World war one had ended in 1918
leaving Germany defeated and the country bankrupt, super inflation had now
taken over with a loaf of bread costing up to 1 million german marks. Many people were starving and on the streets,
communism was on the rise only to be quashed be Ernst Rohm and his militia,
keeping them in there places. As the years rolled by Berlin the capital became
wild, the cabaret clubs in cellars and buildings were now rivalled with that of
Paris, boasting culture and sexual freedom.
Transvestitism was rife in these
clubs with men dressed as women and women dressed as men. The Intelligentsia
and Artists haunted these clubs and cellar bars of gay berlin, even the
aristocracy with their perverse sexual desires and financial stability.
In these golden days of Berlin
anything went, berlin had become noted around the world as the homosexual
paradise because it was a free society. Men danced with men, women could dance
with women, it was not uncommon to see in clubs and at parties. Although the original
version of paragraph 175 of 1871 was still in operation, it was ignored in
Weimar Berlin, however this did not stop blackmail and threat of prison for
some.
In 1933 when Adolf Hitler became
chancellor of Germany he closed down a lot of the gay clubs in Berlin even
three known lesbian clubs and bathhouses, he believed that he was homosexuality
was a disease in gay men, however with lesbian women the Nazis believed that it
was a temporary, curable through sexual re-education and therefore was permitted.
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