Christopher Isherwood, whose short stories based on his stay in Berlin eventually became the basis for the 1972 film Cabaret, with Liza Minnelli, put it simply enough: “Berlin meant boys.” Its gay scenes offered exciting places to hunt for love and happiness. For the general public, this world was bewildering-and quite possibly terrifying.įor Germany’s gay men and lesbians, though, Berlin represented promise. In crowded cabarets, audiences admired “tableaux” of women posing naked or watched actors telling risqué jokes and singing lewd songsĬlubs full of men wearing powder and rouge as well as shorthaired women dressed in tuxedoes offered images of a world seemingly turned upside down. On the stages of Berlin, the Tiller Girls showed off their legs, dancing a Rockettes-style performance that amazed and titillated spectators. Whisnant:Īs early as the turn of the century, Berlin’s gay scene was attracting such notoriety that it frequently was mentioned in tourist literature, lifting up the city’s gay scene as proof of the evils of urban life and the dangers of modernity in them, Berlin became the country’s Sodom and Gomorrah put together, a sure sign of the land’s degeneracy. The following is an excerpt from Queer Identities and Politics in Germany: A History, 1880-1945 by Clayton J.
