Paragraph 175 A Compar ative Study on Gay Life in East Germany, West Germany, and West Berlin

Absztrakt (kivonat)

This paper introduces the gay cultural life of East and West Germany, mainly focusing on East and West Berlin, with a few outlooks from the capital. It makes a comparison between the firstly conservative than liberated West German society, the always sparkling and international West Berliner community, and the society supposedly suppressed by the socialist regime in East Germany. I aim to confirm or reject the hypothesis that 45 years of different social conditioning and governing factors could not fundamentally change the lives and mechanisms of gay societies of the same roots on the two sides of the Wall, despite the merely different political ideological influences and legislation. My research does not offer an ultimate answer and does not represent a full, generalizable picture of the observed era. It rather gives an insight, analyses certain interpretations and elaborates on some potential causal mechanisms, while offering alternative explanations for the observed phenomena. It is as well an introductory, informative document and is willing to specify and define blind spots and further areas of research on this topic.