Berlin was a liberal hotbed of homosexuality and a mecca for cross dressers and transsexuals where the first male-to-female surgery was performed - until the Nazis came to power, new book reveals (2014)

Daily Mail ^ | 11-25-2014 | CAROLINE HOWE

[dynachrome]

Think Liza Minnelli and Joel Gray in Carberet. Think West Hollywood, Greenwich Village and Provincetown and the Castro, known as hotbeds of homosexuality.

But they are nothing like the uninhibited urban gay sexual scene and vast homosexual subculture that flourished in Berliin under Germany's Weimar Republic.

Sexual experimentation between the same sexes and medical advances of helping genders ‘trapped within the wrong body’ in Germany more than one hundred years ago shaped our understanding of gay identity today.

The city's liberal years - before the rise of Hitler - are detailed in a new book, Gay Berlin.

The science of ‘transsexuality’ was founded in Berlin at the Institute of Sexual Science where the first male-to-female surgery was performed. The words ‘homosexual’ or ‘transvestite’ were German innovations. Male prostitution, homosexual bars and nightclubs, cabarets populated by gay men, lesbians and transsexuals flourished in a wild, incomparable sexual subculture that was exciting yet dangerous.

It was in Berlin where scientists concluded that ‘same sex love was a natural, inborn characteristic and not merely the perversion of a ‘normal’ sexual tendency’, author and scholar Robert Beachy writes in his compelling book, Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity by Knopf Publishers.

[Grampa Dave]

Falange | political organization, Spain

Encyclopedia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com › topic › Falange

The Falange’s membership was over 250,000 when Franco seized control of it in 1937, and more than 150,000 Falangists served in Franco’s armed forces during the ...
Founder: Falange

Died: November 20, 1936 (aged 33) Alicante ...

[Reily]

You’re exactly right! I don’t think Franco ever formally was a Falange. Franco adopted Fascist trappings, although very few scholars consider him to be a “core fascist”. Politically he was a Francoist if he was anything at all.

[Jim Noble]

Weimar problems make Weimar solutions.

[Menes]

Sorry to be late, but „Glöckl“ is „little bell“ in the Franconian dialect, which is spoken in and around Nuremberg.

Live well, and God bless.

[DiogenesLamp]

Sorry to be late, but „Glöckl“ is „little bell“ in the Franconian dialect, which is spoken in and around Nuremberg.

Well thank you for clarifying that. Could you perhaps give us a decent interpretation of the entire name "nürnberger bratwurst glöckl"?

Is "bell" used in the context of "dinner bell" or is it meant to signify something else?

[Menes]

As far as I know, the founder of the Munich restaurant in 1893, Simon Bäumler by name, was from Nuremberg, where a very famous restaurant had a very similar name (Bratwurstglöcklein, which has the same meaning, but is Standard German, not Franconian dialect).
He was inspired by the name of the older restaurant in Nuremburg, it is said. Furthermore, his Munich restaurant was - and is - adjacent directly to the Cathedral of Our Lady, the Frauenkirche.
This has a little bell dangling from a ledge just next to the restaurant.. From time to time, it rings and can be heard clearly within the restaurant. So that was obviously the origin of the name :-)

BTW, the restaurant still exists, serving hearty German fare. It is both popular with the locals and with tourists. Whether it still is a gay meeting place, I cannot say, however, but probably not. They serve everybody who is hungry, though :-)

[DiogenesLamp]

As far as I know, the founder of the Munich restaurant in 1893, Simon Bäumler by name, was from Nuremberg, where a very famous restaurant had a very similar name (Bratwurstglöcklein, which has the same meaning, but is Standard German, not Franconian dialect). He was inspired by the name of the older restaurant in Nuremburg, it is said. Furthermore, his Munich restaurant was - and is - adjacent directly to the Cathedral of Our Lady, the Frauenkirche. This has a little bell dangling from a ledge just next to the restaurant.. From time to time, it rings and can be heard clearly within the restaurant. So that was obviously the origin of the name :-)

Thank you for that background information. That helps my understanding of what would have otherwise been a very curious and puzzling name.

BTW, the restaurant still exists, serving hearty German fare. It is both popular with the locals and with tourists. Whether it still is a gay meeting place, I cannot say, however, but probably not. They serve everybody who is hungry, though :-)

I would expect that people would not talk about it's past history. I am told Germany has some very strict anti-Nazi laws and no freedom of speech as exists here in the US.

[Menes]

On your last paragraph: yes, and yes again.

All the best for you, as I‘m finally getting off this site for good. See my profile page (as long as it will still be there) for more :-)

[DiogenesLamp]

I am sorry about your health. I've seen a lot of good people pass on from Free Republic. I miss some of them more than others, but it is a tragedy when anyone leaves because they cannot remain.

I wish you what happiness you may still find. I shall not be a great deal longer behind you.

[Menes]

Dear sir, I would like to thank you very much for your utterly friendly and so heart-warming words :-)

They are very much appreciated, and I wish you a lot of blessings :-)

And may America, and may the world, ultimately be delivered from the utter Evil, the machinations of the Old Fiend which has afflicted her.

We beseech thee with all our hearts, O Lord!