ST. PAULI
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Male nurse,
November 1982

Excerpt: I grew up in a normal, caring family. My father was a civil servant. I was an only child. After I left school I trained as a sales assistant in a book-shop. Then I was in Bautzen. I did time in the GDR for spying. And I’m telling you, if you’ve spent eight and a half years in jail in Bautzen, you see the world very differently when you get out. Anyway, I didn’t exactly feel that being a shop-assistant was going to be all that fulfilling or give my life meaning. I wanted to help others and that’s why I decided to become a male nurse. I looked after physically handicapped people for three and a half years in Hanover. But then I was fired because of my tattoos, allegedly I spoiled the work atmosphere.

After that I moved in with Kurt in Hamburg. Kurt is a kind of fatherly friend to me. But I don’t really find Hamburg very tolerant. I’d much rather be in Berlin, but that’s not possible because East Germany is too close. I’d like to ask you a question about Hamburg. Imagine it’s summer. It’s really hot. Would a beautiful woman be able to go topless down Jungfernstieg**, wearing nothing but a stole? Well, she can on Kuhdamm* in Berlin! And the same is true of the gay scene. The biggest leather meet is in Berlin, not in Hamburg. Why? Here in Hamburg, people only go out when it’s dark so that no-one’ll see them. But if I have to be in Hamburg, then it’s St. Pauli that attracts me most because you find all possible contradictions here. You find absolutely everything here! ...

*) One of the main shopping streets in Hamburg.
**) Kurfürstendamm – main street in Berlin.

© Joerg Otto Meier, St. Pauli Portraits