Before I began this project I read the book 'Goodbye to Berlin'. It was written by Christopher Isherwood and published in 1939 when the Legend musical 'Cabaret' was began. It is a short novel which has been divided into six parts almost as if it has been emerged into a collection of six short stories in themselves. The novel is based on Isherwood's life in Berlin between 1930 and 1933 during the ending of the Weimar Era and the rise of the Nazis written in a semi-autobiographical manner.
First published in 1939, Goodbye to Berlin is a brilliant sugestion of the decadence and repression, glamour and sleaze of Berlin society in the 1930's - the time when Hitler slowly starts his move to power. It is inhabited by a wealth of characters: the unforgettable and “divinely decadent” Sally Bowles; plump Fräulein Schroeder, Peter and Otto, a gay couple struggling to come to terms with their relationship; and the distinguished and doomed Jewish family, the Landauers.
Goodbye to Berlin has been populrised after being made into a film 'Cabaret' and also the BBC production of 'Christopher and his kind'.
Goodbye to Berlin has been populrised after being made into a film 'Cabaret' and also the BBC production of 'Christopher and his kind'.
This book has allowed me to experience and feel what it was like during the 1920-30s in Berlin and engage on the different lifestyles of the characters. The character Sally Bowles was based on the well known woman of this time Anita Berber who I feel played the strongest part in this book. The characters in this book have allowed me to appreciate how beauty is individual and shouldn't be restricted by age, race, gender or size.
1920-30s Berlin
The Golden 1920's
Towards the late 1920's early 1930's Berlin was all about sexual freedom, exploration and experimentation. The founding of Hirschfeld's institute overlapped with the suffragette movement, shorter skirts, cropped hair for women and the so-called flapper look.
Differences between the sexes were being bridged, and gay culture in Berlin thrived. Much of the gay nightlife was centred around Nollendorfplatz in the Schöneberg district of Berlin, and still is today. One of the most famous nightclubs in the 1920's was the Eldorado, which featured a number of transvestite drag performers.
After Hitler's regime took control, all gay and lesbian bars and meeting places in Germany were closed. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science was looted in 1933 by the Nazis and his books were burned.
"Every gay person knew that the Nazis didn't like homosexuals, and that they wanted to get rid of them," Horbacher said. "They started to enforce Paragraph 175, so from 1935 on, it was punishable just to glance at someone of the same sex too intensively. Gay people lived in fear of being denounced by other people, and the police conducted raids, arrested gays, and sent them to concentration camps."
This image above shows two Nazi's checking the women's skirt length.
(Taken by Friedrich Seidenstucker - berlin photographer 1882-1966)