Monokel

An advertisement for Monokel, a lesbian bar in Berlin

Monokel

Location: Budapester Strasse 14, Berlin, Germany

Opened: 1932

Closed: March 1933, when the Nazi party closed down Berlin's gay and lesbian bars

Way back in June 2011, I did a post on the Lost Lesbian Bars of Weimar Berlin. That post has consistently been the most popular posting here at Lost Womyn's Space, along with one on Le Monocle, a pre-war lesbian bar in Paris, which comes in at second. (For some reason, lesbian spaces from the 1930's rank very high in terms of general interest.)

Somehow up until now, I had never heard of the "Monokel" in Berlin. Very cool poster though. And totally one of those random accidental finds. I found this on a European history site, not on a lesbian or LGBT site.

In Florence Tamagne's A History of Homosexuality in Europe: Berlin, London, Paris 1919-1939, we see that  Monokel was on the list of gay and lesbian bars closed by the Nazis after they came to power. That list was published in Berliner Tageblatt on March 3, 1933. Tamagne also mentions that Monokel was one of the last of the lesbian clubs to open in 1932. (The other two were Manuela at 26 Joachimstaler Strasse and Geisha at 72 Augsburger Strasse.)