Jennifer V. V. Evans - Life among the Ruins: Cityscape and Sexuality in Cold War Berlin (Genders and Sexualities in History)

Genders and Sexualities in History

Series Editors: John H. Arnold, Joanna Bourke and Sean Brady

Palgrave Macmillans series, Genders and Sexualities in History, aims to accommodate and foster new approaches to historical research in the fields of genders and sexualities. The series promotes world-class scholarship that concentrates upon the interconnected themes of genders, sexualities, religions/religiosity, civil society, class formations, politics and war.

Historical studies of gender and sexuality have often been treated as disconnected fields, while in recent years historical analyses in these two areas have synthesised, creating new departures in historiography. By linking genders and sexualities with questions of religion, civil society, politics and the contexts of war and conflict, this series will reflect recent developments in scholarship, moving away from the previously dominant and narrow histories of science, scientific thought and legal processes. The result brings together scholarship from contemporary, modern, early modern, medieval, classical and non-Western history to provide a diachronic forum for scholarship that incorporates new approaches to genders and sexualities in history.

Life among the Ruins: Cityscape and Sexuality in Cold War Berlin is a groundbreaking study of the destroyed urban landscape of post-Second World War Berlin and the relationships between urban geography and sexuality in the post-war reconstruction and political and ideological division of the city in the Cold War years. In this seminal book, Jennifer Evans provides a meticulously researched, incisive and fascinating analysis of the shattered Berlin cityscape as a primary actor in the historical narrative of the post-war period. Through its focus on urban space and geography, this book challenges the usefulness of political benchmarks in German history (such as 1945, 1949 and 1961) and examines instead the relationship between the fabric and spaces of Berlin and the processes of reconstruction, and the ways in which these were intimately connected to, and shaped, identity, sexuality and gender in the divided city. In spite of a chasm of difference in ideology, the nascent East and West German authorities shared a highly idealised notion of the traditional family unit as the basis of morality. The mass rapes in the immediate aftermath of German surrender, the shattered family units, the ruined spaces in the city fostering casual sexual encounters and the economy of prostitution, the remarkable resurgence in the ruined post-war cityscape of pre-Nazi-era spaces of the sexual avant garde, all fostered concepts among the authorities and Berlins citizens of a moral geography of deviance that shaped the physical rebuilding of the city and attitudes towards use of public space. Life among the Ruins recasts the history of sexuality in Berlin in a radical new light, and repositions our understanding of society and reconstruction in Cold War Berlin. In common with all volumes in the Genders and Sexualities in History series, Jennifer Evanss Life among the Ruins presents a multifaceted and meticulously researched scholarly study, and is a sophisticated contribution to our understanding of the past.

Titles include

Cordelia Beattie and Kirsten A. Fenton (editors)

INTERSECTIONS OF GENDER, RELIGION AND ETHNICITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Matthew Cook

QUEER DOMESTICITIES

Homosexuality and Home Life in Twentieth-Century London

Jennifer V. Evans

LIFE AMONG THE RUINS

Cityscape and Sexuality in Cold War Berlin

Christopher E. Forth and Elinor Accampo (editors)

CONFRONTING MODERNITY IN FIN-DE-SICLE FRANCE

Bodies, Minds and Gender

Dagmar Herzog (editor)

BRUTALITY AND DESIRE

War and Sexuality in Europes Twentieth Century

Jessica Meyer

MEN OF WAR

Masculinity and the First World War in Britain

Jennifer D. Thibodeaux (editor)

NEGOTIATING CLERICAL IDENTITIES

Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages

Hester Vaizey

SURVIVING HITLERS WAR

Family Life in Germany 193948

Genders and Sexualities in History Series

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Life among the Ruins

Cityscape and Sexuality in Cold War Berlin

Jennifer V. Evans

Jennifer V. Evans 2011

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted her right to be identified
as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

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ISBN 9780230202016

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Evans, Jennifer V., 1970

Life among the ruins : cityscape and sexuality in Cold War
Berlin / Jennifer V. Evans.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9780230202016 (alk. paper)

1. Berlin (Germany)History19451990. 2. Berlin (Germany)Social conditions20th century. 3. Sex customsGermanyBerlin History20th century. 4. Sexual ethicsGermanyBerlin History20th century. 5. Sex roleGermanyBerlinHistory20th century. 6. ProstitutionGermanyBerlinHistory20th century. 7. Civil societyGermanyBerlinHistory20th century. I. Title.

DD881.E93 2011

943.155087dc22 2011013743

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

To Jason, Gillian, and Gwen

Contents

List of Figures

Map

Following the conclusion of the Potsdam Conference, what was formerly greater Berlin was divided into four sectors, administered jointly by the Allied powers (the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union). This map shows the boundaries of the four sectors, which remained formally in place until 1990. After the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, however, it became increasingly clear that the division was purely one of EastWest. Within West Berlin, there were hardly any dividing lines between the sectors administered by the Western Allies. As the map shows, Berlin had unified transportation systems, including railroads and the S-Bahn (suburban railway), which still existed in 1949. It was not until 1961 that this situation began to change radically. (A. Kunz)