GLR July-August 2025

zations through their names, such as the Scientific-Humanitar ian Committee. For a brief period in the early 1950s, these or ganizations produced magazines that published queer literature, reported on raids, and acted as a space to refine political argu ments against Paragraph 175. Unfortunately, many of these or ganizations were short-lived and would not gain the prominence of their predecessors. § B Y THE END OF THE 1940s, the East-West German divide solidi fied into two distinct political entities. The zones occupied by the U.S., Great Britain, and France became the Federal Republic of Germany, while the U.S.S.R. occupied and continued to control the German Democratic Republic to the east. Following the first federal elections in 1949, Konrad Adenauer became chancellor of West Germany. His administration, which advanced deeply pa triarchal, religious, and anti-Communist politics, would signify a broader shift in West Germany toward sexual conservatism. Despite previous challenges regarding the law’s merit, the Federal Court of Justice affirmed the continuation of the 1935 version of Paragraph 175 in 1951. Arrests under the anti-gay law spiked in subsequent years. Local police also made use of older repressive practices, such as pink lists ( Rosa Listen ). These were large galleries of files that contained the names, fin gerprints, and pictures of suspected homosexuals, along with private information about them. The Nazi regime had made ex tensive use of such files in their persecution of gay men, and their continued use in West Germany outraged many queer Ger mans. Often, police gathered the information used in pink lists either while conducting surveillance of queer establishments or while raiding them. In the early 1950s, West German police departments (espe cially in Berlin) justified their surveillance and raids of queer es tablishments with the explanation that they were seeking out underage male prostitutes. The exact number of “streetwalking boys” ( Strichjunge ) is difficult to determine, but they were of prominent concern in the minds of law enforcement and the public. In practice, these raids targeted younger-looking queer men and trans* women, and police took the information and fingerprints of all patrons present to add to their pink lists. West German police raids of queer institutions rose dramati cally in 1954, potentially for several reasons. The Adenauer gov ernment’s amnesty policies ensured that many Nazi ex-military officers and bureaucrats reclaimed positions similar to their pre vious posts—including judges and prosecutors. Furthermore, in places like Berlin, growing numbers of raids could be tied to local politicians attempting to garner support during election cycles. Despite the increase in raids, possible legal ramifications, and forced closures, the number of queer establishments con tinued to increase during the 1950s. Between the early 1950s and 1959, the number of queer bars rose from seven to thirteen in West Berlin, from five to fourteen in Frankfurt, and from four to seventeen in Hamburg. Even smaller cities like Hanover had three bars open at any given time. In cities with a sizable bar scene, such as West Berlin and ______________________ * Those designated as “trans” here typically described themselves using the term transvestit , or transvestite. This term often conflated drag per sonas with identities that would be considered transgender today. July–August 2025

Hamburg, bars could attract clienteles of specific social classes or genders. The presence of these establishments is indicative of a lively queer subculture in these cities and, doubtlessly, they were kept open by the continued patronage of their queer regu lars despite harassment from police or the many instances of vi olence from homophobic youths. It was common for local authorities to revoke licenses or force a bar to close, though closed bars were often quickly replaced by new ones. By contrast, the East German government had reverted to the older and relatively lenient version of Paragraph 175 by 1948. It is difficult to estimate the number of men prosecuted in East Germany under this law, but the available evidence shows far fewer convictions than in West Germany. However, the rul ing party in the East, the SED ( Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands ), used a veneer of family-oriented conservative politics to appeal to East German sensibilities during periods of instability. In 1953, unpopular economic reforms led to waves of strikes and labor uprisings. Soviet troops crushed this revolt, but the up risings left East German authorities feeling vulnerable. In re sponse, the SED used sexually conservative values and an anti-homosexual stance to restabilize the party’s relationship with the public. As historian Samuel Clowes Huneke has noted, the contradictions between East Germany’s projected image of progressivism and its sexual conservatism “led to the seeming paradox of legal liberalization coupled with continuing discrim ination and lack of social opportunity.” More research is needed to estimate the development of

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