Amandus Balitzki (1890 - ?) postal clerk

Balitzki was born in the then German city of Stettin, the illegitimate, later legitimate, child of a railway man and a nurse. Although raised as a girl, Balitzki had no interest in dolls or cooking, and when playing family with other girls was usually given the role of ‘father’. Comments by others re a lack of femininity were defiantly taken as a complement. At the age of 17 Balitzki was supposed to learn bookkeeping, but not liking arithmetic, gave up this occupation after half a year, then learnt floristry at the age of 19, in the belief that there was more ‘manly work’ to be done. 

With the outbreak of war in August 1914, Balitzki obtained a Transvestitenschein and was able to work as a postal clerk. From 1917 Balitzki was a patient of Magnus Hirschfeld, who presented Balitzki in his Sexualpathologie, 1918 as an example of a ‘hermaphroditic preliminary stage’ and showed the patient in a series of specially produced photographs. 

In October 1919 the Berlin Chief of Police permitted a change of first name from Amanda to Amandus, and the birth certificate was amended accordingly. This was based on an expert opinion by Hirschfeld and Arthur Kronfeld, psychiatrist and co-founder of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, that although born female, the ambiguity of the adult's sexual characteristics now justified assigning him to the male sex. 

However Balitzki’s mother, not only a nurse, but a midwife whose profession required the sexing of babies, did not agree. She applied for a further medical examination of her ‘daughter’ in February 1921. Amandus was then examined by the district physician Dr Schreber, who alleged fraudulent intentions, as ‘the applicant was undoubtedly of the female sex and she had led the doctors to a false opinion by providing incorrect information’. The following April, Balitzki’s authorization to use the name ‘Amendus’ was withdrawn, and his Transvestitenshein was revoked. 

Walther Niemann, a lawyer with close ties to the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (WhK), had campaigned for name changes for several trans persons. In November 1921 he applied again for Balitzki to be allowed to be Amandus: “correction of the birth certificate [...] to the effect that a child was not born of the female sex, but of the male sex”. Niemann enclosed with his application a copy of the cited decree of the Minister of Justice on the change of first name as well as a new expert opinion by Hirschfeld who attested - without mentioning Schreber's expert opinion - that Balitzki had ‘a certain discrepancy in the physical and mental sexual characteristics’, whereby Amandus ‘was to be attributed to the male sex for predominant reasons’. It was therefore ‘medically justified and better suited to the facts to correct his sex designation in the civil register to that of the male sex’. Niemann also referred to an analogous case, namely Berthold Buttgereit, in which ‘the correction order had been issued in the same situation’. 

Niemann followed this up in January 1922 enclosing a ‘certificate of recognition’ dated 1 December 1921, in which Amandus Balitzki declared that he was ‘the father of the illegitimate child born to the seamstress Erna Blumenthal on 24 May 1921’. As such Balitzki was obliged by law to provide the child with the support ‘corresponding to the mother's position in life’. However this was too much, and the authorities did not buy it. The manoeuvre was too transparent. Balitzki was threatened with being charged with Falschbeurkundung, (false certification). In May the Ministry of Justice stated that there was no reason to grant the ‘authorisation to use the first name Amandus’ and that the ‘applicant’ should continue to use the female first name. However the letter was returned with the note ‘moved on 29 April 1922 [...] unknown’. Amandus was not accepting the result.

• Magnus Hirschfeld. „Hermaphroditismus“. Sexualpathologie Volume 2: Sexuelle Zwischenstufen, A Marcus & E Webers Verlag, 1918: 21-3.
• Magnus Hirschfeld. Geschlechtskunde, Volume 4, Bilderteil. Julius Puttman, 1930: 471.
• Rainer Herrn. Der Liebe und dem Leid: Das Institut fur Sexualwissenschaft 1919-1933. Suhrkamp Verlag, 2022.

-------------- 

There seems to be no record of what happened to Amandus after1922. There is a short mention in Hirschfeld’s Geschlechtskunde, but no futher details. Herrn found the applications and replies in the official records, but again nothing after 1922. Did Amandus leave Berlin? Did he survive the Third Reich? Did he and Frau Blumenthal raise the child together?

Transvestitenschein, the German license to cross-dress - Part I Weimar Republic

Part I:  Weimar Republic

Part II: Third Reich

The legal position:   § 175 of the Prussian legal code, which criminalised male (but not female) homosexuality, had been extended to the whole of Germany following unification in 1870.   Cross-dressing (Geschlechtsverkleidung) was not as such illegal, but persons doing so could, at the whim of the arresting officer, be charged with public mischief under § 183 of the German legal code (which could mean six weeks’ imprisonment or a fine of 150 marks).    As such the legal situation was not dissimilar to that in England, where the fact that transvesting was not a crime had been definitely established by the 1871 trial of Stella and Fanny.  They had been charged with an 'unnatural offence' (that is sodomy) but this was not proved. Other than this, the prosecution was stuck for a crime. Dressing as a woman was not in itself a crime.  However arrests of transvesting persons for ‘public mischief’ continued for another century.

Both countries differed from France where The Penal Code of 10 June 1853, Article 471 §15 criminalised transvesting in public spaces and balls.

The idea of a licence to cross-dress is French. It was initiated by the Paris Préfecture de Police 7 November 1800 (well before the law of 1853), and continued through into the 20th century.

There is at least one recorded incident - in Austria - of a police permit to wear male clothes that predates the 20th century: that of the Viennese folk singer, Pepi Schmeer.

In Schliersee, district office of Miesbach, Upper Bavaria, a ‘lady’ named “Rosina Danner” had gone dressed as a man without any permission for 30 years before dying in 1908.

There is no proper account in Magnus Hirschfeld’s two major books on Transvestism, Die Transvestiten, 1910 and Sexualpathologie, volume II, 1919, of his negotiation with the Berlin Polizeiprasidium for the first Transvestitenshein in 1909. It is surely likely though that Hirschfeld, through his contacts with French doctors, and the Berlin Polizeiprasidium, though their contacts with the Paris Préfecture de Police, were aware of the French practice.

Anyway the French licence was called Permission de Travestissement. The German Transvestitenschein is a close translation of Permission de Travestissement - although the German refers to ‘transvestites’ rather than ‘transvestism’. The usage of Transvestitenschein is Hirschfeld’s first use of any Transvest* word, and the most likely assumption is that he took his usage of transvest* words from the French usage.

In 1909 Karl Kohnheim (born 1885), a trans man encountering repeated difficulties in having a female name on his papers, had a run-in with the Berlin police and the referral physician contacted Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld and psychoanalyst Karl Abraham (1877-1925) wrote an evaluation using the pseudonym ‘Katharina T’ and referring to him as 'Fräulein'. Working with a lawyer, they obtained first interim oral permission, then also written permission by the police chief Ernst von Stubenrauch. This was the first German Transvestitenschein, a legal acknowledgement of cross-dressing. The request to change his first name was not granted.

1910 Magnus Hirschfeld published Die Transvestiten: eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb mit umfangreichem casuistischem und historischem Material. In this new book, Hirschfeld never uses the word ‘Transvestitismus’. He uses ‘Transvestiten’ only a few times. He mainly uses the established German words for cross-dressing: ‘Verkleidung’, sometimes ‘Geschlechtsverkleidung’. Transvestitenscheins as such are not discussed, although there is an account of Karl Kohnheim/Katharina T.

Josefine Meißauer, who was then 48 and had read Die Transvestiten, contacted Hirschfeld in early September 1911. The Berlin lawyer, Fritz Selten, took the case and submitted the application with a recommendation written by Hirschfeld and Iwan Bloch to the Prussian Police Präsidium, which on 27 September 1911, on the basis of this expert opinion, "granted permission to wear women's clothes”. The same written legitimation was also issued by the Munich police chief. Josefine Meißauer was the first trans woman in Germany to get a Transvestitenschein.

A letter from the Berlin police in 1911 read:

“According to the law and jurisprudence, the wearing of men's clothes by a woman is only punishable if public order is disturbed, for example, by causing a public spectacle, or in a similar way. If you wear men's clothing, you must ensure above all that the wearing of such clothing does not lead to any discord and that public order is not disturbed in any way. Only if unfavourable facts were to become known in the latter respect would you have to be prohibited from wearing men's clothing.”

This was published in the Berliner Tageblatt.

Another letter in 1912 read:

“I inform you that you are not prohibited from wearing female clothing per se. However, you will be liable to prosecution as soon as you cause a disturbance by your behaviour in women's clothing.”

(The documents issued thereafter by the police contained the personal data and the portrait photo - in the target-sex habit - of the person concerned and, stamped by the police headquarters, became a kind of identity card. This did not actually constitute permission to wear clothes of the opposite sex, as was often misunderstood (even by Magnus Hirschfeld), but it did identify the person as a diagnosed transvestite - and thus as a sex-driven repeat offender, and so an arrest could be dispensed with. For the persons concerned, this practice may have been a relief. But it also meant a multiple relationship of dependency: on the one hand on the examining doctor, who had to be paid a fee for the diagnosis, on the other hand on the police headquarters, which issued the certificate, and finally on the goodwill of the police and judicial officers, who could forego an arrest or even a charge if the certificate was presented. In this way, the authorities controlled abrogations of the public dress code.)

1912 Berthold Buttgereit (1891 - 1981) obtained a Transvestitenschein from the Berlin police, with an expert opinion from Hirschfeld and the neurologist Ernst Burchard .

Gerda von Zobeltitz acquired a Transvestitenschein in nearby Potsdam, and when called for military recruitment in 1913, she appeared as Gerda, and was deemed ineligible.

Louis Sch. successfully applied for a Transvestitenschein supported by Hirschfeld and Ernst Burchard, was allowed to change his first name to Louis, and as a man married his girlfriend.

Emilie Kellner, a retired police officer, gained a Transvestitenschein with the aid of Hirschfeld and Ernst Burchard, but was refused a name change to Emilie.

1914 Trans man “Elsa B”, who was taken to be a man in women’s clothes, was suspected of being a Serbian spy and severely beaten on the street. That was the first time that he begged the police for a Transvestitenschein so that he could legally wear male clothing. He was held for six days, at first examined by a police surgeon, and then by a psychiatrist. But he was not given a Transvestitenschein.

1915 Gerda von Zobeltitz lost her Transvestitenschein after a grand uncle's denunciatory intervention.

1915 Ernst, raised as female, registered with the military authority several times with an urgent request to be taken on as a soldier. The garrison doctor raised concerns as to whether there might be an erroneous gender determination . He was therefore referred to an expert, who found that male sex characteristics predominated. Ernst applied to the Potsdam government for a name change and a Transvestitenschein.

1917 Emilie Kellner had moved to Charlottenburg but descended to impoverishment because of the male name on his papers. The case was referred to the Ministry of the Interior, and was supported by the mayor of Charlottenburg. An expert opinion from the Royal Medical College disagreed with the Hirschfeld-Burchard report, and her application was denied.

1918 Berthold Buttgereit moved to Cologne and obtained a Transvestitenschein from the police there.

1919 Foundation of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft

Alex Starke moved to Berlin, where he worked as a dentist and, with expert evidence from Magnus Hirschfeld, he applied for a Transvestitenschein In September.

3 November 1919: a new regulation for the change of the family name within the jurisdiction of the district courts.

1920 The first official authorisation to wear women's clothes issued in Switzerland.

21 April: a decree of the Prussian Minister of Justice whereby the district courts were authorised to change the first name also. Walther Niemann, a lawyer with close ties to the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (WhK), campaigned for name changes for trans persons. The local court declared itself not competent despite this instruction. Niemann consulted the Ministry of Justice and found out that it wanted to decide about transvestites on a case-by-case basis. Initially, trans persons were only authorised to bear a first name that was not gender-specific, such as Alex, Toni or Gerd, and only later was this regulation extended to clearly female or male names.

September. Alex Starke successfully petitioned a local court in downtown Berlin to change his legal name to Alex, and in November the civil register in Erfurt was accordingly changed.

1921 Trans man “Elsa B” came to Emil Gutheil at the University of Vienna for therapy so that he could obtain a Transvestitenschein. B did attend 33 sessions with Gutheil, during which the psychoanalyst continued to refer to him as ‘she’ and as a ‘woman’.

1922 The Berlin Criminal Police published a statement in which they forbade arrest solely on the basis of wearing gender-atypical clothing, stating:

“Apart from male prostitution, transvestism in general has no criminal significance. The widespread public opinion that the disguised individuals are generally criminals in disguise (pickpockets, spies, pimps, etc.) is obsolete. With regard to the male transvestites, recent experience shows that even the view, formerly taken-for-granted, that men in women’s clothing are all homosexuals is no longer tenable. . . . On the basis of this insight emerges a duty of gentle treatment [schonenden Behandlung] of transvestites, as long as they are not engaged in male prostitution."

By 1924 the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft fee for arranging a Transvestitenschein was 150 Reichmarks.

1927 Toni F. (not the same person as Toni Ebel) attempted to change her birth certificate from male to female. Toni's application was denied on the grounds she was biologically male although she wore female clothing, looked completely female and thought of herself as female.

In the summer of 1927 several Viennese women applied to the police and the magistrate in Vienna to be allowed to wear men's clothes permanently, but this was rejected on the grounds that what was not forbidden could not be approved. The Berlin queer publication Die Freundin in September ran the headline: "Viennese women are allowed to wear men's clothes!"

1928 Olga Ebel died. Ebel became Toni again, Charlotte Charlaque introduced Toni to Magnus Hirschfeld. She obtained a Transvestitenschein.

1928 Gert Katter (1910-1995) had decided that he wanted to live as a man, and obtained a Transvestitenschein.

1929 Toni Simon, dressed female, appeared in court in Essen charged with gross mischief for appearing in public in female clothing. While the judge did fine her 100 marks, he otherwise dismissed the case saying that if the police issued Transvestitenscheins then the court should follow suit.

1930 Toni Ebel had her application to change her first name granted.

1931 A Swiss person having requested and received castration, then threatened suicide if not allowed a name change to Martha. This was approved by the government council of the canton in October.

Karl Giese (1898 - 1938) Hirschfeld's archivist, facilitator

Karl Giese was raised by a working-class family in Berlin, in the Wedding district, close to where the Leopoldplatz U-Bahn station was opened in 1923. He was a student when in 1918 he attended a lecture by Magnus Hirschfeld and recognised his own homosexuality. He was active in theatre and performed with the Theater der Eigenen, which led to a part in the pioneering pro-gay film Anders als die Andern, where he met Hirschfeld again. Hirschfeld opened the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft that year, and employed Giese at first as a secretary and general assistant. Later he was put in charge of the collections, the archives and the library. At some point they became a couple. Charlotte Wolfe, Hirschfeld's biographer, comments of Hirschfeld: 

“The fact that he himself broke the barrier of secrecy through the openness of his love for his secretary, Karl Giese. was as much a turning point in his life as the realization of his dream — the creation of the Institute for Sexual Science. The one might not have succeeded so well without the other. (p185)”

Giese took initiatives in decorating, enjoyed needlework and managed Hirschfeld’s wardrobe. He occasionally did drag for a social. He conducted tours of the Institut and gave lectures. Wolfe comments re Giese: 

“Giese was no academic, but he had native wit and considerable intelligence. He had been a brilliant autodidact. He was also an articulate speaker, and Hirschfeld entrusted him with lecturing to the general public on questions of sexual conflict and homosexuality. He fulfilled his many tasks with enthusiasm, and at the same time cared for Hirschfeld's well-being like a mother. (p185)”

Giese lecturing

Giese wrote reviews of gay novels and studied the Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen. In September 1929 he accompanied Hirschfeld and his translator Charlotte Charlaque to the Third International Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform (WLSR) in London.

In November 1929 the English writer Christopher Isherwood became a paying guest in the Institut. He and Karl flirted with each other. Isherwood commented: 

“As the short winter afternoon began to darken, they would visit Karl Giese for coffee and gossip. The atmosphere of Karl’s sitting room had none of the Institute’s noble seriousness; it was a cozy little nest, lined with photographs and souvenirs. In repose, Karl’s long handsome face was melancholy. But soon he would be giggling and rolling his eyes. Touching the back of his head with his fingertips, as if patting bobbed curls, he would strike an It-Girl pose. This dedicated, earnest, intelligent campaigner for sexual freedom had an extraordinary innocence at such moments. Christopher saw in him the sturdy peasant youth with a girl’s heart who, long ago, had fallen in love with Hirschfeld, his father image Karl still referred to Hirschfeld as ‘Papa’.”

Karl & Magnus

By 1930 Giese had become involved in marriage counselling for trans persons, and wrote a paper on the topic for Die Aufklärung, in which he discouraged marriages especially for ‘homosexual transvestites’.

When Magnus Hirschfeld left on his world tour in December1930, he appointed Giese as his trustee and advocate. In March 1932 Hirschfeld arrived in Athens from Beirut on his way back. He was there met by Giese who warned him that he would not be safe if he returned to Berlin. And he met Hirschfeld’s new lover Tao Li, whom he got on with. After a brief time together, Giese returned to Berlin to run the Institut, and the other two went to Zurich. In September he and Hirschfeld went to the Fifth and last Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform (WLSR) in Brno co-organised by Dr Josef Weisskopf (1904-1977).

Giese was a witness of the Nazi looting of the Institut, 6 May 1933, and left for Switzerland the next day, where he met with Hirschfeld and Tao Li in the resort town of Ascona. They lived for a few month as a ménage à trois. In August Giese was sent to Brno to discuss the possibility of a new Institut there with Josef Weisskopf. However the answer was negative. Giese was able to work with the Brno lawyer Karl Fein (1894-1942) to buy back part of the archives etc from the Institut that had not been burned in the public bonfire 10 May 1933. Giese arranged that the materials - about 2500 kg - were transported to Paris, where they were stored in a warehouse but later lost. By then Hirschfeld and Tao Li were in Paris, and Giese joined them. However in spring 1934 Giese was arrested for the wrong kind of sex in a public bathhouse, and sentenced to three months. As a result his residence permit was not renewed and he was forced to leave France at the end of October, He went to Vienna and for a while was a student (Norman Haire and Hirschfeld were paying his fees). When Hirschfeld died 14 May 1935 in Nice, Giese illegally re-entered France and gave a speech at the funeral. 

In June 1936 he returned to Brno, initially - for a few months - living with Karl Fein, but then found his own flat. While his inheritance from Hirschfeld contained conditions about restoring the Archives, he was able to live comfortably without finding a job. He was in touch with Charlotte Charlaque and Toni Ebel when they were in Brno. He was reading English-language literature, and attending the theatre. He may have been taking English lessons from Charlotte. However he was depressed and after the Nazi annexation of Austria he took his own life on 16 March 1938, at the age of 39. 

All that he had was inherited by Karl Fein, who was arrested by the Gestapo in August 1942 and died in the Terezin concentration camp February 1943.

• Richard Oswald (dir). Anders als die Andern.Scr: Magnus Hirschfeld & Richard Oswald, with Conrad Veidt, Karl Giese and Magnus Hirschfeld. Germany 50 mins 1919.
• Karl Giese “Transvestitismus und Eheberatung". Die Aufklärung,2,3, 1930: 66-8.
• Christopher Isherwood. Christopher and His Kind, 1929 - 1939. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976: 21-2, 32, 40, 55, 98, 133-4, 140.
• Charlotte Wolff. Magnus Hirschfeld: A Portrait of a Pioneer in Sexology. Quartet Books, 1986: 176, 185-7, 255, 366, 369, 373-4, 376-7, 280-1, 392-7, 400-1, 406-410, 417, 422, 427-8,
• Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller. Mann für Mann : biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte von Freundesliebe und mannmännlicher Sexualität im deutschen Sprachraum. Hamburg: MännerschwarmSkript, 1998: under “Giese, Karl”.
• Norman Page. Auden and Isherwood: The Berlin Years.St Martin's Press. 1998: 43, 108, 111-2,
• Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts: Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft.Psychosozial—Verlag, 2005: 115, 120, 123-6.
• Ralf Dose.Magnus Hirschfeld: Deutscher, Jude, Weltbürger. Teetz: Hentrich & Hentrich, 2005. English translation by Edward H. Willis. Magnus Hirschfeld: The Origins of the Gay Liberation Movement. Monthly Review Press, 2014: 28, 58, 65-7, 79-80.
• Mancini, Elena. Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom: A History of the First International Sexual Freedom Movement. Springer, 2010: 70, 121, 133, 140.
• Diana Wyndham. Norman Haire and the Study of Sex. Sydney University Press, 2012: 266–268, 405.
• Gregory Woods. Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World. Yale University Press, 2016: 145-6.
• Heike Bauer. The Hirschfeld Archives: Violence, Death, and Modern Queer Culture. Temple University Press, 2017: 81, 83, 91, 103–104, 118, 123–124
• Raimund Wolfert. Charlotte Charlaque: Transfrau, Laienschauspielerin, „Königin der Brooklyn Heights Promenade“.Hentrich & Hentrich, 2021: 35-6, 78-80.
• Raimund Wolfert & Hans Soetaert. “Karl Giese”. Stolpersteine in Berlin. Online

IMDB      EN.Wikipedia       Queer Places

Christopher Isherwood, the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft and trans women.

Christopher Isherwood, the English author of  Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939), lived in the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft November 1929 - October 1930.

The  Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was located at In den Zelten 9a and 10, then on the edge of the Tiergarten park, and only a short distance from the Reichstag.   'In den Zelten' means 'in the tents' and refers to 18th century restrictions on vendors who were permitted in tents but not permanent buildings.  By the early 20th century the street was built up, was fashionable, and artists, writers and musicians lived nearby.   The street was badly damaged in WWII and was eliminated in the 1950s when the Tiergarten was expanded.

A somewhat inaccurate plaque at Nollendorfstraße 17

Isherwood then lived at Nollendorfstraße 17, December 1930 - January 1933, on the opposite side of the street, only a few houses away from 24 where Toni Ebel and Charlotte Charlaque resided.  

There is no record that Isherwood ever met either Charlotte or Toni in the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft nor on Nollendorfstraße.

Nollendorfstraße was just round the corner from Nollendorfplatz, a major intersection with a U-Bahn station. 

East from Nollendorfplatz runs Bülowstraße.   The Café Dorian Gray, a queer club was at Bülowstraße 57.  Lotte Hahm's Violetta club was at  Bülowstraße 37.

One street north of Nollendorfstraße was Motzstraße 15, where the Eldorado, Berlin's best-known trans nightclub had opened early in 1928.

Jean Ross (1911-1973) a lifelong feminist, Communist, war correspondent for both the right wing Daily Express and for the Comintern, actress, film critic, anti-fascist, film writer and more, lived on Bülowstraße, but at other times at Nollendorfstraße 17.  Isherwood knew her and based his fictional character Sally Bowles on her.   However she objected to being represented by an apolitical, non-feminist 'vulgar vamp', especially as portrayed by Liza Minnelli in the 1972 film of Cabaret.

Nollendorfstraße 17 today.  Nr 24 did not survive the bombing in WWII

It was a  3 km or 40 minute walk from the  Institut für Sexualwissenschaft to Nollendorfstraße.

In Isherwood's Christopher and his Kind, 1976, Isherwood writes:

"Dr. Hirschfeld seldom ate with them. He was represented by Karl Giese, his secretary and long-time lover. Also present were the doctors of the staff and the patients or guests, whichever you chose to call them, hiding their individual problems behind silence or polite table chatter, according to their temperaments. I remember the shock with which Christopher first realized that one of the apparently female guests was a man. He had pictured transvestites as loud, screaming, willfully unnatural creatures. This one seemed as quietly natural as an animal and his disguise was accepted by everyone else as a matter of course. Christopher had been telling himself that he had rejected respectability and that he now regarded it with amused contempt. But the Hirschfeld kind of respectability disturbed his latent puritanism. During those early days, he found lunch at the Institute a bit uncanny." (p15).

"Then, one afternoon, André Gide paid them a visit. He was taken on a tour of the premises personally conducted by Hirschfeld. Live exhibits were introduced, with such comments as: “Intergrade. Third Division.” One of these was a young man who opened his shirt with a modest smile to display two perfectly formed female breasts. Gide looked on, making a minimum of polite comment, judiciously fingering his chin." (p17)

 "During the Christmas season, a great costume ball was held in one of the dance halls of In den Zelten: a ball for men. Many of them wore female clothes. There was a famous character who had inherited a whole wardrobe of beautiful family ball gowns, seventy or eighty years old. These he was wearing out at the rate of one a year.  At each ball, he encouraged his friends to rip his gown off his body in handfuls until he had nothing but a few rags to return home in." (p33)

That is it.  The only mentions of trans persons in Isherwood's Christopher and his kind.

There is an interesting little snippet in Churton's The Beast in Berlin, p315:

"By way of contrast, [Aleister] Crowley had tea with "Christopher" (Isherwood) on 5 February (the diary's use of Christian name alone suggests Crowley must have liked him) in the company of Fanny, whose real name we discover, was Peter." 

Actually Fanny, a young trans woman. was one of Crowley's several lovers. 

Trans persons are also mainly not mentioned in Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin. Except as Norman Page discusses re the ending of the latter:

"The concluding section of Goodbye to Berlin offers not sequential narrative but a series of vignettes drawn from Isherwood's last winter in Berlin, and here he comes closer than ever before - though still not very close - to candour concerning his own sexuality and lifestyle. With a friend he goes on a tour of what are noncommittally referred to as `the dives' but which are plainly gay, lesbian and transvestite bars: 

It was to be in the nature of a farewell visit, for the Police have begun to take a great interest in these places. They are frequently raided, and the names of their clients are written down. There is even talk of a general Berlin clean-up. 

There is an unusually vivid snapshot of the grotesque glitz of  contemporary Berlin nightlife (`a young man in a spangled crinoline and jewelled breast-caps' painfully does the splits), its outrageousness magnified through the eyes of an American tourist: 

`Say,' he asked Fritz, `what's on here?' 

`Men dressed as women,' Fritz grinned. 

The little American simply couldn't believe it. `Men dressed as women? As women hey? Do you mean they're queer?' 

`Eventually we're all queer,' drawled Fritz solemnly . . . . 

`You queer, too, hey?' demanded the little American, turning suddenly on me. 

`Yes,' I said, `very queer indeed.'

                                                                                        (Page p203, Isherwood p 190)

 

 There were many interesting life stories going on around Isherwood, but he either was not aware, or chose not to retell them.

• Christopher Isherwood.  Goodbye to Berlin.  Penguin Books, 1945.
• Christopher Isherwood.  Christopher and His Kind, 1929 - 1939. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976. 
• Norman Page.  Auden and Isherwood: The Berlin Years.  St martin's Press. 1998.
• Tobias Churton.  Aleister Crowley The Beast in Berlin: Art, Sex, and Magick in the Weimar Republic. Inner Traditions, 2014

Toni Ebel (1881 – 1961) artist.

++Original January 2015; revised February 2022, to incorporate information about Charlotte Charlaque, and August 2022 to incorporate more information from Wolfert's book.

Hugo Otto Arno Ebel was raised in Berlin, the eldest of eleven children, of a merchant and his wife.  The child was noticed for being 'girlish' and for liking domestic work.  After secondary school, Arno completed apprenticeships first as a merchant and then as a decorator, but lacked aptitude in both cases.  At age 19 Ebel bought a wig and some female clothes.  However the parents discovered them, and they ended up in the fire.

A year or so later Ebel had an affair with a man.  This was taken to be homosexuality, and consequent arguments with father and brothers led to Ebel leaving home.  After some travel in Germany, Austria and Italy, Ebel worked, as a woman, in a women's dress shop while studying painting in Munich. She then travelled abroad with an older man, an American by birth, who kept her for a few years. Afterwards Ebel travelled alone through Italy, Spain, France and North Africa, but returned to Germany around 1908, and had reverted to being male  It is said that, as 'Arno Ehe', Ebel joined the circle of noted artist Käthe Kollwitz, and produced paintings that were noted.

Arno met Olga Boralewski (1873-1928).  They married in 1911 and had a son – however Arno was not comfortable in this role and attempted suicide several times, and once was admitted to a mental asylum. He was able to cross-dress only in private. Arno Ebel was drafted into the Army in 1916,  and at the 2nd Battle of Champagne (25 September - 6 November 1915), was ambushed and finally suffered a severe nervous breakdown, and thereupon was assigned to a reserve hospital before being discharged with a 30 per cent pension. 

After the war Ebel was recognised as "severely disabled" and obtained a position as a draughtsman in a Berlin electricity firm.   Ebel became involved with the workers' movement, painted and made a living as a commercial artist.  In 1925 Ebel joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). However Olga Ebel became seriously ill and bedridden, and Toni was left to care for her.  At home, Toni put on women's clothes, cooked the food, looked after the wife, cleaned the flat and did the laundry.

Olga died in January 1928. Ebel, despite another nervous breakdown, became Toni again. Trans woman Charlotte Charlaque introduced Toni to Magnus Hirschfeld, and Toni was assessed by Felix Abraham who had replaced Arthur Kronfeld as the transvestism specialist at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft:

"The case of A. E., painter, born 10 November 1881 in Berlin. The patient was referred to me (at first he came in male clothes) because from his youth he has been inclined to wear female clothes; moreover, he felt completely female and consequently wanted to take a female name. The patient was 47 years old at the first consultation. He was outwardly very agitated, but this calmed down and almost disappeared when, at my request, he came to the next consultation in female clothing. He then confessed to me that he felt so uncomfortable in male clothing that the result was a physical and nervous agitation which gave way to absolute calm when he put on female clothing. His aversion to men's clothing is so great that he had only one suit, which, moreover, was in very poor condition." (1931, last page of Transvestitisme chapter)

Abraham wrote an expert opinion so that Toni was able to obtain a Transvestitenschein in spring 1928 so that she could be a woman in public.  Toni made a formal application for a legal name change - but it was not approved until 1929. The five surgeries by Drs Erwin Gohrbandt, Felix Abraham and Ludwig L. Lenz took only two years (compared to the seven years for Dörchen Richter) and were complete in 1931.  Felix Abraham wrote up an account of the operations on Dora and Toni for the Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik, where he referred to Toni as "Arno (Toni) E." .

From 1930-32 Toni lived in the basement and supplemented the domestic staff at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft as she was too poor to pay for treatment.  She was paid 24 Reichsmarks a month, plus room and board.

She did sell some paintings and donated others to the Institut.  Adelheid Schulz (1909-2008) then 19,  who had just become housekeeper at the Institute,  paid twelve Reichsmarks for a painting by Toni Ebel that reminded her of her mother - more than half her weekly wage. Hirschfeld and Ludwig Levy-Lenz also bought paintings from her. 

Surgeon Ludwig Levy-Lenz wrote of the trans maids at the Institut: 

"I will never forget the sight that met my eyes when I was once whisked away to the kitchen of the house after work: there the five 'girls' sat knitting and sewing peacefully next to each other and singing old folk songs together. Anyway, they were the best, most diligent and most conscientious household staff we have ever had. Never once did a stranger who visited us notice." 

The French doctor, Pierre Najac, who did an internship at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, wrote about Charlotte and Toni.   

Toni lived awhile at Wolliner Straße 47 in Berlin-Mitte. But because Charlotte Charlaque was called a Jew by the neighbours when she came to visit, Ebel moved in with her in Berlin-Schöneberg. The Swedish journalist Ragnar Ahlstedt visited them at their flat at Nollendorfstraße 24, and wrote about them in his Män som blivit kvinnor, 1933. They lived cheaply: Charlotte said that she was an actress and Toni was able to sell some paintings and drawings.  Ahlstedt incorrectly claimed that after the death of Lili Elbe "Frau Toni" and "Fräulein Lola" (Charlotte) were "the only operated transvestites in the whole of Europe" („die einzigen operierten Transvestiten in ganz Europa").

Toni and Charlotte had become lovers, although both spoke about men-friends when the topic came up.  In August 1932 Toni - using the pseudonym 'Wally E.' - was interviewed by a journalist L. Rhan for Das 12-Uhr-Blatt which was printed under the headline: "Conversation with a woman who was once a man".  There was also an anonymous article in  Die Geburtenregelung titled "Surgical transformation of men into women succeeded" ( "Operative Umwandlung von Männern in Frauen gelungen"), which discussed Dora, Toni and Charlotte.  

6 November 1932:  Federal election: the NSDAP (Nazi Party) won 196 seats out of 584 and became the largest party.

30 January 1933:  New Cabinet sworn in, with Adolf Hitler as Chancellor.  Hermann Goering ordered the closure of the queer bars.

In Lothar Golte's 1933 Austrian film, Mysterium des Geschlechts, advertised as a "foray through the night life of sexual abnormals" two medical students, one male, one female, learn about "most interesting questions of sexology" and fall in love in the process. This is intercut with documentary sequences which show sex reassignment surgery and transplants of animal testicles and explanations about abortion and contraception. Toni, Charlotte and Dora Richter can be seen in the sex-change scenes which are presumably film archives from Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.  The premiere was in Vienna 27 April 1933, but due to massive protests it was removed by police intervention after only a few days. In Germany, it was not even shown in public, as it was banned by the censors.

A couple of  trans women were associating with Charlotte and Toni at their flat: Fritz, the nephew of a German-American writer, and Felicitas, who as Felix had worked as a police officer.   In the March 1933 elections, following the Reischstag fire, Toni voted for the Communist Party (KPD), but the NSDAP (Nazi) got the most seats and that was the last multi-party election until 1945.  

10 May: The library and archives of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of the Opernplatz.  Between 12,000 to 20,000 books and journals, and an even larger number of images and sex objects, were destroyed.  This included paintings by Toni Ebel. 

Toni had converted to Charlotte's Jewish faith.   Toni was warned that they were under surveillance, and in 1934, with the help of the Berlin Jewish community, Toni and Charlotte fled to Czechoslovakia.  They settled in Karlsbad/Karlovy Vary where Toni painted pictures for spa guests and Charlotte gave English and French lessons. Toni still received her war pension from the Reichsversicherungsanstalt and life in Czechoslovakia was comparatively cheap, they were able to live in relative peace for a while.

Late Summer 1934 they moved to Prague where they made contact with the "Emigrants Committee" of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), but the city was swarming with German emigrants and they returned to Karlovy Vary.   In November 1936  they moved on to Brünn/Brno.  Toni was  using the professional name of Antonia Ebelová.    There, they were in contact with Karl Giese, Hirschfeld’s lover and archivist at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft,  who had fled to Brno after being expelled from France for the wrong kind of sexual activity.  He had been bequeathed considerable money from Hirschfeld's estate, but was depressed and after the Anschluss, the German occupation of Austria 16 March 1938, he took his own life. 

The Wehrmacht occupied Czechoslovakia and established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the spring of 1939.  Toni's German passport had expired and they were to report to the police every fortnight.  Their accommodation was searched and they were advised to leave.  However an employee of the German Consulate was taking English lessons from Charlotte, and he was able to arrange a new passport for Toni at the end of 1938.  It was initially valid for one year only, but was later extended until 1943.   Toni was designated therein as Protestant, which given the circumstances she let stand.  

In March 1939 they returned to Prague which they saw as more "Czech" and less "German" than Brno.  They found a flat at Velkoprevorské nämésti 7, and aided Jews with English and documents needed for emigration. 

Portrait by Josef Brück, 1952.

In March 1942 Charlotte was arrested by the Czechoslovak Aliens Police and jailed for being a Jew. Toni managed to persuade the Swiss consul that Charlotte was a US citizen.  Charlotte was interned and then deported to New York via Lisbon.  They continued to correspond, but apparently never met again.

Toni was summoned by the Gestapo several times in 1943-4, but was not arrested.  However after the war in Europe ended, VE Day, 7 May 1945, Toni like other Germans in Czechoslovakia had to leave the country, leaving her belongings behind. Toni was taken to the German border, walked from there to Cottbus and finally got permission to travel to Berlin on a coal train. On the way she had to beg. On 22 June 1945, she reached Berlin. By this time the Opfer des Faschismus (OdF - Victims of Fascism) was beginning to be organised, and Toni was one of the first victims to be recognised.    Later she was able to claim compensation from the German Democratic Republic. 

She rebuilt her life as an artist.  From around the mid-1950s, she lived in a studio flat on Strausberger Platz (Friedrichshain), and it was here that she also received a visit at least once from Adelheid Schulz, who had been housekeeper at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.

Portrait by Rudolph Kramer

Charlotte and Toni corresponded after 1945, but they never met again. 

She was recognized at the Akademie der Künste in East Berlin.  In articles about her in the East German press on the occasion of her birthdays or her exhibitions, she was often described as a spirited woman who was "mischievous" and "tomboyish" - and spoke in a deep voice. Her femininity was never questioned.

She died at age 80.

 

• Felix Abraham. "Genitalumwandlungen an zwei männlichen Transvestiten". Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft und Sexualpolitik, 18, 1931: 223-226. Translated as "Genital Reassignment on Two Male Transvestites". The International Journal of Transgenderism, 2,1, Jan-March 1998. Archive.
• Félix  Abraham, translated by Pierre Vachet. Les perversions sexuelles. Romainville (Seine): impr. Tessier, 1931: the last page of the Transvestitisme chapter. 
• Pierre Najac.  "L'Institute de la Science Sexuelle à Berlin" in Janine Merlet.  Venus et Mercure.  Editions de la Vie Modern, 1931: 165-192. 
• L. Rhan.  "Gesprach mit riner Frau, die einmal ein Mann war". Das 12-Uhr-Blatt, 2.8.1932. 
• Ragnar Ahlstedt. Män som blivit kvinnor. Två fall av könsväxling på operative väg. En study of transvestitism. Tranås: mountain, 1933.
• Anon. "Operative Umwandlung von Männern in Frauen gelungen. Die Erfahrungen aus drei Berliner Fällen".  Die Geburtenregelung,1, 4, 1933: 33.
• F. E. "Das Portrait, Toni Ebel".  Berliner Zeitung, 19.1.1952: 16.
• Ludwig Levy-Lenz.  Diskretes und Indiskretes: Erinnerungen eines Sexualarztes.  Wissen & Fortschritt, 1953: 204. 
• Sander L. Gilman. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999: 276.
• Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestitismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft. Giessen: Psychosozial-Verlag 2005: 203-4.
  
• Ralf Dose. "Ralf Dose, Magnus Hirschfeld Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany: Thirty Years of Collecting Our History - Or: How to Find Treasure Troves". LGBTI ALMS 2012: The Future of LGBTI Histories, 2012.06/18. http://lgbtialms2012.blogspot.com/2012/06/thirty-years-of-collecting-our-history.html.
  
• Julie Nero. Hannah Höch, Til Brugman, Lesbianism, and Weimar Sexual Subculture. PhD Thesis, Department of Art History and Art, Case Western Reserve University, 2013: 269. PDF.
  
• Ralf Dose. Magnus Hirschfeld: The Origins of the Gay Liberation Movement. 2014: 55.
  
• Přehled Historických Událostí Vztahujících Se K Tématu. (Overview historical events related to the topic) [Czechoslovakian Artists]:101. PDF.
  
• Raimund Wolfert. “ ‘Sage, Toni, denkt man so bei euch drüben?’ Auf den Spuren von Curt Scharlach alias Charlotte Charlaque (1892 -?) und Toni Ebel (1881-1961)”. Lesbengeschichte, 3/2015. Online. And also at issuu.com   Online.
• Raimund Wolfert. Charlotte Charlaque: Transfrau, Laienschauspielerin, „Königin der Brooklyn Heights Promenade“. Hentrich & Hentrich, 2021: 59-62.

Kunst in der DDR      Deutsche Digitale Bibiothek      DE.Wikipedia     

__________________________________________________________

Wolfert says "To all appearances, Olga was suffering from syphilis" (Allem Anschein nach litt Olga an der Syphilis).   But says no more.  There is no mention of Toni being syphilitic.   Did Toni bring it from a previous relationship? Did Olga bring it from a previous marriage?  Olga was 38 when she entered this marriage - it is very likely that she had a previous marriage.  If Olga was in the latent and then tertiary stages, she may not have been infectious, but her son may have had congenital syphilis. 

In any case there is no information about what happened to the son.

Neither the Gestapo nor the Statsi nor the East German press nor the West German Press seems to have questioned Toni's femininity.

The document on Czechoslovak artists is not sure whether Toni was Jewish or Protestant.  

The French for the paragraph from Felix Abraham's book:

"Voici le cas de A. E., artiste peintre, né le 10 novembre 1881 à Berlin. Le malade vient chez moi (en costume masculin) pour avoir eu dès sa jeunesse un penchant à porter le costume féminin; d’ailleurs il se sent complètement femme et veut, en conséquence, prendre un nom de femme. Le malade a 47 ans à la première consultation. 11 présentait extérieurement une agitation très forte qui se calma et n’existait presque plus quand, sur ma demande, il vint àla consultation suivante en costume féminin. 11 m’avoua alors qu’en costume masculin il se sent si mal à son aise que le résultat en est une agitation corporelle et nerveuse qui fait place à un calme absolu quand il revêt un costume féminin. Son aversmn contre le vêtement masculin est si grande qu’il ne possède qu’un seul complet qui, d’ailleurs, est en très mauvais état."

The German  for the quote from Ludwig Levy-Lenz:

" ich werde den Anblick nie vergessen, der sich mir bot, als ich einmal nach Feierabend in die Küche des Hauses verschlagen wurde: da saßen die fünf ,Mädchen‘ strickend und nähend friedlich nebeneinander und sangen gemeinsam alte Volkslieder. Jedenfalls war es das beste, fleißigste und gewissenhafteste Hauspersonal, das wir je gehabt haben. Niemals hat ein Fremder, der uns besuchte, etwas davon gemerkt."

Berthold Buttgereit (1891 - 1983) bookkeeper

Buttgereit was born and raised in Berlin, a tomboy who grew up to be a trans man. In 1912, at the age of 21, Buttgereit approached Magnus Hirschfeld and with an expert opinion from Hirschfeld and the neurologist Ernst Burchard was able to obtain a Transvestitenschein from the Berlin police. 

He lived with a woman who was in all but name his wife. In 1918 the Buttgereits moved to Cologne and he obtained a Transvestitenschein from the police there. 

His Transvestitenschein

The next year he attempted to legally change his first name to Berthold, and obtained new expert opinions from the Berlin physicians Ernst Burchard and F. Lehmann. A year later, September 1920, the process was still ongoing. In an attempt to speed it up, he submitted his Transvestitenschein, and the application was finally approved. The decision became legally effective with the announcement on 8 November 1920 in the Deutscher Reichsanzeiger and the Preußischer Staatsanzeiger. 

The public announcement in the Deutscher Reichsanzeiger.

Buttgereit then applied to officially marry his wife of eight years, but the registry office refused based on his birth certificate. Despite being represented by the Berlin lawyer Walther Niemann (who was close to the WhK) he apparently did not succeed. 

Buttgereit lived the rest of his life in Cologne. From 1920-5 he was a bookkeeper, from 1926 - 1942 (through most of the war) he was bookkeeping foreman, and in 1950 he was promoted to office manager. By 1958 he had retired, and he died at the age of 92.

• Magnus Hirschfeld. Geschlechtskunde, (4th vol.).  Stuttgart : Julius Püttmann, Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1930: 593 (fig. 883, 884).
• Rainer Herrn. Schnittmuster des Geschlechts. Transvestismus und Transsexualität in der frühen Sexualwissenschaft. Giessen, 2005: 128-131.
• Erwin In het Panhuis. “Bertha/Berthold (Emma Charlotte) Buttgereit (1891 – 1983) Tragen von Herrenkleidung nicht untersagt”. Lesbengeschichte, 2006. Online.
• Erwin In het Panhuis. “Queerer Pionier: Als trans Mann offiziell anerkannt vor genau 100 Jahren”. queer.de.    Online.