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balloons in rainbow colours at the Lesbian and Gay City festival in Berlin
balloons in rainbow colours © visitBerlin, Foto: Pedro Becerra/STAGEVIEW.de

Schöneberg for LGBTI*

The Old-School Gay Neighbourhood

Berlin's gilded era in the 1920s was also when night clubs for gays and lesbians flourished. The centre of the scene back then was the Nollendorfplatz in Schöneberg. A hundred years ago, there were already some forty gay and lesbian venues in the area. Today, there may be at least twice as many. From Fuggerstraße and Motzstraße to Maaßenstraße and Nollendorfplatz, the many different bars, clubs, restaurants and shops make the Nollendorf neighbourhood the city's gay village. This is also home to the annual Folsom Europe international fetish street fair.

The Nollendorfplatz area is welcoming to the many gay men who live here as well as artists, musicians and actors. A number of initiatives ensure that mutual tolerance among the diverse residents of the neighbourhood continues to characterise the district. But as a reminder that such peaceful tolerance and co-existence was not always a given, a memorial plaque to the gay and lesbian victims of National Socialism is located at the Nollendorfplatz U-Bahn station.