GLR March-April 2026

ESSAY

Lotte Hahm’s Germany K EIRA R OBERSON

ualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) in 1919. In the following years, Berlin became a queer epicenter in Europe, known for its sexual research and blossoming nightlife. This was one reason that Lotte Hahm was attracted to Berlin around 1920. § D URING THE LATTER HALF of the 1920s, Hahm became a promi nent community organizer in Berlin’s queer spaces, particularly in the lesbian and trans communities. In 1926, Hahm founded the prominent Damenklub (women’s club) Violetta . It primarily functioned as a social club meant to facilitate activities and forge community among its approximately 400 members. Through Damenklub Violetta , Hahm frequently organized an eclectic variety of events, which included dances, balls, moon light boat rides, cream-puff eating contests, and beach trips to the Baltic Sea. In 1928 Damenklub Violetta merged with the les bian club Monbijou , and Hahm began working alongside one of its organizers, Käthe Reinhardt. Prior to the merger, the club often met at a variety of dance halls and opulent ballrooms. Af terward, Hahm and Reinhardt began holding Damenklub Vio letta events at Monbijou ’s previous home, The Magic Flute. tion Bund für Menschenrecht (League for Human Rights, or BfM). The Damenklub Violetta ’s ads were also printed in the lesbian magazines Liebende , Ledige Frauen , and Garçonne . The Weimar-era lesbian press provided a space for queer women and trans people to share political news, poetry, short stories, essays, and event information to those inside and out side Berlin, creating a cross-country queer literary network. Hahm often wrote for Die Freundin and other lesbian pub lications, and at least fifty of her articles have survived. Most of the club’s advertisements featured a photo of Hahm, often strik ing a masculine pose while wearing a dashing suit, with short hair slicked to the side. Notably, Hahm used her real name and photograph in ads and articles. This decision stands in stark con trast to the many lesbian and trans Germans who adopted pseu donyms in these magazines as a measure of self-protection. These magazines were often sold at newsstands, which made them available to the wider public, including the police. Even so, accepting this risk may have led to both Hahm and Damen klub Violetta ’s successes. According to contemporary accounts, the venue was large and spacious, with pastel green and blue armchairs for socializing around the periphery of a dance floor. Hahm advertised the club and its events in lesbian magazines, including the world’s first such magazine, Die Freundin (“The Girlfriend”), which was published in Berlin from 1924 to 1933 by the LGBT organiza

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is by a grant recipient in a program launched in 2022 by TheG&LR , the Charles S. Longcope Jr. Writers and Artists Grant, which was awarded to three recipients last year. Awardees are expected to produce an article for the magazine as part of their project, of which this is the first of three. T HE WORLD’S FIRST homosexual emancipa tion movement formed in Germany on the eve of the Nazi dictatorship. A vibrant queer subcul ture emerged in Weimar-era Berlin between 1919 and 1933, only to be fractured, driven un derground, and its members persecuted for the twelve years of Nazi rule. In their aftermath, Cold War politics dominated Germany, and queer subcultures struggled with the repression that remained in force. The arc of early to mid-20th century German history was a turbulent period for the queer Germans who experienced it, including Charlotte “Lotte” Hed wig Hahm, a prominent figure in Weimar Berlin’s LGBT sub culture who covertly continued to create queer spaces under the Nazi regime. Between the 1890s and 1914, several movements emerged that challenged Germany’s system of gender and sexual norms. LGBT rights organization, the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee (Scientific-Humanitarian Committee). The following year, Germany’s Social Democratic Party denounced Paragraph 175, the nation’s anti-sodomy law that criminalized intercourse between men. In 1906, German-Israeli author Karl Baer became the first person to undergo gender-affirming surgery. The Wil helmian German state, which preceded the Weimar Republic, recognized his transition and issued a new birth certificate the following year. The eruption of World War I in 1914 interrupted these ef forts, but only temporarily. The German Revolution of 1918 19 inaugurated the Weimar era, during which many of the norms and laws concerning gender and sexuality were liber alized. Women gained the right to vote, the “New Woman” emerged, and Magnus Hirschfeld opened the Institut für Sex Keira Roberson (she/they) is a PhD candidate at Georgia State whose research focuses on tactics used by queer Berliners to protect themselves and their communities under the Nazi regime and its aftermath. Various women’s rights organizations cam paigned for suffrage, access to higher edu cation, divorce law reform, reproductive rights, and other reforms. A small but per sistent homosexual liberation movement began mobilizing at the same time. In 1896, Adolf Brand began publishing the first ho mosexual magazine, Der Eigene , and in 1897, Magnus Hirschfeld founded the first

Hahm aimed to create a unified lesbian and trans movement. By 1930, she headed an organiza ti on for Berliners regardless of their gender presenta ti on.

TheG & LR

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