Berlin Coquette: Prostitution and the New German Woman, 1890
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Berlin Coquette Series editor: Peter Uwe Hohendahl, Cornell University Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought publishes new English- language books in literary studies, criticism, cultural studies, and intellectual history pertaining to the German-speaking world, as well as translations of im- portant German-language works. Signale construes “modern” in the broadest terms: the series covers topics ranging from the early modern period to the present. Signale books are published under a joint imprint of Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library in electronic and print formats. Please see http://signale.cornell.edu/. Berlin Coquette Prostitution and the New German Woman, 1890–1933 Jill Suzanne Smith A Signale Book Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library Ithaca, New York Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library gratefully acknowledge The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the College of Arts & Sciences, Cornell University, for support of the Signale series. Copyright © 2013 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2013 by Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smith, Jill Suzanne, 1972– author. Berlin coquette : prostitution and the new German woman, 1890/1933 / Jill Suzanne Smith. pages cm. — (Signale : modern German letters, cultures, and thought) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8014-5267-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8014-7834-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Prostitution—Germany—Berlin—History—19th century. 2. Prostitution—Germany—Berlin—History—20th century. I. Title. HQ200.B4S65 2013 306.74094309′034—dc23 2013036665 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fi bers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Paperback printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Fabian, my favorite Berliner Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Berlin’s Bourgeois Whores 1 1. Sex, Money, and Marriage: Prostitution as an Instrument of Conjugal Critique 30 2. Righteous Women and Lost Girls: Radical Bourgeois Feminists and the Fight for Moral Reform 65 3. Naughty Berlin? New Women, New Spaces, and Erotic Confusion 108 4. Working Girls: White-Collar Workers and Prostitutes in Late Weimar Fiction 153 Conclusion: Berlin Coquette 185 Bibliography 193 Index 213 Illustrations 1. Heinrich Zille, Zwei Strassenmädchen (Two Girls of the Street), 1902 10 2. Heinrich Zille, Zwei Kokotten (Two Cocottes), n.d. 12 3. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Potsdamer Platz, 1914 15 4. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Friedrichstrasse, Berlin, 1914 17 5. Jeanne Mammen, Berliner Strassenszene (Berlin Street Scene), ca. 1929 19 6. Louise Brooks as Thymian in G. W. Pabst’s Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (Diary of a Lost Girl), 1929 105 7. Emmy Wyda, Edith Meinhard (as Erika), Louise Brooks, and Speedy Schlichter in G. W. Pabst’s Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (Diary of a Lost Girl), 1929 106 8. Membership Card, Hilfsbund der Berliner Prostituierten, ca. 1919 120 9. Film poster by Josef Fenneker for Richard Oswald’s Die Prostitution, 1919 121 10. Promotional postcard, Anita Berber and Werner Krauß in Richard Oswald’s Die Prostitution, 1919 123 11. Jeanne Mammen, Im Aufklärungsfi lm (At the Hygiene Film), 1929 129 12. Jeanne Mammen, In hohen Stiefeln (In Tall Boots), 1930 143 13. Jeanne Mammen, Berliner Café or Im Romanischen Café (In the Romanische Café), ca. 1930 147 14. Jeanne Mammen, Garçonne or Dirne auf grüner Couch (Prostitute on a Green Couch), 1930–31 190 Acknowledgments It is my great fortune to have an exceptional network of colleagues, mentors, friends, and family members who supported this project over the years. The re- search and writing of this book was made possible through the generous support of a Bowdoin College Faculty Research Fellowship and Fulbright Junior Research Grant, both of which allowed me to spend the 2009–10 academic year in Berlin, the city that continues to inspire me as a teacher and a scholar. I thank the librarians and archivists at the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, the Geheimes Staatsarchiv and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz, the Landesarchiv Berlin, and the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek for granting me access to their rich collections and answering my inquiries with patience and generosity. Cornelia Pastelak-Price of the Jeanne-Mammen-Stiftung and Rainer Herrn of the Magnus-Hirschfeld- Gesellschaft have my gratitude for their sincere interest in my work; they have become trusted friends and colleagues. The Humboldt University’s Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies (ZtG) was my host institution while in Berlin, and its managing director at the time, Christina von Braun, made me feel most welcome. I am lucky to be a part of the dynamic and collegial Department of German at Bowdoin College. The sound advice, encouragement, and feedback I received from Helen Cafferty, Steve Cerf, and Birgit Tautz were invaluable to this project. Colleagues and friends from the broader Bowdoin community also read and com- mented on various portions of the manuscript, fellowship applications, or publish- ing materials, and I am especially grateful to Barbara Weiden Boyd, Aviva Briefel, Meggan Gould, Mark Foster, Aaron Kitch, Matt Klingle, Steve Perkinson, Arielle Saiber, and Marilyn Reizbaum. My former students Sally Hudson, Julia Littlefi eld, and Rebecca Silva asked probing questions about Weimar Berlin that helped me to express my own ideas with greater clarity. Beyond Bowdoin, my colleagues in German studies offered insight and refer- ences that were vital to the revision of this book. Special thanks go to Jaimey Fisher, Veronika Fuechtner, Malte Hagener, Hope Harrison, Andrew Hewitt, Jennifer Hosek, Peter Jelavich, Erik Jensen, Barbara Mennel, Christian Rogowski, Julia Roos, Suzanne Royal, Don White, and Bethany Wiggin. The 2005 DAAD Sum- mer Seminar at Cornell University, expertly directed by Leslie Adelson, provided me with an important opportunity to share my work with a group of wonder- ful scholars. Now that the book has found a home at Cornell University Press, I thank Peter Uwe Hohendahl, Kizer Walker, Marian Rogers, the Signale editorial xii Acknowledgments board, and my anonymous readers for helping me to make this a better book and for seeing the manuscript through the publication process. Above all, I thank my mentors, Fritz Breithaupt and Katrin Sieg, whose unfl agging confi dence in me and in my work remains a great source of motivation, and whose own work enriches and enlivens the fi eld of German studies. My friends and family were tireless cheerleaders, and their love and support kept me going. I warmly thank my sister Ellen and her family, as well as my German in-laws Chris, Sebastian, Jürgen, and Carola. Dear friends Janet Lassan and Johannes Elwardt, Elliott Schreiber, and Mihaela Petrescu never failed to boost my spirits, and my best friend, Carol Newell, came through in a pinch as a per- ceptive, critical reader. My parents taught me the importance of hard work and dedication, balanced with creativity and curiosity. They also believed in the value of asking questions for which there is no clear-cut answer. My father, Lowell, did not live to see this book in print, but his memory sustained me through the entire process, as did the love and encouragement of my mother, Judy. No one supported me more than my husband, Fabian Rueger, who read every word of every version of this manuscript with his skillful historian’s eye, endured my moods, cheered me on, and made me laugh when I needed it most. I dedicate this book to him, with love and gratitude. An earlier version of chapter 4, “Working Girls: White-Collar Workers and Prostitutes in Late Weimar Fiction,” appeared in German Quarterly 81, no. 4 (Fall 2008): 449–70. Material from chapter 3 was published in two separate essays: “ Richard Oswald and the Social Hygiene Film: Promoting Public Health or Promiscuity?,” in The Many Faces of Weimar Cinema, ed. Christian Rogowski (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2010), 13–30; and “Just How Naughty Was Berlin? The Geography of Prostitution and Female Sexuality in Curt Moreck’s Erotic Travel Guide,” in Spatial Turns: Space, Place, and Mobility in German Literary and Visual Culture, ed. Barbara Mennel and Jaimey Fisher (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010), 53–77. Finally, portions of the introduction and chapter 3 were published in my essay “Prostitutes in Weimar Berlin: Moving beyond the Victim-Whore Dichotomy,” in Beyond Glitter and Doom: The Contingency of the Weimar Repub- lic, ed. Godela Weiss-Sussex, Jochen Hung, and Geoff Wilkes (Munich: Iudicium, 2012), 135–47. I am grateful to the respective presses for their permission to reprint this material. Berlin Coquette Introduction: Berlin’s Bourgeois Whores In the winter of 1988, the women of Hydra organized a “Whores’ Ball” (Hurenball) in West Berlin. Hydra, a support organization founded in 1980 by prostitutes and their advocates, actively lobbies for sex workers’ civil rights and the elimination of the social and moral stigma attached to prostitution. The 1988 ball raised funds for Hydra’s social initiatives, including extensive outreach to economically disadvan- taged prostitutes and heightened awareness of HIV/AIDS, but it also celebrated nearly a decade of the organization’s advocacy work in Berlin. Hydra’s organiz- ing team envisioned “an intoxicating nighttime ball” in Berlin’s International Con- ference Center, featuring performances by the transvestite diva Georgette Dee and other renowned musical acts.