2022 - 23rd July - Berlin- Christopher Street Day

'United in Love' was the motto of this year's Christopher Street Day (CSD) in Berlin. What seems like a huge party today initially has a political background and is designed as a demonstration for the rights of gays and lesbians.

The background is an event from 1969 in New York. Repeated police raids against primarily homosexual African Americans, Latinos, and drag queens led to an uprising on June 28, which resulted in days of street battles.

To commemorate this and continue to fight for the rights of gays and lesbians, events have been held around the anniversary ever since. Initially only in New York, it has become a global event over the years.

Those who participate today want to remember this, but also celebrate love in all its forms. So everyone can come as they are, usually colorful, but we have also seen completely naked people.

After two difficult pandemic years, this was possible for the first time in Berlin as a large-scale event. Estimated number of participants: 350,000. So while the Berlin CSD is one of the largest in Europe, it is not number one in Germany. That title still belongs to Cologne, where approximately 900,000 people gather for CSD.

It is of course difficult to capture this whole crowd as an individual. We simply walked along with one float, where we particularly liked the atmosphere. We mistakenly assumed that we were at the end of the parade. Only afterwards did we learn from the press that there were still about 80 floats behind us! The aerial shots are really impressive.

And one more thing made us happy: there were also expressions of peace and a separate float with Ukrainian participants.

After a distance of over 7.4 km, the parade ended at the Brandenburg Gate. The American Embassy, which is right next to it, also decorated itself with rainbow colors. And for the first time, the German Bundestag raised the rainbow flag.