Domenica Niehoff

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Domenica Anita Niehoff , known as Domenica (born  August 3, 1945 in Cologne , †  February 12, 2009 in Hamburg ), was a prominent prostitute in Hamburg. She appeared on television talk shows in the 1980s with media coverage for the legalization of prostitution as a profession.

Life

Early life

She came from a difficult social background. Her mother Anna fled with her children from her Italian husband and was arrested several times for fraud. She grew up with her brother in a Catholic orphanage until she was 14 years old.

In 1962 she began training as an accountant, which she later broke off and lived with a brothel owner whom she later married. Her husband shot himself in 1972 and from then on she worked as a prostitute in Hamburg's entertainment and red light district of St. Pauli in the large brothel Palais d'Amour and on Herbertstraße . Later she ran her own studio.

Public notoriety

Night scene in Hamburg's entertainment and red light district of St. Pauli - here Domenica was considered the "Queen of the Reeperbahn".

From 1979 she was also known in the media and in the 1980s she became the most prominent prostitute in Germany. On television talk shows, she has appeared repeatedly for the legalization of her profession.

She had contact with celebrities from art and culture and served them as a muse . On the album cover of the single Bum Bum by the pop group Trio , the word "Bum" can be seen twice on her breasts in the low-cut cleavage with lipstick and she also played in the music video of the same name.

The writer Wolf Wondratschek dedicated poems to her and enthused: “a whore right into her big, lazy heart”, “and a woman up to her legs”, “when she shakes her bum, the rivers flow uphill”. Niehoff socialized with Tomi Ungerer , Horst Janssen , Alfred Hrdlicka and the married couple Gloria and Johannes von Thurn und Taxis . She has appeared in several films, including a. Messalina - Empress and Whore (1980), Desperado City (1981), Taxi to Cairo (1987), Far Land Pa-ish (1994). In 1993, the director Peter Kern made a documentary film about her life.

Since April 2011 her life-size wax figure has been exhibited in the Panoptikum Hamburg .

Social activity

In 1990, at the age of 45, she stopped working as a prostitute and volunteered in social projects. In 1991 Niehoff was a co-initiator of the prostitute aid project Ragazza eV in the Hamburg district of St. Georg and looked after drug addicts girls and women. In 1997 she gave up the job because of failure and excessive personal demands.

Late life

Urn grave Domenica Niehoff in the women's garden

On the occasion of the International Comic Days in Hamburg in 1993, nine well-known comic artists dedicated a portfolio with nine sheets to her.

In 1994 she published her autobiography Body with Soul - My Life , which was recorded by Hans Eppendorfer .

On the visit of Pope John Paul II in Berlin in 1996, Niehoff in a papal-like robe said the transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf “holy” at a demonstration , which prompted conservative politicians from the CSU to present a bill in the Bundestag (insulting a religious creed without disrupting the public peace), which was rejected by the other parties.

From 1998 to 2000 she ran a small pub ("Fick") on Hamburg's fish market , which she had to close for financial reasons (20,000 DM tax debt).

After her brother died in 2001, she lived in the house he had inherited in Boos (Eifel) until 2008 , before moving back to St. Pauli .

The exhibition Sexarbeit Prostitution - Lebenswelten und Mythen in the Museum der Arbeit in Hamburg paid special attention to well-known prostitutes such as Rosemarie Nitribitt , Christine Keeler and Domenica Niehoff (November 4, 2005 to May 7, 2006).

Domenica Niehoff died in February 2009 in the Altona General Hospital in Hamburg as a result of the lung disease COPD . Domenica found her final resting place in the Ohlsdorf cemetery , in the women's garden .

Since 2016 there has been a Domenica-Niehoff- Twiete in Altona-Nord .

literature

  • Domenica Niehoff: Domenica's pillow book. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-426-03994-X .
  • Fee Zschocke (texts), Andrej Reiser (photo): Domenica and Herbertstraße. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-8218-1701-1 .
  • Domenica portfolio. Graphic folder, Schreiber & Leser, Munich 1993. (A-3; 10 sheets hand-signed limited to a hundred copies and 9 sheets limited to 200 copies.)
  • Domenica Niehoff: body with soul. My life. Recorded by Hans Eppendorfer, Droemer Knaur, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-426-75062-7 .
  • Barbara Lukesch : Conversation between the two former prostitutes Domenica Niehoff and Brigitte Obrist on the subject of “Prostitution and exit”. In: The magazine. 24 August 1996. (As online text available.)
  • Günter Zint : Domenica. The photo book "I wasn't beautiful, I was worse." Dölling and Galitz, Munich / Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-86218-016-5 .
  • François Maher Presley : Hans Eppendorfer. The leather man. Attempt a biography . in-Cultura.com, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-930727-57-5 .

Movie

Media

  • Menschen bei Maischberger , freely accessible real video of the television program Menschen bei Maischberger on May 22, 2007 with Domenica Niehoff on the subject of "Whore - a completely normal job?"

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Domenica Anita Niehoff. on: hamburg.de
  2. ^ A b Edgar S. Hasse: Domenica - the liberator of the prostitute is dead. In: Welt Online . February 12, 2009 (accessed February 12, 2009)
  3. ↑ Jens Meyer-Odewald: St. Pauli: The Kiez mourns Domenica Anita Niehoff. The "Queen of the Reeperbahn" is dead. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . February 13, 2009 (accessed February 13, 2009)
  4. ↑ Erotically attractive and at the same time thoughtful - Domenica immortalized as a wax figure in Hamburg. ( Memento of the original from March 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at: themenportal.de , accessed: February 23, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.themenportal.de
  5. ↑ In the book Hans Eppendorfer. The leather man. An attempt at a biography in-Cultura.com, Hamburg 2018 ( ISBN 978-3-930727-57-5 ) its author François Maher Presley casts doubt on this representation and refers on the one hand to Domenica's personal statements and the collaboration between her and Hans Eppendorfer, who worked with her on the book Body with Soul. My life had worked.
  6. ↑ This collaboration is said to have led to a final rift between the two for financial reasons. Hans Eppendorfer. The leather man. Attempt a biography . in-Cultura.com, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-930727-57-5 .
  7. ↑ Hauke ​​Brost: Domenica († 63) - from whore to star. In: Bild.de . February 13, 2009 (accessed April 9, 2012).
  8. ^ Statistics Office North: Street and area index of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
personal data
SURNAME Niehoff, Domenica
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Domenica
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German prostitute, dominatrix, street worker
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 2009
Place of death Hamburg