In the biographical series Personal histories we publish autobiographical texts and interviews with LGBTIQ* people.
Kirsten Nilsson: Vom Hitlerjungen zur Domina. Ein transsexuelles Leben im 20. Jahrhundert [From Hitler-Boy to dominatrix. A transsexual life in the 20th century, in German]

Kirsten Nilsson was born in 1931 as Karl Erick Böttcher in a tranquil village in the Mark Brandenburg. In 1964, Kirsten was one of the first trans women in Germany to undergo a risky gender reassignment surgery in Morocco and successfully changed her first name. Kirsten appeared as a dancer and sex star in the erotic theatres of St. Pauli, owned her own bars and strip clubs, worked on the street and led a life in the fast lane until an unforeseen event in her career brought it to an end in 1979 and forced her to start her life all over again.
156 pages, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-935227-20-9, 10 € plus shipping costs
Read more [in German] →
Christine Schäfer: Zwischen Nachkriegsfrust und Aufbruchslust. Lesbisches Leben
in München in den 1950er bis 1970er Jahren. Sieben Biografien [Between post-war frustration and the desire to set out on a new path. Lesbian Life in Munich in the 1950s to 1970s, in German]

Why, I asked myself, do so many of us, especially older lesbians, still live in hiding – despite the women’s and lesbian movement? After all, I assumed and still assume that the lesbian movement had fought for a different, new self-image.
103 pages, Munich 2010. ISBN-13: 978-3-935227-17-9, 7 € plus shipping costs
Read more [in German]→
Erich Haas: “… eines Freundes Freund zu sein …” […to be a friend to a friend…, in German]

In his memoirs, Erich Haas describes the gay scene in Munich in the 1950s and 1960s and the threat of getting in conflict with the law. The autobiography is dedicated to his partner Klaus (died in 1989), with whom he lived in a partnership over 40 years.
120 pages, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-935227-14-8, 12 € plus shipping costs
Read more [in German] →
Harry Raymon: Einmal Exil und zurück. Autobiographischer Roman [To exile and back. Autobiographical novel, in German language]

Harry Raymon, born in 1926, is an actor, voice actor, director and author. He emigrated to the USA in 1938 and returned to Europe after the war. In 1951 he founded a pantomime theatre in Stuttgart, with which he travelled around Europe for four years. He gave lectures on his experiences as a Jew and open gay man in Germany and America.
288 pages, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-935227-11-7, 14,90 Euro plus shipping costs
Read more [in German] →