton his shirt and
reveal two perfectly-shaped female breasts.

How Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sex Science paid for its huge

staff and many house expenses remained a carefully
guarded secret. Only a fraction of the Berlin patients
compensated the Institute for their immense needs. The city
chipped in here and there, but never enough to keep the
place running at full throttle. Rumors abounded that German
gay magnates channeled funds in sealed envelopes or that a
famous Ruhr industrialist, known to be a closeted infantilist,
forked over a fortune to Hirschfeld for the construction of a
private nursery, laden with sex apparatuses in the shape of
old toys.
Life-size sex dolls

More likely, Hirschfeld used his own inheritance to support

the Institute. He also formulated and patented several
heavy-duty aphrodisiacs and Viagra-like anti-impotence
tablets. The best known of these was called Testifortan, a
concoction of yohimbé bark from French West Africa and
clamshell from the North Atlantic. Hirschfeld advertised that
Testifortan stimulated the centers of hormonal production,
chemically charged the synapses of the nervous system
(especially those along the spine), and regulated the
restricted blood flow into the male genitals through dilation
and engorgement of the corpora cavernosa.

Testifortan and Hirschfeld’s “Titus Pills” were marketed in

Galante magazines, at German pharmacies, and in the
Museum gift shop, where visitors could purchase other
enhancers, Sittengeschichten, and an array of scientifically-
tested sex remedies. The Nazi and Allied-installed German
governments thought highly enough of Hirschfeld’s
patented compounds to claim his formulas for themselves
and sell the licensing rights to Swiss pharmaceutical firms.
They were a source of state revenue for German health
ministries until 1962.
Homemade “Penis Shoes”

Erotic tattoos of sailors and criminals

 Hirschfeld’s Enemies

Hirschfeld’s outsized personality and quasi-scientific

proclamations drew an endless stream of critics. Some
ranted against Sexology as a legitimate science. Others, like
the homophobic Dr. Albert Moll, questioned Papa’s
objectivity and found ingenious methods to blunt
Hirschfeld’s international standing. He usually accomplished
this by denying the doctor’s medical credentials at world
congresses. Freud, whom Hirschfeld adored, avoided the
entire topic of endocrine-based sexology despite the hearsay
belief that he received a sexual rejuvenation operation at
Hirschfeld’s Institute in 1922.

The renegade Freudian, Wilhelm Reich, transferred his

clinical base from Vienna to Berlin in 1930. A fervent
Communist, anxious to establish an Institute for Sexual
Politics (Sex-Pol), Reich mocked Hirschfeld’s egalitarian
attitudes toward sexual morality. Good orgasmic sex,
according to Reichian doctrine, was always uninhibitedly
straight and the result of vigorous genital thrust.
Intermediary erotic desire, like the capitalist system itself,
was not immutable nor a natural aspect of human character.
Homosexuality and other such perversions demanded a
healthy revolutionary response, curative techniques that the
Marxist Viennese claimed to pioneer. Hirschfeld’s sexual
nihilism, however well-intended, Reich harangued, was
furthering fascism.
 Of course, the Nazis did not see it that way; they tried to
murder Hirschfeld as early as 1923. And when Adolf Hitler
came to power ten years later, the Institute of Sexology was
one of his first targets. Much of the leadership of the Ernst
Röhm’s Storm Troopers (the Nazi SA) covertly subscribed to
Brand’s Militant Homosexualism and feared that among
Hirschfeld’s Questionnaires were sexual profiles that might
ultimately embarrass them. The liquidation of the Institute
and its archives was doubly important for Röhm.
Magazine advertisements for Hirschfeld’s Titus Pills and
Testifortan
 Hirschfeld lived for two more years outside Germany. He
scurried around Europe in hopes of rekindling his career and
Institute but knew his base of power could only reside in
Weimar Berlin, a spiritual metropolis that had been excised
from the map by National Socialism. In 1935, on his 65th
birthday, Magnus Hirschfeld, the fighter for sexual science
and understanding, died a lonely death during his exile in
the South of France. ■
Amateur photograph, 1932
 There was always a feeling of violence about Berlin,
which was not true of other capital cities. You felt that
the rule of law was skin deep and people were capable
of a greater degree of physical violence than one was
accustomed to live with elsewhere.
Alec Swan, quoted in Weimar Chronicles, 1978

Homosexuality, sadism and masochism, and generally

perverse practices are gaining a powerful hold on the
Germans.
Hendrik De Leeuw, Sinful Cities of the Western World, 1934

ALGOLAGNIA

The pornography that circulated in Weimar Berlin was

marked by its unusual emphasis on body worship, extreme
fetishism, scatology, dark roleplay, and ritualized gender
struggle. There was the soft stuff too but the most sought-
after girlie mags and sex novels were usually imports or
translated editions from Paris or Rome. Local imitations of
the same, like Reigen, Der Junggeselle, Lustige Blätter, and
Berliner Leben, always started off with perky Gallic charm
but succumbed, even in their erotic cartoons and short
stories, to menacing visions and S&M fantasies. Berlin Girl-
Culture was inextricably mixed with eroticized violence.

Algolagnia (the “Craving of Pain”) was a Latin term coined

in 1894 by Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, a Berlin physician
better remembered for his investigation of the paranormal.
Although Algolagnia encompassed what we normally think
of as Sadism and Masochism, Schrenck-Notzing also
intended it to define a much larger terrain of sexual
perversion, especially psychological domination, erotic
servitude, forced gratification, bondage and discipline,
infantilism, humiliating role-reversal scenes, and “morbid”
fetishism. Schrenck-Notzing, Wilhelm Stekel, and Albert
Eulenburg each attempted to explain the mysterious
aberration that tied sexual pleasure to suffering or to
compulsive symbolic play. Like their contemporaries,
Richard Krafft-Ebing and Freud, they knew the phenomenon
was growing rapidly throughout the German-speaking world.
Zoomimic Masochism scene
Drinking Nectar
The Slave Throne, 1930.
The barbed bra
 Hirschfeld noted that physical aggression during puberty
and sexual courtship were intercultural universals. Boys
naturally fought other males in order to “take” or “possess”
their mates; and girls were expected to surrender, accede,
“give in” to the most virile male who lusted after them.
Aggression and submission in the service of sexual conquest
were instinctively short-lived and restrained acts, final steps
in the procreative dance. But Algolagnia upset the rules of
natural selection. It forced an ongoing recapitulation of
excessive violence and pain to achieve sexual excitement
and release. People who exhibited these sadomasochist
tendencies had consciously contaminated the normal sex
drive with the psychic toxins of childhood trauma and the
oppressive mementos of adolescent awakening.

Freudians had an elegant elucidation of the Algolagnia

complex and its fetishistic components. It was
Amateur drawings from an Algolagnist
Richard Hegemann, The Healing Sister

all a symptom of castration anxiety, penile substitution,

arrested neurotic development, and repressed
homosexuality. Of course. Yet psychoanalysis didn’t
adequately explain why Algolagnia, particularly in its
twentieth-century manifestation, Metatropism, had gained
such a hold in Central Europe and how it affected women.
Male Bra
A.Z., In the Torture Chamber

Von Zabczinsky, Modern Furies

 Metatropism

Metatropism referred to the psychological pairing of

female sadists (Dominas) and masculine masochists
(Metatropists). While the socially reversed roles of powerful
women and passive males who acquiesced to them could be
traced to sex cults in prehistoric Asia Minor and India, its
incidence, according to Hirschfeld, was relatively uncommon
until the end of the nineteenth century. Suddenly, fantasies
of female vampires and male supplicants in their thrall
jumped from the notepads and canvases of Austrian and
German artists into the vast popular imagination. Metatropic
sexual displacement, while observable elsewhere in Europe
on a diminished scale, seeped into the mainstream of
Berlin’s erotic visual life and thinking.

A stained glass fantasy, The Mistress

Book Illustration for The Bloody Countess
Helga Bode, Delicate Manipulation
E.D., After the Injection

Hirschfeld, who counseled hundreds of male and female

Algolagnists, characterized the typology of Metatropism
according to four fantasy scenarios of self-debasement: 1)
Servilism (reduction of status), submitting to a Domina as
her slave, servant, or page; 2) Puerile Masochism (reduction
of age), wishing to be punished as an infant or schoolboy by
an angry mother, strict governess, or “aunt”; 3) Zoomimic
Masochism (transformation into an animal), being treated
like a beast of burden by a mistress, who addressed the
subject as an animal and then “rode” him, placing a saddle
on his back, a bit in his mouth, and finally spurring and
cropping him; and 4) Impersonal Masochism (transformation
into an inanimate object), used by a stern mistress as an
ashtray, footstool, coffee table, or animal-skin rug.
Schlichter, My Domina
Arnim Horowitz, The Trained Poodles
Amateur drawing, 1930
The Strange Professor

“You Must Also Be Beaten”

 The Raised Buttocks

In the Galante monthlies, Sittengeschichten, sex

encyclopedias, and private pornographic serials, one visual
theme dominated and seemed to appeal to all sectors of
Berlin’s Algolagnic community. This was artistic enactment
of a sadistic teacher administering a bare-buttocks
punishment to a hapless student. The standard instruments
of discipline could be as simple as a cane or whipping crop
but more inventive fantasies involved flagellation machines
and paddles with cutout numerals in the center, which left
an outline of the number of whacks on the child’s reddened
derrière.
Hegemann, Weekly Punishment

The forced application of an enema to the recalcitrant

pupil was still another ubiquitous image. The characters and
settings for these schoolroom whippings and anal torments
were drawn or photographed in infinite permutations and
weird variations: a shocked principal watches from the
hallway as a comely Gymnasium instructor canes a cross-
dressed boy while his classmates secure the boy’s naked
rump to a desktop; a loving schoolmistress inserts an enema
into the rectum of a hysterical 15-year-old girl as a
grotesquely ugly nurse kisses the teenager’s contorted face;
an excited schoolboy, no more than eight, is taught to wield
a cat-o’-nine-tails on the elevated posterior of his naughty
little friend; and so forth.

Why fecal and buttocks fetishism prevailed in Weimar

Germany is a question that was weakly addressed in the
literature of the time. Some apologists wrote that spanking
stimulated the blood flow to the constricted muscles of the
gluteus maximus and outward to the sensation-deadened
genitals. Ernst Schertel, a prolific pornographer from Munich
and historian of the erotic, expounded on ritual flagellation
as an ancient ecstatic technique and possibly the origin of
religious experience. Others claimed the centrality of the
anus as the source of infantile eroticism.

The Symphony of Corporal Pain

A Womanly Hand

But not answered in these perverse treatises was the

geographical issue. Scatological scenes and exposed lower
torsos abounded in Central Europe’s straight, gay, lesbian,
transvestite, and Nacktkultur publications. They appeared in
non-German erotica but with maybe a fifth or a tenth the
regularity. Presumably the heavy use of colonic irrigation to
fight childhood diseases, specific pedagogical forms of
punishment, and unexplored cultural symbolism shaped the
strange fixation.

Photos and a letter from a structural engineer to a fellow

spanking enthusiast
 “Morbid” Fetishism

Other sexual fetishes in Weimar Berlin were shared

obsessions of the Jazz Age. Heinz Schmeidler in The Moral
History of the Present (Berlin, 1932) listed what he thought
were the most prevalent objects of sexual compulsion in the
city: Nose Fetishism, Mouth Fetishism, Ear Fetishism, Hand
Fetishism, Leg Fetishism, Shoe and Stocking Fetishism,
Breast Fetishism, Buttocks Fetishism, Hair Fetishism, Purse
Fetishism, Music Fetishism, Clothes Fetishism, Underwear
Fetishism, Bed Fetishism, Fabric Fetishism, and Flower
Fetishism. To these, Losa in Sexual Derangements added
Cold Fetishism and Voice Fetishism. (Cold fetishists found
their jollies at ice rinks and in the back of speeding
cabooses.)
Amateur photo from a buttocks fetishist
Fantasy drawings of a hair-pulling fetishist
The Bell-Boy’s Last Duty
Bode, Dance Hour
Sadistic Teacher
 Rumpelstilzchen felt the subject of sexual fetishes was of
paramount interest to his provincial readers. Fashion among
Berlin’s Beinls was always related to fetishistic novelty. They
needed to offer or emphasize some item or body part not
readily available at home. Between 1919 and 1924,
Rumpelstilzchen provided detailed descriptions of exotic
hosiery styles and high-heeled shoes, largely French
imports. His gaze moved upward after that to powdered
necks, shoulder lines, earlobes, hairbobs, glossy eyeshadow,
revealing blouses, men’s leather ties, perfume, and, in 1929,
to iridescent lipstick shades, to which he devoted four
weekly columns.

Fighting for Love, 1928

Sweet Punishment
 When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Rumpelstilzchen
again focused on street fashion. Hitler, who preferred the
wholesome scrubbed peasant look, detested facial makeup
on women. The Kontroll-Girls of Berlin responded
accordingly. They appeared in the Friedrichstadt wearing
long leather coats, opaque stockings, mannish hats, and
freshly washed faces. Rumpelstilzchen waxed enthusiastic
over that season’s whore fashion. During the same April
month, he also assured his readership that Berlin was more
welcoming and less crowded now that the Jews were
vacating their apartments for extended holidays in Paris and
Vienna.
 “Scientific” Pornography

Clinical studies of sexual perversion, such as von Krafft-

Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis (Leipzig, 1901) and Stekel’s
Sexual Aberrations (Vienna, 1922), were printed by scientific
publishing houses and produced principally for therapists
and legal scholars in Central Europe. The numerous copies
in multiple editions of these collections, however, revealed
an unintended secondary readership: other perverts. The
salacious case histories of sadists, fetishists, Algolagnists,
flagellants, and the like, formed a novel province in Weimar
pornography.

From a series of 350 photographs, Learning the Rules

 Under the guise of psychological research, graphic
photographs and illustrations were added to still other
strange biographical confessions and fantasies. Berliners
seeking stronger erotic sensations and instruction for weird
sex scenarios merely had to peruse Galante journals for the
current “scientific” offerings. Virtually every deviant practice
had a layman’s society and private publishing arm.

One “physician,” Ernst Schertel, headed a hypnoerotic

“Dream Theater” and several book clubs devoted to
whipping and buttocks fetishism. Schertel’s serialized
periodicals explored the dark fantasy games and dramatics
of animal lovers, worshippers of obese Dominas, sadistic
teachers, bare-hand flagellants, incestuous necklace
fetishists, urine drinkers, bondage freaks, high-heel
stompers, and shit-sniffers. German authorities attempted to
shut down his Parthenon-Verlag in 1931 and Wilhelm Reich
publically opposed the perverse Dream Theater. But
Schertel, working under foreign pseudonyms like Dr. F.
Grandpierre, outwitted them all. His lavish works and those
of his associates continued to be distributed into the early
Nazi period. ■

Maurice Carriere, Appreciating the Need for Discipline

The Headless Man Last night I had a frightening dream.
Standing by my bed was a headless man wearing a tuxedo. I
jumped up and wanted to run but my feet were frozen to the
floor.

The half man opened a suitcase, which was filled with

detached heads.

“Here are the faces of the men who once loved you but
you decapitated them with your cold heart,” said the
ghoulish voice. “Now match the correct face to my body.”
He emptied the suitcase and the heads rolled over my
breasts. I awoke with a scream and hastened to my studio
to illustrate my horrid history.
Manassé, Das Magazin, August 1932

“Miss Bluebeard and Her Victims”

 Seven heads she selected... But each one disconnected.

Every man she rejected. Each technique was unperfected.

Erik Jan Hanussen at his Palace of the Occult, 1933
 Of all the rites and ceremonies as practiced today by the
secret love cults of the world, the most dreadful and least
known is the Black Mass. […] The Devil-Worshippers’ infernal
“underground” is comprised of people of otherwise superior
intelligence. Its international center is in Germany, in the
city of Berlin.

Marian Dockerill, My Life in a Love Cult, 1928

Contemporary religion can never ignore the embers of desire

and sexual longing. Burning belief is always based on
burning sex.

Ernst Bergmann, The German National Church, 1933

SEX MAGIC AND THE OCCULT

For many Berliners, sexual gratification was not primarily

the end-game of courtship, a simple pleasurable pursuit, a
nocturnal amusement, mammalian bond, or a natural
expression of self. It was a sacred rite or miraculous proof of
some paranormal lattice where supernatural fate and
deviant desires had become intertwined. In Weimar
Germany, sex—in all its untraditional, transgressive, and
anti-familial manifestations—had become a religion as well
as a pastime.

The antinomian groundswell that propelled nearly one

quarter of Berlin’s liberated denizens into the elegant vistas
of erotic degeneracy dragged others into the dank chambers
and communal embankments of sex-mad gurus and cultish
mystery-sects. These homegrown creeds frequently mixed
occult teaching with induced lust or carnal mayhem.
Male/female intercourse was not just the very source of life—
and therefore a shadow of God’s creative function—it was
also a supreme delight, and, when controlled, a heightened
form of prayer. Copulation and ejaculatory release for
German devotees of Sex Magic had attained extraordinary
and novel meanings; they were bodily manifestations of lost
esoteric wisdom, techniques of Gnostic faith, flipped
transmogrifications of flesh, even divine rungs for ultimate
human salvation.
Cult Dancer in Berlin, 1926
The Clairvoyant, an adult dice game, where players learn
their true sexual characters and erotic fortunes, 1926

In his bestselling anthology about the contemporary

occult in the German-speaking world, The Miraculous, or The
Bewitched (Berlin: Rowohlt Verlag, 1932), Rudolf Olden
compared magical belief systems to compulsions of physical
attraction (“sex appeal”) and unwavering love. Each of them
had an irrational basis and was a publicly sanctioned
sublimation of innate creative or sexual energies.

Outsider German political movements and religious cults

tapped into the transcendent urge for ecstatic immediacy on
a collective level. Hitler, for Olden, was no less a tantric god
than Louis Haeusser, Otoman Hanish, Maria Raschig, Joseph
Weissenberg, or dozens of other occult Führers with mass
followings. Sexuality was the fuse and hidden spring of
Weimar Germany’s newest dogmas.

Revolutionary discoveries in behavioral science and

technology in the last quarter of the nineteenth century,
ironically, stimulated belief in “unseen forces” and their
superhuman mastery. The empirical findings in brain
chemistry, atomic physics, constitutional psychology, and,
especially, wireless communication seemed to suggest—in
the popular German imagination—that they were indeed
invisible, virtually mystic, fields surrounding each individual
body that, in turn, was dictated by solar or astral waves.
International luminaries like Thomas Edison, Sigmund Freud,
Carl Jung, Guglielmo Marconi, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, and
Albert Einstein were heroes to both the scientific and
psychic communities. Their baffling theories, Berlin
parapsychologists claimed, were foretold by the nineteenth-
century American Spiritualists and the Anglo-Indian
Theosophists.

“Occult-Sciencism” was the strange Weimar prodigy that

resulted from the blend of these two contrary world views.
Increasingly, it acted as an effective substitute for
traditional social discourse and long-established religious
zealotry. By 1932, Berlin alone supported the flashy
productions, séances, and publications of 20,000 itinerant
telepathists, wonder-working healers, palm readers,
storefront clairvoyants, Hollow-Earth adherents, alchemists,
stage mesmerists, doomsday prophets, Gypsy-clad
fortunetellers, and trance-performers.

Moreover, camouflaged feats of sexual dominance more

suitable for ribald cabaret acts now ventured into the
laboratory, church pew, and political street. After all, both
hypnosis and mass suggestion traded on the principle of
psychic seduction. Eroticized language and gestures, Olden
wrote, had an unbridled capacity to influence crowd
psychology and behavior. If channeled ritually or
scientifically by experts, they resembled the incantations of
pagan Sex Magic.
 The Failed Crusade

Prussian obedience to Christian anti-materialist theology

was slow and unsteady. Even after German princes and
religious authorities embraced the Gospel’s teachings in the
800s—usually in the form of public baptism—few Central
European tribespeople remained staunchly faithful to the
Roman papacy. As soon as the unsmiling Anglo-Saxon
missionaries and preachers left their villages and towns,
most Germans reverted to their original pre-Christian
practices and traditions. Others integrated the Holy Mass
into their heathen fertility rituals, invoking blessings from
both Jesus Christ and the pantheon of Nordic forest gods.
These ceremonies had to be performed secretly, and often
perversely upended diocesan prohibitions against animal
sacrifice and priestly intercourse.
Dr. Hans- Theodor Sanders, Hypnosis and Suggestion, 1921
Fidus illustration for G. Hermann, Saeming: Aryan Sex
Religion, 1896

For over 400 years, German bishops attempted to

violently crush the perpetuators of paganism as well as the
growing appeal of local heretic Christian sects. The
blasphemous leaders were frequently imprisoned, horridly
tortured, and burned at the stake. But that did little to
suppress the licentious folkways of the German peasantry.
Free thought and sacred sexuality were too deeply rooted in
their cultural ethos.
Fidus emblem for Trilogy, Sex Religion, Sex Mystery, Sex
Magic, 1897

In the thirteenth century, Luciferians, who conflated the

Nordic god Wotan with Satan (rather than Christ) in their
midnight rites, openly challenged the German Catholic
hierarchy and began to murder Franciscan monks and set
churches ablaze. Militant anti-Christian Stedingers from the
shores of Freesia joined the Prussian Satanists. Covens of
German sorcerers and sibyls spurred the rebellion onward
and prophesied the end of asceticism, Vatican martial
constraints and councilor meddling. The old-ancient natural
world, rife with lusty human-like deities, spirit
communication, sexual desire, and physical attraction, was
about to be restored.

In 1234, Pope Gregory IX issued proclamations against the

growing German heresy. A European crusade to stamp out
Satanism, witchcraft, Devil worship, nudist Adam-and-Eve
cults, and Sex Magic resulted. Papal armies and inquisitional
courts dispatched whole towns and communities into
dungeons, torture chambers, and execution pits. In Spain
and Portugal, Jewish and Muslim leaders were forced to
confess their links to wizards and seers before their bodies
were stretched on specially designed racks, broken on
inquisition wheels, and then incinerated in public squares.
By 1492, all non-believers in Iberia were said to be killed,
converted, or sent into exile.

Fidus illustration for Carl Hilm, Satan, 1908

Rhea Wells, Black Mass In a German Town, 1931
 But Satanism and its visceral appeal was not excised so
easily from the German lands. Between 1500 and 1783, over
15,000 women and men were executed for engaging in
necromancy or sealing compacts with the Devil and his
minions. Graphic descriptions of Witches’ Sabbaths and a
new sacrament called the Black Mass were dutifully
recorded in church documents. Followers of the Anti-Christ
reenacted Catholic and Lutheran services in twisted and
perverted parodies. They drank urine mixed with
hallucinogenic plants and swallowed wafers made from
human feces, menstrual blood, and sperm. That was their
Eucharist. Obscene prayers, orgiastic dance, and the
worship of all things scatological—like the kissing of
Lucifer’s anus—replaced the Holy Communion. Even priests
and prelates were implicated in the grand conspiracy.

Concealed in senators’ cabinets, scholars’ libraries, and

rectory walls were handbooks on the Black Arts and occult
Latin treatises that instructed the reader how to obtain
demonic power. Apparently, no Germans—bishops,
countesses, physicians, brewmeisters, or midwives—were
completely immune to Satan’s dark and sensual sway. Public
exposures and civic persecution, an increasingly
enlightened clergy, and the Scientific Revolution in the
nineteenth century only tamped down the anti-Christian
profanations.
Witches’ Sabbath as portrayed on Berlin cabaret stage, 1927
 The Hauptstadt of Satan

Vestiges of pre-Renaissance superstition and Devil-worship

were observed in the Central European countryside until
World War I. Bavarian grandmothers continued to place
horse and deer penises under their grandsons’ beds to
ensure their sexual happiness and fertility. Bohemian
peasants, hoping to marry within seven years, avoided
corner seats in taverns and, if their Biersteins toppled during
the evening, splashed the spreading foam behind their ears
for good luck. On Walpurgis Night, haggard women and men
still pranced around huge bonfires, where straw effigies were
consumed and delivered to Luciferian proxies.
Ernst Gerhard, Captive, 1925
Fidus, Satana, 1896

In Berlin, Satanist rituals dispensed with exhortations for

robust health and pregnancy. Debauchery and orgiastic
entertainment were the religious goals of the city-dwellers.
The first known Black Mass in modern times unfolded at
midnight in December 1919 at the Café Kerkau on
Behrenstrasse. Five hundred celebrants stripped off their
clothing in the club and circled around an altar covered with
a black-and-red Pentagram. One hundred Polenta, with
revolvers drawn, interrupted the solemn rite and the stark
naked devotees were herded into police lorries. Among the
law-breaking enthusiasts was the Crown Prince Friedrich
Wilhelm, supposedly in exile with the Kaiser’s family in
Holland.

Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhem

Marian Dockerill, a Swiss-born American journalist,

described the activities of European and American occult
sex societies in a sensational eight-part series, “Confessions
of a ‘High Priestess’ in Notorious ‘Love Cults.’” Her illustrated
report was syndicated in the Hearst press in March and April
of 1926 and later published in a re-edited pulp version, My
Life in a Love Cult: A Warning to All Young Girls (Chicago:
Better Publications, 1928).

The sister of Lea Hirsig (Aleister Crowley’s “Scarlet

Woman”) and a strikingly beautiful woman herself, Dockerill
was able to infiltrate and participate in several private Berlin
ceremonies in the spring of 1923. Her eyewitness portrayals
were unusually graphic and detailed. No contemporary
German reportage could rival Dockerill’s astute and in-depth
accounts.

Marian Dockerill, My Life in a Love Cult, 1928

Marian remembers entering an elegant Berlin apartment,

remade into a hellish sanctuary, lined with black and
crimson silk curtains. Blue and red lights created an
otherworldly chapel-like atmosphere. Men in black hooded
robes, and women in white, sat silently on church pews,
where they faced a black-curtained altar. Flutes and violins
could be heard playing in an adjoining studio room. The
“Priest”—reportedly a real defrocked Catholic priest—
entered slowly from a side entrance. Inscribed on his black
cowl was a red Satanic pentagram. Behind him was a bare-
footed “High Priestess,” wearing a revealing, diaphanous
scarlet gown. She swung a censer of burning incense as the
“Priest” intoned Latin phrases. It sounded like a traditional
Catholic Mass; only the words “Satan” and “evil” were
substituted for “God” and “good.” From the ceiling hung an
upside-down crucifix.

The “Priest” pulled the altar curtain open. On a tiny black-

velvet platform lay a naked 18-year-old girl, the daughter of
two cult society members. Her neck and limbs were
contorted in severe right angles to her stunning face and
torso. The “Living Altar’s” blonde hair touched the floor.
Balanced on her smooth breasts stood a golden chalice. The
girl appeared to be in a trance, lifeless, like a wax statue.
The blue and red lights struck her translucent body in such a
way that she seemed to be a Biblical figure in a stained-
glass window.

While the “Priest” chanted the Black Mass liturgy, the

congregation periodically stood, prostrated themselves, and
returned to their benches. After 30 minutes, the “Priest”
placed a holy communion wafer on the “Living Altar’s” chest
and lifted the cup from her body. He tasted the wine and, in
a violent gesture, flung the remaining red liquid across her
nude lower torso. In a final sonorous plea, the “Priest” urged
Satan to redeem his flock from “all good,” from “all Godly
virtue.”

To Dockerill, despite the anti-Catholic provocations and

public nudity, the demonic consecration was only
symbolically offensive and relatively chaste. She was to
learn that it was mere preparation for an entirely different
kind of Satanic sex ceremony.

The following night Marian was invited to the mansion of a

much talked-about and promiscuous Hungarian countess
(probably Agnes Esterhazy) in Berlin West. Eighty guests
arrived around midnight, decked out in high fashion. They
were separated by gender and directed into two dressing
rooms, where costumes and tables of intoxicants awaited
them. Besides champagne and brandy, there were boxes of
powdered heroin, cocaine, hashish, bottles of morphine,
assorted pills, and hypodermic needles. Only a few of the
women dabbled with the hard drugs. The others good-
naturedly donned the party animal skins, loincloths, and
togas.

In the brightly lighted ballroom, an orchestra played

strange syncopated music. A huge drum overpowered the
musicians with a relentless, frenzied thump. The crowd,
mostly in solo positions, moved in jerky steps to the
primitive percussive beat.
The Black Mass Consecration, recreated by Marian Dockerill
for the Hearst Syndicate, 1926
 FRATERNITAS SATURNI’S SEX
MAGIC RITE “GRADUS PENTAPHAE”

The room is illuminated in red. A black altar is covered

with a white cloth, which has an inverted red Pentagram
sewn on it. Over the altar is a five-branch candelabrum,
which contains five, burning red candles. Between the
 altar and the council-chamber table is a flaming tripod.
In the corners of the room, red candles flicker.

A hymn “In These Holy Halls” is played. A gong is

struck five times.

The Master of the Chair, the Priestess, and the Master

of Ceremonies wear red masks. All of the participants
and observers are naked underneath their robes.

Tethered to a center platform was an oversized black he-

goat. More than frightened, it seemed to be repulsed by the
constant din and unnatural movement around it. The
bucking animal bleated in counterpoint to the deafening
tom-tom. When the music died down, a bearded man with a
leopard skin covering his loins leaped to the wooden stage,
and began to sing, in a deep bass:

“Give me the sight of the open eye,

And the word of madness and mystery,

O Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Pan Pan! Pan!

The gods withdraw:

To the great beasts come, Io Pan!

Goat of thy flock, I am gold, I am god

 And I rave, and I rip and I rend,

Everlasting world without end,

In the might of Pan.

Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! Io Pan!”

The drunken celebrants responded with disjointed refrains

of “Io Pan” and started to disrobe. Then the Dionysian-like
festivities began in earnest.

Dockerill described the scene with some care: “I saw a

woman turn like a tigress and sink her teeth deep into the
shoulder of a man who leaped in front of her. He tore her hair
until he broke the grip of her teeth and screamed; he began
kissing her brutally. I saw others cutting each other with
knives, and a man dragging a woman by her hair and
striking her naked shoulders with a whip until they were
streaked with blood. And finally, as the culminating horror, I
saw a nude woman, with a dagger, leap upon the huge, now
completely terrified goat, and cut its throat from ear to ear,
so that the blood gushed out in a stream while men and
women fought and clawed and tore at each other to bathe in
the blood. […] The mad orgy lasted until dawn.”
(“Confessions,” March 27, 1926)
 Aryan Love Cults and Barefoot
Prophets

Over 200 mystic cults and secret societies were active in

Central Europe during the interwar period. Most fell into
distinct categories: Aryan brotherhoods, American-style
Spiritualist organizations, “scientific” astrological circles,
chic Satanist clubs, Freemasons, Gnostic associations,
Buddhist and pseudo-Buddhist leagues, ascetic Sufi-like
communes, Christian dissenters, Theosophical breakaway
unions, Rosicrucians, and outlandish occult-political
movements. Most groups had their own insignias, liturgical
rites, uniforms, publications, and often distinct cuisines.
Altogether some two million Germans formally belonged to
these non-conformist sects. Another eight million expressed
interest in them, sometimes subscribing to a variety of
journals or attending multiple services. Berliners veered to
the most self-gratifying new-age religions.
The Goat Sacrifice, by Panini, 1926

Although the heyday of bizarre sectarianism paralleled

times of economic crisis in Europe—the Inflation (1921-
1923) and the Great Depression (1929-1933)—cultish
examples of sex-frenzy could be found much earlier. One
phallic-worshipping band surfaced in Schwarzenburg, a
German-speaking district in Switzerland, around the 1890s.
Founded by Johannes Binggeli, a dwarfish trance-author, the
Forest Brotherhood proselytized incest as a “divine” calling.
Binggeli referred to his genitals as the “box of Christ” and
offered up his urine as a universal healing balm. And when
necessary, he slept with his coven of Forest women in order
to properly exorcise them of nefarious spirits. Binggeli was
finally arrested and tried after it was discovered that he had
impregnated his own daughter during one such vision-
ceremony. Binggeli was sentenced to a Swiss insane asylum
but his specter lingered into the new century.

Master of the Chair: “Jallah! Greetings, my Brothers

and Sisters. Are you prepared to enact the Five-fold
Alpha ritual with a pure heart and without deceit?”

The Congregation: “We are!”

Master of the Chair: “Brother First Guardian, what is

your duty?”

First Guardian: “To determine if we are all Masters of

the 18°; if we all bear the sign and the know the grip.”

Master of the Chair: “Execute your office!”

The First Guardian leaves his assigned position and

listens to each member. Individually, they whisper the
secret password in his ear. He returns to his station and
replies, “To Me!”

The Congregation makes the sign of the Master and

then the sign of the Magnus Pentalphae.

The First Guardian: “Venerable Master, all those

present have made both signs of the 18°. No one here is
uninitiated.”
 The gong is struck five times, followed by five rings of
the silver bell.

The Second Guardian: “All is in order, my Brothers and

Sisters!”

Master of the Chair: “Stand, my Brothers and Sisters,

and proclaim the oath!”

The Congregation stands, extending their right fists

with outstretched thumbs: “We all swear and vow to live
and act according to the Holy Laws of the Five-fold
Alpha. We will guard and retain the secrets and conceal
them from outsiders -- even from our Brothers and
Sisters who have not attained the 18°. Death and ruin to
traitors! A curse upon their souls! Blessed be the true
Chalice of Light, whose strength may preserve us from
all temptation! Om!”

They sit.

Master of the Chair walks to the altar: “In Nomine

Sator, Rahator, Etan! In Nomine Baphomet. Hal yac yin!
Jallah! I call and invoke you, Forces of the Fire Element.
Flow into my hands, my heart, and my brain! And give
me the power to awake the Serpent!”

The Master of the Chair gestures to the Priestess’ chair.

She stands and walks to him in measured steps.
 The Master of the Chair traces the sign of the
Pentagram over her head and says: “Let the power of the
Serpent, the ancient Dragon, awake in you, Daughter of
Lilith. She raises up from the darkness of your womb and
flows into us with all the power and strength of the
Uridaphne!”

The Priestess kneels down and hands a dagger to the

Master of the Chair. He lifts it, kisses the blade, and lays
it on the altar. Then he goes to the burning tripod and
throws a handful of incense and powder into the flames.
It flares up bloody red.

The Master of Chair walks to the kneeling Priestess

and lays his hands on her head: “Rise up, you blue-
lidded Daughter of the Dawn! Do you know me?”

Priestess: “I know you!”

Master of the Chair: “Sister of the Five-Flamed Star, do

you feel me?”

Priestess: “Brother, I feel you!”

The Congregation: “Om! Om! Rahalon!”

Master of the Chair: “Sister, give me the sign of

recognition!”
 The Priestess rips the hood from her head; her mask
remains in place: “Placet Magister!”

Master of the Chair: “I still do not recognize you!” He

removes his hood.

Priestess: “Jallah!” She unbuttons the upper part of

her robe and exposes her breasts.

Master of the Chair: “I still do not recognize you!” He

exposes his chest.

With an ecstatic gesture, the Priestess loosens her belt

and drops her robe. Naked, she spreads her legs, bends
slightly forward, and lifts her arms with her thumbs
turned out. She responds ecstatically: “Jallah! Son of
Osiris! Do you recognize me now?”

In a corresponding ecstatic gesture, the Master of the

Chair tosses aside his robe, so only his mask and the
five-sided silver star on his chest remain: “Kufankh-hor!”

The Priestess: “Kuf-ankh-Herpokrat!” She jerks her

arms downward and grasps the penis of the Master of
the Chair. If it is hard and erect, the Priestess lies down
on the altar, spreads her legs, and allows his penis to
enter her womb.

At this moment, the Brothers and Sisters stand and

circle the altar in a chain, chanting in unison: “Jiyallah!
Jiyallah!”
 In Ascona, a tiny Alpine village at the southern tip of
Switzerland, Central European naturalists, pacifistic
vegetarians, Nietzsche-obsessed writers, radical anarchists,
Runeists, and devotees of free love and Ausdruckstanz set
up various ramshackle campsites and sanatoriums. In the
shadow of Monte Verita, between 1900 and 1915, Ascona’s
bohemian leaders preached new health regimens, new diets,
new communal values, and new sexual practices. By the end
of World War I, their teachings had spread to Germany. It
was the beginning of an international counterculture.
 Into the Fourth Dimension

An embodiment of Carl Jung’s “cosmic man,” Rudolf von

Laban in the Twenties restored to dance a super-masculine
ethos that many thought classical ballet had leached from
the European stage. Most scholars credit Laban with the
invention of German Expressive Dance. The movement of
the body, he taught, must remain absolutely pure and
independent of music and storytelling. In addition, every
gesture had to express the ineffable essence of man-in-
space, or Body Wisdom.

A self-proclaimed magician and a Grand Master in the

Swiss OTO, Laban began to formulate his somatic
innovations in 1911. At the edge of Ascona, over a three-
year period, he gathered an adoring collective, who listened
to his rapturous preachments against modern civilization
and how it ripped mankind from its celestial roots. To restore
humanity’s Edenic past, Laban devised the concept of
abstract movement choirs and community festivals that
were organized on the principles of ecstatic movement and
a shared Germanic history.

Seeking the physical paradise that their protean teacher

nurtured in his gestural experiments, the Laban-dancers
lived communally, dining solely on nuts, dried fruits, and
grain beverages. They confronted their less enlightened
neighbors with nude recitals and a pre-Christian notion of
“group marriage.” But Ascona could not contain the
indefatigable trickster.

K. Vetter, Die Schönheit cover, 1926

In 1919, Laban founded his first Dance-Theatre Studio in

Stuttgart. (Within ten years, there would be 25 Laban
studios in Germany and Switzerland alone.) Intellectually,
Laban borrowed shamelessly from Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
and Rudolf Steiner but his abilities to transform other
people’s theories into novel and gripping action set the
nomadic womanizer apart. It was long rumored that waiting
outside the stage doors of Laban’s many repeat concerts
were scores of Madonna-faced mistresses, rocking fatherless
infants in their arms.
Rudolf von Laban and his OTO group in Ascona, 1914

The Ikosaeder (or Space-Crystal) was the Grand Master’s

strangest invention. Unveiled in 1924, it graphically defined
the space around the dancer’s body at twelve points in a
magical configuration. Although a compelling image and a
centerpiece of the Laban’s occult beliefs in the primacy of
Body Wisdom, his published descriptions of the Ikosaeder’s
use in dance training were cryptic and contradictory.

One contemporary account (Theatre Arts, April 1928)

referred to the Ikosaeder as a “machine” that, when
combined with the proper set of 24 movements (Eukinetics),
brought the naked participant into a state of spiritual
ecstasy—“a cage made of wire in the form of a polyhedron,
in which the pupil is enclosed, to enter into affinity with
space and so to be galvanized into contact with the fourth
dimension.”

Laban’s gifts for spectacle and pictorial displays of racial

vitality made him an ideal candidate to organize the Nazi
festivals in the Thirties. Laban’s difficult personality and the
German war on modernist art in 1936, however, drove the
movement guru into exile in England, where he assisted the
Allied war effort and continued his teachings on muscular
alignment and dance notation.
 The Haeusser Revolution

More typical of how the Asconian free-love message

migrated to Berlin was the curious saga of Louis Haeusser. A
German conman and convicted champagne swindler,
Haeusser moved to Switzerland in 1913 in order to
circumvent French justice. He studied Taoist philosophy in
Ascona and by 1918 began to proclaim himself as “the
Naked Truth,” as Germany’s “future Superman.” A bald,
middle-aged businessman, the frequently unclad Haeusser
gathered huge flocks of enthralled disciples, mostly women,
to his side as he toured German cities. The female acolytes,
who dressed as men, were referred to as the “Greatest
Occult Harem in the land.” Haeusser manipulated their
“sexual dependencies,” claiming they all dreamed of “being
God’s mother,” his divine protectors. According to the
“People’s King,” his childish and S&M-like activities only
increased their earthly devotion.

In 1922, Haeusser founded the Christian National Party

(later renamed the League of National Communists) and ran
for President of the Reichstag as “Zarathustra-Haeusser,”
“Christ-Haeusser,” “Anti-Christ-Haeusser,” “Dionysus-
Haeusser,” and “Laotse-Haeusser.” In a flag-bedecked
limousine (provided by a love-struck aristocrat), he motored
around Germany, calling for “ultimate” erotic freedom and
rule by hirsute supermen. The “Guillotine-Dictator” had
been briefly paired with Hitler by journalists since both
rallied for the abolition of the Weimar Constitution.
Unfortunately Haeusser’s anarchistic coalition splintered
into competing “Jesus-Worker Parties,” led by younger “top-
hatted messiahs.” The dispirited prophet died in a Berlin
hospital in 1927 (possibly murdered in his room by a League
rival) but his organization, still numbering in the tens of
thousands, continued to promulgate Haeusser’s apocalyptic
missives for another five years.
Haeusser, The Naked Truth, 1925
 The Gottesbund Tanatra

At the time of the Inflation, another erotic cult appeared in

the city of Görlitz. Established in 1923 by Fedor Mühle, a 44-
year-old merchant, the Gottesbund Tanatra borrowed heavily
from Spiritualist and Buddhist precepts: all souls survived
physical death and were reincarnated into new bodies;
therefore, all males and females were truly brothers and
sisters. Despite God’s love, the world was quickly
approaching its endtimes. What differentiated Mühle’s
trance preaching from run-of-the-mill New Ageism was its
sexual message: not only was traditional marriage to be
avoided but the role of homosexual men was greatly
elevated. These sexual outcasts brought moral and spiritual
refinement to humanity. In fact, only gay men—with their
unalloyed male and female components—could serve as
mediums and healers.

The Master of Ceremonies steps into the circle and

seizes the dagger. He stands behind the copulating
couple and grabs a black rooster (or hen). He holds the
agitated animal over them and cuts off the head in a
single stroke. He pours the blood over the copulating
Priests.

The Congregation chants “Jiyallah!” in an ever-growing

frenzy.
 Before he climaxes, the Master of the Chair removes
his penis from the Priestess’ vagina. She holds his
member and splashes blood on it. Then she puts her left
hand on the base of his chakra and, with her right hand,
she vigorously strokes his penis until he nearly
ejaculates. The Priestess ecstatically cries out and
thrusts her finger deep into his anus. The Master of the
Chair manipulates her clitoris, so the couple orgasms
simultaneously.

The Congregation shrieks in ecstasy, which concludes

the ceremony.

The Master of Ceremonies breaks the fraternal chain,

takes a white silk cloth and spreads it over the Priestess.
He envisions the magical symbols of the Pentalphic
Grade. (If his imagination is weak, he can draw the
symbols in the air with a dagger in an eastward
direction.)

Then the Master of Ceremonies hangs a red robe

around the Master of the Chair. The Master of
Ceremonies steps to the back of the altar and the
Brothers and Sisters return to their places in silence.

The Master of Ceremonies picks up the censer and

waves it in the four directions. He summons the Spirit-
Invocation of the Lodge: “Gotos! Euraseh zed achna
Emzke ho! Hareb Kaloo emtah kreas kaa elam! Noab
tezwah mehischeh ula elm tree elegob maha! Erechthon
kale almaia jaschbarak Hed gog Mehengog Maguth ebze
Carago hed abernach, obeah, durach elego kale almaino
edach. Amno wimero Amom! Makalo hem! Gotoas!
 Makabo! Hetan hem! Gotoy! Hur Ro close Gotoy! Gotoy!
Gotoy, Ave ebze Karon.”

The Master of the Chair says: “Stand, my Brothers and

Sisters, and repeat after me, ‘We swear to keep silent!
Our Brothers and Sisters are our witnesses!’ Receive now
the benediction! May the Eternal One bless you! He shall
increase your powers! He shall deepen your wisdom and
inflame your love because Love is the Law! Love under
Will! Go in peace, my Brothers and Sisters, and seal your
mouths and guard your tongues.”

The Congregation: “Death to the Traitor! Om!”

All except the Priestess and the Master of the Chair

exit from the room.

According to the Tanatra philosophy, heterosexual

intercourse prevented mankind from conversing with
unattached souls and curing lethal infirmities. On the other
hand, homosexual anal contact, or “Occult Marriage,” joined
“true, pure, untainted souls” into a blessed relationship. The
Tanatra elect claimed that they were only following their
Lord Jesus, who—their Gnostic texts revealed—engaged in
such activities with a boy named Johannes.

The Gottesbund Tanatra soon expanded its operations. By

1929, Mühle’s sect had over 60 lodges in Germany,
including several in Berlin, with a reported membership of
some two thousand supporters. Their Sunday observances
included outdoor services with trance-sermons, choral
songs, and long-winded homilies interspersed with floral
parades. (Presumably the Tanatra Occult Marriages took
place inside their converted churches and walled
sanctuaries.)

In 1936, after scrutinizing its unusual priestly exegesis

and fervent Aryan declarations, the Gestapo closed down
the Gottesbund Tanatra and rounded up its leaders.
 Dr. Musallam’s Adonistic Society

In Vienna, Franz Saettler founded his own private sex cult

in 1925. A noted scholar and linguist of medieval Persian,
north Arabic dialects, and conversational Farsi, Saettler
claimed that he discovered the ancient source of all religions
in the ruins of Olbia, near Mount Olympus, in 1913. It was
called Adonism. Its extant rites could be seen in secret
ceremonies carried out among the Druses and Yezidis (so-
called Devil-Worshippers) in the mountains of Syria, the
Caucasus rim, and in an unchartered area of western Persia
known as Nuristan. The polytheistic rituals involved animal
sacrifice and fornication with temple prostitutes, performed
under the enchanting glare of a full moon.

Writing under the nom de plume “Dr. Chakum Musallam,”

Saettler published over 30 books on the urreligion Adonism
and its occult application to modern times. Besides
subscriber-only tomes and monthly journals, Saettler,
through his Master Lodge Hekate, sold astrological readings,
aphrodisiacs and “oriental” talismans, pendulums, invisible
inks, alchemic formulas, magic gems, and counterfeit
resident permits.
Ikosaeder Exercise, 1926

In 1927, Saettler joined with the Berlin mystic, Rah-Omir

(Friedrich Wilhelm Quintscher), head of the New Order of
Mental Builders, to form the International Adonistic Society.
Rah-Omir Quintscher’s previous claim to fame involved his
infamous Tepha machine that projected lethal “astral
electro-magnetic” rays into the bodies of his enemies. Like
flattened Voodoo dolls, photographs of the beleaguered
targets were bombarded by invisible long-range waves.
 Saettler and Quintscher’s dubious enterprise attracted
thousands of mail-order adepts from Austria, Germany,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, France, Spain, Turkey,
Egypt, and the United States. In a sense, it was a classic
pyramid scheme. Wealthy Adonists were induced to buy
their way into the higher branches of the association and
then sell lesser titles to more naive initiates or purchase
shares in the “Olbia 209 209 Goldbank.” Besides occult
tchotchkes—including a mysterious elixir called Biogon—
and overnight dividends, the Adonistic Society’s main
appeal was Sex Magic lessons, in pamphlet form, written by
an authentic Nuristan seeress, madam to a sacred harem.

In April 1932, the Viennese Vice Police busted Dr.

Musallam for mail fraud and sexual misconduct. According
to newspaper reports, all they found in Saettler’s apartment
were roomfuls of Adonic documents and a foxy secretary
named Justine Schnattinger. Evidently she was the Society’s
“High Nuristani Priestess.”

Although both the crafty doctor and his accomplice died of

natural causes (Saettler in 1942 and Quintscher three years
later on the day Germany surrendered to the Western Allies),
contemporary Adonistic study groups and reprints of
Musallam’s serialized publications can be found today on
the Internet.
 Karezza and Mazdaznanism

America’s new religions, like Christian Science and the

Latter Day Saints, washed up on German shores following
the Armistice. Frequently these foreign creeds developed in
perverse and hysterical ways. Minor aspects of their stated
principles were often emphasized and exaggerated.
Naturally the occult elements transfixed German converts
and missionaries alike. Two invented faiths also contained
original sexual precepts. These were Karezza and
Mazdaznanism.

Created in Chicago in 1896 by Dr. Alice Bunker Stockham,

one of the most extraordinary American life-reformists of her
generation, Karezza borrowed heavily from the abandoned
and much-maligned eugenic practices of the utopian Oneida
Community in upstate New York and Dravidian tantric
customs from a polyandrous tribe in British India. Stockham,
one of only five licensed female physicians in the U.S.,
proposed a radical and scientific means for marital bliss:
long-term coitus sublimatus. Unlike John Humphrey Noyes,
who championed “multiple marriage,” male continence, and
socially directed human breeding for his Oneida collective
during the 1870s, Stockham thought both male and female
orgasms harmed the health and perennial joy of all wedded
couples. She traveled to the Malabar Coast and observed the
matriarchal habits of the Nayars. Tantric sex there, where
harems of husbands engaged in non-climactic intercourse
with their wives, seemed to improve the Nayars’ appearance
and intellectual well-being.

In a self-published pamphlet entitled Karezza Ethics of

Marriage (New York, 1896), Stockham explained the spiritual
rational behind Hindu Sacred Sex. “In the physical union of
male and female there may be a soul communion giving not
only supreme happiness, but in turn to soul growth and
development.” Quaker-educated, Stockham thought sexual
self-control equally heightened love interest while it
redirected “wasted,” finite creative energy into solving
vexing social problems. Rather than a philosophy of
abstinence, Karezza actually encouraged erotic contact but
in an exalted, protracted, and always emission-less form. Her
booklet even provided detailed instruction for the basic
tantric interchange.

Outside Berlin, Werner Zimmermann established a Karezza

colony and translated Karezza texts, which had long been
discarded in the land of their birth. A 72-year-old American
supporter, William Lloyd even blessed Zimmermann’s
efforts, which had added vegetarianism, lectures on human
electrical impulses (Magnetation), meditation, nudity, and
Aryan renewal to Stockham’s medical thesis. The German
Karezzalites believed European qualms over declining birth
rates were responsible for their lack of substantial growth.
Berlin tabloids had a field day exposing a sex cult that
militated against sexual relief.
Mazdaznan Egyptian Postures, 1930
 Otoman Zar-Adusht Hanish fashioned a more successful
German-American fusion. Born in Leipzig, Hanish studied
Zoroastrian doctrine in southeast Persia. He moved to
America at the turn of the century and estab-lished the first
Mazdaznan temple, the Church of the Master of Divine
Thought, off Manhattan’s Central Park. Unfortunately, his
well-heeled congregation was riled when Hanish was
charged with immoral behavior and sodomy with his boy-
acolytes, their children. Hanish moved the Mazdaznan
presses and center of operations to Chicago and then to Los
Angeles. Vice squads in both cities issued fresh warrants for
his arrest.

Paul Citroen, Mazdaznan Cures,1922

 In 1917, Hanish established the Mazdaznan World Centre,
Aryana, on the edge of Lake Zurich in Switzerland. From
there, his pseudo-Zoroastrian regimens of sexual hygiene
and racial purity quickly spread. Hanish schooled his
parishes in yoga-like exercises of breath control, rhythmic
gymnastics (the Egyptian postures), and proper mastication.
The Mazdaznan diet not only dispensed with meat and
processed foods, it forbade all “impure” substances. Week-
long fasts, vomit fêtes, high colonics, and “natural laxative”
tonics—made from linden and elder blossoms—ensured a
craving for Mazdaznan bean stews and hot fruit juices. Their
prayer services involved symbolic color projections and
Near-Eastern chants. These devotional acts and constraints
were said to “super-activate” the glands that produce
rejuvenating sex hormones.

Hanish’s students were instructed to laugh and smile

without lapse throughout their waking days. A telepathic
readiness enabled them to read character by a mere
handshake or by listening to slight changes in vocal pitch.
More menacingly, the adherents were subject to detoxifying
Mazdaznan needle “machines,” which pricked the skin and
caused infectious blisters to erupt. Extraction of the bloody
pus further cleansed the bodies of the mental warriors.

A Mazdaznan House and two Mazdaznan restaurants

opened in 1929 in Berlin. They attracted artist types,
including Bauhaus students, and radiant Hanish believers
from Leipzig and other urban centers. Sexually it was
unclear what the Mazdaznans practiced. It was said the
chaste, unigowned initiates engaged in polymorphous
orgies. Only Hanish knew for certain. He wrote that sexual
desire was linked to electrical vibrations emanating from the
outer cosmos and the earth’s core. Mazdaznan purification
augmented their planetary charge.

By 1932, Hanish’s cult claimed some 70,000 members in

eight countries but the movement was dogged by serious
internal strife and scandal. Over one dozen wealthy
enthusiasts had died under mysterious circumstances,
following fasting sessions, “baptisms” in ox blood, and the
transdermal applications of “cleansing oils.” A large number
of the Mazdaznan inner circle suffered complete mental
breakdowns or suicides.

Worst of all, two young converts, Hanish’s “adopted

children,” initiated million-dollar legal suits in Leipzig and
Los Angeles against their Man-God for sexual abuse. The
Swiss girl (11 years old) and the Swiss boy (16) were part of
eight-children teams being prepared for the Mazdaznan
priesthood in each local temple. After solitary diets of milk
and rose petals (for the girls) and beer and white grapes (for
the boys), the naked youngsters were led into marital
chambers for mutual deflowering. Under the watchful eyes
of Hanish’s purple-fezed cardinals, the children engaged in
ritual intercourse. As soon as the girls were led from the
sanctified rooms, the boys were then sodomized face down
by the Master himself or one of his elderly stand-ins.

Hanish died in 1936, the year his organization was banned

and shuttered by the Nazis. Mazdaznanism continued in
Switzerland and Southern California, where it still draws
fourth-generation scrubbed and smiley-faced zealots.
Ernst Schertel’s Dreamtheater, 1929
Hypnotic and Paranormal Suggestion

From its shady origins in pre-revolutionary France and

through the nineteenth century, Mesmerism and hypnosis in
Central Europe were long associated with erotic hijinks and
female sexual submission. The archetypal hypnotist-master
not only extracted memories and extreme emotions from his
unconscious patients, he could also control their physical
bodies and secret desires. Compliant subjects displayed the
mesmerist’s demonic power over them when their nipples
extended to unnatural lengths or their faces contorted in
orgasmic ecstasy. Hypnotic suggestion onstage or off was
the ultimate act of male seduction and public voyeurism.
Clownismus and Attitude Passionelle, 1927
 Ernst Schertel’s Magic Dreamtheater

Dr. Ernst Schertel blended clinical Mesmer-like techniques

with nudity and Ausdruckstanz. He issued dozens of
scientific-sounding manifestos on naked trance-performance
as mankind’s primordial art form and created a permanent
dance troupe to prove it.

In 1910, Schertel received his doctorate in philosophy

from the University of Jena. An amateur anthropologist, he
traveled to North Africa and the Middle East, where he
observed Arab and Berber puberty initiations and various
rites of passage. Back in Germany, Schertel aestheticized his
newly realized erotic theories into pop novels and film
features. In the waning months of the Great War, he founded
Wendes, the first of several publishing houses, where his
notions of the occult, naked dance, hysteria, and communal
worship led to a common prehistoric origin.

Schertel’s magnum opus, Magic: Its History, Theory,

Practice (Prien: Anthropos, 1923), was a revolutionary
treatise that intrigued many German intellectuals, including
Adolf Hitler. (The Führer’s personal copy in Brown
University’s Rare Book Room is filled with exclamation marks
and side column scrawls.) For Schertel, all religion was
based on magical thinking, which in turn functioned as a
sublimation of violent carnal impulses. To torturously bind,
to savagely whip, to forcefully penetrate the orifices of
another body (especially the sphincter)—that is, to violate
the sexual autonomy of a fellow human—led to a frenzied
orgiastic celebration, the ecstatic foundation of all religious
ceremony. The punishing flagellant and his acquiescent
devotee corporally symbolized the struggle of the Godhead
with its creation. The resulting erotic release, a shattering
ritual discharge from everyday taboos, dramatized for the
cult participants the holy act of sexual triumph and
submission. Fetish-worship, painful sacrifice, joyous embrace
with an all-powerful being—were primal experiences that
could only be found in two locales: the temple altar and the
brothel. According to Schertel’s provocative hypothesis,
devotional rites to a deity and sado-masochist acts were
intimately conjoined.
 Although Schertel had experimented with hypnotic dream
induction as far back as 1919, using an eleven-year-old
Finnish girl as his subject, the “Dreamtheater Schertel,” an
ensemble of eight nude female dancers, only surfaced
publicly six years later in Stuttgart.

In Asa (January 1926) Dr. A. Bernstein wrote, Schertel’s

method of work and training echoed that of the dervish
teachers and yoga masters. Nude dancers were put into
deep trance and then instructed to enact “motifs,” or
emotional states. They began in muscularly tense, curved
positions (“Clownismus”), like acrobats of the grotesque, and
then emoted freely across the stage in closed-eyed groups
(“Attitudes passionelles”). Schertel’s performers were trained
somnambulists, fulfilling some mysterious preliterate
mandate.

German critics were certainly taken with the

Dreamtheater’s “dark and puzzling” experiments. The
hallucinating dancers moved with feeling and esoteric
purpose. Yet the naked productions lacked variety, humor, or
narrative surprise. Schertel had created a new form of
terpsichorean pornography but it was far too obscure to
sustain itself. In 1930, the Dreamtheater Schertel folded.
The Hanussen Yearbook, 1932
Erik Jan Hanussen, The Magister Ludi
of Sex

In the last years of the Weimar Republic, one man came to

represent the unwholesome infusion of occult showmanship,
depraved sex, personal charisma, and fascist ideology. This
was Erik Jan Hanussen. For many Berliners, including Hitler’s
unflagging opponents, Hanussen was not just a celebrated
stage magician but also the supreme manipulator of the
perilous irrationalities that exemplified their era. The
Communist reporters unaffectionally tagged him the
“People’s Stupifier.”

Born Herschel-Chaim Steinschneider, Hanussen left his

lower-middle-class Viennese family to work the itinerant
theatre and carnie circuit during the waning days of
monarchist Europe. [For a full biography, see my book Erik
Jan Hanussen: Hitler’s Jewish Clairvoyant (Los Angeles: Feral
House, 2001).] A sleight-of-hand conjurer, tabloid journalist,
vaudeville entrepreneur, and psychic detective, the Austrian
roustabout had also mastered the arts of Mesmerism and
erotic spectacle.

In the early Twenties, Hanussen exhibited a string of

hypnotized strongwomen. These dainty subjects not only
bent steel bars and pulled heavy wagons with bridle bits in
their mouths, they also withstood the weights of anvils
placed over their stomachs and sledgehammer blows to
wooden planks supported by their breasts. A few years later,
Hanussen raised the hypnotic/erotic bar. He selected female
members from the audience—the more skeptical, the better
—and mesmerized them into orgasmic collapse before the
astonished faces of their husbands and colleagues.

Both genders came to Hanussen’s performances and

private sessions in order to experience the marvelous, the
extraordinary, the obliteration of common sense and moral
sobriety. Acquiescing all control to him (or watching it done
to a neighbor) spoke to a deep submissive nature that
fueled Hanussen’s hypnotic inductions. Passionate desire
was about loss of restraints—as was hypnosis and “burning
religion.” No one could be faulted when the needy heart or
the censoring mechanism of the brain succumbed to the
humiliating demands of an arch-seducer or evil cleric.
Mankind was made that way. Hanussen merely shaped an
amusing variety entertainment out of human frailty.

Mia Osta, a hypnotic subject at the Viennese Institute, 1926

 In 1928, Hanussen was arrested in the Czech town of
Teplitz-Schönau. Among the many charges leveled against
him was the hypnotic-seduction of naïve housewives and
claims of time-traveling clairvoyance. The trial, which took
place in Leitmeritz and ended two years later, brought
Hanussen into contact with Dr. Leopold Thoma, a leading
authority on “erotic suggestibility” and the head of the
Psychological Unit of the Viennese Police.

Unlike Hanussen, Thoma worked in tandem with the legal

and scientific establishment. He investigated so-called
occult crimes in Austria and Germany and studied the
verifiable effects of hypnotic suggestion. His Viennese
Institute was widely respected by Freud’s growing fraternity
and Central European judges frequently cited its
parapsychological deductions on criminal motivation and
exploitations of the subconscious mind.

Thoma had a bit of the theatrical bug in him as well and

produced sensational melodramas about sexual dependency
and Svengali-like manipulators of young women. More
shocking, however, were Thoma’s own experiments in
hypnotherapy. In 1926 he published a booklet, The Wonder
of Hypnosis (Württemberg: Johannes Baum Verlag, 1926)
that proved the sexual power of verbal suggestion. A young
Austrian woman, Mia Osta, was put into a trance state and
told her breasts and nipples were rapidly expanding,
becoming highly sensitive and unnaturally engorged with
blood. Chronometers measured a significant growth (45 mm)
in a single sitting. Other sessions convinced her that she
was a lesbian. And a male subject was induced into
believing that he was a nursing mother. His breasts visibly
transformed in shape and size.
Nipple Chart, 1926
Hanussen films his harem on the Ursel IV, 1932

Thoma appeared in the Leitmeritz courtroom. His

testimony, which endorsed many of Hanussen’s psychic
claims, immeasurably buttressed the defense’s difficult
position. Furthermore, Hanussen demonstrated his
supernatural talents to intuit personality and past events
before a panel of Czech jurists.

On May 28th, 1930, Hanussen beat the Leitmeritz rap. He

pronounced it the happiest day of his life. He also found a
certified scientific partner in his future confidence and
occult-sex schemes. Hanussen and Thoma joined forces and
moved to Berlin.
 In the immoderate metropolis, Hanussen became known
as the “Magister Ludi of Sex.” He dazzled the locals with his
hypnotic demonstrations and hawked sex crèmes in the
foyers of Berlin’s variety halls. After midnight, Hanussen
could be seen leading his harem of would-be film starlets to
the city’s most fashionable nightclubs and restaurants. He
even designed risque gowns based on the astrological signs
of his charges.

On his yacht, the Ursel IV, Hanussen fed his pampered

guests exotic drugs and performed Sex Magic feats that
even the most decadent revue-house would shun. His
afterhours orgies were matter-of-factly filmed by the
technological wonder. If Berlin’s tabloids failed to report on
Hanussen’s latest sexcapades, they found their way into the
Hanussen-Magazin or the weekly Hanussen Zeitung. Readers
could also learn the master’s secrets for occult seduction in
his serialized lessons, “How to Hypnotize Your Lover into
Ecstasy.” (Presumably Thoma had a ghostwriting hand in
that obliging series.) Han-ussen’s publications had love-
advice columns and characterological readings as well.

Hanussen leads Thoma in his telepathic post, 1930

The foyer of the Palace of the Occult, 1933
 In the spring of 1932, Hanussen’s smirking persona
unexpectedly surfaced in the superheated atmosphere of
German politics. On March 25th, just when the National
Socialist cause seemed to be on the verge of collapse, the
Man Who Knows All published a bizarre trance-vision in his
tabloid. The headline in the Hanussen-Zeitung screamed
that Hitler would lead the nation as Reichschancellor within
one year. It was a preposterous joke but one that the
despondent Führer treated with solemnity.

Nazi officials in Berlin began to frequent the Ursel

festivities, greatly enhancing the already depraved
atmosphere. The bisexual libertine Count Wolf von Helldorf
argued his Party’s racial platform with Hanussen, whom he
assumed was of Danish origin. After one especially decadent
evening on the yacht, the Count magnanimously offered to
introduce the fun-loving clairvoyant to Hitler. After all, in the
reckoning of Helldorf, one master showman had thrust
politics into the realm of prophecy; the other had vigorously
seasoned the national agenda with mystical belief.

Hanussen serves drinks in the Room of Glass, 1933

 When the two “H”s last met, after New Year’s 1933,
Hanussen reportedly treated Hitler like a superstitious
peasant woman. He traced the bumps on his scalp and
consulted astrological charts to determine the candidate’s
divine fate. The Man Who Can See into the Future guessed
right: der Führer would soon lead Germany.

On January 30th, Hitler came to power. Three weeks later,

Hanussen inaugurated his Palace of the Occult in the center
of Berlin. Opening night was, to be sure, a bizarre blend of
slinky glamour, politics, and over-the-top occultism. Blonde,
blue-eyed docents (in diaphanous togas) led the visitors into
the Palace’s Hall of Silence, where they heard the Great
Clairvoyant pontificate from a throne set on a hydraulic lift.
Most of the guests came for the devilish theatrics and high-
society party atmosphere, but, at midnight, a history-
shaking séance took place in the Room of Glass.

In front of Berlin’s leading editors and tastemakers,

Hanussen spookily predicted the destruction of the
Reichstag by “divine fire.” It was yet another amusing
forecast from the Fourth Dimensional Telepath. Twenty hours
later, however, the Reichstag did ignite in flames. It signaled
the end of democratic Germany and, one month later, cost
Hanussen his life.

In 1937, Thoma quietly relocated to London. For several

years, he collaborated with Alexander Cannon, Britain’s
most prominent parapsychologist, and befriended Aleister
Crowley, a former head of Germany’s OTO.
OTO Trance-Vision Ceremony, 1926
 The Ordo Templi Orientis

The O.T.O., or Ordo Templi Orientis, emerged from the

chaotic Austro-Hungarian underground of secret Occult-
Scientific societies and fragmenting Masonic orders. A
prominent Austrian chemist and yoga enthusiast, Carl
Kellner plotted its development in 1904 and envisioned his
organization as a twentieth-century priesthood with
selective borrowings from past esoteric organizations. At
first, he sought to combine the successive hierarchies and
initiation rites of French Rosicrucianism with the
transnational and Gnostic elements buried in Madame
Blavatsky’s much maligned Theosophy.
Black Mass at the CLub Amazon, 1924
 In Vienna, Kellner had studied fakir body magic—such as
arresting his pulse, popping his eyeballs out of their sockets,
piercing his tongue—and later mastered the psychophysical
work of India’s wonder-working sadhus. Yogic breath control
and Sex Magic were to be the OTO’s practical and signature
centerpieces.

Kellner wrote that each of the ten chakras could be

regulated through directed breathing. He experimented with
an inverted form of Kundalini yoga, where sexual energy
from the genitals, or the Naga chakra (which he called
Napa), was channeled into the solar plexus through
meditation and rhythmic inhalation. Dressed as a
Babylonian priest, Kellner and his wife practiced a new form
of tantric Sex Magic. They firmly believed that their
ceremonial conservation of sperm and vaginal fluids was
life’s Elixir, liquid prana or the watery solution found in the
Holy Grail, the very source of wonder-working White Magic.

Occult Horoscope, 1928

 Kellner did not live long enough to fulfill his occult aims.
He died in his laboratory, following an episode of a
paranoiac panic. A former opera singer, German-British war
correspondent, and Prussian spy, Theodor Reuss claimed to
inherit Kellner’s mission in 1905. He named it the Ordo
Templi Orientis.

Reuss supplemented Kellner’s tantric teachings with

Manichean and Wagnerian concepts regarding the division
of Spirit and Material Worlds. Only Sex Magic brought them
into direct contact.
 According to Peter-Robert Koenig’s insightful and
extensive explanation of early OTO practice, “The sensations
that form slowly within Man and Woman sexually joined
come not from the conjunction of the physical parts, but
from the male and female sexual polarities in contact.
Correct breathing patterns affect the chemistry of the
bloodstream and so bring about a change in the internal
environment of the brain. Consciousness ego moves away to
make room for divine power. Sexual energy then can be
preserved. Using correct breathing, both lead to the
transmutation of energy, where the Magician becomes a
Clairvoyant.” (“O.T.O. Phenomenon,” 1994)

The German OTO and its British subsidiary (Mysteria

Mystica Maxima) attracted equal numbers of Jazz Age
mystics, horny intellectuals, genuine nirvana seekers, and
power-mad opportunists. Its international membership was
never large—in the hundreds—and its leadership utterly
unstable, disagreeable, or transitory.

Unfortunately Reuss suffered from a debilitating stroke in

1920 and more hedonistic and darker personalities entered
into the OTO Berlin scene. For six years, beginning in 1924,
Heinrich Tränker organized OTO Black Masses at the Club
Amazon near the Halleschen Gate. Each Walpurgis Night
(one stroke after midnight May 1st) began with the ravings
of a naked virgin tied to a wooden crucifix. While OTO
members sipped from flutes of champagne, the trance-
speaker offered up visions of the coming year. Afterward
three or four initiates were inducted into Tränker’s Great
Lodge. The men swore alliance to the Order by placing their
left hands on their exposed and erect penises.
An OTO initiate reveals her pentagram branding by Crowley,
1926
 The Great Beast Devours the OTO

The English-speaking Reuss had been in contact with

Aleister Crowley since 1911. Their relationship was one of
approach-avoidance. For seven years in Great Britain, New
York, and Paris, the radical mountain-climbing artist and
poet experimented with Sex Magick rites and advanced his
counter-Christian religion, Crowleyanity. Mixing astrology,
Kabalah, Tibetan Buddhism, yoga, and Gnosticism, Crowley
promulgated a Left-Handed Magic known as the Laws of
Thelema. (“Love is the Law.” “Do What Thou Wilt!”)

In many quarters, Crowley (Master Therion or the Great

Beast 666) was considered something of a genius. But his
uncompromising personality, devotion to drugs (cocaine,
hashish, opium, and heroin), abusive manipulation of cultish
followers, and, especially, his enthusiasm for sometimes
lethal “erotomagic” diversions earned him the rubric “the
Wickedest Man in the World.”
Aleister Crowley, Self-Portrait, 1930

Crowley devised a System of Twelve OTO Degrees of

initiation, five of which related to Sex Magic: 7th, Adoration
of the Phallus; 8th, Masturbation; 9th, Vaginal Intercourse;
10th, Fertilization; 11th, Anal Intercourse. Some scholars
ascribed Crowley’s ritual perversions to his repressed
homosexual character. Although he mostly slept with
women, he preferred anal contact and often needed homely
or masculine women to dominate him.

In June 1926, Crowley was invited to a German OTO

conference in Hohenleuben. (Although the ailing Reuss had
declared Crowley’s Book of the Law Bolshevik in spirit, he
was determined to appoint its author his heir and Outer
Head of the Order (OHO) in 1922.) The meeting, which took
place three years after Reuss’ demise, was puzzling and self-
defeating. The OTOers splintered into three groups: the
Pansophic Working Group (headed by Tränker, who soon
denounced the Englishman’s elevation to “World Savior”);
the Thelema-Verlag Society, which translated and published
Crowley’s works (led by Martha Küntzel, a rabid Nazi
supporter in the next decade); and the OTO-Pansophy, a
pro-Crowley outfit that was nominally controlled by Karl
Germer.

Tränker’s former assistant and a decorated spy, Germer

financially sustained the peripatetic Crowley through the
remainder of the Twenties. It was a difficult task. Master
Therion was hopelessly addicted to heroin and spent much
time and treasure in London court-rooms, defending his
fading reputation. Crowley’s relationship to his core flock
and Scarlet Women fared no better. Some died; others
abandoned him thoroughly.

In April 1930, the 55-year-old Crowley settled in Berlin. He

hoped to sell a gallery room of Thelema-themed paintings
and portraits but was utterly unsuccessful. The Berliner
Tageblatt identified him “as something between Karl May
[the pulp novelist] and Schopenhauer.” Most of Crowley’s
efforts went into securing his position as a committed Sex
Magician and visionary philosopher. Eventually even
Germer, who claimed the Great Beast once attempted to
seduce him, became alienated from the Thelematic lawgiver.

Crowley returned to London in 1932 and the fabled OTO

Lodges virtually disappeared from the country of their birth.
 Fraternitas Saturni

Of all the interwar German cults devoted to applied Sex

Magic, Eugen Grosche’s Fraternitas Saturni (FS) had the
greatest visibility and stimulated the most controversy. It
also attracted the largest number of participating female
adepts and survived the Nazi regime, World War, and Allied
Occupation.

Born in Leipzig in 1888, Grosche just managed to escape

the abject poverty of his youth. At age 22, he joined a Berlin
publishing firm, where he edited a long list of business and
trade journals. In 1919, he was appointed People’s
Commissar and a district organizer for one of Berlin’s tiny
revolutionary parties. After serving a brief prison sentence,
he opened a bookstore of esoterica.

In 1921, Tränker appointed Grosche the Berlin head of the

Pansophical Lodge. Over the next few years, the antiquarian
founded the independent Inveha Verlag and studied
astrology, hypnosis, crystal-gazing, trance art, Hollow-Earth
theories, and magic healing. During the years of Pansophy’s
slow disintegration, Grosche took the occult name Grand
Master Gregor A. Gregorius. He had only a fleeting interest
in Crowley’s OTO dominion (although later published a
number of Master Therion’s tracts).
 Between 1926 and 1928, Grosche established, with Albin
Grau (the set designer for F.W. Murnau’s vampire epic
Nosferatu), a new occult secret society. They called it the
Fraternitas Saturni. Forty members of Tränker’s group broke
with the German OTO and enlisted en masse in the FS’s
more vital and notorious enterprise.

Grosche attempted to link all aspects of Twenties’ Occult-

Sciencism into a unified system of beliefs: Pharaonic
architecture, psychoanalysis, hormone-inducing substances,
Kabalah, non-Euclidean physics, yoga, Peruvian sacrificial
rites, electro-magneticism, and astrology combined with Sex
Magick and hypnotic ritual. The principal text that animated
the FS’s cryptic philosophy was the Gnostic Gospel of John.
In the discarded Palestinian bit of apocrypha, three divinities
granted humanity occult powers: Satan, the Virgin Mary,
and Berbelo, God’s female mirror image. According to the
ancient writing, Creation only began when God saw his
reflection in a stream of water. The female face, Berbelo,
implored the Ain-Sof to conjure up other life-forms.
Brother Leonardo, Saturn Demon, a creative spirit conceived
through Mirror-Magic, 1928
Albin Grau, Saturnglyph, 1928

The Berbelo Gnostics, Grosche wrote, performed a peculiar

array of pre-Renaissance Satanic rites. At their communal
celebrations and prayer sessions, they drank an especially
intoxicating sparkling wine and ate forbidden foods.
Following their blessed feasts, the female Gnostics were
instructed to find new sexual partners—“Rise up and give
yourself to my brother!” The ejaculate and menstrual blood
from these unions (discharges from virgins were considered
to be the most efficacious) was then mixed with honey,
pepper, and other spices to craft a sacred potion or ointment
that mimicked “Spermatikos Logos,” the seed carrier of
divine reason. The priestly consumption of that strange
liquid (“stolen lightning”) became the climactic moment of
their worship of Christ and Saturn.

In the backroom lecture hall of his antiquarian store,

Grosche taught mirror magic and astrological positions for
sexual intercourse. He also prescribed cocaine, peyote
extracts, and advocated the use of hashish.

Most of the leading OTO personalities thought little of

Grosche’s character or Satanic preachments. Frau Küntzel
ridiculed him as a “Black Brother.” Germer denounced him
as a “sex-maniac” and “one of the lowest types of occultist”
that he ever met. But Grosche’s FS grew.

By 1929, FS Lodges had formed in Berlin, Dresden, and

Bucharest. They aligned with Saettler’s International
Adonistic Society and issued Magic Newsletters and a three-
color quarterly, the Saturn Gnosis. At Grosche’s bookstore,
one could not only buy FS pamphlets on astrology and
karma, pendulum forecasts, and sacred coitus but also hear
lectures on “Homosexuality and Esotericism” and
“Vampirism and Blood-Magic.”
Eugen Grosche

Membership in the FS involved a five-year apprenticeship

and its Berlin headquarters tutored at least 200 neophytes.
Trance-painting and “astrological music” were presented at
their meetings but the organization was unable to outlive
the Great Depression and unending financial collapse that
followed.
 In 1930, Grosche was forced to sell his Berlin center of
operations. He reportedly set up shop as a psychoanalyst.
After the Gestapo seized his private library in 1936, Grosche
escaped to Ticino, in the Italian-speaking corner of
Switzerland. He returned to Berlin after the war and
attempted to revive the FS. Three years before he died in
1963, Grosche published a fanciful novel, Exoriale, which
apparently documented the FS’ sex practices from the
1920s. ■
Berbelo in Grosche’s 1960 novel, Exoriale
Survivor of a Lustmord attack

Hardly a month passed without some terrible murder becoming

known. In many cases ordinary criminal instincts were
 combined with sexual perversions, typical of the day. [...]
Indeed, human nature could assume no lower form.

Rom Landau, Seven: An Essay in Confession, 1936

The romanticism of the underworld bewitched me. I was

magnetized by the scum. Berlin—the Berlin I perceived or
imagined was gorgeously corrupt.

Klaus Mann, 1942

CRIME ON THE SPREE

The social boundary between vicious criminal behavior and

unconventional sex became increasingly blurred during the
Weimar era. For one, German courts gave voice to public
defenders and criminologists who believed that domestic and
street violence, underworld pursuits, and outlaw activity in
general were deeply rooted in implacable hormonal
imbalances. Some psychologists maintained that all crime,
from kleptomania to strangulation, was a form of sexual
discharge. The puzzle of how and why the criminal mind
functioned differently and required hypererotic and illicit
sources of gratification intrigued not only Germany’s
academicians and social scientists but permeated the pages,
canvases, and screens of Weimar’s popular culture.

The German criminal novel, or Krimi, and early film noir

floridly mixed scientific detection with psychosexual critique.
No outlaw could be sexually healthy in the stencil of Weimar
fiction. Correspondingly, anyone with hidden, unresolved
childhood complexes or an abnormal sexual appetite could fall
prey to murderous sociopathic urges. This meant that the
heavy cloud of suspicion and guilt suddenly engulfed more
than the professional thief or prostitute. Virtually every German
—the sunny-faced peasant, the old flower-lady, the wise-
cracking butcher—was a potential lawbreaker and fugitive from
the ancient codes of human decency.
Hundegustav regular, 1928
Lustmord, Unknown artist
Tied and Assaulted

Graphic Berlin artists, like George Grosz, Otto Dix, and Rudolf
Schlichter, also reveled in horrid depictions of Lustmord (or sex
murder) scenes. For them, the political message was obvious
and taunting. Behind the most placid bourgeois lifestyle lurked
a sick and twisted rage. It was never enough to merely stab or
suffocate a mate, neighbor, Kontroll-Girl; one had to disfigure
the body, eviscerate its reproductive organs, and destroy the
corpse’s sexuality.

The Neue Sachlichkeit novelists and painters of Weimar

claimed that they were only responding to a grotesque reality.
Gruesome cases of Lustmord and bizarre serial murders filled
the front pages of German dailies. Hundreds of runaway
children and prostitutes had not quietly relocated to new
climes as their relatives and pimps may have surmised.
Eventually the mutilated torsos and limbs of the missing were
discovered stuffed in chemical vats or bobbing inconspicuously
on edges of polluted rivulets.

The unbroken string of shocking revelations both engrossed

and confused the German public. In the midst of every city and
town, it seemed, sat innocuous-looking hunters of human souls
who waited stealthily like immobile reptiles for their nocturnal
quarry. The local constabularies appeared helpless to anticipate
or prevent the grim onslaught. And even when caught, the sex-
monsters perplexed the courtroom experts. The commonplace
explanations of gratuitous sexual mayhem (poverty,
retribution, mental illness, shell shock, heredity) paled when
the sadistic details were related in tabloid exposés and judicial
proceedings.

BERLIN UNDER-WORLD JARGON

ALPHONSES—Pimps. [Some variant names: Fiesels,

Hackers, Louies,
Ludwigs, Oilers, Quick-Businessmen, or Stripe-Men.]

BEINLS—[Corrupted Romany word for “Daughters”]

Prostitutes. [Variant names: Brides, Kalles (Yiddish for the
same), Hannes, Lauras, Nafkes, Violins, or Wall-Sliders.
Common vulgarism was Pussies, which was expressed in
some one dozen European and dialect terms.]

BOOSTS—The proprietors of Kaschemmen. [Also called

Baases.]

BREAKERS—The geniuses of Underworld Berlin. They

researched and planned elaborate criminal schemes, which
their accomplices then undertook.

BULLS—The vice squad.

CAVALIERS—Heterosexual pederasts.

CHOCHUM-LOSCHEN—[Yiddish for “Wiseguy Tongue.”]

Dialect language of Berlin’s Underworld. A colorful mix of
criminal argot, Low-German, Romany, and Yiddish.

CHONTE-HARBORS—Brothels. [Variant names: Cum-

Cabins, Exchanges, Slut

Huts (pun on Russian term), or Traffic Houses.]

ETSCH—[“H”] Heroin. [From Hamburg criminal argot.]

GONTIFFS—Petty thieves. [From the Yiddish.]

GREEN MINNAS—Police vice vans. [Also known as
Children’s Cars.]

HANIDES—Prostitutes who were incapacitated because of

their menstrual flow. Said to be “riding the Red King.”

HOUR-HOTELS—Private hotels that rented rooms by the

hour for sexual contact. Mostly found in Berlin North.

KASCHEMMEN—Criminal dives. Many were still open at 3

a.m., the official closing time of Berlin Dielen.

KIETZ—Street environs of Underworld Berlin. The Life.

KUPPLERINS—Procuresses.

LAMP-MONEY—Kontroll-Girl’s payment to her Kupplerin.

LOUIS—Syphilis. [Variant names: the Whole Jelly or Turkish

Music.]

MARIE—Advance payment for a sexual service. [Variant

name: Bread.]

NACHTLOKALS—Afterhours erotic cabarets. [Also known

as Nacktlokals.]

NEPPLOKALS—Ripoff tourist traps.

 NOSES—Stool pigeons. Criminals who informed on other
lowlifes.

K. Sohr, The Whore and the Cripple

Criminologists reported that surprisingly few murderers,

crime bosses, con men, and swindlers performed their
misdeeds solely for economic gain. Far too much brutality and
unwarranted personal risk accompanied their anti-social
endeavors. Even the language, hierarchic relationships,
kibitzing, and rewards of Berlin’s outlaw classes contained a
morbid erotic component. Sexual perversion inescapably
imbedded itself in the elaborate construction of Weimar
criminality.

And like the French obsession with the Apache underworld,

German popular interest in Lustmord and the forbidden
eroticism of Berlin’s gangs revealed a darker middle-class
longing for ghoulish sexual pleasures.

Lustmord fantasy

Lustmord

The exact number of Lustmord crimes in Weimar Germany

cannot be easily tallied. Berlin sexologists testified that many
sexual-related homicides were unintentional—Suitors and rape
victims expiring from heart attacks or strokes; lethal
roughhousing during S&M play; auto-asphyxiation; spouses
reacting to abusive sexual punishment. Even necrophiliac
penetration following murder was not necessarily deemed
Lustmord if the perpetrator violated the cadaver in a symbolic,
rather than passionate, gesture.

True Lustmord required sexual frenzy, where torture, savage

annihilation, and orgasm intertwined. In fact, few German lust
murderers had normal or forced intercourse with their victims.
The killing and mutilation itself substituted for coitus. As a rule
of thumb, ejaculation took place during the actual moment of
death or immediately afterward when the sex maniac was
madly sawing, pummeling, hacking, or dismembering the
corpse’s head or genitals. Female lust murderers typically
climaxed just when their naked partners, after being informed
of their dire situation, convulsed in agony from the effects of a
poisonous cocktail.

Two Lustmord trials in particular captured the imagination of

Weimar Berlin and inspired a significant body of medico-legal
and sexological literature. These were the cases of the
“Werewolf (or Butcher) of Hannover,” Fritz Haarmann, and the
“Düsseldorf Vampire,” Peter Kürten. Like their filmic namesakes,
Haarmann and Kürten generated enormous amounts of
misplaced empathy and a decade of sick folklore. (Peter Lorre
played a Kürten-like character in Fritz Lang’s 1932 talkie, M.)

POLENTA—[Italian for “corn-meal.”] Police. [Variant name

from Viennese criminal argot: Razzis.]

PUSSIE PRESSERS—Berlin vice doctors.

THE ROBBER—Gonorrhea. [Also known as Small Jelly.]

SCHLEPPERS—[Yiddish term for “Laggards,”
“Incompetents” or “Lowlifes.” Literally “Creepers.”] Hired
street hawkers, usually boys, who led customers to
Nachtlokals or Chonte-Harbors.

SCREENS—Professional cat-burglars, known for their

daring and physical agility. Typically, they specialized in
either ground-floor or upper-story break-ins.

SNOW—Cocaine. [Variant names: Cement, Cocoa, or Koks.]

SOHRE—Stolen merchandise.

SPANNERS—Street lookouts in criminal enterprises, they

deflected attention from the “Business” or acted as
bouncers in illegal Kaschemmen.

STOCKING-MONEY—Payment from the prostitute’s first

customer of the night. Traditionally, the Alphonse allowed
his Beinl to pocket all of it, which she concealed in the top
of her stocking. The amount was thought to be a portent of
the evening’s take.

SUITORS—Ironic term for the customers of prostitutes.

[Variant name: Fleas.]

TRANSIENT-QUARTERS—Mini-brothels located in
apartment flats and storefronts near the Alex.

WICKER-WAYS—Street-corners or familiar sites where

Kontroll-Girls met.
Morgue photo of a Lustmord
Frau Niepraschke axed and shot her husband, then hanged
herself

Haarmann was executed in the spring of 1925 for the murder

and sexual mutilation of one girl and 27 boys and young men.
(Haarmann hinted at much higher numbers but claimed he lost
count at 40.) Besides the sheer aggregate of bodies, the
Haarmann Lustmord case stood out for several unusual factors.
For one, Haarmann came from a wealthy bourgeois background
and married well. His father, who later disowned him, ran a
cigar factory in Hannover, and Fritz received further financial
backing from his wife’s family. Haarmann began seducing
children in doorways and abandoned cellars, virtually on a
daily basis, after his 16th birthday. Not the sharpest knife in the
drawer, Haarmann was arrested for “indecent acts” and
shuttled in and out of mental wards for the next 23 years.
Male Lustmord

Released from the penitentiary immediately after the Great

War, Haarmann adapted well to the chaotic times. The
understaffed Hannover police graciously accepted Haarmann’s
offer to be their chief Nose, or stool pigeon. This gave
Haarmann unlimited access to all the officially restricted areas
in the main railroad station and the exalted appearance of
some civic authority. It was there that Haarmann and his
accomplices befriended truant boys and young men seeking
work. Usually Haarmann bought his homeless ward a good
meal and invited him back to his dingy abode.

Fritz Haarmann

How Haarmann’s pedophilia and debauchery transformed

into Lustmord varied from victim to victim. His traditional M.O.
was to pile on the small boy, licking and kissing his chest, and
then engaging in some form of anal stimulation. As soon as the
unfortunate child dozed off, Haarmann experienced an
uncontrollable sadistic rush and bit into the boy’s throat,
severing his carotid artery. The child’s shock, his pitiful
struggle, the hot stream of blood, the disembowelment of the
body—these were the elements that fiendishly excited
Haarmann. More disconcerting was what happened next.
Haarmann cleaved the dead youths into pot-sized portions and
cooked up their organs and muscular parts. (The genitals were
pickled and preserved as mementos.)

Haarmann before his execution, 1924

Peter Kürten

For meat-starved Hannoverians, Haarmann was heaven-sent.

He peddled the boy-flesh as fresh pork and sold it at cut-rate
prices. When neighbors complained about the smells
emanating from Haarmann’s apartment and the overall spooky
atmosphere—boys going in but not out—the Hannover police,
of course, ignored their pleas; Haarmann was one of their own.

Christophe, The Schlepper at work

 But over a six-year period, too many young men were last
seen at the Hannover Bahnhof under the watchful care of Fritz
Haarmann. Also Haarmann had an overly generous habit of
giving away the victims’ recognizable clothing to his lowbrow
friends. Frantic relatives practically fainted when they saw their
missing sons’ overcoats, caps, and homemade cravats on the
bodies of complete strangers. And, finally, when a tiny human
skull washed up behind banks of Hannover’s “Jew Town,” the
police were forced to investigate the murky Leineschloss shores
for more clues. After extensive dredging, forensic scientists
identified the skeletal remains of 500 different individuals.
Haarmann was arrested but only confessed to a fraction of the
dispatched bodies. The rest, he assured his lawyers, must have
come from the wastebins of the Anatomical Institute in
Göttingen upstream or from careless grave-robbers.

Peter Kürten’s Lustmord spree occurred considerably later

and could not be attributed to Inflation madness. Between
February 1929 and May 1930, over 40 girls and young women
in Düsseldorf were attacked at dusk by a maniac wielding a
hammer, knife, short-handled axe, scissors, or his bare hands.
Nearly a dozen died from his attacks, which included victims as
young as five years old. Berlin police commissioners and
private detectives, psychics, amateur crime-fighters,
clairvoyants, and graphologists from throughout the German-
speaking world came to Düsseldorf to assist the authorities,
who curiously welcomed them.

The vampire killer seemed to require blood from his prey in

order to achieve orgasm. He mocked the Düsseldorf police
unceasingly, leaving trails of nutty riddles and farcical clues.
Kürten’s favored means of sexual assault was squeezing or
slashing at the female genitalia or, in the case of small
children, battering the head with a mallet until blood poured
from the skull. Either method produced in the beast an
instanteous ecstatic release. Kürten also visited the cemeteries
of the women he murdered and fingered the soil around their
graves until he spontaneously ejaculated in his pants.

Not the city-wide dragnet but a foolish misstep resulted in

Kürten’s capture. A girl he took home and later fondled in the
park told her assailant that she forgot his address. After Kürten
freed her, the stalwart child led the police to the ghoul’s
apartment. Naturally, Kürten’s wife and neighbors refused to
believe their gentlemanly Peter was Düsseldorf’s blood-sucking
vampire. But during his year’s confinement, Kürten confessed
to 23 brutal slayings.

Stéphane, Morphine
The Hundegustav, 1927
Mammen, The Blue Stocking, 1929

Kürten was intensely studied by Hirschfeld and willingly filled

out one of his Psycho-Biological Questionnaires. The sessions
revealed much about the psychology of lust murderers. Kürten
attempted to parade his normality and high intelligence but
the link between cruelty, humiliation, and sexual gratification
was hardwritten into his demented psyche. Kürten’s father
repeatedly stripped his wife naked before the eyes of his
children and then beat her unmercifully before raping her. In
Kürten’s building, a sadistic dogcatcher taught the boy how to
control animals by masturbating and then whipping them. One
of Kürten’s earliest memories, as a six-year-old, was throttling—
and possibly killing—a female classmate. The stories transfixed
Berlin.

Before he was beheaded, Kürten bragged to his executioner

that he looked forward to the next supreme pleasure of his
depraved life: hearing the sound of blood spurting from his
decapitated torso while his head bounced on the gallows floor.
A cocaine addict
Manassé, Dangerous Passion

Ulbrich and model, studio wall and storefront, 1930

 The Curious Career and Untimely
Death Of Fritz Ulbrich

At the end of January 1931, one sensational murder-trial

lifted the veil on Berlin’s erotomania and its toxic linkage
into the city’s lower-middle classes. For months, local crime
reporters and sexologists issued lengthy accounts and
examinations of the convicted perpetrators and their
unlikely victim, Fritz Ulbrich, a 57-year-old watchmaker. In a
sense, both psychoanalysts and newspaper readers
interpreted the court proceedings as an indictment of
Weimar Berlin’s unregulated and out-of-control sexual
folkways as well as the growing viciousness of petty street
criminals.

An unassuming businessman, Ulbrich married three times

and fathered four children. He ran a small repair shop in
Berlin North but his hobby and secret obsession was
amateur erotic photography. Starting in 1921, Ulbrich
turned his tiny backroom office into a pornographic studio
and laboratory. He trolled the industrial parks and outlying
regions of Berlin in search of compliant teenage models.
Astonishingly, over 1,500 saucy Berlinerinnen acquiesced to
the pudgy watchmaker’s darkroom voyeurism.
Lieschen Neumann, before and after

Why and how the bourgeois Ulbrich accomplished his

daunting mission fascinated Germany’s press corps and
shed light on a little known aspect of the Golden Twenties’
Sex-Rush: the impoverished, the middle-aged, the non-
artistic, and the disregarded of Berlin also wanted their
impious divertissements in the promiscuous city.

Ulbrich approached fresh-faced girls on the street and

politely inquired if they had an interest in appearing in his
nude tableaux. Most agreed, believing this might be a first
stepping stone to fashion magazine exposure or revue
stardom. The randy auteur arranged imitative still-life
scenes that extended from lesbian romantic couplings (with
S&M overtones) to bewigged bare-breasted portraits. He
rarely offered his charges little more than a cheap trinket or
photographic rendering of their work.

Fritz Ulrich, Before the Nun, Diana, and Amazon Float

To outsiders, Ulbrich’s fetishistic compositions revealed a

banal and utterly listless aesthetic talent. In fact, the
repairman’s direction was so lacking in professional flair and
Nacktkultur pictorial vivaciousness that the Steinmeier
Revue House allowed him to stage his Living Statues as a
comic prelude to their real erotic sketches. Ulbrich’s ghastly
naked floats clearly belonged on a Cabaret of the Nameless
program and were even more ridiculed. But that did not
impede the relentless smith-cum-pornographer or his
unending stream of showbiz wannabes.
Stolpes and Benziger in court

Lieschen Neumann, a 15-year-old delinquent, was

introduced to Ulbrich in the fall of 1929. He paid her five
Marks and began to dress her in Diana and other fauxclassic
costumes. She allowed herself to be photographed and
paraded in a variety of hothouse presentations. But
Neumann was no innocent, working-class Pygmalion with
sparkling eyes and flawless skin. She had larger, more
ambitious plans.

After one year, Neumann decided to do away with her

benefactor and steal his money. She elicited her 22-year-old,
unemployed boyfriend, Richard Stolpe, to murder Ulbrich in
his studio bed. With a promise of 28 marks, Stolpe brought
along an accomplice, Erich Benziger, and together they
asphyxiated the obsessive old man.

The reckless crew was quickly apprehended and brought

to trial. On February 4th, 1931, Neumann was sentenced to
eight years and three months of hard labor in prison,
Benziger to six years and three months; her lover was
condemned to die by hanging. Unfortunately, Ulbrich was
not there to record the disquieting denouement.
 Criminal Rings and the Underworld

Like all metropolises of the interwar period, Berlin had an

extensive criminal underworld. The police recorded 62
organized gangs, or Ringvereine. Grown-up Wild-Boys , the
gang members congregated at selected Lokals and
clubhouses. Each organization had its own secret
handshakes, initiation rites, regulations, styles of dress,
enameled badges, and flashy rings. Their meetings were
conducted in solemn secrecy. Billing themselves “sporting
associations,” the Ringvereine took lugubrious titles, like
“Hand in Hand,” “German Strength,” “Belief, Love, Hope,”
and “Northern Pirates.”

The Ringvereine monopolized Berlin’s drug trade, illegal

gambling, auto theft, and much of its child prostitution. The
criminals, like their Chicago brethren, also exacted a huge
toll from protection racketeering and blackmail. For the most
part, the gangs were tolerated by the Bulls, who knew the
Breakers on a first name basis and often joined them in their
afterhours Kaschemmen and Dielen.

Narcotics and other artificial stimulants were essential

ingredients for Berlin’s sex life. Both pimps and sexologists
believed that they were powerful aphrodisiacs for women.
Dr. Erich Wulffen wrote that large amounts of cocaine, when
indigested nasally, could transform hardcore lesbians into
man-crazy hets. Even Hirschfeld bellowed that his Institute
experiments proved that morphine injections increased the
blood flow to the capillaries of the labia by 500%! And
opium, according to Berlin’s smart set, heated the most
frigid of female constitutions. Through their drug dealings, it
could be said, the Ringvereine were merely facilitating the
eternal tango of courtship and love.

The Polish-born Landau got it right when he described his

Berlin sojourn, “In some of the night clubs men and women
produced little boxes with mysterious-looking powders at
which they would sniff from time to time. Their eyes would
begin to sparkle, and they would behave for the rest of the
evening with an almost ghostly brightness.”

Petty criminals also had their social gatherings and were a

colorful subset of Berlin’s Kietz. Some 70 Dielen, mostly
hidden away in Berlin North cellars, catered to these
declassé night creatures. Urban folklorists and journalists
looking for a surefire Schnauze item followed the
stumblebums to their low haunts and recorded their
fascinating conversations and downtime recreations.
Besides, unlike their organized colleagues, these semi-
professionals stole, traded, drank, played, fought, and
obscenely gossiped in the open. One plucky travel agency
advertised post-midnight tours of criminal clubs in “darkest
Berlin.” German and British tourists too hip for the Topp and
Eldorado excursions must have been the intended clientele.
Mager, The Complete Vice

Architecturally the Kaschemmen could not have been

easy on the eye. Dimly lit and crammed with mismatched
junk furniture, the places seemed fit only for the Screens,
assorted riff-raff, and their Brides who trafficked in Sohre
there. In the bottom-grade “Café Dalles” the tin cutlery
resting on the tables was attached to long iron-chains, which
in turn were stapled to the restaurant walls, preventing most
utensil theft. When a customer exited and the table setting
needed a fresh-up, one of the Dalles’ employees hoisted a
huge vat filled with greasy broth and rinsed the used spoons
and plates in it. None of the regulars complained.

A few of the criminal Dielen had more inviting

atmospheres. The “Sing-Sing” was constructed like a prison
dining hall and featured mock executions in a wooden
electric chair, a punishing apparatus which only existed in
the New World. Other dives provided music and cabaret
entertainments. Mostly, it was the denizens of Berlin’s
underworld that attracted outsiders. At the “Blue Stocking,”
one could meet such Kietz luminaries as “Boot-Job Else,”
“Hedwig with a Cold Hand,” “Snot-Faced Adolf,” and “Singer-
Franz,” who ranted that he once sang at the Komische Oper.
Novels about cocaine addiction

The “Hundegustav Bar” hosted another unlikely Dick Tracy

crew. The Beinls included “All-Tits,” “Cocaine-Betty” (to be
differentiated from her archrival “CognacBetty”), “Bottom-
Girl Ede,” the three Elses (“Dance-Else,” “Jew-Else,” and
“Sexy-Else”), two Ernas (“Cement-Erna and “Wacky-Dance
Erna”), two Metas (“Puffy-Eyes Meta” and “English-Meta”)
and two Trudes (“Bubikopf-Trude” and “Pockmarked Trude”).
The male characters had even more cartoonish monikers:
“Big Dick” (or “The Breuslauer”), “Apache-Erich,” three Emils
(“Harem-Emil,” “Soldier-Emil, and “Brown-Emil”), “The Anti-
Franz,” “Doll-Brained Hermann,” “Jewface,” “Pickles-Julie,”
two Karls (“Muttalo-Karl” and “Raven-Hair Karl”), “Long Leo,”
“Insect Paul,” two Piepels (“Basher-Piepel” and “Robber-
Piepel”), “Madman-Robert,” “Shithead” (everyone’s favorite
raconteur), and three Walters (“Halitosis-Walter,” “Palace-
Walter,” and “Soldier-Walter”).

The Ringvereine brothers and the barely intelligible street

toughs had their time in the sun. Vice Commissionaries with
a literary bent and columnists glorified in their rituals and
jargonistic babble. The lawbreakers had their own judicial
systems and public ceremonies. When a Ringvereine
member died, all of Berlin North was treated to a funeral
procession that rivaled in complexity and ornateness that of
a reigning Balkan monarch. But like the rest of wicked
Berlin, it came to an abrupt end. In January 1934, Hitler’s
SA-troopers cordoned off whole sections of the city and
those found on the old police lists of convicted felons were
dispatched to Dachau. ■
Pay Christian Cartensen, New Germany, 1933

Whoever stays for any length of time in Berlin hardly knows

in the end where he actually came from.
 Siegfried Kracauer, Frankfurter Zeitung, 1932

There was a sensation of doom to be felt in the Berlin

streets.

Stephen Spender, World Within World, 1951

A WORLD IN FLAMES

Adolf Hitler was officially appointed Reichschancellor on

January 30th, 1933. It was virtually the last gambit in a vain
scheme by the Nationalist and reactionary leaders to tame
and discredit their Nazi opposition. President of the Weimar
Republic, the revered 83-year-old Field Marshall Paul von
Hindenburg, assured his right-wing partners that Hitler
could do little but hysterically seethe and storm without a
Nationalist Socialist majority in the Reichstag. But on
February 27th, the Reichstag itself was destroyed by arson.
The destruction of Hirschfeld’s Institute, 1933
Hitlerjungen leader shows picture of Hirschfeld in book
during the destruction of the Institute, 1933

That night the Berlin police seized a Dutch Communist

fanatic who confessed to the criminal deed. In order to
prevent the so-called Marxist uprising, Hitler demanded from
von Hindenburg emergency dictatorial powers. Anti-Nazi
members of Hitler’s cabinet—in a spasm of panicked
confusion—acquiesced to the Führer’s petition. They knew it
would bring an end to Weimar’s constitutional democracy.

So began Hitler’s Third Reich and the path to world

catastrophe.

Unfortunately, the facts of the time don’t much support

this tempting Puritanical thesis.

Few Germans or foreigners living in Weimar Berlin saw the

moral linkage between the city’s tawdry hijinks and the
calamitous events of 1933. After all, it was the progressive
citizens of Sodom on the Spree who fought the fascist
menace with the utmost ferocity. All the political and media
tools in their possession, however, could not overcome
Nazism’s deep mystical appeal to the distressed farmers of
Schleswig-Holstein and other provinces far from the
fleshpots of the Friedrichstadt. Hitler’s consolidation of
power resulted from a confluence of many unforeseen
factors, including the staggering folly of the Communist and
central-right opposition parties, who themselves
promulgated extremist programs to eradicate Berlin’s
conspicuous demi-monde.
The Reichstag on fire, 1933
The Eldorado’s transformation into a Nazi headquarters,
1932

Michael Davidson, an old Berlin hand, challenged the

conventional postwar wisdom in his erotic memoir of the
Thirties, The World, the Flesh and Myself: “There must be
people who believe that Hitlerism was a stern reaction to
this ‘German decadence,’ or alternately regard the Nazi
Party itself as a foul edifice of degeneracy—in either case
blaming Germany’s blatant homosexuality for the Hitler
tyranny. Both assumptions are false.”
 Nazi Cleansing

The erotic world of Weimar Berlin crumbled by degrees.

Already in the spring and summer of 1932, there were
serious attempts by the Socis (Berlin’s reigning Social
Democrats) to ban most pornographic publications and seal
the doors to the most flagrant transvestite clubs. Even
Koch’s nudist Berlin clinics were shuttered before the
November 1932 elections.

Gay leaders equivocated over the impending Nazi threat.

Hitler’s second in command, SA-Führer Röhm, had been
ridiculed as a pederast in the leftist press and many of his
Storm-Trooping cohorts were rumored to be aficionados of
boy-love as well. Hirschfeld, who had the most to lose from a
Nazi-led government, defended Röhm’s orientation. Papa
declared it was Röhm’s thuggish politics that should be
combated, not his sexual escapades. Other Militant
Homosexualists welcomed the jack-booted Nazi warriors as
fellow revolutionaries. Most Berliners were in state of denial
or shock at the prospects of a “Brown Germany.” Hitler was
kitsch incarnate.
Hendrik De Leeuw’s Sinful Cities of the Western World,
which described prostitution and brothels in Nazi Berlin

The March 5th, 1933 elections, held five days after the
Reichstag conflagration, handed the Nazis their final civic
victory. Now legal guardians of the nation, National Socialist
private militias proceeded to “cleanse” Germany of Jewish
and Marxist elements. They started with Hirschfeld’s
Institute of Sexology.

On May 6th, SA-men and students from the School of

Physical Fitness ransacked the Institute’s library and
vandalized the main buildings. After pouring ink over the
archival files, smashing the exhibition cases, and playing
soccer with erotic artifacts, the loyal Hitlerjungen gathered
100,000 books and manuscripts to fuel an evening bonfire
at the Opernplatz. A brass band played throughout.

One Danish observer, with the infortuitous name Frederik

Böök, shared his unusual condolences over the death of
wicked Berlin: “Nor does it disturb me in the least that the
youth of Germany burned the whole of the Sexual Science
Library which was attached to the University under the
name Magnus

Hirschfeld Institute, and if a few irreplaceable collectors’

treasures have thus been destroyed, I shall not shed a tear. If
by this means the knowledge of a few particularly
interesting sexual aberrations has been lost—so much the
better.” (An Eyewitness in Germany, Lovat Dickson:
London,1933).

Other Nazi actions against Weimar’s inequity were difficult

to fathom. The embarrassing issue of prancing queers at the
helm of the mighty SA was deflected by the Führer for close
to two years. Anglo-Saxon journalists perceived the Storm-
Trooper’s “sissy” interests and Hitler’s shrill voice and
mannerisms as evidence of a weak and sexually confused
administration. But the Brit’s mocking prognosis changed
after June 30th, 1934, when Captain Röhm and the bulk of
the SA leadership were executed in a day-long bloodletting,
known as the “Night of the Long Knives.” Although Hitler
rationalized the messy purge as a purifying sexual measure,
straight enemies from the old Nationalist coalition and
recalcitrant Nazi intellectuals were liquidated too.

Early Nazi edicts against homosexuality were uncertain

and inconsistent. While legistrators in 1935 amended
Paragraph 175 to include all forms of male sex contact,
lesbian behavior was utterly ignored in the pamphlet-sized
document. Prominent Aryan gay artists, like the
Ausdruckstanz pioneer Harald Kreutzberg, continued their
international careers unabated. In 1934 the bisexual actor
Gustaf Gründgens received a commission to head the
venerable Berlin Staatstheater, where he produced eleven
Reich-approved seasons. Even Wilhelm Bendow, the swishy
transvestite comic, enjoyed a National Socialist following at
his own cabaret house in Berlin East. The government-
approved Grieben’s Guide Book for the 1936 Nazi Olympics
magnanimously placed “Bendows Bunte Bühne” on the
“highly recommended” list for nighttime pleasures.
Harald Kreutzberg, 1935
Wilhelm Bendow, Magnesia, the Tattooed Lady, 1927

Portrayal of healthy Nazi sexuality, SA-Mann, SS-Mann, and

Nazi labor militia man, 1933
 Nazi Sex

Generally, Christian, non-leftist Berliners accommodated

themselves to the Nazi Revolution with surprising ease. One
week after Hitler’s ascension to the Reichs-chancellery, the
formerly liberal Rumpelstilzchen marveled at the colors of
the Nazi flag and how dreadful the old national pennant
looked. Once again, Davidson captured the overall mood of
the city, “The ordinary people I knew—wageearners,
unemployed, little artisans, door-to-door hawkers, people
employed in ‘vice’—loathed Hitler 252 and the Nazis; but
the antagonism of most went no further than their private
conversation and half of these quickly changed sides after
January 1933.”

Berlin’s sex industry contracted and nearly disappeared

throughout the summer months of 1933. Kontroll-Girls and
Fohses abandoned the Friedrichstadt and Kudamm
storefronts. Most migrated to Berlin North or bowed out
completely. Other Beinls followed suit. By spring of 1934,
only 20 or so brothels remained in Berlin and these were
high-class joints for tourists, ranking Nazis, and soldiers on
leave. “Café Aryan” offered gay, cross-dressed, and straight
shows for the exorbitant fee of 20 American dollars but that
bit of Weimaria was closed down after the last Olympic
tourists departed.
 One madam, Kitty Schmidt, kept her fancy establishment
running by reluctantly agreeing to collaborate with the local
Gestapo, who maniacally turned the “Pensione” into a wired
love nest. The thousands of hours of taped recordings
between the Nazi-trained sex-workers and foreign diplomats
proved militarily worthless but provided a needed thrill for
the erotically deprived spymasters. In 1942, Kitty was
forcibly retired, her pensione cleared out, and with it the last
authentic remnant of Weimar sexuality vanished.
 Revisionist History

In the first years of the Reich, Nazis continued their grand

spiritual mission to demolish the vestiges of Weimar culture.
A surprising number of the German intelligentsia and
professionals acquiesced to the Brown Revolution in the
mid-Thirties. They assisted in the book-burnings,
Aryanization of publishing and media outlets, confiscation of
Jewish property, and the establishment of censoring boards.
The mass arrests, incarcerations, and physical violence were
left to others. But to effectively obliterate Berlin’s fabled
erotic past, Nazi ideo-logues also needed to construct a new
historical narrative to thoroughly demonize the former sex
capital.
Program cover, Sunshine for All, 1939

Before 1933, the Jews were targeted by the Nazis and their
Nationalist allies as an insidious political and financial foe of
the German people. The election posters told it all. Behind
the façade of democratic rule, the parasitic Jewish race and
their leftist minions controlled the destiny of the mighty
nation. These cowardly power brokers secretly profited from
Germany’s ills and humiliations. Jewish sexual perfidy—as
violators of Aryan women, ritual murderers, traffickers in
white slavery, abortionists, homosexual pederasts,
purveyors of pornography—was a minor electioneering
theme during the Weimar era.

“Here, little ones, don’t you want some sweets? But first you
must come with me ...” The Poisoned Mushroom, 1938
 In 1927, Julius Streicher’s virulently anti-Semitic Nazi
newspaper, Der Stürmer had only 14,000 subscribers. Ten
years later, its circulation approached one-half million
copies, making it one of the most popular journals in the
Reich. Der Stürmer and its sister publications advanced the
preposterous Nazi theory about Jews and Berlin: Babylon-on-
the-Spree was the invention of the accursed Jews. Graphic
color illustrations showed hideous Jewish businessmen,
doctors, lawyers, film directors, even pastors (concealing
their Hebraic origins) as lust murderers, dope peddlers, and
defilers of Aryan youth. Decadent Berlin was a Jewish and
homosexual paradise and therefore a Germanic hell.
“Behind his glasses shines the eyes of a criminal and his lips
conceal lust.” Nazi image of Hirschfeld in the children’s
book, The Poisoned Mushroom

Streicher’s relentless propaganda, itself a form of

pornography, found more and more adherents as the real
Weimar Berlin receded into history. The Prussian metropolis
was an evil place. Eternally evil. For the German people and
the nations who defeated them in 1945 after a superhuman
struggle, Streicher’s distorted image remained. And endures.
■
 A DIRECTORY OF EROTIC

The following listings were compiled by the author from

approximately 200 sources, most of which appeared in the
late Weimar period between 1927 and 1932. Descriptions in
the 1931-1932 Weimar Berlin guidebooks—the last to
appear—frequently mimicked earlier accounts and were
likely “borrowed” renderings. Occasionally, a contrary
situation arose; some travel digests were widely at odds with
one another over their assessment of the actual scope of
depraved activity in a featured Diele or entertainment
environment. (When in doubt over which report to believe, I
generally accepted the more salacious account.) The 50
locales described here represent between five and ten per
cent of all the known erotic or nighttime establishments in
Weimar Berlin. Solid-numbered establishments are included
on the map.
 GIRL-CULTURE VENUES

❶ Cabaret of the Nameless

❷ Café Braun
❸ Haller-Revue
❹ Haus Vaterland
❺ Heaven and Hell
❻ Kakadu Bar
❼ James-Klein Revue
❽ “Resi”
❾ Restaurant Hackepeter
❿ Rio Rita Bar
Stork’s Nest Cabaret
Weisse Maus
AND NIGHT TIME BERLIN
 HOMOSEXUAL VENUES

❶ Adonis-Lounge
❷ Alexander-Palast
❸ Bürger-Casino
❹ Cabaret of the Spider
❺ Cosy Corner
❻ Karls-Lounge
❼ Monte-Casino
❽ Moustache-Lounge
❾ The Passage
❿ Zauberflöte
 LESBIAN VENUES

❶ Aukula-Lounge
❷ Café Domino
❸ Café Dorian Gray
❹ Café Olala
❺ Hohenzoffern-Café
❻ Mali and Ingel
❼ Meyer-Stube
❽ Taverne
❾ Toppkeller
❿ Verona-Lounge
 NUDIST VENUES

❶ Berlin Association of Free Body Culture

❷ Birkenheide
❸ Body Culture School of Adolf Koch
❹ Free Sunland
❺ New Sunland
❻ Territory Adolf Koch
 SEX MUSEUM

❶ Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sexology

 TRANSVESTITE VENUES

❶ Eldorado
❷ Eldorado (New)
❸ Mikado Bar
❹ Monocle-Bar
❺ Silhouette
 UNDERWORLD VENUES

❶ The Blue Stocking

❷ Hundegustav Bar
❸ Red Mill Cabaret
❹ Sing-Sing
 WEIMAR NAZI VENUES

❶ Café Aryan
❷ Pension Schmidt
BERLIN 1931
GIRL-CULTURE VENUES
 CABARET OF THE NAMELESS
Jägerstrasse 18 1926-1932

Area: Center of FRIEDRICHSTADT.

Atmosphere: Clamorous, malevolent, sadistic. “Typical

Berlin bad taste.”

Clientele: Thrill-seeking middle-class Berliners bent on

slacking their brutal, anti-social impulses.

Decor: Standard small cabaret space with tables and 98

chairs. Wine and champagne are served.

Entertainment: Fifteen ten-minute amateur acts are

introduced by the acerbic conférencier “Elow” (Erwin
Lowinsky) over the course of an evening. Selected for their
utter lack of performance talent, weird physicality, and
astounding naiveté, the “artistes” are further deluded by
Elow into believing that they are about to receive their big
show-business break.

Typically, the clueless entertainers try to imitate the work

of established cabaret personalities and proceed to
humiliate themselves completely in their numbing attempts.
While audience members drunkenly interrupt and boo the
wretched losers, Elow unctuously takes the part of a kindly
uncle or philanthropist and encourages the amateurs to
ignore the vicious Philistines and continue their rotten
singing, juggling, storytelling, impersonations, or poetry
recitals. Sometimes Elow “directs” a trio of the most
unskilled performers in a scene from a well-known German
classic.
Unusual: The truly mentally unstable, ranting
megalomaniacs, and near-cripples are “the Nameless’”
favored victims. Aggressive spectators frequently target the
slowest-moving performers with crumpled programs and
coins. (Naturally the audience’s murderous insults and
constant jeering are sometimes misinterpreted by certain
simpleton-“stars” as yet another stormy accolade that
affirms their exalted status.)
 CAFÉ BRAUN Alexanderstrasse 1
1928-1934

Area: ALEXANDERPLATZ. Concealed in an alley around the

corner from the Alex. [Formerly the BEROLINA.]

Atmosphere: Sexy. Fast moving. “American” tempo.

Crowded at all hours.

Clientele: In-the-know, bohemian types.

Decor: Standard restaurant dance-club with band stage and

bar. In the back are outdoor “love porticos,” for extreme
privacy. These are normally packed and available for two
additional marks.

Entertainment: Dancing and interacting with the

restaurant staff.
Unusual: All the restaurant employees (except the beautiful
bar maid) are dead ringers for world leaders and film stars.
The hooked-nose doorman wears a monocle and looks and
behaves exactly like the British premier Lord Chamberlain.
The waiters, scurrying by the jam-packed tables with plates
of wurst and steins of beer, seem to be wax-museum figures
of Harold Lloyd, Marshal von Hindenburg, Prime Minister
Briand, and many others. Each brings a specialty dish from
his country, like the Hirohito Pineapple Bowl or Reparation
Brandy.

In addition, every band member wears a facial mask of an

international celebrity and performs an appropriate musical
solo/monologue from his “country.”
 HALLER-REVUE Friedrichstrasse
101/102 1923-1929

Area: FRIEDRICHSTADT. At the THEATER IN THE

ADMIRALPALAST.

Atmosphere: Most extravagant of the Revues. True

reflection of the topsy-turvy eroticism of contemporary
Berlin. Everything in American rhythms.

Clientele: Elite Berlin crowds. Foreign tourists. Seating

varies between two and three thousand.

Decor: Lush accommodations with VIP sections. Elegant

dining and dancing available in the
Admirals-Kasino and Admirals-Lounge. The venerable
Admiral-Baths are also in the same building.

Entertainment: International variety revue with some 50

fast-paced acts. Emphasis is on outsized glamour, lewd
pictorialism, and female beauty. Famous for its Empire Girls
(also known as the Lawrence-Tiller-Girls). Trained in London
and New York, these 24 precision dancers (“Often copied—
never equaled!”), blend—in both real and parody forms
—“Fordism,” gaudy French flesh-peddling, and the
crystalline regimen of equestrian military drills.

Each production is led by an accomplished MC and

includes juxtapositions of common cabaret numbers with
naked dance and highbrow musical and dance pieces.
HAUS VATERLAND Köthener Strasse 1-
5 1922-1936

Area: The entire POTSDAMER PLATZ.

Atmosphere: Exciting, international. Ersatz. Fun tourist

trap, expertly designed for around-the-clock party
ambiance. The “Department Store of Restaurants” is open
until 3 a.m. and can serve 6,000 diners. For non-German-
speakers “the jolliest place in Berlin.”

Clientele: Mostly free-spending German provincials and

foreign tourists, except during winter holidays when native
Berliners dominate. A substantial coterie of Half-Silks make
this their early-evening haunting grounds.

Decor/Entertainment: Overwhelming and grandiose

architecture, combining Baroque and modernist styles.
Entrance fee to the madhouse is 1 mark. The central lobby is
broken up by an impressive series of color-light fountains
and leads to the Palmtree Room, the Palace’s Variety show
(admission is another 3M).

The upper four floors are connected by ugly marble

staircases, which direct the crowds into twelve restaurant
“environments”:

1) LÖWENBRÄU: A Bavarian Biergarten, seating one

thousand celebrants. At one end is a man-made lake,
replicating the mountainous Bernese Oberland. Buxom
barmaids in traditional dress serve Bavarian beer while
young men in green waistcoats and short knickers stroll
through the restaurant, yodeling to one another. A Bavarian
orchestra and revue of female chorines, an August clown, a
family of jugglers, and a parody of some South German
dance (like the Munich Cauliflower Feast) is staged every
night.

2) GRINZING: A Viennese café (set outside the imagined

city) with wooden trellises separating the tables. Diners look
out on the fantastic diorama of Old Vienna and the Danube
River. A trompe-l’oeil of the central railway station is
activated with tiny electric trains crossing miniature bridges
and mechanical boats sailing beneath. The three-man
Biedermeier orchestra plays Strauss waltzes and other
familiar Viennese fare. Comic washerwomen’s quartet is the
chief attraction.

3) WILD-WEST-BAR: A saloon (specializing in pre-

Prohibition American cocktails) is located on an alcove and
surrounded by a striking vista of rolling prairies and cactus.
Patrons enter through swinging doors. Folk-singing cowboys
in oversized ten-gallon hats serve as waiters. They carry
order-pads in their revolver hosters and alternate with an
American jazz band as the musical accompaniment.
Scantily-clad cowgirls perform Shimmys and sing American
hit songs, which are available on 78 RPM disks. Blackface
minstrel show rounds out evening.

4) SPANISH BODEGA: A huge Iberian inn jutting out

from one wall. Bathed in a bordello-red spotlight is a Gypsy
girl with a flower in her hair and dagger in her stocking hem.
She sits provocatively on a wine casket and dances with
customers on request. Other female Gypsy dancers join her
when the mandolin orchestra starts up. Green-uniformed
hussars serve as waiters.

5) RHINELAND WINE TERRACE: A cavernous room gives

the three-dimensional illusion of the Rhine riverside.
Quarter-sized paddle-boats float past a diminutive castle-
ruins, where a singing troupe performs Rheinish folk songs.
On the hour, a five-minute, artificial storm magically
showers rain on the delighted customers.
In addition, there is a dimly lighted Turkish Café with
cushions and short-legged divans; the Csarda, a
“Hungarian” pastry restaurant set in Old Prague with zither
music; an “open-air” Tuscan plaza; a student beer-cellar from
Old Heidelberg; a Japanese tea garden; a sailors’ galley
inside a rocking Bremen ship; and finally a smart Berlin café,
which opens as an independent restaurant onto
Königgrätzerstrasse.

Unusual: Advertised as “An Inexpensive Holiday Trip!”

Kempinski’s Vaterland also provides, in its Palmtree Room, a
nightly floor-show of big-name variety acts and the
Vaterland-Girls. Altogether, there are 12 bands, 24 girls, and
50 separate cabaret numbers in this famous abode.
 HEAVEN AND HELL Kurfürstendamm
237 1924-1933

Area: BERLIN WEST. Across from the Memorial Church and

the ROMANISCHES CAFÉ.

Atmosphere: Glamorous, expensive. Always an erotic buzz

here. Risqué posters and illuminated signs promise a
sophisticated evening.

Clientele: Old-family scions, up-and-coming politicians,

playboys of every sort, the elite of Berlin’s nightlife. “The
longest-legged women” of Berlin and highest-paid Minettes
can be found in the powder-rooms here.

Decor: A doorman, dressed like Saint Peter or a mustached

Satan, directs guests to their choice of two adjoining dining
areas, partitioned into “Heaven” or “Hell.” Both spaces of the
nightclub face the “Cabaret-Montmartre” stage.

Bathed in a mysterious dim blue light, the walls of

“Heaven”
are lined with wooden angels, framed manuscripts, sacred
statuary, and miniature palm trees. The white-faced waiters,
“garçons of Heaven,” are dressed like angels (with gauzy
wings and halos) and greet the customers with Lutheran
appellations. Scroll-like menus, bowls of holy water, and
votive candles are placed on the tables. Religious music
from an organ is played intermittently.
“Hell” is illuminated in a phosphorescent red glow and its
walls are plastered to resemble that of a burning cavern.
Dressed as red imps, the waiters here scurry around a
boiling cauldron and torment the orchestra and diners alike
with iron triads. When delivering the food to the “sinners,”
the devilish imps always describe the dishes’ individual
punishing qualities: “This bockwurst will seal your intestines
for 20 days!”

Entertainment: Elaborate naked revues from the Cabaret-

Montmartre are presented every evening at midnight. Under
the direction of French choreographer Madeleine Nervi, as
many as 50 showgirls appear in musical presentations of the
“Beautiful Body Unveiled.” Themes of the Montmartre
evenings normally veer to Parisian-style perversity, like “25
Scenes From the Life of the Marquis de Sade” or “The Naked
Frenchwoman: Her Life Mirrored in Art.” Staging is
professional and considered the highest caliber.

Unusual: Saint Peter and Satan often surface in their

designated areas to give appropriate and amusing exegesis
during the performance.
 KAKADU BAR Joachimstaler Strasse
10 1920-1936

Area: BERLIN WEST. Corner of Kurfürstendamm.

Atmosphere: Exclusive if slightly tacky. Free admission for

the well-dressed. A foot fetishist’s paradise. Open until 3
a.m.

Clientele: Stockbrokers, artistic types. Police officials,

Italian tourists, foreign journalists. Always Nuttes in
revealing American-style flapper outfits. (Some wearing red-
white-and-blue sparkling foil in their hair.)

Decor: Mock Tahitian/German Samoan furnishings. Small

tables under palms. Lush red lighting. The blue and gold bar
is advertised as the longest in the city. Fireplaces in the
small lounge are kept burning at all hours. Nearby are
newly-acquainted couples, smooching heavily in chaise-
longue chairs and sofas.
Entertainment: Bar, vegetarian restaurant, dance palace,
and cabaret, all in one place. The Barberina-Cabaret has a
full program consisting of five acts. Typical evening consists
of an acrobatic dancer, a sketch artist, a comic monologuist
(no political humor, thank you), a female dance trio, and an
eccentric sailor dance. A jazz orchestra for pre- and post-
show dancing. The cocktail bar is reputed to have the most
ravishing and scintillating barmaids in Berlin West.
Unusual: Over every dining table is a parrot in a cage—the
logo of the establishment. When a customer wishes to leave,
he merely taps his water-glass with a knife. This signals the
bird to squawk, in a grating old man’s voice, “The bill! The
bill!” Regrettably, the parrots have an uncontrollable
tendency to let their droppings fall on the plates of first-time
or inattentive patrons.
 JAMES-KLEIN REVUE Friedrichstrasse
104a 1922-1930

Area: Upper FRIEDRICHSTADT. At the KOMISCHE OPER near

the FRIEDRICHSTADT train station.

Atmosphere: Crass. Expansively lewd. A touch of Inflation

Era madness mixed with Parisian Music Hall nudity. One
critic referred to a James-Klein-Revue as “a pornographic
magazine come alive.”

Clientele: Middle-class Berliners. German and foreign

tourists.

Decor: Big revue house, seats 1,200.

Entertainment: Mostly lavish nude tableaux—or “meat

shows”—arranged around a comic theme and led by a well-
known conférencier like Paul Morgan or Hans Albers.
Characteristic sensational poster ads: “1,000 Completely
Nude Women!” or “500 Sweet Legs!” Take It Off was
promoted as an “Evening Without Morals in 30 Pictures,
Enacted by 60 Priceless Naked Models.” [Actually only 24
scenes and 42 females appear in the program.]
Unusual: Any activity that is sexually over-the-top in Berlin
is frequently labeled a “miniature Klein-Revue.”
 “RESI” (RESIDENZ-CASINO)
Blumenstrasse 10 1927-1936

Area: BERLIN EAST. Southeast of ALEXANDERPLATZ.

Atmosphere: Always a bit giddy and self-consciously

naughty, like a secretary’s bridal shower that is interrupted
by a bachelor party down the hall. A veritable institution for
promiscuous, middle-class hijinks.

Clientele: Out-of-towners, local bureaucrats, and “Merry

Widows” intent on fun. Lots of flirtatious women. (Ratio of
single females to males is usually 5 to 1!) Dance floor can
accommodate 500 couples.

Decor: Weird: outwardly decked out in a lavish, Parisian fin-

de-siècle style but surrounded by modern technological
surprises. Building is partitioned into a main room, loges,
private cellar, four bar-counters, orchestra pit, and miniature
Luna-Park gallery (with a carousel ride for fun-addled
adults). Ballroom ceiling is made of reflective glass and
painted in Japanese motifs.
Entertainment: One hundred whirling mirrored globes on
poles open in rhythm to the bands and colored water
displays create a continuous kaleidoscopic effect on the
dance floor. Warning: intense rays from the rotating
illumination and flickering dim-red bulbs or tango lights can
be headache-producing. (There are 86,000 electric lighting
fixtures in the place!) Sexy male- and female-only orchestras
play on opposite landings.
Food: Horrid Prussian fare.

Unusual: Two hundred private telephones are fixed to

numbered tables and balcony stations. These encourage
audacious patrons to engage in across-the-room
introductions or in anonymous, suggestive chats. Guests can
also choose from among 135 pocket items and have them
shot, through air compression, across the Resi ceilings and
handrails, where they are delivered to netted baskets
hanging from the numbered tables.
 RESTAURANT HACKEPETER
Friedrichstrasse 124 1924-1933

Area: BERLIN NORTH. Near the ORANIENBURGER TOR.

Atmosphere: Merry. Biergarten mood.

Clientele: Working-class men and women mostly. Local

gourmands and curious downtowners in the evening.
Devoted Nuttes and female fans of Jolly in attention-getting
blouses and dresses.

Decor: Typical Upper Friedrichstrasse restaurant.

Entertainment: An unshaven hunger-artist named Jolly sits

in a glass booth with a water glass in one hand and a
cigarette in the other. While Hackepeter’s diners devour
their carnivore delicacies, Jolly chain-smokes and sips seltzer
water.
Food: Famous for its pig’s leg special (boiled, deep fried,
and then covered with a sticky cream sauce) in addition to
steak-with-fried-eggs and Hackepeter.

Unusual: At the top of the hour, a midget in a tuxedo

bellows into a megaphone the exact units of time that Jolly
has gone without food. Nearby a dark-suited attendant
makes certain none of Jolly’s devotees disturb the artist’s
concentration or that any morsel is secreted in the glass
cage. At Jolly’s insistence, his lair is guarded around the
clock by bonded observers.
 RIO RITA BAR Tauentzienstrasse 12
1931-1934

Area: BERLIN WEST. A few steps from the Memorial Church.

Atmosphere: Packed chic bar and “intimate” nightclub.

Cultivated and elegant. Friendly.

Clientele: Sex-obsessed artists, playboys, British

journalists. Top-drawer German diplomats, monocled Ruhr
industrialists, and foreign businessmen traveling incognito.
Table-Ladies—mostly of the demonic German or Spanish
aristocratic variety.
Decor: Simple, American-designed with dazzling panels in
cream and gold. Entrance is through the long bar-foyer into
a nightclub area surrounding an eight by ten-foot dance
floor. Murals illustrating the life of the Spanish dancer, Rita,
and soft tablelights (covered with dark glass spikes) break
up the dance room, giving it a warm intimacy. Two private,
plush V.I.P. rooms, scented in orange blossom, are located in
the back.

Entertainment: Tangos begin at 9 p.m. Blind pianist heads

the well-regarded jazz band. Beautiful and exotic-looking
hostesses, dressed in the latest French fashions, sit at tables
laughing at customers’ jokes and repeating obscene gossip.
Their job as Table-Ladies, fetish-attired Geishas, is to make
certain that bottles of overpriced champagne and plates of
fresh peaches are in constant circulation.
Unusual: Much-in-demand Table-Ladies double as kinky
Minettes. Clients pay the head-waiter for “their time off” so
the playful ladies may leave the club for a few hours or
retreat to one of the back private rooms. Excellent place for
the purchase of high-grade opium and cocaine.
 STORK’S NEST CABARET
Oranienburger Strasse 42 1923-1931

Area: BERLIN NORTH. Near the ORANIENBURGER TOR.

(Formerly the CHANTANT SINGING HALL.)

Atmosphere: Sordid dive. Drunken, madhouse ambiance

when the performance begins. (Said to be the model for the
cabaret scenes in the 1930 film The Blue Angel.)

Clientele: Greatly mixed: working-class but conservative

patrons, local students, soldiers, some colorful criminal
types.

Decor: Outside is a marquee of yellow and red lights and a

glass case displaying revealing photographs and boastful
reviews of the evening’s attractions. Inside, the tables,
chairs, wall fixtures, benches, and stage are all at least a
generation old. On the stage is a semi-circle of chairs, facing
the audience.

Entertainment: In sequence, each cabaret performer

leaves her chair and moves downstage to replace the last
entertainer just as she is completing her solo. Audience
members traditionally send up steins of beer to the
chanteuses when they have completed a number.
Photographs of the performers are hawked after each act.

A normal evening consists of a few touring stars: Lola

Niedlich, “the Prize-Winning Torch-Singer, Three Times
Engaged at Marienbad” (in her photo the sexy Lola
demurely holds a doll in her arms); a coquettish toe-dancer
named Charlotte Corday, who feebly attempts to engage the
audience in tête-à-têtes; a transvestite-ventriloquist Paul
Schiephacke, who can’t get started—this trio is in addition
to the half-dozen frumpy regular artistes in garter belts and
lacy skirts hitched up to their crotches. The female singers
specialize in prostitute songs, patriotic war ditties, and other
standard cabaret fare.

Tourists: A few slummers from downtown, some of whom

will exit sans billfolds, watches, and wedding rings.

Unusual: Customers can purchase seats on the stage

during the performance or meet privately with the cabaret
stars in a succession of side-rooms. There, after port or
cognac, negotiations for sex, usually of the manual variety,
take place.
 WEISSE MAUS Jägerstrasse 18 1919-
1926

Area: Center of FRIEDRICHSTADT.

Atmosphere: Wicked, often raucous. Expensive. Customers

who wish to conceal their identities are given the choice of a
black or white half-mask to wear.

Clientele: Traveling salesmen on expense accounts, elderly

gentlemen from the provinces, underworld kings with small
harems of Nuttes, lesbian groupies, and Berlin intellectuals.

Decor: Beautiful 98-seat cabaret space with a curtained

dance stage.

Entertainment: Naked or “Beauty” dances are presented

in close proximity to audience. Productions usually last
about one hour and begin at midnight. A typical evening
consists of a disingenuous—and hysterical—introduction by
the director, disclaiming any pornographic intent: “We come
here for Beauty alone.”
Unusual: Anita Berber, high priestess of the Inflation Era,
performed here until she smashed an empty champagne
bottle on a patron’s head. Berber had a devoted following
because she enacted something other than Naked Dances;
she recreated her disturbing sex and drug-induced
fantasies. These nude dance-dreams were executed with a
chilling realism and activated by dark, metatrophic
impulses. When harangued by drunken spectators, Berber
had been known to spit brandy on them or stand naked on
their tables, dousing herself with wine while simultaneously
urinating.
HOMOSEXUAL VENUES
ADONIS-LOUNGE
 Alexandrinenstrasse 128 1924-1933

Area: BERLIN SOUTH. East of the HALLESCHES TOR.

Atmosphere: Sullen Boy-Bar. Often referred to as “the

Pits.” Familiar down-and-out clubhouse mood. Quiet,
desperate until Tree-Stumps or tourists appear, which create
an eddy of excitement. Like Calcutta beggars, the Adonis
urchins hustle around the newcomers’ tables and follow
them into the street when they exit.

Clientele: Short-haired, blonde Wild-Boys, sailors, and pot-

bellied Tree-Stumps. Sugar-Lickers around dinner time.
Favorite word-of-mouth spot for British queers living on the
cheap.

Decor: Discreetly blackened-out façade. Entrance is

shielded by a somber curtain hanging from a flimsy shower
rod. Inside the smoky room are bare tables, separated by
paper arbors, and a bar-counter. Hanging from the ceiling
are paper garlands and monstrously oversized cardboard
grapes. Two walls are covered with cheap landscape
paintings. Sparse lighting.
Entertainment: After 3 p.m., sentimental songs are
pounded out on an antique piano by the resident drunk. In
the center of the tiny room is an open area for one or two
“dancing” couples. Watered-down drinks complete the
nightmarish environment.

Women and Straight Men: Never.

Unusual: The lads here do not qualify as professional Line-

Boys. Too much cynicism and despondency. The Wild-Boys
listlessly lean against the naked walls or slump over tables.
All eyes face the entrance way, in a half-hearted attempt to
attract the attentions of a Sugar-Licker. The Boys here
usually trade sex in the toilet for beer, wurst, coffee, or—
more frequently—cigarettes. Good place, however, to obtain
inexpensive cocaine and rolled balls of opium.
ALEXANDER-PALAST
 Landsbergstrasse 39 1921-1930

Area: BERLIN NORTH. On ALEXANDERPLATZ. (Formerly the

ALEXANDER-PALAIS.)

Atmosphere: Upscale. Expensive.

Clientele: Mostly mature, middle-class gay couples in

tuxedos and top hats; elderly shopkeepers, frock-coated
clerks, and even policemen. Their quaint and courtly
manners are a reflection of their conservative, sometimes
monarchist, political affiliations.

Decor: Gigantic American ballroom for 150 couples.

Entertainment: Big Band and cabaret stage. Dancing from

9 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Unusual: AP offers monthly Transvestite Balls, which

welcome non-transvestite guests. Separate lesbian nights
are also offered.
BÜRGER-CASINO
 Friedrichgracht 1 1927-1932

Area: FRIEDRICHSTADT. At the edge of the Spree by

SPITTELMARKT.

Atmosphere: Located in an isolated tract by the river, the

BC can only be discovered through the reddish glow of its
outdoor marquee. The riverfront district around the bar is
quiet, serene, and virtually abandoned at night. Inside, the
air is saturated with clouds of blue smoke. General mood is
upbeat and highly flirtatious.

Clientele: Blonde Line-Boys (many in schoolboy outfits that

expose their knees and upper chests) crouch at the bar with
their beer and smoke cigarettes. Stiff-collared merchants
and state officials in expensive suits. The Line-Boys here are
clean and great teases.
Decor: Tables separated by high garlanded trellises.
Standard bar with many hidden corners.

Entertainment: Live piano music. The middle-class men

dance with boys; the Line-Boys with each other. Little space
for ballroom-style dancing, so there is much intentional
bumping, touching, and lingering glances. Lots of
suggestive, girlish movements on the dance floor.

Women and Straight Men: None.

Unusual: Many of the Line-Boys appear in freshly laundered
sailor outfits since that is a basic taste of their customers.
Sexual contact takes place at a nearby pier.
 CABARET OF THE SPIDER Alte
Jakobstrasse 174 1922-1925

Area: BERLIN EAST. South of SPITTELMARKT.

Atmosphere: Wacky. No admission.

Clientele: Mostly petty bourgeois, mature gays. Aunties.

Decor: Painted on a wall inside is the sign of the lounge: a

crouching spider resting snugly in her web.

Entertainment: Saturdays and Sundays at 7 p.m., a floor

show is presented. A few of the announced acts: “Luziana,
the Mysterious Wonder of the Earth—Man or Woman?”;
Liselott from the Mikado; the Alhambra-Duo, a song-and-
dance team of male twins; or Gert Bathé as a man.

Women and Straight Men: None

 COSY-CORNER Zossener Strasse 7
1927-1932

Area: KREUZBERG. South of the HALLESCHES TOR.

(Formerly NOSTER’S RESTAURANT.)

Atmosphere: Hard-drinking boy-bar. On cold nights, Bubes

sit around the pot-bellied stove with their sleeves rolled up
and shirts unbuttoned to the waist. In summer, the same
wide-eyed boys sport high-cut lederhosen.

Clientele: Rough-trade Bubes (working-class Line-Boys)

and their adoring Tree-Stumps. Aspiring British writers led
by Christopher Isherwood.

Decor: Homely. Former neighborhood restaurant. Blacked-

out windows. A leather curtain conceals the entranceway
from the inside. Photographs of boxers and cyclists are
pinned up above the bar. That overheated stove.

Entertainment: Drinking and card games.

Women and Straight Men: None

Unusual: The toilet stall is an open space without partitions

or cubicles. Instead there is a long urinal trough, where the
Bubes can innocuously display their penises and pretend to
urinate before titillated Suitors.
KARLS-LOUNGE
 Karl Strasse 5 1921-1926

Area: BERLIN NORTH. South of the Hospital complex.

(Formerly Café-Restaurant CEMENT-CELLAR.)

Atmosphere: Private, underground. Very crowded and

boisterous. Heavy, depressed mood. Surprisingly free of
tobacco smoke and alcoholic beverages. Closes sharply at 2
a.m.

Clientele: Young Line-Boys, nearly all beardless in crisp,

tailored sailor outfits. Coolies and Tree-Stumps on the make.
Hectic groups of Bad Boys are constantly entering and then
abruptly leaving for street action or other lounges. (Many
are dealing cocaine in the clubs.)

Decor: Stripes of wax paper cover the inside entrance to

the “Cement Cellar.” In the first room is a massive bar and a
dusty glass liquor cabinet. A dim inner room is primitively
decorated with jeweled lampshades (made from the cloth of
old coats) and jewel-studded walls covered with mismatched
paintings of men’s portraits and tiny porcelain tchotchkes.
Entertainment: At a broken-down baby grand piano,
shoved into a corner, a pianist and fiddler play. Regulars, like
“Pretty Benno” and “Karlo” waltz between the tables. Other
couples dance in the shadows against the bejeweled walls.

Food: Plates of Hungarian pastries and lemonade only.

Women and Straight Men: Why bother?

Unusual: Testy old waiters are dressed in nautical uniforms,
identical to the teenage Line-Boys they serve. Alcoholic
drinks are not are served to customers but drugs, especially
cocaine and morphine, are freely traded and used at the
tables.
MONTE-CASINO
 Planufer 5 1923-1933

Area: KREUZBERG. South of the HALLESCHES TOR.

(Formerly RESTAURANT HEIDEBLUME.)

Atmosphere: Bizarre. “Unorthodox.” Falls into no set

category. Closes at 3 a.m.
Clientele: On weeknights, lower-middle-class men with
their Hausfraus in tow, some gay men and transvestite
couples. On weekends, lots of British and Dutch “straight”
tourists (both male and female) searching for the “authentic
Berlin.”

Decor: Dilapidated strip club with an elevated dance stage.

Bar on the side.

Entertainment: Amateurish transvestite revue—surprise:

the girls are really boys. Dances

and songs are performed by eight or nine effeminate Line-

Boys, ranging in age between 14 and 18. Some of them
appear to be undernourished. Professional piano
accompaniment. Hunky blonde teenager “Pretty Adolf” acts
as energetic conférencier.

Women and Straight Men: Strong word-of-mouth has

made this de rigueur for heterosexual foreign couples.

Unusual: Monte-Casino is owned by a “kind-hearted” drag

queen with a stable of obliging Line-Boys. They orally
service the working-class customers in backroom cubicles
while the young dancers prance on the cabaret stage. The
ever-patient customer-wives sit in the hall and drink beer
(across from the tables of other lonely Hausfraus) and take
in the entertainment.
MOUSTACHE-LOUNGE
 Gormannstrasse 2 1929-1933

Area: BERLIN NORTH. Corner of ROSENTHALER PLATZ.

Atmosphere: “Celebratory.” Noisy. Heavy drinking of Pilsen

with unconstrained displays of affection and sexual bravado
throughout.

Clientele: This is the outpost for Society Men—40- to 60-

year-olds with magnificent moustaches and facial hair. Every
kind and color of hair-lock is here, from slight blonde Van
Goghs to full Santa Claus beards. Long bushy sideburns and
Kaiser Wilhelm moustaches predominate. The Society Men
are a cross-section of middle-class Berlin: accountants,
publishing types, small business owners. Also a goodly
number of non-hirsute Line-Boys after midnight.

Decor: Large beer-hall room lodges some 200 animated

drinkers. Half at tables, the others around the bar. In the
back is a tiny stage, festooned with flowers.

Entertainment: One lonely transvestite chanteuse.

Women and Straight Men: None.

Unusual: Good pickup place for Line-Boys , charging 2 or 3

marks (about $12). Lots of sex between the Society and the
boys in the toilet stalls.

Overheard Pick-up Lines: “Mine is bigger than yours!”

(pointing to waxed moustache)
THE PASSAGE
 Between Unter den Linden and
Friedrichstrasse 1919-1934

Area: Center of FRIEDRICHSTADT.

Atmosphere: Creepy, old fashioned, the refuse of a

previous century. “A synthesis of Byzantinism and
pornography.” Musty old shops where one can buy dirty
French postcards, glass transparencies of the Madonna,
meerschaum pipes, or an amber necklace for the wife.
Discount stores, tired travel agencies and peepshows but
each establishment lacking in earnest business prospects.

Clientele: Purveyors of the various shops and cafés but also

—from 9 a.m. to 3 a.m.—the main thoroughfare for
desperate Doll-Boys and their customers. 276
Decor: Faded glass-covered arcade supported by marble-
paneled iron columns. A strange Wilhelmian imitation of a
Renaissance market. Prewar signs and unintentionally
disturbing window displays.

Entertainment: THE ANATOMICAL MUSEUM, open until the

late evening, advertises exhibitions “Devoted to the
Improvement of Mankind. No Children Admitted!” Inside are
cases of antique mannequins engaged in horrific rituals and
surgical operations; also prominent are displays of real body
parts ravished by venereal disease and sexual organs
representing the world’s “races.”

WORLD-PANORAMA is a stereoscopic emporium, where as

many as 25 viewers can sit around a huge wooden cylinder
of peepholes and watch three-dimensional images of naked
people from exotic climes. A pornographic cinema theatre,
the “STAR” does a small tourist business in the late
afternoons and evenings.

Food: Several cafés, all filled with Doll-Boys and their free-
spending Suitors.

Unusual: The competition among the dirty-faced Doll-Boys

is so great that many Tree-Stumps are able to offer them less
than a mark for an hour’s engagement. By 6 p.m., there are
over 70 hardened Doll-and Line-Boys posing in the vicinity
of the “STAR-KINO” alone. Another 80, with their hands in
their pockets, mill around the Behrenstrasse exit. (The Line-
Boys wear peaked schoolboy hats and short pants to appear
considerably younger.)
ZAUBERFLOTE
 Kommandanstrasse 72 1926-1933

Area: FRIEDRICHSTADT EAST. “One minute from

SPITTELMARKT.”

Atmosphere: “The Most Beautiful Dance Emporium in

Berlin.” Wild, “American,” aggressive, noisy, fun.

Clientele: Both gay men and lesbians on separate floors.

Each of the dance halls can accommodate over 1,500 merry-
makers.

Decor: Three stories: An enormous dance hall for lesbians

on first floor, “the American Dance Palace.” Second and third
floors, the “Florida Dance Hall” (with sweeping pink lights)
and “Oriental Casino,” a lounge area, are exclusively for gay
men.

Entertainment: Brassy orchestra plays on balcony above

dance floor, both jazz and German folk dance music—for
group dances that resemble gay square dancing, which
frequently results in lovers’ disputes.
Women and Straight Men: Absolutely forbidden by
opposite groups.

Lesbian Floors: Aggressive, “masculine” mood among the

Bubis with lots of drunken brawls over available Mädis.
Flower-sellers inside provide on-the-spot gifts for public
apologies by Bubis. On New Years, a great costume ball,
“The Silver Spider,” is given and at midnight the Princess of
the Moon releases a gigantic balloon on the roof.
LESBIAN VENUES
AULUKA-LOUNGE
 Augsburger Strasse 72 1924-1933

Area: BERLIN WEST. Near NOLLENDORFPLATZ and the Hotel

Eden. [In 1929, renamed the GEISHA BAR.]

Atmosphere: Hot, weird, loud. The Bubikopfed maître d’,

who greets the guests, is attired in male/female garb: a
man’s blue sportscoat, which reveals her breasts, an officer’s
leather tie, and provocative short skirt.

Clientele: Chic lesbians—mostly blonde, elegant

Garçonnes wearing high male collars and ties. Foreign
tourists and their hired Nuttes.

Decor: Permanent “Japanese Cherry Blossom” theme—

artificial snowballs affixed to overhanging cherry-tree
branches. Dim Japanese paper lanterns and table lamps. Red
sofas and cushions line the walls, which feature crude erotic
cartoons drawn in green and black.

Entertainment: Upbeat, contemporary dance music

played on piano by eccentric former Russian prince. A
female lead-dancer performs solo pieces.
Men: Yes. Many voyeurs.

Unusual: Taking in the action are carloads of Japanese and

Chinese tourists, who sit silently with high-heeled German
Nuttes in the “Tokyo” section.
 CAFÉ DOMINO Marburger Strasse 13
1921-1930

Area: BERLIN WEST. South of the Memorial Church.

Atmosphere: “The Intimate Bar of the West.” Sensuous,

hard. A smoky pick-up bar, resembling that of straight men.
Specialty aphrodisiac drink is called “Cherry Cobbler.”

Clientele: Exquisite, wealthy Sharpers (many in

tuxedo/short skirt combinations). (This is their haunt.) Lots
of jewelry and expensive perfume. Slim-hipped Mädis in
shiny silk hose—always a few feigning shock by the same-
sex surroundings. Parties of head-turning Gamines on the
weekends. Dodos and some straight men.
Decor: Bar area completely illuminated in red light. Double
rows of champagne-filled tables. The tiny spaces between
the tables provide a shadowy area for seductive foxtrots and
anonymous touches.
Entertainment: “Hot American jazz” on piano. Later in the
evening, Romanian singer, Jonescu, leads a “Gypsy Band.”
“Naked” dancers from Eastern European troupes perform at
midnight.

Gertie, the brunette hostess in a sleek tuxedo, helps

establish the lush mood by dancing with patrons and then
pairing off horny Sharpers and Dodos with sweet-faced
Mädis.

Men: Plentiful in the late evening but willfully ignored by

Domino regulars.

Unusual: On the nearby Tauentzienstrasse corner, an old

Jew advertises Domino’s evening theme—like “Sapphic
Nights” or “Japanese Flower Festival”—on a hand-drawn
sandwich board. Intrigued male clients, many just
recovering mentally from nearby Boot-Girl sessions, are
frequent habitués of the midnight shows.
 CAFÉ DORIAN GRAY Bülowstrasse 57
1927-1933

Area: BERLIN WEST. West of the POTSDAMER Train Station.

Atmosphere: Usually very hot. Loud, airy. Advertised as

“The Intimate Nexus of the Ladies-World.”

Clientele: Mostly lesbian couples, especially fun-driven

Garçonne pairs. On special occasions, like Wednesday
“Sado-Masochist Nights,” transvestites of both genders are
welcomed. (“Gentlemen” are required to pay twice the
admission.)
Decor: Artistic café interior in front. Real flowers on the
tables. In backroom, cheap but elaborate silken drapery,
Japanese paper lanterns, beads, veils, palm trees.

Entertainment: Live tango music and an annoying male

violinist who goes table to table, hovering around until he
receives a tip.

Food: Good Viennese kitchen.

Men: Rambunctious gay men (organizations of Bad Boys)

reserve the spacious backroom for private parties on
Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. [Curiously, both
lesbian and gay clubgoers come dressed in similar leather
blouses/shirts and fetishistic sailor costumes.]

Unusual: An imposing, humorless doorman makes certain

that patrons have come to the correct lesbian or gay
function. Friday nights are billed as “Elite-Women’s Day”;
weekday lesbian evenings have themes like “Wild Night,”
“Bavarian Alpine Feast,” “Rhineland Wine-Growers Holiday,”
or “Three Days in the Wild West.”
CAFÉ OLALA
 Zietenstrasse 11 1927-1932

Area: BERLIN WEST END. Near NOLLENDORFPLATZ.

Atmosphere: Loud laughter, but creepy, empty inside.

Imitation Parisian café. Flirtatious lesbian waitresses in
French maid outfits add some sparkle.

Clientele: As many straight men looking for a cheap thrill

as hard-drinking Girl-Friends, Tauentziengirls, and Hot
Whores.

Decor: Filthy windowpanes and generally messy tables.

Entertainment: Banal chansons play on scratchy

phonographic disks.

Unusual: A special corner for Salvation Army Girls and

Tauentziengirls. The mother-and-daughter teams are on the
vigil for interested pedestrians and pass the time stealing
each other’s schnapps before braving the streets.
HOHENZOFFERN-CAFÉ
 Bülowstrasse 101 1921-1933

Area: BERLIN WEST. Near NOLLENDORFPLATZ.

Atmosphere: Easygoing, somewhat faded. Formerly known

as the HOHENZOFFERN HALL (then the “H-LOUNGE”), this is
the oldest established lesbian café in Berlin.

Clientele: Downhome “married” lesbian couples. The Bubis

wear neckties, collars, and conservative men’s jackets and
converse heartily with other another. The Sweet Mommies
quietly sit between their “men” and engage in small talk
with other Mädis as they nurse cups of coffee.

Decor: Blacked picture windows to hide the interior room.

Large restaurant-style booths and padded chairs.

Entertainment: Occasional box-step, social dances. Pop

music performed by a gay duo on violin and piano (or
accordion).

Men: Tolerated.
Unusual: Sometimes straight men dance with attractive
Mädis—always first requesting permission from their
respective Daddies.
 MALI AND INGEL Lutherstrasse 16
1927-1933

Area: BERLIN WEST. East of WITTENBERG PLATZ.

Atmosphere: Exclusive. Brazenly lesbian. Always packed.

Fixed sign on entrance: “CLOSED FOR PRIVATE PARTY.” At
the front desk are two identically dressed, oversized Bubis,
who wear noticeably huge diamond rings and thickly
applied eyeshadow. On their laps are two lissome Gamines
in translucent silk blouses. Both Bubis methodically rub the
giggling girls’ nipples while one Bubi dutifully checks the
reservation list. (An enduring and memorable image for all
first-time male guests.)

Clientele: Very selective. Usually no more than 60

customers at any one time. Favorite hangout for lesbian
artists, intellectuals, singers, stage actresses, and film stars.
Lesbians working for Max Reinhardt’s theatre organizations
often stage birthday celebrations here.

Decor: Blacked-out picture windows. A relatively small room

but decorated stylishly with a traffic light flashing red over
the dance floor.
Deep comfortable chairs in the corners and erotic lesbian
paintings (donated by wealthy patrons) hanging on the
walls.

Entertainment: Both hot jazz and sentimental love songs

performed by professional male pianist. Crowd frequently
shows its appreciation by clapping in time to the music. Also
visiting opera stars or Russian actresses will be encouraged
to sing arias or specialty lesbian songs in their own tongue.

Men: Not admitted unless accompanied by a lesbian

habitué. Even with invitation, males are quickly disregarded
by women after formal introductions.

Unusual: Mali, one of the owners, is a beautiful Jewish

Garçonne-type who insists on dancing with each of her
female clientele. Ingel, her partner, is a vivacious Gamine.
Together they create an aristocratically refined if
outrageously promiscuous mood.
 MEYER-STUBE Xanterner Strasse 3
1927-1928

Area: WILMERSDORF. South of the Kurfürstendamm.

Adjacent to Berlin publishing conglomerates.

Atmosphere: Serious, intellectual. Moody.

Clientele: Regular crowd of famous journalists, novelists,

graphic artists, and businesswomen. Mostly Dodos and their
saucy Garçonne companions. Also unattached Sharpers at
the bar.

Decor: Immaculate bar-counter. Ten tables set with linen

and flowers.

Entertainment: Phonograph plays sentimental tangos.

Men: None.
Unusual: A pick-up joint for high-achieving lesbians. Except
for plucking a cat’s hair from a stranger’s blouse or brushing
a thigh, little overt physical contact. Lots of heavy shop-talk
and networking here, capped off with a serious glass of
Calvados or imported rum.
 TAVERNE Georgenkirchstrasse 30a
1927-1930

Area: BERLIN NORTH. “Two minutes from

ALEXANDERPLATZ.”

Atmosphere: Extremely downscale except on Saturday and

Sunday nights. Crude. Beery smell. An aura of frustration
and menacing sadism. Sign on the door warns that the bar is
closed for a “PRIVATE PARTY.”

Newspaper promotion: “WHERE TO MEET LESBIANS?

WHERE IS IT SEXY? HERE AT THE TAVERNE!”

Clientele: Elderly, burly Bubis usually in singles or doubles.

Troublesome, flirtatious Mädis.

Decor: Disgusting. Outer foyer looks like the waiting room

of an abandoned train station. Main parlor consists of
distressed furniture, an orchestra platform, and a ladies’
bathroom.

Entertainment: Very loud, overpowering jazz band, led by

the one-eyed “could be a woman/could be a man” Charly.
Hefty blonde chanteuse, Gerda sings current hits.

Men: None.

Unusual: Public necking and general bad behavior—

humping displays by exuberant Bubis (pointing to bulging
objects in their pants), jeers and Biergarten challenges
brought on by inebriation, frequent attempts to cop feels
from the preening Mädis, and related boorish activity. Like
rutting moose, some aggressive Bubis are easily provoked
from symbolic fisticuffs into real physical combat.
 TOPPKELLER Schwerinstrasse 13
1923-1932

Area: BERLIN WEST. Near NOLLENDORFPLATZ.

Atmosphere: Dangerous, fun, sexy. Bohemian. Normally

packed and difficult to get in on Friday nights. Regarded as a
lesbian “Show-Bar” or “Stock Exchange,” it is an excellent
place for female encounters.

Clientele: Lesbian groups, top-of-the-line actresses

(entering after shows), singers, famous dancers, foreign
tourists, Gougnettes, Hot Whores, unusually striking young
Garçonnes, straight males in search of whipping and
bondage sessions, curious married couples, S&M prostitutes.

Decor: The main room itself is surprisingly unattractive and

filled with beer-hall tables and dim lights. Hanging from the
ceiling are paper garlands of herons. Scribbled on the walls
is phony graffiti, like a message of personal congratulations
to the Ladies Club Pyramid from Mussolini. There is also a
proscenium stage with ten holes cut in the fore-curtains for
the late evening revue of the “Prettiest Female Calves,”
knees, ankles, or feet.
 More elegant space at the back of the club decorated with
erotic murals and cutouts of entertainers and the hostess
Gypsy-Lotte.

Entertainment: A lively four-piece brass band and—for one

year—a cabaret show. Lesbian games, line dances, and
contests are held through the night.

Especially popular is the ritual dance, the Black Mass,

executed exactly at twelve o’clock. Led by a stunning
Amazon in a black sombrero, the lesbian participants
(holding full cognac glasses) form a circle around her as
they obey her strict commands to kneel, stand, drink and
fondle a fellow celebrant.

Men: Straight men are especially welcome—since they are

reputed to be the premier drinkers and spenders. During the
day, many are handed risqué flyers, asking them to
participate in the selection for the “Most Attractive Female
Legs” competition or “Best Breasts in Berlin” (of any sex)
contest.

Unusual: Gougnettes, glamorous Half-Silks, and Dominas

do a thriving heterosexual trade here, discussing their skills
and negotiating fees for next-day sessions. Reserved tables
of foreigners and formally-clothed married couples at the
back of house are particularly welcome draws for these
professional ladies. (Police reports claim that on weekdays
close to 50% of the female spectators are actually high-end
sex-workers.)
 VERONA-LOUNGE Kleiststrasse 36
1919-1931

Area: BERLIN WEST. East of WITTENBERG PLATZ.

Atmosphere: Usually pleasant and chic in the early

evening but erotic mood often turns tense with outrageous
public scenes of lesbian courtship. Berlin Vice Police
sometimes harass Verona patrons by monitoring their
entrances and exits.

Clientele: Despite being advertised as “the ‘Love Domicile’

for All Girl-Friends,” the Verona is considered an afterhours
headquarters for dominant Gougnettes. Also “serious”
lesbians meet here, demonstrating intellectual support for
their radical Sisters. Interested straight women and
voyeuristic male artists.

Entertainment: Lesbian orchestra conducted by comic MC

Harylett. Hot cheek-to-cheek tangos and contemporary
social dancing.

Men: Sophisticated types admitted when accompanied by a

lesbian entourage but treated as passive onlookers once
inside. Waitresses will often regard them as nonentities.

Unusual: At the end of their commercial day, Gougnette

patrons meet here for open sexual displays of conquest and
submission. Gougnettes are easily recognized by their heavy
makeup and characteristic attire—stylish men’s hats, long
fur coats, patent-leather footwear, and specially tailored
skirts that are sharply upturned in the center to reveal the
tops of their glossy, sheer silk stockings.
NUDIST VENUES
 BERLIN LEAGUE OF FREE BODY
CULTURE (FKK) Wilhelmstrasse
119/120 1920-1936

Affiliation: Nationalist (FKK). Led by anti-Koch doctor, Artur

Fedor Fuchs. Official journal, Nacktsport.

Atmosphere and Philosophy: Class-oriented but

pointedly progressive. Aryanism married to holistic
principles of natural health.
Clientele: General mix of upper- and upper-middle-class
Berlin. Bald aristocrats (noticeably wearing their wire-rim
glasses or monocles), flaccid matrons in red bathing caps. A
few attractive young women. (Jews, homosexuals, and
Marxist types gently discouraged.)

Health Regimen: No alcohol. Most members religiously

imbibe a special Bulgarian cultured-milk drink.

Separation of Genders: Implied. Modest display of breasts

and male genitalia.
Studios: The Lunabad facility in the Lunapark on Sundays
is reserved for FKK members. Naked air baths, sunlamp
treatments, and curatic massages are offered. On Tuesdays,
the Association rents the monstrous Wellenbad building,
which features several indoor beaches and two powerful
wave machines that mimic North Sea currents. Every ten
minutes, a lifeguard issues a mock-serious warning to
swimmers, “The waves are coming!”

Unusual: Nude members maintain Prussian protocol in the

bath and restaurant, where one can observe formal greeting
rituals, such as bowing and hand-kissing; even the military
habit of clicking (barefoot) heels when meeting a superior is
common here. Refined and sanitary-minded naked dinners
use silver tongs to pick up sugar cubes and breakfast rolls.
BIRKENHEIDE Brandburg Motzen Lake
Camp 1924-1933

Affiliation: Strictly apolitical. Undogmatic. Founded by the

free-spirited Charly Straesser. No membership cards,
personal questionnaires, nor cultural, ethnic, and class
restrictions.

Atmosphere and Philosophy: Hedonistic and pleasure-

oriented. Strong libertarian tenor. Guests have certain work
obligations to help run the camp but may engage in any
chosen activity after that. No rules regarding diet or dress.
Organizational codes of “purity and cleanliness,” athletic
beauty, or civic belief are ignored and often parodied.

Clientele: A community of “New People.” Young, vivacious,

attractive Berliners, including many 175ers. Former-
Wandervogel types. Wealthy actresses and their
companions. Some nonconformist families with children.
(Voyeurs toting cameras, and thrill-seeking bourgeois
patrons not admitted.)
Decor: Extremely rustic, except for an outdoor coffee shop.

Health Regimen: Basically laissez-faire. Lots of medicine

ball games, tennis, volleyball, free-form gymnastics, popular
social dance. Sun bathing and swimming. Nude exercises
and competitive games, like mud-wrestling, enacted in a
playful atmosphere.

Separation of Genders: None.

Unusual: Public homosexual contact and inter-generational
sex is common here and adds to the aura of unfettered
carnal freedom.
 BODY CULTURE SCHOOL OF ADOLF
KOCH Friedrichstrasse 218 1920-1932

Affiliation: Socialist (“Free Men, Union for Socialist Life

Reform and Free Body Culture in the Alliance of People’s
Health”). Official journal Körperbildung/Nacktkultur.

Atmosphere and Philosophy: Fun blended with didactic

study. Koch’s instructors pontificate that vigorous hygiene,
Bode-like exercises, and nudity are all married to good
health. Lectures are often laced with pedagogical and
therapeutic terminology. Utopian, spiritual mood.

Clientele: Thousands of working-class and unemployed

families. [Over 300,000 members in 1932, of which the out-
of-work comprise almost half. Payment is 5% of annual
salary, if any.] Lots of children. Among adults, many
overweight and unattractive bodies. “Pendulous breasts and
Zulu hips” noted among mature female members.
Homosexuals and lesbians welcome.

Health Regimen: Two-hour sessions: 8 p.m.—public

showers and freestyle warm-ups; 8:30—special group
rhythmic gymnastics (synchronized to tiresome children’s
songs on piano or drumbeats); 9 p.m.—nude bathing in
municipal swimming pool.

Separation of Genders: All sexes and ages mixed, except

during morning exercise sessions. Designated political
lectures related to the Women Question.

Studios: Headquarters in the two floors of the Apollo

Theater. Friday night meetings in the Berlin State
Bathhouse.

Unusual: Everyone is addressed, as in Kindergarten, in the

familiar case (“Du”).
 FREE SUNLAND Brandburg Motzen
Lake camp 1920-1936

Affiliations: Seemingly apolitical with a Nationalist slant

(“Free Sunland Union” and the “Concerned Community of
Free Sunland and Naked Sports”). Overseen by Dr. Artur
Fedor Fuchs, editor of Nacktsport.

Atmosphere and Philosophy: Upscale. Strangely erotic.

Restricted to well-paying members and guests. (Each
participant must present a passport-like booklet that
establishes his or her political beliefs.) Relatively little overt
propaganda, but nudism is promoted as a healthful and vital
aspect of pre-Christian German life.

Clientele: 6,000 paid-up members. Lots of middle-class

denizens in family units and office groups. Unconventional
Nationalists, who often gather by a far corner around the
radio in the evening. Many aristocrats and social butterfly
types, including gigolos and “Merry Widows” from the Resi.
Also a place for UFA film stars, like Willy Fritch and Lilian
Harvey. A few American tourists.

Decor: Entire encampment surrounded by wooden fences

and Gothic Verboten signs. Mock primitive within. Sandy,
pine-studded meadows. Two “fuck” cabins in the woods,
three chalets, a restaurant, and an outdoor changing room,
each covered in a characteristic rough-hewn oak.

Health Regimen: No smoking, liquor, or beer. Heavily

sports-directed—organized swimming and diving, javelin-
tossing, medicine-ball throwing. Nude tennis and volleyball
being the most popular intersex group activity after
swimming. Massages and facials offered.

Separation of Genders: During mornings, segregated

activities for mature men (horseshoe-pitching), young men
(boxing), women (gymnastics), and children (handball).
Mixed activities after lunchtime. Groups of men in well-oiled
bodies by the sea often register—to outsiders—a strong
homoerotic sensation.

Unusual: Males and children walk around the compound

completely naked but class and celebrity status of females is
indicated by tiny accouterments, like chic bathing-hats,
pearl earrings, and fine gold necklaces. Many wear distinct,
French silk footwear for protection from pebbles.
 NEW SUNLAND Brandburg Motzen
Lake camp at Birkenheide 1924-1933

Affiliation: Militantly apolitical. Founded by Fritz Gerlach.

Member of Reichs Union for Free Body Culture and Life
Reform, a consortium of organizations opposed to Koch and
Fuchs’ tendentious beliefs. (“German Light-Bathing Society”
and the “League for Free Life Reform”). Journal Licht-Luft-
Leben.

Atmosphere and Philosophy: Sexy and vibrant.

“‘Happiness—the imposed order of the day!”

Clientele: Smart set, including members of the British

Embassy staff. Young suntanned, sports-group types.
Beautiful boys and girls. “Fatties” and photographers
banned.

Decor: Agrarian and unpretentious.

Health Regimen: Nude sports—ball-tossing, swimming,

bathing. Sun bathing, family picnicking, open campfires,
folk singing, and boating.
Separation of Genders: None.

Unusual: Displays of physical affection and romantic

attachments allowed.
 TERRITORY ADOLF KOCH Brandburg
Motzen Lake camp 1925-1932

Affiliation and Clientele: Same as Koch’s Berlin schools.

Atmosphere and Philosophy: Socialist, non-sexual.

Family-friendly. Utopian, a bit of paradise for the
underprivileged.

Clientele: Mostly workers from North Berlin and its suburbs.

Unemployed and homeless youth who can make the trek to
the Territory are allowed one free week of food and lodging.

Decor: Cabins and tents are surprisingly cozy but set

cheek-by-jowl like an Edenic slum. Trails, stone pathways,
swimming areas, and exercise grounds are scrupulously
forged from native materials.

Health Regimen: Nudists sign on for one- or two-week

sessions. In addition to attending Socialist lectures and
gymnastic classes, they are expected to do practical work,
like baking bread, building cabins, digging sanitation
ditches, and erecting fences. No smoking or alcoholic drinks.
Cheap vegetarian meals are offered: fresh milk, butter,
vegetables, whole-grain breads, and a sticky root-vegetarian
goulash.

Separation of Genders: None.

Unusual: All campers must fill out a detailed “Free Men”

questionnaire about their personal lives and political
orientation. Teenage boys, in addition, are required to write
about their most vivid sexual fantasies. A female counselor
then meets with them in order to assess the likelihood of any
embarrassing, spontaneous arousal. Boys who experience
erections or other signs of “unnatural” excitement are sent
to a special clinic for therapy.
SEX MUSEUMS
 DR. MAGNUS HIRSCHFELD’S
INSTITUTE OF SEXOLOGY
Beethovenstrasse 3 1919-1933

Area: A beautiful and isolated area of the TIERGARTEN. One

block south of the Spree.

Atmosphere: Dignified and seemingly scientific. A quaint

throw-back to the Wilhelmian era. Yet beneath its finely
polished veneer, the Institute is a citadel of revolutionary
and astonishing beliefs. Directly over its massive portal is an
inscription in Latin, “Sacred to Love and Sorrow.”

Clientele: Curious Berliners, foreign tourists, including

many artistic celebrities, and groups of international social
reformers, anthropologists, physicians, and psychiatrists.

Decor: Three adjacent buildings on the former Radziwill

and Hartfeld estates—some 65 rooms in all. In the Prince’s
central mansion, the basement is divided into domestic,
kitchen, and office spaces. Main floor consists of a reception
area (with one room filled with mementos of Queen Louise
and Napoleon) and small consulting and waiting rooms.
Second floor is cleaved into Magnus Hirschfeld’s living
quarters and the Museum of Sexology. The top floor houses
various laboratories and an X-Ray studio.

The second building houses several outpatient clinics and a

large lecture hall. Here counseling for venereal disease, birth
control, marriage difficulties, frigidity, impotence, and
gender exploration is conducted. The Institute’s records and
scientific library (which includes Europe’s largest collection
of graphic and literary pornography) is held in a smaller
courtyard unit.

Entertainment: The Museum is open to the public and

contains thousands of erotic artifacts and pictorial materials,
categorized according to Hirschfeld’s unique sexual
taxonomy. The masturbation machines and mechanical
sexual aids from everywhere, including Oceania and
Southeast Africa, are a public favorite. Also of special
interest are the 1,200 fantasy drawings by convicted
Lustmord prisoners and 8,000 selected photographs and
cherished items from the collections of Berlin foot and hand
fetishists.

Unusual: Sex manuals and magazines, scientific literature,

traditional aphrodisiacs from Asia and Africa, and erotic
stimulants, which were developed in the Institute, are sold
at the Museum counter. Many of the Institute’s employees
fall into Hirschfeld’s “transitional” spectrum of “not male/not
female” categories. “Female” and “male” hermaphrodites,
transvestites, transsexuals, and other Intergrades cook the
meals and assist with the Museum activities and
demonstrations.
TRANSVESTITE VENUES
 ELDORADO Lutherstrasse 29 1926-
1932

Area: BERLIN WEST. “Face-to-face” with the SCALA Variety

theatre.

Atmosphere: Wild ballroom excitement on weekends.

Ostentatious but thoroughly titillating. Flyers in tourist cafés
advertise: “International Trade, Interesting Nights.” The air
itself is dense with clashing fragrances: French perfumes
and the unmistakable scent of the powdered female body.

Clientele: Berlin high society, adventurous foreign tourists,

provincial artists and writers, Dodos, and beautiful Ladies in
evening finery. Uncommonly attractive Demi-Castors and
Fohses—competing with a like number of cross-dressed
knockouts.

Decor: Huge banner over entrance proclaims: “HERE IT IS

RIGHT!” Nearby are two oversized frescoes that show
Ulysses being beckoned by gorgeous Circes (of course, in
drag) and the trial of Paris, who hesitates between a trio of
male Graces.

An eccentric series of pseudo-homilies are posted in the

foyer and at the hat-check room. One reads: “Don’t Worry
about the Cold of Winter/ Here You Can Warm Your Hands!’
Lou, a Valentino-lookalike maître d’, leads the customers
to the main dining room, where there are several dozen
packed tables pushed to the left and right sides of the dance
floor. More frescoes of nude hieroglyphic figures are painted
on the walls. Garlands hang everywhere and stringed
balloons float from the tops of champagne bottles. A large
cabaret stage adjoins the far wall.

Entertainment: The effusive orchestra, costumed in unisex

silk blouses, plays provocative and haunting songs from
French and Argentinean repertoires. Major amusement is the
difficult task of assigning a biologic gender to the dancing
couples, most of whom are convincingly made-up
transvestites.

A lavish floor-show is presented at midnight. Typical

production consists of five or six numbers: “Sweet Carlo,” an
androgynist, twirling boy is introduced to stormy applause;
then a courtly diva sings (in shrill falsetto) a medley of
risqué Parisian chansons, which concludes with a baritone
finale. This is followed by a comical trio of rumba dancers in
drag, who play out a Latin love-triangle. Lastly, Lou, the
Andalusian maître d’, appears in a turban, naked except for
a bra and skimpy G-string. She/he executes an exotic, totally
believable “naked” ballet. With the striking of the last
percussive note, Lou throws her turban in the air, revealing a
distinctly pomaded male mane.
Unusual: There are two service bars: a long American
counter near the entrance with a row of femme bartenders
(including a poor, stranded 21-year-old English-speaking
girl). Over the counter is a disturbing series of S&M
photographs. The second bar is at the rear. It is ministered
by a jocular bartender, who insists on kissing every lady’s
hand. Despite the telling Eton haircut, this character is so
obese that it is impossible—even for Eldorado regulars—to
determine his/her sex.

Overheard conversation: Society Matron to transvestite

dancer: “Are you really a man?” Falsetto reply: “I am
whatever sex you wish me to be, Madame.”
 ELDORADO (New) Motzstrasse 15
1928-1932

Area: BERLIN WEST. Near NOLLENDORFPLATZ.

Atmosphere: Even more glamorous and fashion-driven

than the first Eldorado. Magazine advertisement: “Original
Or Not—We Are Ready!”

Clientele: Serious male and female transvestites, usually in

parties of four to ten. French and Scandinavian Ladies on
holiday. Also lots of staid international travelers, due to a
clever campaign of promotion in straight hotel guides and
the powerful inducement of free admission.

Decor: “HERE IT IS RIGHT” marquee re-appears over the

club doorway. On the Motzstrasse side of the building, there
is a garish mural that exhibits this Eldorado’s philosophy. A
series of cartoonish drawings of dancing couples unfolds,
beginning with a man clasping a woman; second image is a
man waltzing with another man; then a woman with a
woman; next a ridiculous cross-dressed pair; a threesome
doing a polka; and finally a man romantically embracing a
frisky, perverse poodle.
 Inside a Chinese motif prevails: standing copper gongs
and sketches of opium-smoking Chinamen on the walls.
More spacious seating than in the Old Eldorado.

Entertainment: Hot dance orchestra, the Bernd Robert

Rhythmics. Weekends feature female impersonators, like the
ostrich-headressed Muguette (in a tribute to French Music-
Hall chanteuse legend Mistinguett). Still, drinking and
intersexual gawking are the evening’s cardinal activity.

Unusual: The opening of a second Eldorado created a

pressing social problem among Berlin’s stylish Ladies: which
to patronize. As always, there is an elegant solution—begin
the evening at Lutherstrasse 29 and then slowly migrate
here for unbridled fun and games.
 MIKADO BAR Puttkamerstrasse 15
1907-1933

Area: FRIEDRICHSTADT SOUTH. East of ANHALTER Train

Station.

Atmosphere: Jokey. Comic-aggressive. The oldest extant

transvestite club in Berlin. Once the center of organized
male homosexual activity.

Clientele: Attractive drag queens (flagrantly sauntering

back and forth from the Ladies Room), tantalized provincials,
and heterosexual tourists. Some masculine women in suits
(conspicuously using the Men’s Room).

Decor: Tacky Oriental furnishings with Japanese lanterns

and hanging beads over doorway arches. Flashing red traffic
light illuminates the dozen tables.

Entertainment: The Baron Sattergrün (known simply as

the “Baroness”) on piano and a violinist play tango ballads
and dance music. Transgendered illusionists dance with one
another. A complete transvestite revue is offered on
weekends.

Unusual: Four or five assertive divas with short-cut dresses

and rubber breasts go table to table, demanding the straight
males dance with them. Tourists amuse themselves,
guessing which powdered patrons are biological females.
Every night, a few transvestite prostitutes manage to usher
confused heterosexual admirers to their nearby apartments.
MONOCLE-BAR Budapester Strasse 14
1929-1933

Area: BERLIN WEST. Near NOLLENDORFPLATZ. (Formerly

the political cabaret KÜKA).

Atmosphere: Militantly gynocentric. A hefty female

transvestite at the door makes certain males do not enter.
(He/she holds a riding crop in one transgendered hand.

Clientele: Mostly cross-dressed Dodos and Garçonnes in

pants. A few Mädis and daring married women.

Decor: Rows of hard, wooden benches against the walls,

tables, a cabaret stage.

Entertainment: All-girl orchestra performing an up-to-date

international repertoire. Cabaret acts are introduced by
conférencière Lola Gray.
SILHOUETTE Geisbergstrasse 24 1926-
1933

Area: BERLIN WEST. Near NÜRNBERGER PLATZ.

Atmosphere: Calm, self-assured. Blanketed in a blue haze

of cigarette smoke. The cynosure of worldly sophistication.
Maître d’ unerringly knows who is a suitable guest and who
does not belong.

Clientele: The most cosmopolitan mix in Berlin: film stars

(notably Conrad Veidt, Anita Berber, and Marlene Dietrich—
circa 1925), wealthy transvestite first-nighters, and in-the-
know foreigners. Many Bubis in natty smoking jackets and
marcelled hair, “giving off sparks like virile gigolos.” Mädis
wrapped in long sequined dresses. Seated at one of the front
bars is always a string of 20-year-old Ladies with large
gazelle-like eyes and dresses that emphasize their tiny
waists and foamy, soft artificial breasts.
Decor: Long narrow room illuminated by dim pink lights
and red Japanese paper lanterns. Two counters on either side
of the foyer; each bar is “manned” by three youths in white
silk shirts, matching signet rings, and slicked-back hair.
Every so often, one of the narcissistic bartenders stops in the
midst of preparing a martini and admires himself in a mirror
over the opposite booth.

Small nightclub with limited floor seating in the back.

Sofa-like chairs are arranged against the walls. Along the
secluded second-floor balustrade, there are a dozen
partitioned areas, consisting of low-lying tables with sunken
leg spaces underneath.

Entertainment: Dapper-looking orchestra. Dancing on a

long red carpet spread over parquet floor. Most customers
come here for the dining and private socializing although
rhapsodic female impersonators perform in the early
evening.

Unusual: This is the only Berlin club where male and female
transvestitism is a natural, if elevated, form of erotic display.
The darkened and comfortable surroundings on the balcony
are ideal spots for midnight trysts. Little in the way of
commercial sex.
UNDERWORLD VENUES
 THE BLUE STOCKING Linienstrasse
140 1923-1933

Area: NORTH BERLIN. Behind the St. Johannes Evangelical

Church. (Also called the LINIEN-CELLAR.)

Atmosphere: Extremely friendly, if a bit on the wild side.

Each patron is checked out or greeted by Karl, the elder of
Berlin’s Spanners. He sits studiously on a wooden block
outside the Kaschemme. Only Karl’s clicking approval opens
the cellar door for approaching customers.

Clientele: Wealthy Crackers and their colleagues,

pickpockets, mulatto prostitutes in revealing blouses,
boxers, assorted cocaine addicts; hand-job whores; cocky
Alphonses; suspicious Polish-Jewish smugglers, and sickly
Gravelstones. After 1:30 a.m., the “Hub of Berlin’s Lowlife”
begins to heat up.

Decor: Fifteen or so bare tables and a bar-counter. Dim, blue

lighting.
Entertainment: A droopy zither-player intermittently plays
a few chords. Singer-Franz (a late-evening patron who claims
he once sung with the Komische Oper) provides obscene
ditties while his Kalle, the refined Cold Ente, and her
promiscuous rival, Bootjob-Else, flash their tits.

Tourists: Not if Karl can help it.

Unusual: This is the best place to come for underworld

gossip. The Stocking’s Boost, Uncle Hans, knows all and tells
all. Also, Hans specializes in settling petty disputes among
his oft-feuding customers.
 HUNDEGUSTAV BAR Borsigstrasse 29
1921-1933

Area: BERLIN NORTH. Near STETTINER Train Station.

(Formerly the BORSIG-CELLAR.)

Atmosphere: Air thick with mischief but friendly. Place

picks up considerably after 3 a.m. Hundegustav, the Boost,
and his wife attempt to make everyone feel at home. A
waiter, who wears a white coat over his nightshirt, also helps
maintain order.
Clientele: Gangster bar habitués: pickpockets, assorted
Grids, Kontroll-Girls and their Louies, sadistic Johns, German-
speaking Africans from the Cameroons, a few homeless
types. All the Berlin Police Commissioners (the Bulls) and
City Public Defenders like to make a showing here afterhours
as private citizens and have their own tables.

Decor: An old coal cellar with tables and chairs.

Entertainment: A trio of musicians: a guitarist, a banjo
player, and a piano/accordion-player vocalist. Spectators
also sing along and play percussion at their tables.
Execrable, homemade Berlin North imitations of tango and
Charleston music.
Tourists: Good number of thrill-seekers—although the
neighborhood is a bit on the dangerous side. Outside are
always a few limousines and hired cars. (Police usually raid
Hundegustav’s the day after any reported violent hold-up.)

Unusual: Dive named after the Boost Gustav, who once

worked as a dogcatcher. Also rumored that he still enjoys
eating dog meat. Hence the name “Dog-Gustav.”
 RED MILL CABARET Mühle Strasse 49
1919-1929

Area: BERLIN EAST. 200 feet south from SCHLESSISCHER

Train Station.

Atmosphere: Lowest of the low. Disorderly and crowded

after 9 p.m. Tumultuous every night. (Said to be the
inspiration for Bertolt Brecht’s The Three Penny Opera.)

Clientele: All deadbeat underworld types, especially

Ludwigs, Grids, cocaine dealers, marriage-swindlers, and
Kontroll-Girls.

Decor: Old restaurant cellar.

Entertainment: Music by the “Armchair Orchestra.”
Starting at 10 p.m., a cabaret. This normally consists of six
standard acts: a dopey over-the-hill chanteuse; a “quick-
poet,” who creates clever rhythms from audience
suggestions (almost all obscene); a “husband-and-wife”
dance-team; a Bavarian folk singer; a neighborhood
ventriloquist, and Jack, the Escape-King, who demonstrates
how to slip out of regulation police handcuffs and other arm
and leg restraints.

Tourists: Occasional.

Unusual: Lots of drunken behavior, culminating in shouting

and inane threats to the cabaret performers, who are called
“Shits,” “Garbage,” “Pimps,” “Fart-gas,” and “Bulls.” The
headwaiter Erich does a heavy trade in loan-sharking and
high-quality cocaine transactions.
 SING-SING Chausseestrasse 11 1927-
1933

Area: BERLIN NORTH. Near the ORANIENBURGER TOR.

(Sometimes referred to by its old name, the CAFÉ ROLAND.

Atmosphere: Rough. Bizarre. The cauliflower-eared

Spanner is dressed in a prison guard’s uniform and
menacingly slaps a rubber truncheon against his palm. Only
open from 1 to 6 a.m.

Clientele: Real gangster-types, Grids, pickpockets, big-shot

pimps, Kontroll-Girls, petty thieves, hangers-on, lovesick
Nuttes. Many tough-looking ex-cons with shaved heads and
tattoos.

Decor: The entire establishment is designed like a hideous

prison restaurant- cum-execution chamber. (Largely based
on the actual dining quarters of the Berlin penitentiary at
Plötzensee.) The windows are outfitted with thick iron grills,
the tables are made of heavy wood, and waiters wear
stripped and numbered convict uniforms. Against the main
wall stands a crude replica of Sing Sing’s electric chair.
Entertainment: Each night, usually between 2 and 3 a.m.,
a customer is selected to be executed on the Iron Lady. As
soon as the “condemned” is seated and placed behind the
“Swedish curtains,” which conceal his face, a mad ruckus
ensues throughout the restaurant with whistles, obscene
jeering, much banging and stumping of boots. A particularly
convincing victim, who squirms in realistic agony, is often
encouraged to face the coup de grace several times before
his delighted public.

Food: Prison fare. All the cutlery and dishware are

regulation cell-block tin. (Not worth stealing.)

Tourists: Acceptable if subdued in dress and respectable of

the real cons, who look with disdain on anyone with less
than one year’s hard-time incarceration. Unattended coats,
wallets, passports, and wrist-watches are sometimes
outsiders’ involuntary contribution to this jaunty,
underworld milieu.

Unusual: For many of Sing-Sing’s regulars, the bar brings

back nostalgic memories of their bittersweet years in the
pen. The unpredictable and nasty-tempered Spanner, the
resentful waiters, even the poorly prepared menu, the gaffed
games, counterfeit money, and strange companionship all
hark back to a simpler, if more difficult, environment. Police
occasionally collar petty criminals here, especially those
with well-connected rivals or loser types who are just plain
homesick for authentic institutional living.
WEIMAR NAZI VENUES
 ARYAN CAFÉ Dragonerstrasse 10
1933-1934

Area: BERLIN NORTH. (Formerly the site of the CAFÉ PARIS.)

Atmosphere: Outside building—creepy, perverse,

secretive. Brusque Spanner with a bulldog face and huge
scar on right cheek scrutinizes potential customers. Those
selected must then negotiate several doors inside a hallway
until they enter a tiny booth, where a black man questions
them through a peephole. Inside: perverse, carefree,
saturated with the smells of cigar smoke, imported liquor,
expensive perfumes, facial creams, sweat, and strong
disinfectant.

Clientele: Men in tuxedos, Minettes, stylish Nuttes,

smugglers, crime bosses and other underworld types.

Decor: A cocktail lounge in front for “business,” leading to a

huge banquet room. Displayed on the wall there are erotic
drawings (grossly detailed renditions of heterosexual and
gay copulation) and pornographic photographs, which are
separated by Prussian blue drapes. Each framed picture
hangs loosely from the ceiling and, when moved, reveals a
peephole to one of three naked cabarets.
Entertainment: For 20 American dollars, visitors have
unlimited access to all three shows: a) a luxurious
transvestite revue with libidinous (rather than comic)
overtones; b) a masochistic bacchanalia, featuring a Domina
flagellating a brutish-looking SA-Mann type to orgasm; and
c) a Nordic-looking couple (she is blonder and taller) who
perform intercourse while a female voice from an
instructional phonographic record pedantically explains the
joys of the wedding night.

Unusual: The rapturous performance of the “married

couple” concludes sharply with the gramophone’s final
admonition: “Heil Hitler!” Under a mystic bluish light, the
nude statuesque Aryan pair take a curtain call.
 PENSION SCHMIDT (“SALON KITTY”)
Giesebrechtstrasse 11 1930-1942

Area: BERLIN WEST. Near the Kurfürstendamm.

Atmosphere: Highbrow, relaxed, extremely upscale

bordello. Kitty Schmidt, the charming, fiftyish madam, has
created a good facsimile of a turn-of-the-century Parisian
literary salon-cum-brothel. Reputed to be the best
establishment of its kind in Berlin.

Clientele: High society, musicians, flush bureaucrats,

German army officers on leave, foreign embassy types,
occasionally a few randy heads of state—usually Italian or
Romanian dignitaries.

Decor: Old-fashioned Wilhelmian foyer and drawing room

with refined, bourgeois furnishings: Persian carpet, velvet
curtains, grand piano, Art Nouveau knick-knacks. Seven
bedrooms, all tastefully arranged with overhead mirrors,
bidet, and sink. Clean sheets and bedding.
Entertainment: German canapés, beer, French wine,
champagne, coffee, and hard liquor are available in the
foyer. Customers are handed photographic books, where
they discuss with Kitty their predilections (usually by hair
color) and select among 20 striking women. Kitty then
telephones the chosen prostitute, who quickly outfits herself
in the desired attire, walks to the nearby Salon, and is
introduced to her “suitor” in the drawing-room. Typically,
after drinks and small talk, the pair is directed to a
numbered room.
 Clients are encouraged to order more food and drink in the
bedroom and partake in post-coital socializing with other
customers and winsome prostitutes in the foyer. The (often
extraordinary) bill is settled discreetly with Kitty in her
office.

Unusual: In late 1939, the Berlin SS added a dozen

“prostitute-spies” to Kitty’s stable and installed 120
electrical bugs in an elaborate espionage scheme. Over
24,000 wax disks were used to record “sexual
interrogations” of loose-tongued Axis diplomats and
Wehrmacht officers.
D’Ora, Droste and Berber in Martyr dance, 1922

The visual material of this book is from the author’s

private archive.
 The vast majority of the erotic art work reprinted here was
confiscated from the original legal owners—mostly Jewish-
owned agencies and publishing houses—and then
“Aryanized” by the German government in 1933 and 1934.
The cover photograph is typical. It first appeared in Die
Aufklärung (April 1929, 1:3), a monthly “Sex and Life
Reform” journal edited by Magnus Hirschfeld and Marie
Krische. In March 1933, the Nationalist Socialist authorities
not only organized the physical destruction of Hirschfeld’s
Institute, they also appropriated Hirschfeld’s extensive
intellectual properties and disbursed them to various
German institutions. The University of Cologne, for instance,
still acts as the copyright owner of this photographic image.
Today when it assigns publication rights for the “Masked
Woman,” it does so without any recognition or attribution of
its 1929 sources.
Each individual graphic in Voluptuous Panic has a complex
artistic and legal history. Some appeared in Weimar
periodicals and Sittengeschichten simultaneously. Others
found their way into foreign journals via official Nazi photo
agencies after 1933. Readers wishing additional information
on any specific illustration may contact Feral House directly.
Berlin kiosk, 1926
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
 GUIDEBOOKS AND CONTEMPORARY
ACCOUNTS

John Chancellor, How To Be Happy in Berlin. London:

Arrowsmith, 1929.

Le Crapouillot, Paris: April 1931 (Issue on Berlin).

Hendrik De Leeuw, Sinful Cities of the Western World. New

York: Citadel Press, 1934.

Ernst Engelbrecht, 15 Jahre Kriminalkommissar. Berlin: Peter

J. Oestergaard Verlag, 1926.

———, In den Spuren des Verbrechertums. Berlin: Peter J.

Oestergaard Verlag, 1930.

Ernst Engelbrecht and Leo Heller, Kinder der Nacht. Berlin:

Hermann Paetel Verlag, 1925.

Jay Gay, On Going Naked. Garden City, NY: Garden City

Publishing Co., 1932.

Charles Graves, Gone Aboard. London: Ivor Nicholson &

Watson, 1932.
Daniel Guérin, The Brown Plague. Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 1994. Translated and introduced by Robert
Schwartzwald.

Leo Heller, So siehst aus Berlin! Munich: Verlag Parrus & Co.,
1927.

Joseph Hergesheimer, Berlin. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1932.

Magnus Hirschfeld, Sittengeschichte der Nachkriegzeit. 2

vols. Leipzig: Verlag für Sexualwissenschaft Schneider & Co.,
1932.

Kennen Sie Berlin? Stettin: Verlag F. Hessenland, 1929.

Alfred Kind and Julian Herlinger, Flucht aus der Ehe. Leipzig:
Verlag für Kulturforschung, 1931.

H.R. Knickerbocker, Germany—Fascist or Soviet? London:

John Lane, 1932.

Rom Landau, Seven: An Essay in Confession. London: Ivor

Nicholson & Watson, 1936.

“Losa,” Sexuelle Verirrungen. Berlin: Auffenberg

Verlagsgellschaft, 1930.
Netley Lucas, Ladies of the Underworld. Cleveland:
Goldsmith Publishing, 1927.

Frances and Mason Merrill, Among the Nudists. Garden City,

NY: Garden City Publishing Co., 1931.

Curt Moreck, Führer Durch das “Lasterhafte” Berlin. Leipzig:

Verlag moderner Stadtführer, 1931.

———, Kultur-und Sittengeschichte der Neuesten Zeit: Das

Genussleben des Modernen Menschen. Dresden: Paul Aretz
Verlag, 1929.
Above: Delhi, The Stallion

Walter Polzer, Sexuell-Perverse. Leipzig: Asa-Verlag, 1930.

Ruth Margarete Roellig, Berlins Lesbische Frauen. Leipzig:
Bruno Gebauer Verlag, 1928.

Louis-Charles Royer, Let’s Go Naked. New York: Brentano’s

Publishers, 1932. Translated from the French by Paul
Quiltana.

Rumpelstilzchen [Adolf Stein], [Gesammelte Schriften.] 15

Vols. Berlin: Brunnen-Verlag, 1920-1935.

Roger Salardenne, Hauptstädte des Lasters. Berlin:

Auffenberg Verlagsgellschaft, 1931.

Bernhard Schidlof, Prostitution und Mädchenhandel. Leipzig:

Lykeion, 1931.

Francis Scott (editor), Halbwelt von Heute. Leipzig: ASA-

Verlag, 1927.

———, Prostitution. Berlin: ASA-Verlag, 1927.

———, Das Lesbische Weib. Berlin: Pergamon-Verlag, 1933.

Charly Straesser, Jugend Gelände. Thüringen: Self-

published, 1926.

Eugen Szatmari, Berlin: Was Nicht im Baedeker Steht.

Munich: R. Piper & Co., 1927.
“WEKA” [Willy Pröger], Stätten der Berliner Prostitution.
Berlin: Auffenberg Verlagsgellschaft, 1930.

Conrad Wel, Das Verbotene Buch. Hannover: Verlag Paul

Witte, 1929.
 GENERAL HISTORICAL AND
SCHOLARLY BOOKS

Wolf von Eckardt and Sander L. Gilman, Bertolt Brecht’s

Berlin: A Scrapbook of the Twenties. Garden City, NY: Anchor
Press, 1975.

Bilder-Lexicon. 4 vols. Leipzig: Verlag für Kulturforschung,

1928-1931.

Susanne Everett, Lost Berlin. Chicago: Contemporary Books,

1979.

Otto Friedrich, Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the

1920s. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

Thomas Friedrich, Berlin Between the Wars. New York:

Vendome Press, 1991.

Alex de Jonge, The Weimar Chronicle: Prelude to Hitler. New

York and London: Paddington Press Ltd., 1978.

Anton Gill, A Dance Between the Flames: Berlin Between

the Wars. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1993.
Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg (eds.), The
Weimar Republic Sourcebook. Berkeley, Los Angeles,
London: University of California Press, 1994.

Walther Kiaulehn, Berlin: Schicksal einer Weltstadt. Munich:

Biederstein Verlag, 1958.

Bärbel Schrader and Jürgen Schebera, The “Golden”

Twenties: Art and Literature in the Weimar Republic. New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988. Translated
by Katherine Vanovitch.
 MEMOIRS AND BIOGRAPHIES

Luigi Barzini, The Europeans. New York: Simon and Schuster,

1983.

Hans Blüher, Werke und Tage. Munich: Paul List Verlag,

1953.

Michael Davidson, The World, the Flesh, and Myself. London:

Arthur Barker, 1962.

Sefton Delmer, Trail Sinister. London: Secker & Warburg,

1961.

Gerald Hamilton, Mr. Norris and I. London: Allan Wingate

Ltd., 1956.

Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind, 1929-

1939. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1976.

Leo Lania, Today We are Brothers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Company, 1942. Translated by Ralph Marlowe.

Ludwig Lenz-Levy, The Memoirs of a Sexologist. New York:

Cadillac Publishing, 1954.
Klaus Mann, The Turning Point. New York: L.B. Fisher, 1942.

J.H. Morgan, Assize of Arms. New York: Oxford University

Press, 1946.

“PEM” [Paul Markus], Heimweh nach dem Kurfürstendamm.

Berlin: Lothar Blanvalet, 1952.

Curt Riess, Das Waren Zeiten. Vienna-Munich-Zurich-

Innsbruck: Verlag Fritz Molden, 1977.

Charlotte Wolff, Hindsight: An Autobiography. London,

Melbourne, New York: Quartet Books, 1980.

Carl Zuckmayer, A Part of Myself: Portrait of an Epoch. New

York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970. Translated by
Richard and Clara Winston.

Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday. New York: Viking

Press, 1943.
 DIRECTED STUDIES

Michael Andritzky and Thomas Rautenberg (eds.), “Wir Sind

Nackt und Nennen Uns Du.” Giessen: Anabas, 1989.

Peter Auer, Adlon. Vienna: Wiener Verlag, 1997.

Eldorado: Homosexuelle Frauen und Männer in Berlin 1850-

1950. Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1984.

Fritz Giese, Girlkultur. Munich: Dephin-Verlag, 1925.

Goodbye to Berlin? 100 Jahre Schwulenbewegung. Berlin:

Verlag Rosa Winkel, 1997.

Magnus Hirschfeld, Geschlectskunde. 5 vols. Stuttgart: Julius

Puttmann, 1926-1930.

———, Sittengeschichte des Weltkrieges. 2 vols. Leipzig:

Verlag für Sexualwissenschaft Schneider & Co., 1930.

Peter Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret. Cambridge, MA, and London:

Harvard University Press, 1993.
Alfred Kind, Die Weiberherrschaft. 4 vols. Leipzig: Verlag für
Kulturforschung, 1931.

Jürgen Lemke (ed.), Gay Voices from East Germany.

Bloomingdale and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
1991. Translated and edited by John Borneman.

Allan H. Mankoff, Mankoff’s Lusty Europe. New York: Viking

Press, 1972.

Peter Norden, Madam Kitty. London: Abelard-Schuman,

1973. Translated by J. Maxwell Brownjohn.

Harry Oosterhuis and Hubert Kennedy (eds). Homosexuality

and Male Bonding in Pre-Nazi Germany. New York:
Harrington Park Press, 1991.

Hans Ostwald, Sittengeschichte der Inflation. Berlin: Neufeld

& Henius Verlag, 1931.

Norman Page, Auden and Isherwood: the Berlin Years. New

York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

Ernst Schertel, Der Erotische Komplex, 3 vols. Leipzig:

Parthenon, 1932.

———, Der Flagellantismus als Literarisches Motiv. 4 vols.

Leipzig: Parthenon, 1929-1932.
Leo Schidrowitz, Sittengeschichte der Geheimen und
Verbotenen. Leipzig: Verlag für Kulturforschung, 1930.

Claudia Schoppmann, Days of Masquerade. New York:

Columbia University Press, 1996. Translated by Allison
Brown.

Karl Toepfer, Empire of Ecstasy. Berkeley and Los Angeles:

University of California Press, 1997.

Charlotte Wolff, Magnus Hirschfeld. London: Quartet Books,

1986.

Knud Wolfram, Tanzdielen und Vergnügungspaläste. Berlin:

Edition Hentrich, 1992.

Heinrich Wörenkamp and Gertrude Perkauf, Erziehungs.

Flagellantismus. Vienna: Verlag für Kulturforschung, 1932.
Above: Delhi, Breaking In

Following: Das Magazin, 1931

 ADDED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Marian Dockerill, My Life in a Love Cult: A Warning to All

Young Girls. Chicago: Better Publications, 1928.

Stephen Flowers, Fire and Ice. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn

Publishers, 1990.

Mel Gordon, Erik Jan Hanussen: Hitler’s Jewish Clairvoyant.

Los Angeles: Feral House, 2001.

Eugen Grosche, Karma und Astrologie. Berlin: Orient Berlin,

1930.

Ottoman Hanish, Mazdaznan Atem- und Gesundheitspflege.

Leipzig: Mazdaznan Verlag, 1930.

Francis King, Sexuality, Magic, and Perversion [1971]. Los

Angeles: Feral House, 2003.

Richard Kaczynski, Perdurabo. Tempe, Arizona: New Falcon,

2002.

Rudolf von Laban, Choreographie. Jena: Eugen Diederichs

Verlag, 1926.
Ulrich Linse, Barfüssige Propheten. Berlin: Siedler Verlag,
1983.

Rudolf Olden, Das Wunderbare. Berlin: Rowohlt Verlag,

1932.

Alexander Pilcz, Über Hypnotism, Okkulte Phänomene,

Traumleben. Vienna: Deuticke, 1926.

Theodor Reuss and Aleister Crowley, O.T.O. Rituals and Sex

Magick. Thame, UK: I-H-O Books, 1999 [Edited by A.R.
Naylor. Introduced by Peter R. Koenig].

Theodor von Rheine, Massage-Institute. Berlin: Private

Edition, 1932.

———, Stiefel-Mädchen. Berlin: Private Edition, 1932.

Ernst Schertel, Magie: Geschichte, Theorie, Praxis. Prien:

Anthropos, 1923.

Paul Scheurlen, Sekten der Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Quell-

Verlag, 1930.

Alice Bunker Stockham, Karezza Ethics of Marriage. New

York: Private Edition, 1896.
Montague Summers, Geography of Witchcraft. London:
Routledge & Kegan, 1927.

Lawrence Sutin, Do Want Thou Wilt. New York: St. Martin’s

Press, 2000.

Cornelius Tabori, My Occult Diary. London: Rider and

Company, 1951.

Leopold Thoma, Wunder der Hypnose. Württemberg:

Johannes Baum Verlag, 1926.

Erich Wulffen and Felix Abraham, Fritz Ulbrichs Lebender

Marmor. Vienna-Berlin-Leipzig: Verlag für Kulturforschung,
1931.

Also see Peter-Robert Koenig’s website,

http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/hallo.htm
 JOURNALS AND MAGAZINES

Die Aufklärung, Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, Berliner Leben,

Berolina, Die Dame, Der Eigene, Freikörperkultur und
Lebensreform, Figaro, Form und Farbe, Die Freudinnen, Die
Garçonne, Hanussen-Magazin, Ideal-Ehe, Illustrirte Zeitung,
Der Junggeselle, Jugend, Körperbildung/Nacktkultur,
Lachendes Leben, Licht-Land, Lustige Blätter, Das Magazin,
Magazin für Alle, Pegasus, Der Pranger, Der Querschnitt,
Reigen, Die Schönheit, Simplizissimus, Tempo, Uhu.
Illustrirte Zeitung, 1930

MEL GORDON is professor of theatre arts at University of

California at Berkeley and author of Dada Performance (New
York: Performing Arts Books, 1986); Erik Jan Hanussen:
Hitler’s Jewish Clairvoyant (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2001);
Expressionist Texts (New York: PAB, 1987); The Grand
Guignol: Theatre of Horror and Terror [Revised Edition] (New
York: Da Capo Press, 1997); Lazzi: the Comic Routines of the
Commedia dell’arte (New York: PAB, 1982); Meyerhold,
Eisenstein, and Biomechanics: Revolutionary Acting in
Soviet Russia (Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 1996) [co-
written with Alma H. Law]; Mikhoels the Wise (New York:
Gateway Press, 1982); and The Stanislavsky Technique:
Russia (New York: Applause Books, 1988).
 Voluptuous Panic ©2000, 2006 by Mel Gordon

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