News
Kiez-Tour at the Nollendorf gay quarter
01.06.23
KiezTour
The KiezTour is a weekly event in which a well-known Berlin drag leads through the queer Nollendorfkiez / Regenbogenkiez, selected locations are visited and culinary, informative and surprising things are made tangible.
Locations
In addition to queer bars, fetish and clothing stores, places with sub-culture and queer-typical features such as a "calmed darkened men's room" and Co, Germany's only queer bookstore and the monument to persecuted homosexuals at Nollendorfplatz will be visited. The participants will not only get a visual impression of the queer neighborhood, but also culinary trifles and may play small prizes at the wheel of fortune. Here, women also get to see places that are otherwise withheld from them.
History
In a playful and entertaining way, participants will learn everything relevant about Europe's oldest queer neighborhood, its 140-year history, visit legendary historical places and listen to anecdotes about Claire Waldorff, Marlene Dietrich, Zarah Leander, Hildegard Knef, Josephine Baker, Magnus Hirschfeld, Rosa von Praunheim, Romy Haag, David Bowie, but also Erich Kästner, Klaus and Erika Mann, Christopher Isherwood, Johannes Heesters and Brigitte Mira up to the stars of the present.
The tour not only leads through the most diverse corners of the Regenbogenkiez, it is also a foray from the Berlin founding years and the "first German gay movement", through the golden 20s, life under the Nazi dictatorship, the repressions in the time of the economic miracle, the "second German gay movement", the iconic 80s, the fall of the wall and emancipation up to modern times. In the process, the paths of the "Three Ladies from the Grill" cross with "Emil and the Detectives" and meet Sally Bowles from "Cabaret".
As a queer institution in the Kiez, BLOND will of course be there.
Political
In addition, an impression is given of how relevant queer institutions are as "shelters" in the political sense and how great the significance of this agglomeration on a small Kiez with a globally unique selling point is and what international appeal it exerts and how this Kiez has shaped and continues to shape Berlin. A lovable, open and tolerant neighborhood that is worth preserving and whose existence is threatened not only by gentrification.
Guides
Tours will be guided in turn by Berlin's cult drags, all of whom can tell richly funny and embarrassing anecdotes of "a good friend" from the Kiez, including:
- Jurassica Parka,
- Margot Schlönzke,
- Bob Schneider/Jutta Hartmann
- Ades Zabel/Edith Schröder
- Biggy van Blond