Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate

Director | Benjamin Cantu
Dramatization Director | Matt Lambert
Writers | Felix Kriegsheim, Benjamin Cantu
Executive Producers | Felix Kriegsheim, Nils Bökamp, Benjamin Cantu, Ryan White, Jessica Hargrave
Edited by Barbara Gies  | Additional Editors:  Clara Andres and Andi Pek
Full Credits on IMDB

Synopsis

The “Eldorado” nightclub in late 1920s Berlin was legendary and a pillar of Berlin’s reputation as a party capital and a place of sexual diversity. Gays, lesbians and trans* people danced side by side with Marlene Dietrich and Charles Chaplin. Even a high-ranking Nazi like Ernst Röhm mingled with the guests. But the “Eldorado” became a target of the Nazi movement early on – its closure in 1932 symbolizes a totalitarian turning point. The world’s first visibly queer community was destroyed by the Nazis in just a few years. Many who had just learned about a new freedom were suddenly persecuted and murdered. The documentary Eldorado – Everything the Nazis Hate is the first of its kind to sensitively trace the fates of queer people in the upheaval between the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Among them are Magnus Hirschfeld and tennis player Gottfried von Cramm, his wife Lisa von Dobeneck and his lover Manasse Herbst, as well as the first trans-women in history, Charlotte Charlaque and Toni Ebel. Time witness, Walter Arlen, who was born in Vienna in 1920, and who observed the radical changes in his youth, has a special appearance in the film. Newly discovered archival footage, interviews with last eyewitnesses and historically sensual recreations bring us closer to a queer community that was already pioneering our time, a 100 years ago.