1931 Berlin's Gay Community and Their Message for Us

Concerning the film Mädchen in Uniform

I’ve noticed that nearly no one read my last piece on German culture, but my old post on German politics is my fourth-highest scoring one so far…  We’ll have to see how this one does!

                A thriving Gay community emerged in Berlin in the late 19^th-early 20^th century.  German law still condemned homosexuality, but many factors emerged making things easier for the culture to prosper.  Public crossdressing was even legal in Berlin, as long as you obtained a permit (ah, my lawful, lawful people- you can’t make this stuff up).  This community experienced a strong upswing during the latter half of the Weimar Republik years, further cementing Berlin’s reputation as the center of Leftism in Germany, which in turn led the Nazis to assign Göbbels to lead their campaigns there personally.  Wearing down the strength of the Left’s stronghold was critical to the strategy that brought the Nazis to power, and they of course succeeded.  But too often we forget how vibrant the Gemeinschaft (community) Berlin was with tolerance, creativity, and social awareness.  Among the important happenings was the first open foray of the LGBT community into film, which produced famous Gay influenced works like Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel), but also produced the first film with lesbian protagonists, Mädchen in Uniform (Girls in Uniform).  It’s actually not at all as trashy as the name implies. 

     

 Mädchen in Uniform is a strong film about forbidden affection, and social disturbance in an unfeeling society.  

 It passes the Bechdel test (do two or more women characters share a conversation about something other than a man?) with flying colors- indeed there are no men in the film.  Briefly, teenager Manuela von Meinhardis arrives at a typically strict repressive boarding/finishing school, has all her books taken, and has a hard time fitting into classes and learning the strict regimen of bible study.  Fortunately, she is assigned to the dorm run by the one sympathetic teacher (who is if anything 6 years older than her charges), Fraϋlein von Bernburg, who believes the children do better if they trust their supervisors, and are in need of emotional support.  For this reason, and the kiss on the forehead she gives each girl, she is wildly popular among the students and unpopular among the teachers. 

After several tender conversations with Manuela, FvB begins kissing her on the mouth (which Manuela passionately returns in a cinematic first), and Manuela explains to her that she has become jealous of the other girls, that she wants to be with Fraϋlein von Bernburg alone.  FvB explains that she cannot make exceptions, but gives Manuela one of her petticoats, apparently as a token of their special affection.

After a successful school play, the girls are rewarded with spiked punch.  Manuela becomes drunk and loudly proclaims her love for Fraϋlein von Bernburg, and discloses the gift of the petticoat, resulting in her imprisonment and eventual suicide attempt, with Fraulein von Bernburg forced to resign over the scandal.

In this setting, almost any form of affection could be read as subversive, as it is defying the emotionless structure of the society in which the girls are confined.  The words schwul or lesbian are never used, but it is clear that the relationship between Fraϋlein von Bernburg and Manuela is forbidden for both its obviously lesbian overtones, and the mere presence of affection itself in a situation which prohibits it.  

To our eyes of course, glamorizing a teacher-student romance is not the best way of advocating for sexual permissiveness, and is troubling due to the power differential and potential for abuse, but the film seems to attempt to address this by making the age difference seem small enough to be inconsequential, and it’s easy to see this being part of the reason for Fraülein von Bernburg’s dismissal.  While this still renders the film somewhat problematic, let’s work with what we have here in discussing the film’s messages.

Early in the film we are introduced to the headmistress (or Frau Oberin) talking about the need for the girls to be emotionless to be good “Soldatenstochtern und, mit Willen des Gott, so wie Soldatenmutter”- Soldier’s daughters and with god’s will, Soldier’s mothers.  This is showing the goals of the militaristic state here, the investment in futureist terms, similar to Edelman’s Ponzi scheme as children must be produced for the welfare of the state’s military aims, but existing children, at least girls, are systematically undervalued as we see in the film.  People are only important in serving the state, which is interpreted here as either being or producing soldiers.  The message of individual love and fulfillment against a backdrop of a society striving to exist only for war remains powerful.

The question of “outing” can also be addressed by this film, even though it wasn’t to be employed as a tactic for some decades to come.  Manuela discloses her partner’s love for her publicly, resulting in tragedy for them both.  While many in the Gay community have used forcible outing as a tool to show straight society how much of its makeup is comprised of those it undervalues as well as to compel solidarity within the oppressed group, here it is played as a negative, only arising out of Manuela’s drunkenness.  This definitely puts the film in the less radical camp when viewed modernly, but we must remember that the cast and filmmakers had good reason not to expose their comrades- the Berlin Gay community would be marked for death within 18 months of the film’s release, while the author, Christa Winsloe emigrated and then died fighting for the French Resistance in 1944.

This brings us to a final point of the film- its optimism that Gays could eventually win acceptance and support from straights.  Towards the end of the film, during Manuela’s confinement, the other students finally decide to rebel, and go find her; whatever she and Fraulein von Bernburg have done they regard her as their comrade, and refuse to allow her to suffer alone any longer.  They find her clinging to the top of the school’s needlessly big, dramatic stairwell, about to jump.  Some run to pull her back over the top (spoiler- they succeed), while one rings the school’s alarm bell- an amusingly conformist gesture calling for help from the authorities, trusting that they will do something I suppose- and during this scene, Bernburg is telling Frau Oberin that what she calls sin is actually love in a thousand different forms.  At the end of this scene, both Bernburg and FO run to the site of Manuela’s attempted suicide and see what the repressive ostracizing has wrought.  In the film’s final shot, Frau Oberin, clearly horrorstruck at the damage done by her repressive policies, walks shakily away from the camera.  This suggests such a hopeful message, that those reinforcing hetero-patriarchy will eventually see reason, that human camaraderie can transcend prejudice and allow the LGBT community to live and love in peace, and homophobic laws and rules will be regarded as shameful attacks on human rights.

This was what the Berlin Gay community was thinking and saying in 1931.  Some 30,000 of their numbers would be murdered and hundreds of thousands more imprisoned in the coming decade. 

A friend of mine said it best- they made a movingly effective holocaust movie 18 months before Nazizeit began.  They just made the ending hopeful, and in so doing, inadvertently made the film that much darker to us now.

Solidarität, Genossinnen und Genossen.

Genossin Elise

Slavery's Legacy: How and Why to Design a System of Reparations

Only 15 minutes into Thursday...  That's almost as scheduled!

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     The matter of reparations for Slavery has been on my mind for some time, ever since I learned that, going sufficiently far back on my paternal grandmother’s side of the family, I am descended from slaveholders.  I’m considering how much of our society is still influenced by the material consequences of slavery (obviously most of our social landscape seems to still be derived from antebellum conventions), and what injustices are still being perpetrated with regard to this.

Let’s begin with a restatement of conditions- Between the 1600s and 1800s, about 12 million African-Americans were kept in chattel slavery.  Emancipation was not accompanied by any measurable wealth transfer, and while some progress has been made, the Black Community is not on anywhere near as sound of economic or political footing as is white America.  Much of this comes from continuation of racist policies by private individuals, governments, business, media and law enforcement, and that needs to be discussed.  But what I am writing about today is the direct economic effects of Slavery.

     How much wealth was produced by the system of Slavery, whom did it go to throughout the years, and where is it now?  I think of it this way- go back to the last generation of my family to own slaves and ask “how much wealth did they own/control based on slave labour?”  This includes the profits of years of exploitation, any dwellings that were constructed by slave labour, profits from selling human beings, and the like.  Next we must ask “what happened to this wealth after emancipation?”  The answer would seem to be- it was passed down through generations, and as a fungible- i.e., one dollar is much the same as another, adjusted for inflation- commodity, may be said to still be with the family.  Next we ask- what opportunities have been available to my family because of this wealth?  How much of my life is expedited by this leg up, provided by the American system of Slavery?  I don’t know exactly how much, but I’d be willing to bet it is considerable.  By this metric, I am continuing to DIRECTLY benefit to some extent from Slavery, to say nothing of the social and political privileges that come with being white.  This is enough to convince me of the necessity of a system of Reparations.  The value extracted from slave labour has enriched the descendants of slaveholders without being used or re-appropriated to serve the descendants of those whose oppression created it.  

   

             This is a thorny matter, ethically speaking, as we certainly don’t want to assign a monetary value to human suffering, nor should we (white descendants of slaveholders) claim absolution from our legacy of oppression once such a sum has been paid, but there are real, lingering economic effects of Slavery, to say nothing of the ways African-Americans continue to be economically exploited.  If Emancipation had been accompanied by land and wealth redistribution, perhaps this wouldn’t be necessary, but I think it truly is.  I’m uncomfortable trying to calculate the economic value of a moral wrong, but we can certainly figure out the current value of Slavery’s profits.  Then the question becomes- who should pay, and who should receive?  Remember, this is to deal with Slavery’s legacy, not everything that has happened since then.  I think some genealogical and financial surveys may be needed here- generally speaking, I’d say anyone who is descended from any slave is entitled to some compensation.  But then we have to consider- are they to be compensated for what was taken from their ancestors, or just as part of the community of the exploited?  That is, should descendants of slaves who were more successfully exploited receive more reparation than those whose forefather’s oppressors were less successful?  A similar question occurs when we ask whether transfers of the remaining balance on slaveholders' advantages are sufficient to correct this particular legacy?  Obviously the government bears some responsibility for allowing this to occur, but as I’ve demonstrated, the descendants of slaveholders, like me, continue to benefit from the system of Slavery, so we should pay some greater share of the costs that those whose family histories are untainted by the sin of slaveholding.  The question here is should the government add compensation for allowing slavery on top of the reparations from those who continue to profit from Slavery's legacy?  This is straying towards assigning monetary value to human suffering, but the government certainly derived benefit from Slave labour- what's the value of the White House and Capitol Building, for example?  They were built by slaves.  This could work much the same way, and I think tax revenue collected from slave trading should certainly be paid back adjusted for inflation and interest.

     I suppose this would have to be accomplished through an inheritance tax- we probably can’t legally make it retroactive, but we could hypothetically determine how much of an estate is derived from slavery, (remembering that money is fungible), and tax it away.

     I’d like to conclude with a description of German reparations to Israel after the Holocaust- they were approved largely due to the argument of compensation for loss of wealth, not monetizing the murders of 12 million people, which I think is the healthy way to look at this.  They were paid for out of government revenue as well as fines on corporations that had made extensive use of slave labour.  It’s worth noting that some compensation was extended to non-Israeli, diaspora Jews as well, but the sources I’ve consulted make no mention of payments to Romani communities, surviving Gays of Berlin, or (for some reason) Communist political parties, all of whom were also persecuted and murdered by the Nazis in great numbers.  In any case, a comprehensive look must be taken at all victimized populations.  To some extent this is not a problem in our case- the American system of Slavery was confined to Black Americans, but I think a similar program could be helpful if aimed at the Native American population.

     A problem, of course, is that in this case the victims are not represented by their own nationstate, which significantly reduces the chances of the program being realized.  Another concern is that since 159 years have passed, tracking down who owes what to whom will be much more difficult, than it was in the German-Israeli case, to say nothing of the fact that most perpetrator’s descendants are probably ignorant of their family’s history in this regard, and of course uncertain of the exact total involved.  The variables involved here are exponentially greater, due to the elapse of time.  Finally, any system constructed on these lines could probably also be used as a template to offer reparations to First Nations people. 

     Slavery’s economic impact is still with us- still hurting the Black Community, and still benefiting those who, like me, are descended from the bastards who first benefited from the oppressive system.  We need to recognize this and confront it- no one should be allowed to directly benefit from Slavery’s legacy.  Reparations may be the only way to correct this.

To conclude- 1. Evaluate total value derived from Slavery
2.  Identify slaveholders' descendants- I've gone ahead and identified myself as the first, saving everyone a great deal of time.
3.  Apply Inheritance Tax upon death of present generation, creating a Reparations Trust fund.  Augment with balance of value derived from slavery by federal and state governments
4.  Identify descendants of slaves
5.  initiate payment.

Solidarität, Genossinnen und Genossen

Kamerad Graham

Spending my Summer with Team Dooley

     As some of you may know, my first job was as an intern with St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley’s 2010 reelection campaign.  This was the best learning experience I’ve ever had, as I was responsible for recruiting, training, and maintaining volunteers for three offices, got to help prepare fundraising reports, hear the latest campaign news, in addition to all the voter contact stuff I’ve been doing for seven years.  At the end of a hard-fought campaign, with pretty much everything else I cared about getting destroyed, I was part of the team that held the county for Charlie.

                Now I’m canvassing for Dooley.  I wish I was doing more, but making money while working for a candidate in whom I truly believe is as good as this field gets, and I’m definitely happy for a genuine opportunity for fulfillment.

                The significance of Dooley’s administration can’t be overestimated- the fact that in a time when the two most important factors in one's success are possession of a reputable degree and being white, a Black American without a college degree has successfully managed a major metropolitan area for the last decade, winning two county-wide elections, is highly significant, though I think it’s more a testament to Mr. Dooley’s skills, charisma, and competence than to any emerging acceptance of racial or economic equality.  Frankly, Dooley’s record has a lot to offer a wide variety of folks.  At the top of the list (as always, this cycle) are the deficit hawks- St. Louis County has the state’s only perfect bond rating, which is not the sort of thing I’d trumpet, but Dooley has accomplished this without too many cuts to important public services- we’ve actually seen some noteworthy expansions lately.

     Most important to me is the Show Me Healthy Women state healthcare program.  This is a state program, so the county can’t take all the credit, but what is clear is that Charlie has committed to strengthening and expanding the program with a new health center, as well as increasing the variety of services it provides.  Our county has the only perfect rating from the MO Institute of Community Health, and has provided 84000 women’s health visits, now offering subsidized birth control as well as cancer screenings, and 53000 pediatric health visits.  Dooley has demonstrated a commitment to women’s health and birth control, which, if cautious and low-profile is certainly helping a lot of women make their own reproductive choices.  Aside from the principle of the right to choose, access to birth control swells the workforce and reduces income inequality, as fewer women have to take time off or quit due to pregnancy and childrearing.  Most tellingly, the breast cancer mortality rate for Blackwomen has fallen by 30% during Charlie’s two and a half terms in office.

     

     Dooley was also the driving force behind unifying county recycling services, bringing Single Stream to every household in this large county of 900,000 or more.  Not exactly a greenhouse gas reducer, but it’s an impressive victory in a state where any environmental effort, particularly recycling, is viewed by the Republicans as an offense against God and a menace to the community.  Look up Cynthia Davis for specifics.  Any county program that bears a hint of environmentalism is worthy of applause.

     Some meaningful civil rights bills, including a form of the ENDA, have passed the County council with Charlie’s support as well.  The county also is passing a plan to favor Minority-and Women-Owned-Business-Enterprises in contract awards, a vital tool in breaking the hold of the old boy’s network in the use of public money.

     Finally, crime rates in unincorporated areas have fallen precipitously over the past decade, due in large part to the expansion of the police department Charlie passed.  I know this makes civil protesting or any sort of nonconformity more dangerous, but the drop in crime rates helps everyone, and at the very least policemen are unionized, so I’m willing to mark it as a positive.  I’m also confident that Charlie’s experience as Mayor of a poor, north-St. Louis municipality would inform him as to exactly what the effect of a PD expansion would bring, so that’s another mark for it.

Now Charlie has a challenger who appears to be running on a simple deficit hawk platform while accusing Charlie of cutting budgets, and appears to have just abandoned his hardline anti-choice stance last Tuesday.  This will be an interesting test- already the challenger has significant resources and endorsements, but I’ve yet to see any of his people in the field.  We’ll have to see how much the older, whiter summer primary electorate favors him, but as I’ve said, Charlie has a lot to offer in his record, even to constituencies predisposed against him. 

     I have my reservations- like all St. Louis politicians, Charlie has had to court favors from Monsanto and Boeing, but we have seen real improvements in public safety, women’s health, and recycling programs, and we know he’s favorable to a lot of causes I hold dear.  Added to that he’s a competent administrator who can get stuff passed and implemented in an increasingly moribund polity, and I’m excited to work my heart out for him over the next five weeks.

Solidarität, Genossinnen und Genossen

Genosse Graham

Learning from Ostrock: What Music in East Germany Can Tell Us

     Hallo, Genossen und Genossinnen.  Firstly, let me say that I plan to be posting weekly for the rest of the summer, so check back frequently!  I might do some extras if I have a draft that just can't wait too...  At any rate, I've got three more posts planned already, and that's barring thought-provoking news here, or from my catching up with Neues Deutschland, so chances for more posts abound

     Over the past two years I’ve been getting into the East German music scene from the 70s-80s.  Briefly stated, when Honecker became Sekretär-General, he liberalized some of the DDR’s cultural policy, and the state started sponsoring rock bands.  The most successful of these has been the Puhdys, who recently announced their retirement, effective next year.  They’ve become my favorite band, as my bemused coworkers and family will attest.

     Quite aside from strong singing voices from Maschine and Quaster(the product of the rigorous training required to professionally perform in the DDR), an absolute rainbow of guitar styles, a peculiarly scientific, deliberate drumming from Klaus Scharfschwerdt, the amazing musical breadth of Peter “Eingehängt” Meyer, and the best bass line I’ve ever heard (on “Ikarus”, courtesy of Harry Jeske) what really draws me is the lyrics.  (Predictably- words are everything to me).  These guys- who frequently wrote their own lyrics from 1980 onward- covered a really wide range of topics.  I can’t decide what’s more interesting- that these guys wanted to talk about this stuff, or that the government endorsed it and even sent them on tour in the west!  Some make sense from my own dirty commie perspective, others suggest a wider degree of permissiveness than that for which we usually give the DDR credit.  

At any rate, I wanted to discuss some of these songs, because I think the Puhdys often convey a constructive, progressive to moderately Socialist message in ways that seem more effective than the idea of state-sponsored rock music would immediately suggest.

Most of these can be found in one form or another on youtube, and I encourage you to check them out.  (Make sure to search for the German names)

Important song topics

     Bullying- on their 1980 album, Heiß wie Schnee (hot like snow) there’s a song called Weit, so Weit (far, so far) from the perspective of a member of a clique who drove a young man to suicide because he “wasn’t loud like us”- this could be interpreted in a lot of ways: on its face it’s a haunting lyric, but it could easily be interpreted (or simply appropriated) to confront homophobic bullying.  It’s worth remembering that Gayness was totally legal in the DDR, though I’m not sure that was the intended reference of the song.  It sure works well.

     Single mothers- Also from the Heiß wie Schnee album, there’s a song “Melanie” about a young woman fleeing an abusive father, seeking comfort anywhere she can find it, and ending up pregnant and alone.  It’s full of all kinds of problematic assumptions about women needing to be mothers to be fulfilled, but it’s significant, and kind of beautiful, that this acoustic anthem was glorifying single mothers at a time when they were being excoriated in the US.

    Gender conformity- from their 1981 album Schattenreiter (shadow rider) there’s a fantastic song called Männlichkeit-masculinity.  This is a pretty basic discussion of pressures on men, but it is early- 1981, to be calling out our society on assuming a man has to be pugnacious, unflinching, emotionless, and “never break the rough shell”.  This is a really commendable degree of sociological awareness, and a fantastic rock song.

     John Lennon- months after Lennon’s assassination, they released a song called “Hey, John”, openly confessing how inspired they were by his work, what solace they drew from his songs “Imagine” and “Give Peace a Chance”.  There is a really sweet line which translates to “although your voice which always sought the truth has been extinguished, your songs will never be silent”.  They spliced in a bit of “Imagine” itself at the end over a refrain of “your songs still live”.  Two ways to interpret this- both of them good.  One- we Leftists know how to honor our own, and two- Lennon’s work was respected enough that a government which ordinarily restricted access to western work allowed a high profile tribute to him.  Either way, it’s a seriously cool event and a very sweet song.

     US imperialism- on the 1984 album "Das Buch" „The Book“ there’s a lovely song called der Angstverkäufer „Fear Salesman“.  This could be interpreted many ways (at least by my imperfect translation), but the core plot of the song is that a businessman “with the American flag on his hat” comes to a utopia to convince the residents they should be afraid, offers insurance policies against disaster, and eventually leaves the smoldering ruin of the town because there is still much for him to do.  I’m not sure if it’s mocking the increased use of American military power as “insurance” or not.  Genossin Sophie says that usury by American insurance companies in the Third World was a recurring theme in Communist messaging, so it could just be that.  Either way it seems to be an effective anti-capitalist message and a fun song.

     State repression – earlier in their career- which is significant because they weren’t as established then- they put out a song called „Ikarus“ with the aforementioned awesome bass track.  Its lyrics are a creative repurposing of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, to reflect well on Icarus as a standin for those who attempted to flee the border.  Lines like “He achieved nothing and was broken, but he was the first.  Many followed him, therefore his death is a victory” and the chorus “Soar, Icarus!  Fly us outta here!” make it pretty clear.  So, to recap, we have an awesome band, who seem to be pretty Socialist in their later work, releasing a rock song plainly critical of the government’s emigration restriction, and completely getting away with it.  They performed a similar feat in 1979, when, asked for a suitable single release for the country’s 30^th anniversary celebration, they responded with “Doch die Gitter Schweigend”, later exported in English as “Prison Walls are Silent”.  Title pretty much tells you what you need to know.

     Napoleon- on their 1979 album “10 Crazy Years”, there’s a song, with interludes in the style of 19^th century chamber music, about Napoleon invading Saxony, killing the local nobility, and violating Saxon girls.  On its face, this seems to be a simple “Napoleon was a prick” song, but the conduct described does bear a certain resemblance to that of the Red Army on its liberation of Germany.  I think we can all agree that while the Soviet Union deserves most of the credit for resisting and eventually saving the world from the Nazis, their military’s conduct in freed territories, particularly towards women, was often reprehensible, and if this song is reflecting that, then it’s yet another example of the Puhdys getting a significant critique of the Soviet bloc subsidized by their government. 

     Abuse- Schattenreiter “Shadow Rider”, the title track of their 1981 album really reminds me of the Furies of the Oresteia.  In it, Maschine and Quaster are mocking an abusive father who has finally begun to feel guilt, who has beaten his children, lied to his family, and done nothing to correct the injustices he sees in the world.  Noteworthy for how explicit it is, and just another example of the enormous range of topics the Puhdys covered in their songs, especially in the 1980s.

     Solidarity and shared communities- Karriere “Career”, Schöpfung “Creation”- these are excellent examples of underlying Socialist messages, despite the band’s obvious frustration with the more repressive elements of the DDR.  Karriere calls out the failure of a man who ignores his comrades in favor of sucking up to superiors, doing things only with concern for money and advancement, “climbing over bodies” for his career, knowing no friendship or camaraderie.  This strikes me as an excellent cautionary tale designed to reinforce the need for a collectivist ethic, and I like it very much.  Schöpfung is just a great, hard rocking Commie environmental anthem, calling for sharing the earth, and looking to the future instead of short term profit as individuals won’t live out a century, let alone forever, and the earth doesn’t belong to anyone alone.  It also builds a hopeful narrative of progress, at least towards the beginning (I think- remember I’m not fluent)

     Frei wie die Geier- this is the most worthy of mention.  In 1997, the Puhdys released this as the title track of a new album.  It means “As Free as the Vultures”, and blatantly denounces a (newly westernized) society that abandons the hungry, blindly follows religious orders to hate any difference, and applauds wars of conquest and slaughter.  Quaster sings that we’ve gone back into an ice age, and are circling the Dead Sea.  It’s hard to call our society out in stronger terms, and this is a fine Socialist critique of our (western capitalist) cultural norms in general, and of the annexation of East Germany in particular- VEB systems were privatized, women’s reproductive and employment rights stripped away overnight, unemployment became a part of the economy, and cities like Rostock that strongly supported Communism were deliberately penalized by the Western government.  Germany seems to have a pretty strong welfare state, but it makes sure to discourage EU applicants from doing the same, and they didn’t even have a minimum wage until this year!  With these and other problems in mind, listening to the music of the Communist past is a fun way for me to gauge and ponder what has been gained and what has been lost by the annexation of the DDR, and which of its achievements should be remembered.

Solidarität, Genossinnen und Genossen

Genossin Elise

Edit- Just decided to double check the lyrics to "Schöpfung"- it's "if man doesn't break the wonder apart", not "for man doesn't live more than a century"