Lotte Hahm

Charlotte “Lotte” Hahm was born in Dresden and moved to Berlin, which in the 1920s had one of the most vibrant lesbian scenes in the world, with dozens of bars, clubs and magazines.

Hahm became one of its most important organisers. She led the “Damenklub Violetta” and other women’s clubs, which had hundreds of members, organised balls, lectures, readings and excursions, and ran bars where women could meet freely. She wrote for lesbian magazines and supported the founding of groups in other cities. She saw her work as political: lesbian women should find community and fight together for their rights.

In 1929 she co-founded the “Transvestite Association D’Eon”, one of the first organisations in the world for people who would today be called trans.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the clubs and magazines were banned and the lesbian scene was destroyed. Hahm survived the Nazi period. After the war she tried to revive lesbian social life in West Berlin. She died in Berlin in 1967, aged 77.