Max Mensing - Süßer... Süßer 1931 (Eric Harden)

Max Mensing sings Süßer... Süßer by Jerry Wiga and Paul Geißler recorded 1931 Eric Harden und sein Tanzorchester (Fred Bird-Lehmann) Recorded originally in 1931 in Berlin and sung by Max Mensing, this campy tango featured a fey drag queen answering his rather macho lead, and the final chorus in the best style of Nervous Nellies of the day. As recordings catering to the gay audience began to be released as phonograph technology emerged, colorful recordings such as this began to be possible. This sort of over-the-top number would most likely have been performed at the Eldorado cabaret, where men were men and the women were too! Tourist guidebooks of the day suggested a visit to the Eldorado in order to see something to tell the folks back home about. The cabaret was closed by the Nazis in 1933, when it became a local SS office. Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm (7 July 1909 8 November 1976) was a German amateur tennis champion and twice French Open champion. Despite his enormous popularity with the public, on 5 March 1938, von Cramm was arrested by the German government and tried for homosexuality.[2] After being hospitalized for a nervous collapse after his arrest, he was sentenced to 1 year imprisonment on 14 March for his relationship with Manasse Herbst, a young Galician Jewish actor and singer, who had appeared in the 1926 silent film Der Sohn des Hannibal. Von Cramm admitted that the relationship, which lasted from 1931 until 1934, began shortly before he married his first wife. He was additionally charged with sending money to Herbst, who blackmailed the tennis star for $12,000 and moved to Palestine in 1936. According to a 15 May 1938 report about the trial in the New York Times, the judge stated that “Baron von Cramm had alleged that his wife, during their honeymoon, had become intimate with a French athlete. The court held that this experience had unsettled the young tennis star and had resulted in his seeking a perverse compensation for an unhappy married life.“ Von Cramm was released after 6 month of imprisonment because of his “good behaviour“ on 16 October 1938. His international tennis friends were outraged, and Don Budge collected the signatures of high-profile athletes and sent a protest letter to Hitler. After being released in October 1938 on parole, in May 1939 von Cramm returned to competitive tennis but the extremely tense political climate caused problems when he went to play in England. Nevertheless, von Cramm was allowed to compete at the Queen’s Club tournament in London where he won the event by beating American Bobby Riggs 6-0, 6-1. The officials at Wimbledon reportedly refused to let him play in the championships, using the excuse that he was a convicted criminal and therefore unfit; The New York Times, however, quoted Wimbledon sources as saying that von Cramm was welcome to participate, had he submitted an entry. The U.S. rejected his temporary-visa application that same year, citing his morals-charge conviction; he had intended to play at the U.S. Open in September. A further humiliation was Germany’s 1940 decision to recall von Cramm from an international tennis tournament in Rome before he had a chance to play. The New York Times reported that his abrupt departure “was attributed to the German authorities’ desire to prevent the former champion from meeting Henner Henkel, Rolf Goepffert, and other German players ... Berlin decided it would be embarrassing if von Cramm beat his compatriots...“ Wartime service and postwar career After the outbreak of World War II, von Cramm was drafted into military service in May 1940[2] as a member of the Hermann Goering Division. He saw action on the Eastern Front and was awarded the Iron Cross. Because of his previous conviction he was dismissed from military service in 1942. While war robbed von Cramm of some of his best years for tennis, he still won another German national championship in 1948 and was already forty years old when he won it for the last time in 1949. He played Davis Cup tennis until retiring after the 1953 season and still holds the record for most wins by any German team member. After the war the Nazi anti-gay laws were not repealed and some homosexuals had to continue to serve their sentences!!!!!!!!!!!!!