Motzstraße, or Motzstrasse (see ß), is a street in the

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

borough of

Tempelhof-Schöneberg Tempelhof-Schöneberg () is the seventh borough of Berlin, formed in 2001 by merging the former boroughs of Tempelhof and Schöneberg. Situated in the south of the city it shares borders with the boroughs of Mitte and Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in ...

. It runs from Nollendorfplatz via

Viktoria-Luise-Platz Viktoria-Luise-Platz is a hexagonal place on Motzstraße in Schöneberg, Berlin. It was laid out in 1900. It is named after Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia 1892 - 1980, the daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Great-Grand daughter ...

Schöneberg Schöneberg () is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Te ...

to Prager Platz in

Wilmersdorf Wilmersdorf () is an inner-city locality of Berlin which lies south-west of the central city. Formerly a borough by itself, Wilmersdorf became part of the new Boroughs of Berlin, borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf following Berlin's 2001 admin ...

. The section of Motzstraße between Nollendorfplatz and Martin-Luther-Straße is the centre of one of Berlin's gay areas. Berlin's

Lesbian and Gay City Festival The Lesbian and Gay City Festival (''Lesbisch-Schwules Stadtfest'') in Berlin is Europe's largest street festival for lesbians and gays. It has been held in the traditional gay area around Nollendorfplatz in Schöneberg since 1993. In Berlin it ...

Motzstraßenfest is held there every July, on the weekend before the

Gay Pride In the context of LGBTQ culture, pride (also known as LGBTQ pride, LGBTQIA pride, LGBT pride, queer pride, gay pride, or gay and lesbian pride) is the promotion of the rights, self-affirmation, dignity, Social equality, equality, and increas ...

celebrations (CSD) in Berlin.

History

Named after , a

Prussian Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, the House of Hohenzoll ...

Finance Minister, the first, northerly section was laid out around 1870. That section, to the north of Nollendorfplatz has been renamed twice, in 1934 to Mackensenstraße, at which time the street numbering was changed and again in 1996 to Else Lasker-Schüler Straße. Motzstraße 6 was the location of the American Church from 1903 until 1944, when it was destroyed in an Allied air raid, along with many other buildings in the area. "motzbuch" was located at Motzstraße 32 from 1981 and attracted many authors for readings, including Reinhard Jirgl. The business closed during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual street festival was cancelled in 2020 and 2021.

Surroundings

The area around Motzstraße has been recognised as a gay-friendly neighbourhood since the 1900s. Related establishments include Piscator's Theatre (later Metropol Theatre) and then Metropol cinema), Metropol discothek, Goya club (now known as Metropol), and the Eldorado (1926–1932). British-American author

Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...

lived around the corner from Motzstraße on Nollendorfstraße, where he was inspired by the area's diversity to write several of his best-selling novels. The section of Motzstraße around

, restored after wartime damage, is an upscale neighbourhood filled with

Wilhelmine The Wilhelmine period or Wilhelmian era () comprises the period of German history between 1888 and 1918, embracing the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the German Empire from the death of Kaiser Friedrich III until the end of World War I and Wilh ...

architecture. Many notable personalities and famous figures have made their homes in the area, such as

Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (; 27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century ...

and Else Lasker-Schüler.

References

External links

Berlin for gays and lesbians

1954 map showing situation of MotzstraßeMotzstraße Vicinage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Motzstrasse Streets in Berlin Gay villages in Germany