Christa Winsloe (23 December 1888 – 10 June 1944), formerly Baroness Christa von Hatvany-Deutsch, was a German-Hungarian novelist, playwright and sculptor, best known for her play Gestern und heute (known under several titles, see below), filmed in 1931 as Mädchen in Uniform and the 1958 remake. Winsloe was the first to write a play on female homosexuality in the Weimar Republic, yet without a "radical critique of the social discrimination of lesbian women."
Eduard Bargheer (25 December 1901 – 1 July 1979) was a German painter and printmaker. His early oeuvre had a close affinity to Expressionism.
Jeanne Mammen (21 November 1890 – 22 April 1976) was a German painter, illustrator, and printmaker. Her work is associated with the New Objectivity, Symbolism, and Cubism movements. She is best known for her depictions of strong, sensual women and Berlin city life during the Weimar period.
Bruno Balz (6 October 1902, in Berlin – 14 March 1988, in Bad Wiessee) was a German songwriter and schlager writer.
From the time he wrote the music for the first German sound film until his retirement in the 1960s, Balz was responsible for the lyrics to over a thousand popular hits. Much of his output was in conjunction with the composer Michael Jary; their songs helped make the singer Zarah Leander popular.
Balz was arrested several times for homosexuality. In 1936, he spent several months in prison, and was released under an agreement that mandated that his name was no longer to appear in public. To maintain the appearance of propriety, he entered a "lavender marriage" with a woman named Selma. He was rearrested in 1941 by the Gestapo and was kept in the Gestapo headquarters in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße. He was released from imprisonment by the intervention of Jary, who persuaded officials that he could produce songs that would aid the war effort. Within a day of his release, they had written two of their greatest successes, "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter" ("This Will Not End the World") and "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n" ("I Know Some Day a Miracle Will Happen"). His film songs for Leander, a star of UFA musicals which were later criticised as having helped public and armed forces morale during the war, became anthems for homosexuals imprisoned in concentration camps.
The fall of the Nazi regime did not spell an end to the persecution of Balz, as Paragraph 175, the law against homosexuality, continued in force. Thus his name is considerably less well-known than if he had been properly credited for his lyrics.
Balz's companion was painter and actor Jürgen Draeger, who was enjoined by a clause in Balz's will from talking about their relations for ten years following Balz's death.
The Bruno Balz Theatre in Berlin is named for him.
Hilde Radusch (6 November 1903 – 2 August 1994) was a German political activist (KPD, SPD) who became involved in anti-fascist resistance. As the 20th century progressed, she became increasingly prominent as a feminist and lesbian activist.Throughout her life Radusch kept a diary. Accessed by researchers after she died, her own writings have provided an insightful, and at times engagingly laconic, commentary on her eventful life.
Selma "Selli" Engler (27 September 1899 – 30 April 1972) was a leading activist of the lesbian movement in Berlin from about 1924 to 1931.
In 1931, Engler withdrew from the movement and focused on her career as a writer. After the end of World War II, she lived in Berlin and unsuccessfully attempted to continue her literary work. She did not return to activism, and died in obscurity in Berlin in 1972.
Augusta Kaiser (16 January 1895 – 27 September 1932) was a modern German sculptor and ceramic artist who called herself Gust Kaiser from 1922 on. She is also known as Gustl Kaiser in connection to her ceramics work for the Kieler Kunst-Keramik pottery works.
Karl Giese (18 October 1898 – March 1938) was a German archivist, museum curator, and the life partner of Magnus Hirschfeld.
Kurt Hiller (17 August 1885, Berlin – 1 October 1972, Hamburg) was a German essayist, lawyer, and expressionist poet. He was also a political (namely pacifist) journalist.
Karl-Günther Heimsoth, also known as Karl-Guenter Heimsoth (4 December 1899, Charlottenburg – July 1934, Berlin), was a German physician, polygraph, and politician. Heimsoth was a member of the Nazi Party and later the Communist Party of Germany.