GLR July-August 2025

LGBT life in East Germany, but current studies suggest that queer scenes did not develop there to the extent they did in the West. The most robust evidence arises from East Berlin. A hand ful of queer bars existed there, but they only grew in number and prominence after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Instead, much as in the West, East Berliners cruised in public baths and restrooms, forests, train stations, and what Huneke called “a private universe of house parties [that had] also developed in large cities by the 1960s.” Until the imple mentation of a hard border between the two halves of the city in 1961, most East Germans ventured West to find communal queer spaces, usually bars. The popularity of these bars among queer East Germans resulted in the surveillance of such estab lishments not only by the West Berlin police but also by the East German secret police, the Stasi. § I N 1957, THE GOVERNMENTS of East and West Germany diverged in their enforcement of Paragraph 175. That year, East Germany stopped prosecuting men under the law, with the exception of cases that endangered the regime. This change did not neces sarily legalize sex between men. In fact, it became dangerous for gay men to work within the Stasi, the army, or in govern ment positions. The SED feared associations between the regime and homosexuality and therefore prioritized violations of Paragraph 175 that it found damaging to the party’s reputa tion. SED members could use accusations of homosexuality to purge political rivals from party ranks. But for other queer East Germans, those not in a position of authority, while any per ceived sexual or gender deviance posed a threat to their social reputation, it would no longer land you in prison. East Germany’s relative leniency stood in sharp contrast to West Berlin. In that same year (1957). the West German Con stitutional Courts dealt a serious blow to efforts to abolish Para graph 175 by re-confirming its constitutionality. In the years that followed, police raids on queer bars reached their height. In 1959, West Berlin police estimated that bars that catered to gay men were subject to two to three raids per month. Most bar owners did not idly permit police to harass them and their patrons. Since the late 1940s, most bars had required guests to ring a bell to be permitted entry. As raids increased, many proprietors challenged their legality, placed physical bar riers in front of their doors, or, in one instance, locked the doors of a West Berlin bar to keep police from entering. Other own ers placed “Private Party” signs over closed doors to limit sur veillance. Bell-and-light systems were standard among queer bars by the mid-1960s, with owners using them to warn patrons of incoming threats and give them an opportunity to flee. Many patrons would not even enter an establishment before checking whether they were being watched. Queer Germans had long employed tactics and signals to communicate with potential sexual partners while protecting themselves from harassment and violence. When in public, gay men in particular often communicated through eye contact, sub tle gestures, coded language, or walking with exaggerated hip movements. Establishments’ use of bells, warning lights, or mis leading signs continued a long tradition of concealment and plausible deniability that was familiar to queer Germans. The border between East and West Berlin became imper

meable in 1961. Historian Andrea Rottmann has argued that the wall represented queer death for those who previously had crossed into the western side of the city to access their commu nities. Even so, queer life did not cease in East Germany. The number of queer spaces there increased after 1961, including a handful of gay and lesbian bars along Friedrichstraße in East Berlin, at least one establishment in Potsdam, and in most cities, gay men held gatherings inside private homes. Around the same time, the West German conservative fever broke among the younger generations. A decline in Adenauer’s popularity coincided with a marked change of sexual mores known as the Sex Wave ( SexWelle ). The character of this move ment was explicitly heterosexual and often neglected queer is sues altogether, but it was emblematic of a broader liberalization of attitudes. At the same time, an outrage spread among Ger man youth about the amnesty and reinstatement of ex-Nazis, which led to mass political mobilization. East Germany modified Paragraph 175 in 1968 and West Germany did so in the following year, in both cases decriminal izing sex between adult men. Less is understood about the events leading to East Germany’s abolition of Paragraph 175. Prevail ing theories as to why East Germany decriminalized homosex uality emphasize both the state’s political stability (less need for a scapegoat) and its desire to project a progressive image to the rest of the world. However, both states increased scrutiny for all same-sex relationships between adults and legally underage part ners. In the wake of decriminalization, there remained a notable disparity between the ages of consent regarding homosexual and heterosexual relationships: eighteen for same-sex couples and sixteen for opposite-sex couples in the East; 21 for queer couples and fourteen for straight couples in the West. Animus toward queer people did not evaporate after de criminalization. However, freedom from criminal prosecution created fertile ground for the emergence of the gay and trans liberation movements of the following decades—in both the West and East. What emerges when one examines queer life in postwar Germany is a climate in which political, legal, and so cial freedoms periodically increased and then shrank back. There were periods of growing political momentum, social and sexual opportunities, and a tense permissiveness from govern ing bodies. There were also periods of harsh crackdowns, in creased criminalization, and shattered hopes. The notable trend in these events is the resilience and persistence of queer Ger mans to continue rebuilding queer life despite government am bivalence and repression. R EFERENCES Dobler, Jens. Von anderen Ufern: Geschichte der Berliner Lesben und Schwulen in Kreuzberg und Friedrichshain . Bruno Gmünder Verlag, 2003. Evans, Jennifer. “Decriminalization, Seduction, and ‘Unnatural Desire’ in East Germany.” Feminist Studies 36, no. 3 (Fall 2010). Huneke, Samuel Clowes. States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany . University of Toronto Press, 2022. McLellan, Josie. Love in the Time of Communism: Intimacy and Sexuality in the GDR . Cambridge University Press, 2011. Moeller, Robert. “Private Acts, Public Anxieties, and the Fight to Decriminal ize Male Homosexuality in West Germany.” Feminist Studies 36, no. 3 (Fall 2010). Rottmann, Andrea. Queer Lives across the Wall: Desire and Danger in Divided Berlin, 1945–1970 . University of Toronto Press, 2023. Whisnant, Clayton. Male Homosexuality in West Germany: Between Persecu tion and Freedom, 1945-69 . Palgrave MacMillan, 2012.

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