Cabaret

Sex and Prostitution
Many factors attributed to Berlin's unique status as the sex Mecca of Europe during the Weimar
period. Germany's recent defeat in World War I did its part, encouraging general disillusionment
and leaving behind thousands of war widows in Berlin's populace of 4 million with no means of
realistically supporting themselves other than by prostitution. Gone were the Kaiser and the old
morality, and in their place was a new liberal republic. And then there was the general economic
collapse and inflation. In October 1923, German currency traded at the astronomical rate of 4.2
billion marks to the U.S. dollar. Ben Gordon, Cabaret historian, points out that "the most exquisite
blow job" to be had in Berlin never cost an American tourist more than 30 cents. Berlin even had
its own urban myth to explain the city's frenzied, oversexed atmosphere. They ascribed it to the
Berliner Luft, the "amphetamine-like air" of the city that made their hearts beat wildly at night and
reinvigorated them at dawn.
A snapshot of Berlin between the
world wars includes nudist magazines
devoted entirely to children; glittering
cabaret shows parading acres of
sweaty, perfumed female flesh; and
an endless supply of cafes, bars and
private clubs catering to gay men,
transvestites, lesbians and
sadomasochists.
Inflation is so rampant that the local
paper currency is good only for toilet
paper. Cocaine, morphine and
opium are peddled on every street
corner. And more than 120,000
desperate women and girls of every
age and stripe sell their bodies for a
pittance, including mother-daughter
prostitution teams and brazen
streetwalkers well into the third
trimester of pregnancy.
Such was the glory that was Weimar
Berlin, a burg American writer Ben
Hecht called the "prime breeding
ground of evil.
Tauentzielgirl team in
Weimar, Berlin 1920s
Cartoon depicting the model
of “assertive female”
“...Fears about the loss of a stable sexual and moral order played a key role in Weimar
democracy’s fall. The decriminalization of prostitution in 1927 entailed vital gains in prostitutes’
rights and marked a radical break with their precarious legal status under the old system of
police-controlled prostitution. Despite certain limitations,the 1927 reforms represented a major
political victory for liberal feminists, socialists, and sexual reformers. This explains why
prostitution became such a central target of right-wing (and ultimately Nazi) attacks...”
-Weimar's Crisis Through the Lens of Gender: The Case of Prostitution. Julie Roos, Fritz Stern
Dissertation Prize Presentation, Princeton University, November 15, 2002).
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