All language subtitles for Joe Luga Schwein Gehabt aka More Luck than Sense_Track03

More Luck than Sense

Here we go!

...and I can say,
now that I've passed the age of 8O years...

I could say that even as a schoolboy
I was openly gay.

L knew very early that I was,
as they said so nicely then, “not normal”:

homosexual. The word “gay”
was used only as an insult.

I started singing very early.
In 1927 [when I was 7], we moved to Berlin.

As far as my singing went,
I was already quite well-trained,

and I sang
with my boyish soprano at school.

Always love:
That's my primary law

I love only love

Always love,
Wherever it takes me

I didn't experience the persecution of gays.
It just didn't happen to anyone I knew.

Of course, we knew about it.

Quite early [in the Nazi regime]
I went with someone to Oranienburg.

We were outside town having a coffee. He said,
“That's a concentration camp over there.”

We knew that homosexuals
were being persecuted.

Always love:
I've made up my mind

H! always be true
only to love

Then, when I had to join the army
and became a soldier,

there were evenings of entertainment
and “comradeship”, and I always sang.

I was lucky. Already in Poland,
before the war with Russia began,

I was being passed around
from company to company.

I impersonated female celebrities,
of course, in drag:

Zarah, Serano and, especially, Marika
ROkk, dancing on the table in red boots.

I always had superior officers who liked that
sort of thing, and they really promoted me.

Looking back, I can say
I was really celebrated.

What did I sing for the troops?

Primarily, parodies of Zarah Leander,
Marika ROkk, Serano...

This evening Charlie is coming to me

And surely he'll pop the question...
Of course, I was singing much higher then.

L'm certain there were people who thought,
“He must be gay.”

But no one seemed to mind.

You could say
I was a soldier on the side.

Red poppy, why are you wilting

When my heart is blooming with joy?

Then my voice was Way up there.

You played women?
-Only!

Right away, our tenor
gave me the name “Inga”.

On our second day he said,
“For me you'll always be Inga.”

I had the incredible luck
of finding a powerful patron.

He was the general of our division.

It was clear to me that he was homosexual.

Unbelievably good-looking.

You took me in a delirious high

Between a game of dice and roll call

In Morocco, in Morocco
The men are really men

In Morocco, in Morocco
There blows a hot desert wind

He gave me a lot of support and sometimes
invited me to visit him privately.

He also did me a favor regarding a boy
with whom I was together.

He had him transferred to his
division staff, Where he was later killed.

You're playing with fire
You're playing with death

You're gambling your luck away

Sometimes in dreams
I see your horse

Return riderless from the fray

I hope!

I was incredibly lucky!

I looked extremely young.

I wasn't feminine. I was very boyish.

As the delicate creature
with the high singing voice,

the people found rne enchanting
and just forgot about other things.

They didn't care about my private incli-
nations, as long as I didn't molest anyone.

In April, just before we were due
to disperse, a strict officer came,

the famous General Unruh von Unruh.

He said, “This guy in drag...
That's out of the question!”

The good times were over.

Eventually I landed in Czechoslovakia.
I was captured and became a prisoner of war.

I was put in a Russian prison camp
and later sent to Russia.

It wasn't so easy in Russia. For the first
2 years I worked in a quarry and the forest.

Evenings in the camp
I always did some entertaining.

It was an earthen bunker,
and I would go through

telling anecdotes and singing a cappella.

Sometimes in life are moments

Of this or that potential

lf a woman is experienced and smart,

She knows how to make herself essential

I sang my chansons there
until I was released.

In drag?
-Yes.

The Russians provided costumes
for me right away.

They even had costumes tailored,
and I had the fool's license there.

It went so far that I had an open relationship
with a German officer,

a beautiful blond hunk.

Kisses, kisses so hot
The moment when everythinq's burning

And I know hotter things
For which I'm yearning, yearning, yearning

If you weren't extremely provocative
about it, it wasn't a problem.

From “Gay Courage”
Praunheim, 1997

After WWII, hopes of more freedom
for gays were shattered.

Gay Museum, Berlin

The Nazi version of the anti-gay law

existed in West Germany until 1969.

In the annotation, there was little change.
The same penalties still applied:

from a jail term to a prison sentence.

Only the concentration camps were gone.

In 1950 I was caught the first time.
Of course, I was informed on.

The boy was 15, almost 16.

Did he go to the police on his own accord?
-The boy liked me a lot.

That boy ran errands for my father,
and that's how I met him.

Without question, it had to do with
the boy's sexual curiosity, his puberty.

But he informed on me.
I was taken by surprise

by a policeman at home,
and that was it.

I landed in a hard labor camp.

I was put to work in land reclamation,
building dikes and such things.

The conditions were really horrible.

The sanitation and the condition
of our barracks were abominable.

From “Gay Courage”
Praunheim, 1997

What was life like
for a gay man in the 50s'?

Young people don't believe you
when you tell them about it.

Opera Director

When you went into your own apartment
with another adult man who stayed the night,

and the nasty neighbors noticed, they could
call the vice squad who'd come to your door

and ask, “What's he doing here'?
Why didn't he go home?”

It was a hard time.
Especially the ostracism afterwards...

I moved immediately to Berlin.
The result of that decision

was my entrance into the cabaret scene,

at first with Valeska Gert,
then at the Kelch, a night club.

Berlin was seductive.

After Russia and my time in provincial
Cuxhaven, to be in the metropolis Berlin

with its gay bars and its openness
was fabulous.

Of course, there I wasn't exactly careful.

I was caught a second time,
but I got probation.

He was an older boy, 18.

I also got married.

It was after my first trial in Berlin
that we decided to marry.

She was a stage partner of mine
and wanted to help me.

And she did help.
Having a Wife was a kind of shield.

I could easily count the times
we were in bed together.

Then I went to Mannheim, and unfortunately,
they got me again in 1960.

I'd had my little cabaret bar
for only two years at the time.

They didn't know that I'd served time before,
and I still got 2O months.

Pd like to live until Fm 8O

Then let me die, but in a brothel!

Let me be murdered there from behind,

And let it be out of pure jealousy!

Here on the good earth
There are some lovely goals

For instance, a night of love,
The kind I used to know

Pd like to live until Fm 8O

Then let me die, but in a brothel!

Let me be murdered there from behind,

And let it be out of pure jealousy!

Subtitles: Mike Shephard