Bitte nehmen Sie mit uns Kontakt auf:
What we need your help for:
Your story is important! Help us to make the history of the removal of custody rights from mothers in lesbian relationships in Berlin visible and to contribute to the education and documentation of the history of lesbian discrimination.
We are looking for you – mothers and children – who would like to speak publicly about your experiences in divided and reunited Berlin. Your accounts will help us better understand and address the historical discrimination and its potential lasting impact.
Do you have any information about the withdrawal of custody in Berlin, or are you/were you affected yourself?
Then please feel free to contact the project management and scientific advisor for society, participation and anti-discrimination at BMH personally and confidentially.
We are happy about any interest and will treat your contact discreetly and confidentially.
Thank you for your support.
Contact person:
Research project for the State of Berlin – What it’s about:
Our research project explores the everyday history of the files and literature that shed light on the injustice suffered by lesbian mothers through the deprivation of custody rights in divorce proceedings. Dr. Kirsten Plötz and Maria Bühner are conducting the research project on behalf of the BMH.
The research focuses on cases in both West and East Berlin between May 1945 and the end of 1999. The threat of losing parental rights for lesbian mothers in West Germany until the late 1990s was one of the most serious forms of discrimination against lesbian love. Fear was widespread among the affected mothers, which could become an insurmountable obstacle to living as a lesbian. Whether parental rights were also revoked in East Germany due to lesbian lifestyles needs to be investigated, as does the situation in East Berlin between 1990 and 1999.
We are already looking for eyewitnesses who would like to share their stories about the loss of parental rights for lesbian mothers. You can find our appeal above.
In addition to the Plötz/Bühner research project, we are also able to conduct two biographical video interviews in our oral history project, “Archive of Other Memories.” These two interviews with mothers in lesbian relationships will be made available to researchers and other interested parties, in accordance with the wishes of the interviewees.
For us as the project sponsor, it is of central importance that all information entrusted to us is treated with the utmost confidentiality. The eyewitnesses themselves decide how their accounts, information, or life stories will be incorporated into the various parts of the project. Following an initial contact, they will be advised by our contact person and academic advisor, Charlotte von Schuckmann.
The project as a whole aims to make visible the state-sanctioned injustices suffered by lesbian mothers. In this way, we are jointly contributing to the education and documentation of lesbian discrimination history.
The project is made possible by funding from the Berlin State Office for Equal Treatment – Against Discrimination (LADS) as part of the initiative “Berlin stands up for self-determination and acceptance of gender and sexual diversity” (IGSV).
You might also be interested in…
Video: 3 questions for Dr. Kirsten Plötz
In this approximately 16-minute video, you will not only get to know the historian Dr. Kirsten Plötz, but also hear exciting facts from her about the topic of custody removal for mothers in lesbian relationships.
In our short online video, Dr. Plötz answers very clearly,
- what it meant for the mothers concerned that they were deprived of custody or were threatened with it,
- on which legal foundations the removal of custody was based and how these have changed in the course of recent history, and
- when and why this practice of depriving children of their custody ended in Germany.
If the video is not displayed due to your browser settings, you can access the video directly on YouTube via the following link: https://youtu.be/j9Uw9ImZZ9s.
Research project on the removal of parental rights from mothers in lesbian relationships in Rhineland-Palatinate (Dr. Kirsten Plötz, 2021)
In Rhineland-Palatinate, historian Dr. Kirsten Plötz conducted the study “…in constant fear…” on the removal of custody for mothers in lesbian relationships and published her research results in 2021.
The state of Rhineland-Palatinate commissioned the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin together with the Magnus Hirschfeld Federal Foundation to conduct the study, which was then carried out by Dr. Kirsten Plötz.
Interview project “Archive of Other Memories”
Since 2013, the Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation has collected more than 100 queer life stories in the form of video interviews. These interviews are available for research and educational purposes, provided, of course, that the interviewees themselves have given their consent.
