Lotte Hahm

Charlotte "Lotte" Hedwig Hahm (born May 23, 1890 in Dresden , † August 17, 1967 in West Berlin ) was a prominent activist of the lesbian movement in Berlin during the Weimar Republic , National Socialism and after 1949 in the Federal Republic .

Hahm campaigned for the organization of lesbian women and the improvement of their social situation. She was particularly well known for her organizing activities. Together with Käthe Reinhardt , she ran the largest lesbian clubs of the time with up to 2000 members and 500 participants as well as various bars in the 1920s. In addition, she wrote articles, organized lectures, readings and excursions and supported the establishment of lesbian networks in other cities. In 1929 she was co-founder of the "Transvestite Association D'Eon", the first German organization for trans people .

Weimar Republic

Hahm was born in Dresden in 1890, where she still ran a mail-order bookshop in 1920. In the first half of the 1920s she came to Berlin, where she appeared as a lesbian activist from 1926. Of particular importance for the city's lesbian scene was the establishment of the “Violetta women's club”, which was one of the city's largest lesbian clubs with up to 400 participants. The club was associated with the German Friendship Association , one of the major homosexual organizations of the time.

In 1929, Hahm united the Violetta Club with Käthe Reinhardt's “Monbijou” club, in the course of which Hahm and Reinhardt switched to the larger rival organization, the Federation for Human Rights . The merger of the two big clubs and the change caused a sensation in the lesbian scene of the time, in the Frauenliebe and the DFV there was talk of betrayal and intrigue. In support of this, Hahm wrote that it would have been “ grotesque ” that “a straight man should be the leader of homosexual women, of all things” and, on the other hand, of Bergmann's financial irregularities. She summed up, "that it was finally time for Karl Bergmann, who founded the Monbijou women's club only to be used for his personal purposes, to disappear."

Received advertising photos from Hahm show her wearing men's clothing in a casual position. It is believed that she was the holder of a so-called transvestite certificate, but Lotte Hahm's identity is assumed as a woman. Together with Felix Abraham, Hahm was involved in founding the first German organization for trans people in 1929, the transvestite association D'Eon , which still existed in 1932. D'Eon was open to biologically male and female trans people alike, had its headquarters in the Institute of Sexology of Magnus Hirschfeld and was led until 1930 by Hahm. In addition, Hahm was involved in the organization of lesbian groups, so she had been the head of the women's group of the Federation for Human Rights from 1928 and in 1930 called - unsuccessfully - to found a Germany-wide association for ideal women's friendship.

Between 1926 and 1929, Hahm met Käthe Fleischmann, who was ten years her junior, and who was her long-term partner. The restaurateur and restaurant owner, married and mother of two sons, divorced in 1929 and helped Hahm to open and run the two lesbian bars “Monokel-Diele” and “Manuela-Bar”.

National Socialism

As a Jew , Fleischmann experienced repeated disturbances in her restaurants by the SA as early as autumn 1932 , which, as part of anti-Semitic disenfranchisement by the state, ultimately led to Fleischmann having to sell her restaurants at a bargain price. In 1933 all lesbian bars were closed by the National Socialists, magazines were banned, open events as before were no longer possible, so that Hahm could no longer work either.

Despite the associated risks, Hahm and Fleischmann now endeavored to offer more places of lesbian subculture. They veiledly renamed the women's club “Violetta” to “Sportclub Sonne”, whose events took place until December 1934 in the Jewish Logenhaus at Joachimsthaler Strasse 13 (today the Central Orthodox Synagogue in Berlin ) and in 1935 at Berliner Strasse 53. After a denunciation , police officers and the Reichsmusikkammer observed around 65 women there on July 17, 1935 ; in the subsequent raid on July 24, 54 women were recorded by name, and further club events were banned.

Hahm was not found at this event because, according to her representative, she was on Hiddensee , according to the memo, “known as a meeting place for homos. Women ". There she opened a pension, probably for lesbian women.

Her further résumé under National Socialism is poorly documented and partly contradicting itself. It is possible that Hahm came into the Nazis' attention for the first time in 1933, according to a report by a contemporary witness she was arrested when she was reported by the father of a friend for seducing minors.

It is certain that she was sent to the Moringen concentration camp in early 1935 , but files from there no longer exist. She told fellow prisoners that she asked a stranger at Alexanderplatz to take care of his suitcase. The Gestapo searched the suitcase, found communist material in it, and then arrested her. In the camp, Hahm joined a communist group and was presumably tortured. Even after the Second World War , Hahm remained silent about her experiences in the concentration camp .

By 1937 at the latest, Hahm was free again and worked as a textile trader in the Berlin area. Her success was low, for lack of money she cheated out her driver for his wages, who sued her for fraud. Hahm was sentenced to a fine and imprisonment, the latter she probably did not have to serve.

At least in 1939, Hahm resumed her earlier activities and again founded a lesbian meeting place on Alexanderplatz on the first floor of the teachers' association building , although it was short-lived.

Fleischmann remained secretly active as a restaurateur, despite the life-threatening situation for her. In 1938 she was sentenced to forced labor, in 1941 she was able to escape and survived in various hiding places, supported by Hahm.

post war period

Immediately after the end of the war, in 1945, Hahm began to become active again together with Käthe Reinhardt. They tried to organize balls in the “Magic Flute”, later they moved to Oranienstrasse 162. In the same year, Hahm and Reinhardt opened a pub for lesbian women near Alexanderplatz , the name and exact location are unknown. The bar existed from 1945 to 1947 for around one and a half years, making it the first lesbian bar in East Berlin . In the 1950s, Hahm lived at Potsdamer Strasse 181. In 1958, Hahm was involved in the re-establishment of the Association for Human Rights, which, however, failed.

By the end of the 1950s at the latest, Hahm and Fleischmann separated. In the 1960s, Fleischmann was asked if she would agree to an official honor to Lotte Hahm for her support during the Nazi era. Fleischmann denied on the grounds that she felt abandoned. In 1967 Fleischmann died in Berlin-Schöneberg , Hahm in August of the same year in Berlin-Wannsee .

reception

Lotte Hahm's work was already highly valued at the time. For the first anniversary of the Violetta Club, two poems appeared in Frauenliebe, one by a Käthe, in which the author wrote: “The way you lead, your power is strengthened / as I know you, you are concerned about it / the club to bring it through to its fullest size, / [...] So the club will always flourish and flourish, / and you, beloved, shall be the leader. "On the same occasion, Selli Engler wrote :" You who have a home for us through noble, serious diligence prepares, / and who with a proud bare forehead only strides forward powerfully, / You should continue to be our guide, we want to trust you, / [...] So, guide, show us the way to good and happiness, / and build with us now a solid bridge to all of the world. " In 1928, Hahm was described in the magazine " Neue Freunde " as "one of our best known and most popular leaders in the Berlin homoerotic women's movement".

In retrospect, Franz Scott saw Hahm at the beginning of the 1930s, alongside Selli Engler and the only pseudonymously known Charly, as an important figure in the first lesbian movement.

Today, for her activist activities, Hahm is one of the “most important activists of the homosexual subculture, especially in Berlin” and “an important champion * for the organization of homosexual women and“ transvestites ”during the Weimar Republic”. appreciated. Her “organizational skills, tireless energy and [..] a lot of courage” are emphasized.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Annemarie Niering: From the shelves of the Dresden City Archives: The "Ladies Club Violetta" , in: Dresdner Latest News , January 16, 2019, accessed on April 19, 2020
2. ^ ^{A b c d} Claudia Schoppmann: National Socialist Sexual Policy and Female Homosexuality. 2nd edition, 1997, ISBN 3-86226853-5
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Jens Dobler: From other shores: History of the Berlin lesbians and gays in Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain. 2003, ISBN 978-3-86187-298-6 , pp. 104-115
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Ingeborg Boxhammer, Christiane Leidinger: The big name in the scene and activist Lotte Hahm , in: Wir * hier! Lesbian, gay and trans * between Hiddensee and Ludwigslust , 2019, PDF online
5. ^ Rainer Herrn: Felix Abraham in: Volkmar Sigusch, Günter Grau (Ed.): Personenlexikon der Sexualforschung , 2009, ISBN 9783593390499 , p. 21.
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Heike Schader: Virile, vamps and wild violets - sexuality, desire and eroticism in the magazines of homosexual women in Berlin in the 1920s. 2004, ISBN 3-89741-157-1 , pp. 74ff.
7. ↑ Christiane Leidinger: Lesbian Existence 1945–1969: Aspects of research into social exclusion and discrimination of lesbian women with a focus on life situations, experiences of discrimination and emancipation in the early Federal Republic (=  publications of the department for the interests of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans and Intersex People (LGBTI). Volume 34). Ed .: Senate Department for Integration, Labor and Social Affairs . Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-9816391-5-5 , p. 45.
8. ↑ Personalities in Berlin 1825-2006 - Memories of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and intersex people. Ed .: Senate Department for Integration, Labor and Social Affairs . Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-9816391-3-1 .
9. ↑ Käthe: Lotte! In: Frauenliebe, 1927, 2nd year No. 51, p. 8
10. ^ Selli Engler: To my dear Charlotte Hahm for the 1st foundation party of the Violetta women's club. In: Frauenliebe, 1927, 2nd year No. 51, p. 8
11. ^ Anonymus: Rundschau in: New friendship, June 1928, No. 21, p. 4
12. ↑ Personalities in Berlin 1825-2006 - Memories of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and intersex people. Ed .: Senate Department for Labor, Integration and Women. Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-9816391-3-1 .