On the Spinnboden (spinning floor) of garment factories, women used to exchange stories as they weaved, passing on fascinating oral histories that would never make it into male-dominated history books. It’s an appropriate moniker for Berlin’s lesbian archive, a place where staff and visitors work together to turn the almost-invisible threads of history into a tangible whole.
The archive is the second-largest of its kind in the world, after New York’s Lesbian Herstory Archives, but still only takes up two modestly sized rooms in a Hinterhof near Bernauer Straße U-Bahn station. The walls (and even a defunct toilet) are piled high with shelves of documents that chronicle lesbian history and culture from all over the globe. As the archive’s motto notes: “Everything lesbian is important.”
Archivist Lara Ledwa brings out items from Spinnboden’s collection for us to study, young academics work on their theses in the back room. Later our conversation is interrupted by two recent arrivals from Canada who are curious to know about the archive, and whether Ledwa has any tips for lesbian venues in the city. It’s clear that Spinnboden is more than an archive – it’s the city’s de facto lesbian centre, for those who know it exists. It also hosts a regular programme of community groups and workshops (many in English). But the archive’s heart is its collection of items spanning more than a century, whose stories give us an insight into a history which has so often been erased from mainstream narratives.
Everything lesbian is important.
In March, Spinnboden learned that they had lost public funding for their long-running Queer History Month project, which helps share the archive’s stories with a wider audience. For Ledwa, this comes at a time where the archive’s work is more important than ever. “It’s very important in times of rising fascism to connect yourself to these movements on the streets who fought for our rights in the past,” she says. She encourages Berliners to visit the archive and use its stories as a source of hope. “The archive reminds us that we can find community, we can find ways to organise. It highlights the importance of finding the strength in each other at times when the state is too violent.”
The archive’s first newsletter (1981)
Hand-drawn illustrations and hastily stapled sheets of typewriter paper mark the beginnings of Spinnboden as an organisation. This newsletter from 1981 was the first for the as-yet-unnamed “lesbian archive”. The newsletter opens with the group’s manifesto: “WE MUST PRESERVE OUR OWN HISTORY! We want to preserve the history of lesbian women, to convey how they lived, loved and presented themselves then and now. … WE WANT TO REDISCOVER OLD BOOKS AND MAKE NEW BOOKS POSSIBLE!”. At this time the archive had roughly 800 books and 40 files, and archivists were working hard to find a publicly accessible location. The front cover features a drawing from the 1920s by Dadaist artist Christian Schad, demonstrating the archive’s emphasis on the vibrant lesbian subculture of 1920s Berlin.
Gedenkkugel Ravensbrück (2018)
This clay ball with a hand-carved inscription is an early version of the memorial sphere at Ravensbrück concentration camp, created to commemorate the lesbian women and girls persecuted and murdered by the Nazi regime. The memorial, installed in 2022, was a culmination of a 40-year political effort. While an estimated 132,000 women were imprisoned in the Ravensbrück women’s camp, whether some of them were persecuted specifically for being lesbians was a contentious issue. Applications for a memorial had long been rejected on the grounds that, under Nazi law, only men were criminalised for homosexual acts. The then-spokesperson for the Brandenburg Memorial Foundation, Alexander Zinn, claimed that a memorial for lesbian women would create the “legend of lesbian persecution” and repeatedly denied requests for a memorial.
In reality, research into lesbian persecution was under-funded, making it hard to create a clear picture. Thanks to the work of pioneering historians like Claudia Schoppmann, we know that lesbian women and girls were systemically imprisoned under the guise of being “degenerate” or “asocial”, and many were denounced by their neighbours specifically because of their lesbian lifestyle. The campaign did not let repeated rejections deter them and instead placed a memorial ball without full permission in 2016. This helped prompt the memorial board to commission a report by historian Martin Lücke into the fate of lesbian women in Ravensbrück. On the basis of this report, the foundation’s expert commission now considered “the persecution of lesbian women both inside and outside the concentration camp to have been proven”, and the memorial ball was officially laid in 2022. Since 2018, Spinnboden has housed a version of the ball with an earlier draft of the commemorative text.
Liebende Frauen magazine
Reading the pages, you can discover debates on bisexuality and transgender inclusion… proving that while a century may have passed, queer discourse is eternal.
One of the first materials held by Spinnboden in its early days was an archive of Liebende Frauen magazine, a popular lesbian publication during the Weimar Republic. The 144 issues are a valuable insight into the lives, politics and internal dramas of Berlin’s queer women during the city’s lesbian heyday. Liebende Frauen featured articles, poems and serialised novels, as well as private classifieds. Its advertisements for popular bars in the city at the time, such as the Damenklub Violetta, and its letters to the editor give us a sense of the hot discussion topics among the community. Reading the pages, you can discover debates on bisexuality and transgender inclusion (known then as transvestitism), proving that while a century may have passed, queer discourse is eternal. The magazine actually included a supplement called Der Transvestit, about and for transgender people, for several years of its publication.
Despite the nude women frequently gracing the magazine’s front covers, Liebende Frauen could be bought at newspaper kiosks throughout Berlin. However, in 1928 several of its editions were flagged under the Law for the Protection of Youth from Trash and Dirty Literature, and Liebende Frauen was banned from being displayed publicly for twelve
months. The editors weren’t deterred, and changed its name temporarily to ‘Frauen Liebe und Leben’ to dodge the censors. Liebende Frauen continued to be distributed until a second ban forced the magazine to dissolve in 1931.
Handmade stamp (1970s)
The history of Spinnboden is closely intertwined with the women’s rights movement of the 1970s. The archive began as the personal archives of LAZ (Lesbisches Aktionszentrum Westberlin), a radical lesbian-feminist group. This handmade stamp, used by LAZ, features hands in a triangle shape, symbolising the vagina, the womb and the divine feminine. Photos of the group from this era show members mimicking this symbol. LAZ kept a thorough record of their work that was passed from house to house, travelling through the ever-tangled web of Berlin’s lesbian dating circle until it ended up at sociologist and historian Gudrun Schwarz’s residence, who established the collection as an archive.
Erotic flipbook (date unknown)
Behind an unassuming cover, a woman strips, puts on a strap-on, and takes off a wig to reveal a bald head. This cheeky flipbook was published by a small erotic press, and its inner cover contains a handwritten note: “Have fun dear Carolyn,” signed “Kathe”. Why was the book donated to the archive? What happened to the couple? Light research pulls up more answers than expected – not only are the couple still together and living in Berlin, but the “Kathe” who wrote the note is renowned Afro-German writer and activist Katharina Oguntoye. Oguntoye is the co-founder of ADEFRA – Schwarze Frauen in Deutschland and Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland, and can be considered a protégé of Audre Lorde. Oguntoye’s book Farbe Bekennen (“Showing Our Colours“) is credited as being the first book to describe racism against Afro-Germans in Germany. Oguntoye is an award-winning feminist and anti-racist, but today she has to fundraise in order to live. In 2022, she told Tagesspiegel that “Due to cancer and rheumatism, I’ve been wheelchair-bound … and it’s difficult for me to leave my fourth-floor apartment. My partner and I would actually like to move into the ground-floor … but this would also require expensive renovations. However, I don’t have any savings for that, as I’ve spent 25 years as an activist fighting against racism, sexism and homophobia without a salary. I think young people often don’t realise how many of today’s pioneers are in difficult situations.”
Sign and matchbox for Dinelo (1983 – 1989)
This sign originally marked the entrance to Dinelo, a “women’s bar” opened in Schöneberg in 1983. Dinelo was unusual in that it was a café-bar, a conscious choice by founders Christel Rieseberg and Lisa Sharon Makey. Rieseberg, a veteran queer-bar owner who had previously managed the rowdier Klub 10, wanted to create a cosy space that felt open to women of all ages. The space was a labour of love, staffed only by Rieseberg and Makey and furnished with a sofa and stove from the couple’s own home. Lesbians would visit the bar to start their night and load up on Rieseberg’s legendary fried potatoes before heading off to the neighbouring discos. In 1989 Makey and Rieseberg sold the venue and opened a women’s guesthouse in Schleswig-Holstein, where they worked until Rieseberg passed away in August 2024. Dinelo is now a French restaurant.
Spinnboden event posters (1990)
As the archive moved out of the bedroom and into its own buildings – first in Wedding and then into its current home in Mitte – it expanded to host regular events. These posters give some examples of events held in 1990: the first discussing lesbians in the DDR, led by the journalists of lesbian magazine Frau Anders; the second a “black poetry and prose” event in collaboration with ADEFRA. “Spinnboden has always historically been very white and western-dominated,” says Ledwa, “but these materials show that there have always been attempts to bring different perspectives in.”
Das dritte Geschlecht (1899)
One of the oldest pieces in the archive is this novel, titled Das dritte Geschlecht, which dates back to 1899. Written by Ernst von Wolzogen, the book is a satirical account of the lives of Munich bohemians, likely inspired by his friendships with prominent women’s rights activists. The novel became a bestseller and popularised the term “the third sex”, typically used for queer and trans people but sometimes more broadly applied to people who rejected traditional gender roles. This novel’s existence demonstrates a shifting awareness around sexuality at the turn of the 20th century, and also points to the nascent academic field of sexology – spearheaded by Magnus Hirschfeld, who also used the term “das dritte Geschlecht” in his writings. After the novel’s success, Wolzogen moved to Berlin and opened what is regarded as Germany’s first cabaret: the “Überbrettl”. Unfortunately, his views became increasingly conservative and antisemitic soon after.
Spinnboden, Anklamer Str. 38, Wed 14-19, Fri 10-15, visit spinnboden.de or @spinnbodenlesbenarchiv on IG for more info
