To Be Seen

This volume traces the history of queer people in Germany over most of the first half of the twentieth century. It begins with the early emancipation campaigns that surfaced around 1900, follows the self-empowerment efforts of the Weimar years, and then turns to the suppression of queer subcultures under the National Socialists. It closes with the discrimination LGBTIQ* people continued to face after the war.

From the late nineteenth century onward, a growing number of people openly argued that queer ways of living deserved recognition. These early campaigners formed collectives, pushed their concerns into public view, and challenged prevailing ideas about gender in politics, science, and the arts.

Drawing on essays, interviews, and artworks, the contributors show how this push for acceptance was blocked and dismantled by force once the National Socialists seized power, and how the history itself had nearly vanished from memory by 1945.