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 on the subject of the removal of custody rights in Berlin or are/were you affected yourself?
Then please contact the project manager and scientific officer for society, participation and anti-discrimination at the BMH personally and confidentially.
We are happy about any interest and will treat your contact discreetly and confidentially.
Thank you for your support.
Points of Contact:
Research project for the State of Berlin – What it’s about:
The project as a whole aims to shed light on the state-sanctioned injustice experienced within lesbian relationships. In doing so, we collectively contribute to the education and documentation of the history of discrimination against lesbians.
The 2025 project was initially made possible through 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). A follow-up project is scheduled to be funded in 2026 by the German Class Lottery Berlin Foundation.
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 looking for contemporary witnesses who would like to share their stories regarding the removal of custody from lesbian mothers. You can find our call for submissions above.
In addition to the Plötz/Bühner research project, and as part of our oral history project “Archive of Other Memories,” we are planning to conduct two life-history video interviews. The resulting interviews—featuring mothers in lesbian relationships—are to be made accessible to researchers and interested parties, in accordance with the interviewees’ specifications.
Dabei ist für uns als Projektträgerin von zentraler Bedeutung, dass alle Informationen, die uns anvertraut werden, auch ebenso vertrauensvoll behandelt werden. Die Zeitzeug_innen entscheiden selbst, in welcher Form ihre Hinweise, Informationen oder Lebensgeschichte in die verschiedenen Projektteile einfließen werden. Dabei werden sie nach einer ersten Kontaktaufnahme von unserer Ansprechperson und wissenschaftlichen Referentin Pamela Akosua T. Amponsah beraten.
You might also be interested in…
Legal Expertise on the Revocation of Custody for Lesbian and Bisexual Mothers
In April 2026, the Berlin Senate Department for Labour, Social Services, Equality, Integration, Diversity, and Anti-Discrimination published the expert opinion of Dr. Susanna Roßbach regarding the question of what responsibility the Federal Republic of Germany bears for the historical reappraisal of the deprivation of custody from lesbian and bisexual mothers, and what legal and political courses of action are available.
Lecture by Maria Bühner: “Threatened Deprivation of Custody for Women in Same-Sex Relationships in East Germany (1945–2000)”
As part of the project “Custody Deprivation of Mothers in Lesbian Relationships in Berlin” of the Magnus Hirschfeld Federal Foundation, Maria Bühner is researching the history of custody deprivation of women in same-sex relationships in East Germany between 1945 and 2000.
In this approximately 30-minute lecture, Bühner presents the first results of her scientific investigation.
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 using the following link: https://youtu.be/j9Uw9ImZZ9s.
Research project on the removal of custody for 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 Institut für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin together with the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld to carry out 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.
