Schwules Museum

The Schwules Museum* (Gay Museum*) is a museum exhibiting LGBT life in Berlin, Germany, which opened in 1985.

The impetus for the founding of the Schwules Museum* was a successful exhibition on gay topics at the Berlin Museum (Märkisches Museum) in summer 1984, called Eldorado. It was the first public exposition in Germany of recent research on gay life. In 1985 the organisation Verein der Freunde eines Schwulen Museums in Berlin e.V. was founded and opened its own museum dedicated exclusively to LGBT topics at Mehringdamm 61 in the district of Kreuzberg. The museum was located above a gay nightclub.

From December 2004 to May 2013, the permanent exhibition has been Selbstbewusstsein und Beharrlichkeit. 200 Jahre schwule Geschichte ("Self-Awareness and Endurance: 200 Years of Gay History"). It depicted the strategies, options and problems of gay people in seeking to live a self-determined life, find others and organise networks in the period from 1790 to 1990. In association with this theme, the social and legal background was presented, such as the anti-gay Paragraph 175 of the German penal code; the associated marginalisation, persecution and criminalisation of homosexuality; as well as the successes of the gay rights movement. At the moment the permanent exhibition is not displaced, but it is planned to open again in 2016.

In the summer of 2013, it moved to a former printing house in Lützowstr. 73, more than doubling its exhibition space, and is the world's first gay museum.

The museum displaces several temporary exhibitions every year. These include historical exhibitions illuminating particular periods or historical developments, such as Goodbye to Berlin. 100 Jahre Schwulenbewegung ("Goodbye to Berlin: 100 Years of the Gay Rights Movement" - 1997). The exhibition Verfolgung homosexueller Männer in Berlin 1933 – 45 ("Persecution of Homosexual Men in Berlin 1933–45"), in collaboration with the Sachsenhausen Memorial, dealt with the experience of gays in the Nazi era.

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