The Lilac People

by Milo Todd

named in honor of three of the few known presumed trans masculine and/or intersex individuals documented to have survived the War: Berthold Buttgereit, Karl M. Baer, and Gerd Katter. * Berthold Buttgereit (1891–1983) inexplicably survived in plain sight of the Nazis throughout the War, mainly in Cologne, his entire life documented save for an eight-year disappearance from 1942 to 1950. This is a significant time to disappear, and yet I was never able to account for this disappearance. With Dr. Hirschfeld’s help, he acquired a “transvestite card” in 1912 and a “transvestite passport/travel pass” in 1918. His “transvestite passport/travel pass” is the only known surviving article of this nature. His “transvestite card” is lost. He acquired a name change in 1920, after over a year of battling the regulations. He soon after sought to marry his girlfriend of eight years but was denied when he presented his birth certificate. He then tried to change his birth certificate, but the outcome of this, and his consequential marriage, are unknown. Save for his name continuing to appear in Cologne’s address books until his death, the remainder of his life is largely unknown. * Karl M. Baer (1885–1956) wrote the semi-fictional book Aus eines Mannes Mädchenjahren (Memoirs of a Man’s Maiden Years) under the pseudonym N. O. Body in 1907, with a foreword by Dr. Hirschfeld. The book was popular enough in its time that copies survived beyond the burning of the Institute’s library and the Nazi ...