Bold Defiance: Lesbian Activism in the GDR in the 1970s–1980s

A difficult starting situation

“Einer Form nachgeben / Sich an Wirbel heranarbeiten / Ein Gesicht freilegen / Verstecke nehmen / Stirn zeigen / Ohren stehenlassen […].”

(Succumbing to a form/ Cautiously approaching the storm / Barefaced / Coming out of hiding / Being bold / Ears pricked […]. translator)1<p>Klässner, Bärbel: Haare schneiden, in: Karstädt, Christiane / von Zitzewitz, Anette: ...viel zuviel verschwiegen. Eine Dokumentation von Lebensgeschichten lesbischer Frauen aus der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Berlin 1996, 199.</p><p>Succumbing to a form/ Cautiously approaching the storm / Barefaced / Coming out of hiding / Being bold / Ears pricked […].&nbsp;</p>

Bärbel Klässner penned these words in 1988, in her poem Haare schneiden (Cutting Hair). Yet coming out of hiding in barefaced, bold defiance was not an easy thing to do in the GDR. Without the freedom to assemble, form groups, and freely publish, the potential for political activism outside of the state structures, parties, and mass organizations was severely limited. There were very many issues not named and tackled, not even by the official mass organization, the ‘Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands’ (Democratic Women’s League of Germany, DFD). One of them was the dire conditions that lesbians lived under. Isolation, fear, and shame were rife, along with homophobia/lesbophobia in their personal circles, the lack of information and role models, the huge challenge of finding other like-minded people and partners, as well as outright discrimination against female and male gay couples in the allocation of housing, for example, and the ban on same-sex lonely hearts ads.2<p>Sänger, Eva, Begrenzte Teilhabe. Ostdeutsche Frauenbewegung und Zentraler Runder Tisch in der DDR, Frankfurt a. M. / New York 2005, 101‒102.</p>

It was not until 1973 that lesbians and gay men formed an official lobby group, the ‘Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin’ (HIB). Its agenda was, firstly, to offer a point of contact and opportunities to forge a ‘Wahlfamilie’ (chosen family) of one’s own; secondly, to campaign to change society—for example by demanding that an official counseling and health center for lesbians and gay men be opened in the public clinic, ‘Haus der Gesundheit’. Charlotte von Mahlsdorf hosted parties, performances by the bisexual-gay-lesbian cabaret troupe Hibaré, and weekly meetings of the HIB at the ‘Gründerzeit Museum’ s/he had established on the outskirts of Berlin. However, men, not women, had the upper hand in setting the HIB’s priorities.3<p>Nellißen, Kay / Schmidt, Kristine: Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin, in: Sonntags Club (Ed.): Verzaubert in Nord-Ost. Die Geschichte der Berliner Lesben und Schwulen in Prenzlauer Berg, Pankow und Weißensee, Berlin 2009, 178‒185.</p> Christiane Seefeld, a very active member of the group, tried to start a lesbian section, but it quickly fizzled out. Seefeld’s involvement deserves more attention in future research, as does that of Tommy and others not yet clearly identified.4<p>Dobler, Jens: Christiane Seefeld – das Herz der Bewegung, in: Sonntags-Club (Ed.): Verzaubert in Nord-Ost. Die Geschichte der Berliner Lesben und Schwulen in Prenzlauer Berg, Pankow und Weißensee, Berlin 2009, 193‒196; Karstädt, Christina / von Zitzewitz, Anette: ...viel zuviel verschwiegen. Eine Dokumentation von Lebensgeschichten lesbischer Frauen aus der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Berlin 1996, 53‒61.</p> Thanks to the commitment of Ursula Sillge, the first GDR-wide lesbian meeting took place in 1978, with over one hundred participants. Invitations were distributed through personal networks. Although the police tried to prevent the meeting at the ‘Gründerzeit Museum’, the guests were able to move on to a private apartment and two restaurants instead.5<p>Sillge, Ursula, Un-Sichtbare Frauen. Lesben und ihre Emanzipation in der DDR, Berlin 1991, 90–91.</p>

Emergence of Lesbian Groups in the 1980s

The lack of official recognition plus the ban on further meetings at the ‘Gründerzeit Museum’ put an end to the HIB. This is yet another example of how limited the opportunities for autonomous gay and lesbian political work were in the GDR. Nevertheless, some mixed gay as well as exclusively lesbian working groups emerged in the 1980s, not least because, from 1978 on, the Protestant Church opened its doors to groups working on issues such as environmental protection, peace, and human rights. On January 9, 1982, the conference ‘Dare We Speak Its Name? Homosexuality as a Question for Theologists and the Congregation’6<p>Robert-Havemann-Gesellschaft (RHG)/ GrauZone (GZ)/A1/2565, Kann man darüber sprechen? Homosexualität als Frage an Theologie und Gemeinde.&nbsp;</p> took place at the Protestant Academy Berlin-Brandenburg at the suggestion of gay members of the congregation and, in particular, thanks to the initiative of the academy director, Elisabeth Adler.7<p>Cf. Schmidt, Kristine: Lesben und Schwule in der Kirche, in: Sonntags-Club (Ed.): Verzaubert in Nord-Ost. Die Geschichte der Berliner Lesben und Schwulen in Prenzlauer Berg, Pankow und Weißensee, Berlin 2009, 198‒220, hier 198.</p> The conference not only brought the issue to the attention of the broader congregation but also prompted the creation of gay working groups (Arbeitskreise, AK) under the umbrella of the Protestant Church. Homosexuality’s compatibility with the teachings of the Protestant Church was a subject of controversy throughout the decade. For example, in 1984, the Theological Studies Department of the Federation of Protestant Churches in the GDR issued a forty-page report, “Homosexuals in the Church?”.8<p>RHG/GZ/A1/2593, Theologische Studienabteilung beim Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR: Homosexuelle in der Kirche?, 1984.</p> by around 1990, some twenty study groups had been established throughout the GDR. In the latter half of the 1980s, additional groups formed that were affiliated with youth clubs or the ‘Kulturbund’ (state-run cultural league)—one of them, the ‘Sonntags-Club Berlin’ (Berlin Sunday Club), 9<p>Dobler/Schmidt/Nellißen: Sonntags im Club, in: Sonntags-Club (Ed.), Verzaubert in Nord-Ost, 238-245.</p> is active to this day. But these, too, were denied official recognition.10<p>Cf. Sänger: Begrenzte Teilhabe, 102-103.</p>

Lesbian groups formed in parallel: around 1982, the ‘Lesben in der Kirche’ (Lesbians in the Church group) in 1985, an independent women’s group within the ‘AK Homosexualität Dresden’;11<p>Cf. RHG/GZ/A1/2774, Karin Dauenheimer, Als ich Anfang 1983 … [Bericht], 1988/89.</p> and in 1987, the ‘Erfurter Lesben’ (Erfurt Lesbians), a part of the Erfurt Lesbian and Gay Working Group at the Protestant City Mission.12Vgl. RHG/GZ/A1/381, [Programm] '89 ELSA. From 1985 on, there were weekly meetings of a small number of lesbians in Jena, who were connected to the ‘AK Homosexuelle Liebe’ and first began meeting separately as a consciousness-raising group; some of these women later formed the editorial team of frau anders, an underground lesbian magazine.13Vgl. RHG/GZ/A1/2483, AK Homosexuelle Liebe ESG Jena. Programm der Frauengruppe &ndash; Januar &ndash; Juni 1989. In Magdeburg, a group of lesbians without contact to other organizations began meeting in 1987.14<p>Cf. Lohaus, Stefanie: Podiumsgespräch: Zur Rolle, Lebenssituation und den Zielen der Lesben(gruppen) zur Zeit der friedlichen Revolution, in: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Sachsen-Anhalt / Gunda Werner Institut (Ed.): Das Übersehenwerden hat Geschichte – Lesben in der DDR und der Friedlichen Revolution. Tagungsdokumentation, Halle (Saale) / Berlin 2015, 51-57, here S. 5; Kenawi, Samirah: Frauengruppen in der DDR der 80er Jahre. Eine Dokumentation, Berlin 1995, 276.</p> Members of the short-lived ‘Unabhängiger Frauenverband Brandenburg’ (Brandenburg Independent Women’s Association), founded in 1988 but disbanded the following year, were likewise active in various networks independently of the local ‘AK Homosexualität’.15<p>Cf. Kenawi: Frauengruppen, 99.</p> In 1988, a lesbian group also developed in Halle, but it, too, was active only until 1989.16<p>Ibid., 173.</p> Attempts to establish an independent lesbian group within the ‘AK Homosexualität’ ESG Leipzig failed until January 1989, but then the group ‘Lila Pause’ (Purple Break) began meeting every two weeks.17<p>Cf. Lila Pause: “Arbeit der Lesbengruppe Leipzig, 1989,” reprinted in Kenawi, Frauengruppen, 230; RHG/GZ/A1/381, Lesbenpost der Leipziger Lesbengruppe. For more details, see Bock, Jessica: Die Lesbengruppe in Leipzig. Eine Geschichte der Spurlosen? Ein Werkstattbericht, in: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Sachsen-Anhalt / Gunda Werner Institut (Ed.), Das Übersehenwerden hat Geschichte, 99‒109.</p> In sum, it can be said that the groups were mostly quite small, with between five and twenty active members each.

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Thus, lesbian groups, together with the Women for Peace groups and feminist theologians, were the core of the so-called unofficial women’s movement that rose up in the GDR in the 1980s, circa two or three hundred women strong, outside of the state-approved women’s organizations.18<p>Vgl. Krautz, Stefanie: Lesbisches Engagement in Ost-Berlin 1978-1989, Marburg 2009, 43.</p> The independent lesbian groups came about for a variety of reasons. The women in Jena, for example, wanted to deal with issues and interests of their own, which differed from those of men.19<p>Cf. Klässner, Bärbel: Als frau anders war, in: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Sachsen-Anhalt / Gunda Werner Institut (Ed.): Das Übersehenwerden hat Geschichte, 58‒69, here S. 62.</p> The Lesbians in the Church groups likewise wanted to establish their own independent profile and a space free from male dominance.20Vgl. RHG/GZ/A1/2572, K&ouml;rzend&ouml;rfer, Marinka, Res&uuml;mee und Ausblick der Lesbenarbeit in der DDR. Women’s groups such as ‘Fraueninitiative Magdeburg’ 21<p>Cf. Kenawi: Frauengruppen, 245.</p> were also important frameworks for lesbian activism, as were the gay and lesbian working groups and secular social clubs – although male dominance in these mixed groups remained a major concern.22<p>Cf. Sänger: Begrenzte Teilhabe, 104-106.</p>

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Working Methods and Issues

Consciousness-raising groups—which were expressly for women only, and aimed to foster self-awareness and self-help—formed the core of the activists’ work. Recalling the weekly meetings of her group in Jena, Bärbel Klässner has said that “we [...] shared our lives. We gave each woman a whole meeting to tell her story, asking questions and documenting them at the same time. Was that self-help? Was that unspectacular? Private? Either way, what this framework made possible was incredible. How many issues, how many taboos, how much thwarted potential, how much suffering, too, and, yes, how much liberation came out of this kind of mutual appreciation, in our safe space.”23<p>Klässner: Als frau anders war, 66.</p> Other groups organized discussion evenings on issues such as sexuality, relationships, and coming out, encouraging personal exchange. These conversations helped put an end to the painful isolation that women often suffered. Sharing personal experiences was a way to develop an understanding of one’s own biography and identity, also as a lesbian. Regular meetings opened space for encounters with ’kindred souls’. The issues addressed as well as the forms of the (usually fortnightly) meetings were diverse. There were readings, music evenings, lectures, and other activities. The issues ranged from sexism in language to lesbian characters in literature, from the situation of lesbians in the past and present to women’s health, from self-defense to problems with addiction. There were also group leisure activities such as excursions and parties.  
 
The needs and desires of the women who joined the groups were manifold, too. They were looking for a partner or wanted to share their experience of living as a lesbian and the struggle for better living conditions, to discuss how feminist and socio-critical political commitment might look, to find help with coming out, or simply to have a good time and meet new people. Not all these needs could be met in equal measure, and this put a strain on the groups. Moreover, membership often fluctuated, and too few women wanted to play an active role in organizing and campaigning.

Networking and broader communication were also important concerns within the women’s movement. There was supra-regional cooperation, for example in creating the lesbian magazine frau anders, which published contributions from groups and individuals. Following the lesbian forum at the church congress in Halle in 1988, members of various groups joined forces to lay the groundwork for what was to become the first lesbian conference under the auspices of the Protestant Church of the GDR: Lesbians in the Church, held on November 25, 1989, also in Halle. .24<p>Cf. Kenawi: Frauengruppen, 50 f.</p> In addition, individual lesbian groups often participated in church conventions as well as in supra-regional networks such as the ‘Mitarbeiter(innen)tagung der kirchlichen Arbeitskreise’ (Conference of the Protestant Working Groups) and the peace campaign group ‘Frieden konkret’.

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Opportunities to reach the general public were severely limited, however, and forms of action such as demonstrations and public rallies were out of the question. The campaign to commemorate gay men and women persecuted by the Nazi regime (1933–45) was an opportunity to step out from beneath the Church umbrella. Lesbians took part in mixed events at the Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald memorial sites.25<p>Cf. Bühner, Maria: Die Kontinuität des Schweigens. Das Gedenken der Ost-Berliner Gruppe Lesben in der Kirche in Ravensbrück, in Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften. Themenheft: Homosexualitäten revisited. (2018) (in process of publication).</p> A very special attempt to explicitly increase the visibility of lesbians, past and present, were the trips that Berlin Lesbians in the Church groups made in the mid-1980s to the memorial site at the former women’s concentration camp, Ravensbrück.

Specific efforts were made also to compile information and literature on homosexuality. Research scholars and other experts working on the topic were contacted and invited by the groups to lecture. Opportunities to engage in (critical) exchange with them were also taken up by individual activists during the workshop series ‘Psychosocial Aspects of Homosexuality’ (1985–90).

Open Questions

The symposium ’Das Übersehenwerden hat Geschichte‘ (Invisibility Has a Long History), which took place in 2015, raised preliminary questions about the history of lesbian movements in the GDR, also with regard to possible exclusions. .26<p>Cf. Lantzsch, Nadine: Ausschluss oder Ausgangspunkt? Bündnisse und Fragen an die Lesbenbewegungen in der DDR, in: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Sachsen-Anhalt / Gunda Werner Institut (Ed.): Das Übersehenwerden hat Geschichte, 10-18.</p> AFor example, discussion both at and after the symposium turned to the extent to which lesbian groups and their coalitions had persistently failed to address racism and antisemitism. Peggy Piesche wrote about her experiences in summer camps run by the Protestant Church: “What I found lacking above all, as a Black woman and a lesbian, was any reference to the nuanced realities of life in the GDR. In these spaces, no one questioned the prevailing myth that there was no place for racism in the society of the GDR.”27<p>Piesche Peggy: Sichtbarkeit kann niemals nur die eigene sein, May 26, 2015,&nbsp;<a href="http://maedchenmannschaft.net/interview-peggy-piesche-lesben-in-der-ddr…">http://maedchenmannschaft.net/interview-peggy-piesche-lesben-in-der-ddr…;, accessed January 10, 2018.</p> Thus, while many issues were dealt with, others remained shrouded in silence—a silence that must be paid more attention in future research.

It is also vital to bear in mind that despite regular events and interventions, the lesbian groups reached only a very limited number of people. Some women, if they were even aware of the groups at all, felt that joining them was not an option, because the events were held under the Church umbrella and/or because of the activists’ proximity to the opposition. The majority of lesbians in the GDR, if they even named and understood themselves as such, lived and loved beyond the margins of this movement and its ideals. To trace their experiences, insights, and struggles, we urgently need to interview contemporary witnesses and explore firsthand accounts such as diaries and letters, very few of which, unfortunately, are to be found in the archives.

Forgotten Successes

Besides the emergence of AIDS, important vectors of a shift in the state’s position on homosexuality from 1985 on were the growing visibility of gay and lesbian groups in the 1980s and, especially, their increasingly international networks. While the latter prompted security concerns on the part of the “Stasi” (Staatssicherheit or secret police), the ban on same-sex personal ads was lifted, for example, and Paragraph 151 of the GDR’s Criminal Code (StGB)—which in 1968 had replaced the infamous Paragraph 175 and decriminalized ‘sexual acts’ between consenting adults while still stipulating different ages of consent for heterosexuals (14) and homosexuals (18) as well as upholding the prohibition on pedophilia and extending it for the first time ever to women—was amended in 1987 finally revoked on June 30, 1989. Homosexuality was at last put on the agenda of the marriage and sexuality counseling centers, and efforts were made to educate the general public about homosexuality and thus foster greater tolerance. These policy shifts must be regarded critically, nonetheless, for they were assimilationist and paternalistic.28<p>Cf. Waberski, Birgit: Die großen Veränderungen beginnen leise. Lesbenliteratur in der DDR und den neuen Bundesländern, Dortmund 1997, 50-72.</p> IIn the historiography of the opposition and civil rights movement of the late GDR, the lesbian groups and ‘AK Homosexualität’ mostly play no role, despite these successes and their subsequent intensive involvement in the ‘Zentraler Runde Tisch’ (Central Round Table) and the ‘Unabhängiger Frauenverband’ (Independent Women’s Association, UFV).29<p>Cf. Lautmann, Rüdiger: Warum vergisst die Geschichtsschreibung zur späten DDR den Beitrag der Schwulen und Lesben?', in: Lesben- und Schwulenverband in Deutschland (LSVD) – Landesverband Sachsen-Anhalt e.V. / Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Sachsen-Anhalt (Ed.) Lesben und Schwule in der DDR. Tagungsdokumentation, Halle (Saale) 2008, 117-135. Zum Unabhängigen Frauenverband vgl. Hampele Ulrich, Anne: Der Unabhängige Frauenverband. Ein frauenpolitisches Experiment im deutschen Vereinigungsprozess, Berlin 2000, zum Engagement am Runden Tisch Cf. Sänger: Begrenzte Teilhabe.</p> Owing to a heteronormative culture of remembrance that too often focuses solely on men, the invisibility that the lesbian groups had worked so hard to put an end to ultimately swallowed them up again. But hopefully, this will change in the future.