Use Kokula

Ilse Kokula 1980

Ilse Kokula (born January 13, 1944 in Sagan , Silesia ) is a German educator , author and LGBT activist in the field of lesbian life and holder of the Federal Cross of Merit .

youth

Ilse Kokula was born in Silesia in 1944, grew up in Franconia and has lived in Berlin since 1971. As the eldest daughter with eight siblings, only an auxiliary job was planned for her, which is why she had to fight for an apprenticeship as a cook. They sought and found support, so that they, the average maturity catch up and study at the Higher Technical College in social work and successfully completed in Bavaria 1967th

Studies and subsequent activities

After a few years of social work, Ilse Kokula attended the Berlin University of Education and enrolled in education. She wrote her diploma thesis on the lesbian group of the LAZ (Lesbian Action Center West Berlin) , in which she was active herself. In the mid-1970s, when lesbians were still hushed up by society, Ilse Kokula published this work under the pseudonym "Ina Kuckuck" under the title "The fight against oppression" in the publishing house Frauenoffensive in Munich. She then worked in the practice for a few years before receiving her doctorate in sociology from the University of Bremen in 1982 . The result of this were two other books: “Female Homosexuality Around 1900” and “Forms of Lesbian Subculture”. In 1985 Ilse Kokula was appointed as the first visiting professor for “social history and socialization of lesbian women” from the University of Utrecht to a changing chair and thus received the title of professor.

She taught, learned and established many contacts and worked several years as a freelance researcher and lecturer until the year of the Berlin Wall (1989) Employees as equal opportunity commissioner of the Department of same-sex lifestyles of the Berlin Senate in West Berlin was.

There she presented topics for discussion at conferences, including a. the questions of how homosexual victims of National Socialism should be commemorated, how city authorities could promote lesbian and gay emancipation or what history and perspectives lesbians and gays in the new federal states (formerly GDR) had. These and many other discussions were published in the series “Documents of Lesbian and Gay Emancipation” by the Department for Same-Sex Lifestyles (published by the Senate Department for Youth and Family, Berlin).

Ilse Kokula linked different levels with one another over four decades: As a researcher, she published groundbreaking works on the present and history of lesbian women as early as the 1970s and early 1980s, on the basis of which younger researchers in history, sociology, psychology and literary studies could build. As a political fighter, Ilse Kokula has worked in the women's and lesbian movement (including the women's group of Homosexual Action West Berlin , short: HAW, later Lesbian Action Center West Berlin , in the magazines UKZ - our little newspaper and the Swiss lesbian front) and also worked in lesbian- gay cooperation cultivated (among other things built up the lesbian-gay trade union group of the ÖTV , participated in the exhibition "Eldorado. Homosexual women and men in Berlin 1850–1950", which took place in Berlin in 1984).

As a networker, Ilse Kokula connected many lesbians from East and West, from the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Germany to one another before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and afterwards. As the first equal opportunities officer in the "Department for Same-Sex Lifestyle of the Berlin Senate", she brought numerous topics to public discussion through conferences and publications from 1989 to 1996 and was an expert in the "Working Group on Communal Lesbian and Gay Policy" of the Berlin-Charlottenburg District Office .

Ilse Kokula has worked actively in the women's and lesbian movement (among other things as the founding donor of the Archive of the German Women's Movement Foundation ). As a lesbian researcher and emancipation fighter , exercising the role of equal opportunities officer in the administration resulted in an area of ​​tension inside and outside the institutions and those involved. After seven years, Ilse Kokula left this position and moved her field of activity to the field of youth protection. Since her retirement in 2004, she has been working in an honorary capacity at the Frieda Women's Center in Berlin , where she regularly organizes lectures and discussions on various aspects of lesbian life.

Awards

On February 18, 2007 she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon by State Secretary Almuth Nehring-Venus on behalf of the Federal President. The reason given was: “Dr. Ilse Kokula has made a significant contribution to the emancipation of lesbians and gays and to the development of a tolerant and open society with her extraordinary commitment, based on courage, thirst for knowledge and perseverance. "On July 2nd, 2018, Ilse Kokula was the first recipient of the Berlin Senate Prize endowed with 3000 euros for greater visibility of lesbian life. The laudator was the journalist and author Stephanie Kuhnen.

Works

• The fight against oppression. Women's offensive, Munich 1975 (under the pseudonym: Ina Kuckuck)
• Female homosexuality around 1900 in contemporary documents. Women's offensive, Munich 1981.
• Forms of lesbian subculture. Rosa Winkel Verlag, Berlin 1983.
• Years of happiness, years of suffering - Conversations with older lesbian women. Spring awakening, Kiel 1986.
• We no longer suffer, we have suffered! Living as a lesbian in Germany. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1987.
• The world is ours! Association of lesbian women in Switzerland in the 1930s (co-author: Ulrike Böhmer). efef, Zurich / Bern 1991.
• Manfred Baumgardt, Ralf Dose , Manfred Herzer , Hans-Günter Klein , Ilse Kokula, Gesa Lindemann : Magnus Hirschfeld - life and work. Exhibition catalog . West Berlin: rosa Winkel, 1985 (publication series of the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft 3)
  • 2nd ext. Ed. With an afterword by Ralf Dose. Hamburg: von Bockel, 1992. (Series of publications by the Magnus Hirschfeld Society 6)

Editorial work

As editor of the following publications in the series "Documents of Lesbian and Gay Emancipation", she has published:

• How informed is the administration? Senate Department for School, Youth and Sport, Department for Same-Sex Lifestyles, Berlin 1996.
• Commemorate the homosexual victims of National Socialism. 1st edition Senate Department for Youth and Family, Department for Same-Sex Lifestyles Berlin 1995.
• Lesbians, gays, partnerships. 1st edition Senate Department for Youth and Family, Department for Same-Sex Lifestyles Berlin 1994.
• Aspects of lesbian and gay emancipation in local government. Senate Department for Women, Youth and Family Berlin 1991.
• History and perspectives of lesbians and gays in the new federal states. Senate Department for Youth and Family Berlin 1991.

literature

• Ilse Lenz : The New Women's Movement in Germany. Farewell to the small difference . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-14729-1 .
• Karen-Susan Fessel , Axel Schock : Out! 500 famous lesbian, gay & bisexuals. Querverlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-89656-021-2 .
• Madeleine Marti: It's supposed to rain purple violets for her ... Ilse Kokula for her 60th birthday. Gold leaf, Berlin 2004.
• Madeleine Marti: A guest in Zurich. Prof. Dr. Ilse Kokula - Berlin. Boa FrauenLesbenAgenda, Zurich 2009.

Web links

• Literature by and about Ilse Kokula in the catalog of the German National Library
• Press release from the State of Berlin on the award of the Federal Cross of Merit

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Catalogus Professorum Academiae Rheno-Traiectinae (Dutch, viewed September 2, 2011)
2. ↑ Lesbian Story , accessed July 9, 2014.
3. ↑ [Higher technical school in social work]. Berlin.de website - the official capital city portal. Retrieved August 31, 2011.
4. ↑ Ina Kuckuc, d. i. Ilse Kokula: The fight against oppression. Women's offensive, Munich 1975; diess .: Female homosexuality around 1900 in contemporary documents. Women's offensive, Munich 1981; this: forms of lesbian subculture. Rosa Winkel Verlag, Berlin 1983.
5. ↑ Cf. Gabriele Dennert, Christiane Leidinger, Franziska Rauchut (ed.): Keep moving. 100 years of lesbian politics, culture and history. With the collaboration of Stefanie Soine. Querverlag, Berlin 2007, z. B, pp. 33, 50, 142-146, 233.
6. ↑ regenbogen.verdi.de ( Memento of the original from May 26, 2015 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. . “Portrait: Ilse Kokula. AK Lesbians and Gays in the ÖTV Berlin "(Martina Bruns, ÖTV-Report Frühj. 2001, p. 23, Ver.di website. Accessed on January 5, 2012.)  
7. ↑ Dreamland, playground, ghetto of the outlaws. In: Der Spiegel. 27/1984, accessed July 9, 2014.
8. ↑ Ina Beyer: A tireless networker. In: Website Neues Deutschland. May 22, 2007. Retrieved January 5, 2012.
9. ↑ Archive of the German Women's Movement ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2013 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. , accessed July 9, 2014.  
10. ↑ Ilse Kokula: What can a state authority do for lesbian women? In: M. Marti, A.Schneider, I.Sgier, A.Wymann (eds.): Querfeldein. Contributions to lesbian research .. Bern, Zurich, Dortmund, 2004, pp. 173–179.
11. ↑ Welcome to the FRIEDA Women's Center e. V. , accessed on July 7, 2014.
12. ↑ Welcome to the FRIEDA Women's Center e. V. ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2013 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. 
13. ↑ Office of the Federal President
14. ^ The Governing Mayor - Senate Chancellery , accessed on July 9, 2014.
15. ↑ https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/preis-fuer-die-sichtbarkeit-lesbischen-lebens-aktivistin-ilse-kokula-in-berlin-ausgezeich/22759894.html , accessed on July 6, 2018.