Fembio Special: Famous Lesbians
Käthe (Kitty) Kuse
born on March 17, 1904 in Berlin, Germany
died on November 7, 1999 in Berlin, Germany
Founder of the first lesbian group for older women in Germany after the Second World War
25th anniversary of death on November 7, 2024
Biography
Kitty Kuse grew up in the middle of the so-called “Red Island” in Schöneberg - so called because of the left-wing political orientation typical of the working-class residents of that neighborhood in Berlin. Her father, a craftsman, was a member of the SPD. As a teenager, she joined a working-class youth organization and she would hike around Berlin together with others almost every Sunday equipped with a guitar and songbook. She had her first same-sex experiences (in a haystack, as she herself once confessed) in the group, and nobody had any particular objections about two girls being together. Kitty Kuse worked as a commercial clerk. She did not join the NSDAP or a similar organization during the Third Reich and thus paid the price of many years of unemployment. Still naïvely unaware of the term ‘lesbian’, she briefly considered applying for a change of name and officially taking on a male name. However, a doctor at the Hirschfeld Institute dissuaded her from an application that surely would have attracted the attention of the Nazis. Kitty Kuse ensured the survival of the Jewish painter Gertrude Sandmann by taking food across Berlin to the artist’s hiding place. After the war ended, she caught up on her A-levels and studies in East Germany and in 1951 she received a degree in economics from East Berlin's Humboldt University.
In the early 1960s, she moved with her partner and her partner’s two children to West Berlin. In 1970, after 18 years together, her girlfriend separated from her. Kitty decided to distract herself from the grief of the break-up by founding a group of working older lesbians. Through the organization initially founded as Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin (HAW), from which the Lesbische Aktionszentrum (LAZ) later emerged, she received the addresses of older lesbians who had withdrawn due to the younger age of most of the women in the LAZ. In 1974, Kitty wrote to these women and founded the group L 74 (the L stands for Lesbos); from 1975, she and the group published a lesbian magazine called ukz - unsere kleine zeitung, which existed for more than fifteen years. This “small newpaper” was indeed very small, and Kitty made sure that no debts were incurred by keeping spending within the budget. If necessary, she personally made up any shortfall. Tireless in her commitment, she answered every letter she received.
One highlight was the visit of the doctor and psychologist Charlotte Wolff (1897-1986) to Berlin after Kitty Kuse had written to her about her books on lesbian women and bisexuality. A friendly relationship developed between Wolff and the L 74 group, with the women of the Labrys bookshop intensifying the contact.
Kitty Kuse showed pioneering spirit and courage; she was respected for her integrity. In 2015, a group of women decided to collect donations for a memorial stone in her memory, which was placed in St. Matthew's Cemetery in Berlin-Schöneberg in 2016.
(Translated with DeepL.com; edited by Ramona Fararo, 2024.
Please consult the German version for additional information, pictures, sources, videos, and bibliography.)
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