My Wonderful West Berlin

The current image of Berlin is based on the vibrant and subversive subcultures of the city, which originally emerged within the gray walls surrounding West Berlin. The queer scene played an important role in the creation of that subculture, with its sexual diversity and its wild and unrestricted party culture. Many of the actors on the scene, such as the Gay Museum, the Teddy Prize, the AIDS relief organizations and the queer magazine Siegessäule originated before 1989. However, homosexuals in West Berlin suffered greatly under a provision incongruous in German law: the infamous 'Paragraph 175', which dismissed all homosexual activity as a crime until its reform in 1969. Raids and arrests in bars were common...