Schwules Museum, Berlin
In Berlin, Germany, there is a museum and research center called the Schwules Museum (English: Gay Museum), which has artifacts devoted to LGBTQ+ history and culture. The first museum in the world devoted to LGBT history, it debuted in 1985. Periodicals from 1896 and a collection of images, videos, films, sound recordings, autographs, artwork, and ephemera may be found in the museum archive. There are almost 20,000 books on homosexuality in its collection. The museum moved from its original location at Mehringdamm 61 in Kreuzberg where it had resided since its founding in 1985 to Lützowstraße 73 in Berlin-Mitte in the summer of 2013, more than tripling its display area.
The Berlin Märkisches Museum's popular gay-themed exhibition, "Eldorado - Homosexual Women and Men in Berlin 1850-1950," which took place in the summer of 1984, served as the inspiration for the establishment of the Schwules Museum. It was the first time that a public exhibition of current homosexual life studies had been held in Germany. The Verein der Freunde eines Schwulen Museums in Berlin e.V. (Society of Friends of a Gay Museum in Berlin) was established in 1985 and opened its own museum at Mehringdamm 61 in the Kreuzberg neighborhood that was solely focused on LGBTQ+ issues. Because it also housed the gay nightclub SchwuZ, a gay-friendly café, and the Allgemeine Homosexuelle Arbeitsgemeinschaft, a support group that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, the building earned the moniker Homo-Hof (literally, "the gay courtyard").
Location: Luetzow Street 73, Berlin, Germany
