Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986)

(this text can also be heard in the audio clip)

Christopher Isherwood came “because of the boys” from repressive England to the then promisingly sophisticated Berlin in 1929. “Berlin means boys. A dream for gays” – this is what the young Wystan Hugh Auden called out to his friend Christopher Isherwood at the end of the 1920s. Both were young, upper-class British writers and were able to live in Berlin without having to earn money as writers. Isherwood was financed by his gay uncle. Soon afterwards, the two moved to Berlin. Together with friends, they formed a group of young gay Englishmen in search of sexual freedom. They were fascinated by the city’s wild queer nightlife. It was very different from repressive London, so they threw themselves into the city’s homosexual clubs and bars.

Isherwood later immortalized his time in Berlin in the books ”Goodbye to Berlin“ and ‘Mr. Norris changing trains”, which later became the Broadway musical and the film Cabaret, starring Liza Minelli and awarded with 8 Oscars. The special thing about these books is how Isherwood describes the growing influence of the Nazis in the daily lives of Berliners. The fact that Isherwood writes from the perspective of a gay character can only be read between the lines.

Christopher Isherwood initially lived as a sub-tenant of Magnus Hirschfeld’s sister at the Institute for Sexual Science. He was therefore well known to Magnus Hirschfeld and the others at the institute. In 1930, he moved into the house at Nollendorfstraße 17. His roommate was Jean Ross, a cabaret singer who became the inspiration for the character of Sally Bowles and was played by Liza Minnelli in the musical “Cabaret”.

Isherwood’s favorite bar was the Cosy Corner. It was located at Zossener Straße 7, south of Hallesches Tor. A dingy hustler bar where “half a dozen boys were always hanging around drinking beer”. Between 1929 and 1933, Isherwood was almost obsessed with this pub and his visits to it. He raved about it in London and Paris, wrote about the Cosy Corner and made it the first port of call for his gay friends visiting Berlin, thus contributing to Berlin’s fame as the first world metropolis of gays and lesbians.

In March 1932, he met his partner, 17-year-old Heinz Neddermeyer. He left Berlin with him in 1933 after the Nazis seized power and traveled through many European countries, always with the intention of obtaining a visa for Heinz and preventing him from being drafted into the army. They lived in Greece, London, Morocco, the Canary Islands, Portugal, Brussels, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Eventually they had to give up on getting a visa and Heinz returned to Germany, was drafted, but survived the war. Isherwood migrated to California in 1939.

It was there in 1953 that Christopher Isherwood met Don Bachardy, an artist 30 years younger than himself. They had a remarkable 33-year love affair that lasted until Isherwood’s death in 1986.

Wystan Hugh Auden married Erika Mann, Thomas Mann’s daughter, in 1935 to help her obtain an English passport and leave the country. Auden, Isherwood and the entire Mann family were good friends.

Isherwood wrote about his Berlin years in 1976 in the book “Christopher and His Kind”, an autobiographical account of his Berlin years in which, unlike in the previous books, he explicitly deals with his gay life. His book “A Single Man”, which was made into a Hollywood film in 2010 by Tom Ford with Colin Firth and Julian Moore in the leading roles, also became famous.  

Isherwood died in 1986 at the age of 82 in California as one of the best-known English-language authors of his time.