On the program focus “75 Years of the Declaration of Human Rights” on December 5th after the “ZIB 2 History” on ORF 2
Vienna (OTS) – Sigmund Freud and a young lesbian Viennese woman who refuses to be bent are the focus of a new “Universum History” documentary on gay and lesbian history: Vienna 1919. The young citizen’s daughter Margarethe Csonka (Christina Cervenka) is a lesbian and is rejected by her Parents sent to Sigmund Freud (Karl Markovics). He is supposed to “cure” her of her “forbidden desire” for a scandalous countess and prostitute. But Gretl fights for her love and fools the psychiatrist. Freud concludes that homosexuality cannot be cured – nor does it need to be cured.
As part of the ORF program focus on “75 Years of the Declaration of Human Rights” (details at presse.ORF.at), the new “Universum History” production “Forbidden Desire – Milestones of Queer History” by director Fritz Kalteis will be shown on Tuesday, December 5th 2023, at 11:05 p.m. on ORF 2, how queer self-confidence develops for the first time in Vienna and Berlin during the interwar period – only to be brutally destroyed by the Nazis soon afterwards. “Queer culture was invented right here,” says Robert Beachy of Yonsei University Seoul, one of the project’s high-profile experts, “but this is also where the worst persecution to date took place.”
“Queer history is part of Austrian history. It is full of hard-won achievements and devastating setbacks. Without the early pioneers, today’s society would be different – with this large-scale co-production, ‘Universum History’ shines a spotlight on the courage of those pioneers and their tireless fight for justice,” says Caroline Haidacher, responsible for the ORF program “Universum History”.
100 years of queer history
In the area of tension between repression and a spirit of optimism, activists like Magnus Hirschfeld fought for recognition of gender diversity and against bans on same-sex sexuality at the beginning of the 20th century. But when Adolf Hitler came to power, the illusion of freedom ended. The Nazi state primarily persecuted gay men, but also lesbian women, putting them in concentration camps, castrating them or murdering them. Gretl Csonka manages to escape – into a life in which she will never again be deprived of the freedom to love whoever she wants.
Persecution, stigmatization and departure
At the beginning of the 20th century, homosexual people in Austria faced up to five years in prison. In contrast to Germany, this applies to women as well as men. Gretl Csonka’s family is rich, the main thing is to avoid a scandal. “If Gretl’s homosexuality had become public, it would have had serious social consequences,” says Andreas Brunner from QWIEN, the center for queer history in Vienna. Freud, portrayed by Karl Markovics, is initially skeptical. For him, homosexuality is just “a mishap like any other”. But curiosity ultimately pushes him to take on the case of Gretl Csonka.
In July 1919, the doctor and sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld opened the Institute for Sexual Sciences in Berlin. It is the first advice and contact point for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities – but also a colorful shared apartment for homosexuals and trans people. Hirschfeld becomes a pioneer:
“The exciting thing is that our present world has not ‘invented’ a diversity of genders and sexual orientations in the last five or ten years. There is a historical phase from the late 19th century to the 1920s in which new terms and perspectives open up something completely new compared to a simple binary, i.e. two-part gender logic,” says the Austrian sociologist and historian Hanna Hacker. Director Fritz Kalteis agrees: “The discussion about queerness and trans identity is by no means the supposedly ‘woke agenda’ that it is currently often denigrated as. The topic has always accompanied us as humans. If nothing else, that’s what we want to point out with this film.”
The first queer anthem – reinterpreted
The film “Different from the Others” by the Viennese director Richard Oswald openly discussed homosexuality for the first time in 1919 – and promptly became a scandal. The film inspires a song that becomes the first anthem of the queer movement: The “Purple Song.” More than 100 years later, the Bavarian-Austrian musician Ankathie Koi is re-recording it for this documentary, because the song is as relevant as ever not only to her: “In the chorus it says, ‘We are, we are different than the others,’ and I believe that the song gives a home to so many people who are different and celebrate that difference,” says Ankathie Koi, who transformed the 100-year-old melody into a modern dance track.
A short phase of hope for more freedom and tolerance for queer people ends abruptly when the National Socialists come to power
Gretl Csonka fights for her love for Leonie von Puttkamer (played by Elena Wolff) – even if that means fooling Sigmund Freud with made-up dream stories. With success: In the confrontation with Gretl, Freud finally comes to the conclusion that homosexuality cannot be cured and certainly does not need to be cured, adds Daniela Finzi, scientific director at the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna: “Homosexuality is not an illness Pathology for Freud. It only makes sense to deal with it analytically if there is a level of suffering.” The short phase of hope for more freedom and tolerance for all queer people ends abruptly when the National Socialists come to power. In 1934, Adolf Hitler had SA chief Ernst Röhm murdered – and with him the most prominent homosexual Nazi. It is a turning point: from now on, the Nazi state persecutes gay men in particular, but also lesbian women, more intensively than ever before. Gretl Csonka, herself of Jewish descent and a lesbian, manages to escape from Vienna at the very last moment – into a life in which she will never again allow herself to be deprived of the freedom to love whoever she wants.
“Forbidden Desire – Milestones of Queer History” was created as a co-production by Vienna Set and Feature Film with ORF and ZDF/ARTE in collaboration with ORF Enterprise, supported by Fernsehenfonds Austria, Filmfonds Wien and Kultur Niederösterreich.