Käte Rogalli is not the first trans woman honored with a Stolperstein, but she is the first to have her true name – not her birth name – inscribed.

The stumbling stone was placed on August 31st, 2023, in front of her former residence on Hagelberger Straße in Kreuzberg. This is Käte Rogalli’s story.

Who Is Käte Rogalli?

Käte, born in Berlin in 1903 and assigned male at birth, pursued a career as a technical draughtsman and precision mechanic during her youth. Frequently mistaken for a man dressed in women’s clothing, she faced significant discrimination, ultimately losing her job as a result.

During the mid-1920s, she connected with the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science), an organization led by Magnus Hirschfeld that focused on groundbreaking research into gender and sexuality.

Hirshfeld and Paragraf 175

Hirschfeld’s research revealed that being transgender is an innate trait and that trans women are not simply gay men wearing women’s clothing. He introduced the term ‘transvestite,’ which today refers to what we call trans women.

This held significant importance in Germany at the time, as the notorious Paragraph 175 of the penal code criminalized male prostitution and sex between men.

Hirschfeld reached an agreement with the police, ensuring that trans women could walk the streets undisturbed, distinguishing them from gay men in the eyes of the authorities.

The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was authorized to issue the transvestite certificate, which allowed trans women to be exempt from the restrictions of Paragraph 175.

In 1926, Käte received a transvestite certificate, which also allowed her to officially change her birth name with the authorities. Unfortunately, she could not adopt the name Käte as she desired, since the available options were restricted to a limited list approved by the authorities.

Forced to Wear Men’s Clothes

Society underwent drastic changes when Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in Germany in 1933. One major shift was the alteration of Paragraph 175, making even minor offenses grounds for arrest and conviction. The penalty was increased to up to five years in prison – internment in concentration camps.

This deeply affected trans women like Käte. In 1936, the Gestapo arrested her, took away her transvestite certificate and her name. They forced her to wear men’s clothes and use her birth name. The Nazis wrongly treated her as a man. Soon after, she was arrested again for breaking the law by wearing women’s clothes.

The following year brought punishment. Imprisonment in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, where many from Berlin’s LGBT+ community were held.

Käte was reportedly the only prisoner in the entire history of Sachsenhausen registered specifically as a “transvestite.” Other inmates were classified under broader categories and wore colored triangles on their prison uniforms to indicate their classification.

For example, gay men were forced to wear an inverted pink triangle on their prison uniforms, a symbol that subjected them to violence from other inmates and the harshest, most punishing labor in the camp, frequently leading to death.

Committed to an Infamous Aktion T4 Institution

Käte remained interned for just over a year until 1938, when she faced trial once more and received a two-year sentence of forced labor, tasked with constructing the so-called Ostmarkstraße in eastern Bavaria.

After her release, Käte returned to Berlin and settled on Hagelberger Straße. A year later, she was arrested again, declared ‘insane’ by the court, and sent to the Wittenauer Heilstätten psychiatric hospital, now known as Karl-Bonhoeffer-Nervenklinik, in northern Berlin.

The institution was one among many implicated in Hitler’s Aktion T4, a program designed to systematically eliminate individuals considered unworthy of life. Victims of this horrific policy were primarily those with severe disabilities or mental illnesses.

In essence, it was a methodical campaign of mass murder, covertly executed within psychiatric institutions by medical professionals. Death certificates often cited unrelated causes, such as heart attacks or suicides, to conceal the truth.

Käte unexpectedly became a patient in one of these notorious institutions. Two years later, she was said to have died by suicide, reportedly hanging herself in a bathroom due to the hopelessness of ever being released. Suicide was the official explanation of her death.

Käte passed away while in the custody of the Nazis on April 11, 1943.

Eighty years later, she made history as the first transgender individual to be honored with a Stolperstein bearing her true name.

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