Route & Route Details
There are 14 queer-related stops on the Homolulu tour.
Stop 1: Welcome & History of Homosexuality
Site: Neue Wache
Content: Homosexuality has a history of exclusion and ostracism that only slowly changed with the French Revolution.
Stop 2: Book burning and why Berlin is a tolerant place
Site: Bebelplatz
Content: Book burning by the Nazis on Bebelplatz. Berlin in the 19th and 20th century with tolerant past. Exponential population and economic growth in the imperial era create the foundations for a city of millions with queer subculture.
Stop 3: The first public outing in history & activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
Site: Gendarmenmarkt
Content: How a courageous man publicly outed himself for the first time in the world, and kicked off the scientific debate to prevent the Prussian Sodomy Paragraph.
Stop 4: The last gay bar raid & the gay squad
Site: Jägerstraße 10
Content: The gay squad and how after the last raid in a gay bar the police became ally and with the help of the Berlin police a queer community could emerge
Stop 5: Blackmail & the Krupp scandal
Site: Russian Embassy
Content: At the Hotel Bristol, Friedrich Alfred Krupp received his boys from Capri. They were to be his undoing. The publications of the SPD newspaper drove him to suicide.
Stop 6: Homosexual persecution under National Socialism
Site: Monument to the homosexuals persecuted under National Socialism in the Tiergarten
Content: Abruptly, harshly and cruelly the Nazis ended the acquired freedoms of the Berlin 20s. Today we commemorate it at the monument to the homosexuals persecuted under National Socialism.
Stop 7: Goldfish pond and gay path
Site: Venusbassin at Tiergarten
Content: historical cruising area at today’s Venus Basin, when Berlin was considered Europe’s main market for homosexual johns who met in the Tiergarten at the Goldfish Pond
Stop 8: Hirschfeld, the 1st gay activist group in the world and the Institute of Sexology
Site: Magnus-Hirschfeld-Ufer
Content: Magnus Hirschfeld is the most influential homosexual activist, founding the Scientific Humanitarian Committee (WhK), the first gay activist group in the world, and later also the founder of the Institute for Sexual Science. There he performs the first gender reassignment surgeries.
Stop 9: The Nollendorfkiez and the golden twenties
Site: Nollendorfplatz
Content: From the beginning of the twenties, the focus of the scene shifted to Schöneberg around Nollendorfplatz – still one of the most important queer neighborhoods in Berlin.
Stop 10: Berlin same sex costume balls
Site: Dennewitzplatz / Bülowbogen
Content: Berlin costume balls at the Nationalhof and Hollandais are a feature of gay subculture and an object of study for international interested scholars. At the Dorian Gray, the lesbian ladies’ world celebrates.
Stop 11: Mont-Martre im Toppkeller
Site: Schwerinstrasse 13
Content: A run-down women’s pub with wild evenings at reasonable prices. Many lesbian greats party here and also the icon of nude dancing, Anita Berber performs here.
Stop 12: Christopher Isherwood & the musical Cabaret
Site: Nollendorfstraße 17
Content: Christopher Isherwood promotes the fame of Berlin as the 1st world metropolis of gays and lesbians with the books “Farewell Berlin” and “Mr. Norris is Changing” and the musical “Cabaret” based on them; his residence was at Nollendorfstraße 17.
Stop 13: Europe’s oldest gay bar Kleist casino with Nazi regular Ernst Röhm
Site: Kleiststraße 35
Content: The Kleist-Kasino was a hustler bar where Nazi greats like Ernst Röhm frequented. Founded in 1921, it is considered one of the most traditional gay bars in Europe. Today there is the Bull, a gay 24/7 sex & fetish bar.
Stop 14: The Eldorado – most famous & wicked club of the city
Site: Motzstraße 24
Content: The most famous and wicked club of the 20’s as a dance hall with travesty shows, chansons & cabaret where straight people could buy tokens to dance with transvestites.