On Thread, Coercion, and Queer Practices Under the Nazis

At the center of the story is the Berlin seamstress Hella Knabe, who, through her mail-order business during the Weimar Republic, supplied her customers in cities and rural areas with custom-tailored leather corsets, underwear, wigs, shoes, and other specialized goods. At a time when LGBTIQ* subculture was being systematically destroyed, she sent her “customer newsletters” far beyond Berlin. For this, Hella Knabe was prosecuted beginning in 1937.

The surviving criminal case files from the trial against Hella Knabe now constitute a rare collection documenting solidarity and mutual support within community structures during the Nazi era. Hella Knabe was accused of leading a statewide “transvestite network” and distributing pornographic material.

The thank-you letters from her clients preserved in the criminal files show that community structures and networks existed not only in urban centers but extended far into rural areas. In the thank-you letters Hella Knabe received, her clients shared experiences, thoughts, and feelings regarding their gender presentation and gender identity.

As part of the exhibition “Cruising the Countryside – Queer Life in the Countryside,” Kai* Brust and Krischan Macioszek will discuss Hella Knabe, her clients, the (un)explored realities of trans* people’s lives under National Socialism, and gender-sensitive research.