Stream It or Skip It: ‘Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate’ on Netflix Is a Glitzy Doc about Queer Love in Tragic Times

Netflix’s Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate gives itself an impossible mission to complete. The documentary strives to recreate the liberated lifestyles and queer excellence that thrived in Berlin’s nightlife in the 1920s — a culture that was completely eradicated and nearly erased from memory by the rise of the Nazi party in the 1930s. Named after the pillar of this long lost queer community, Eldorado aims to be as much of a testament to the power of queer love as it is a history lesson. The question is, does it succeed?

ELDORADO: EVERYTHING THE NAZIS HATE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate’s story starts 100 years ago in Berlin, during a time that honestly isn’t too far removed from today. The city was home to roughly 100 different queer hotspots where people of all orientations and gender expressions were not only free to be themselves, they were free to celebrate. While scholars and social archaeologists talk about this moment in time, dozens of actors get to have the joy of bringing this cultural movement to life. But these aren’t Unsolved Mysteries reenactments. No, the vibe is very Sam Smith, very Jessie Ware.

Berlin’s sexual liberation extended beyond the walls of Eldorado and included Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research. The Institute provided knowledge, medical care, and safety to the queer community, especially the city’s active trans community. If none of this sounds familiar to you, it’s because of what happened in the 1930s.

Hitler’s fascist party came into power. The Institute was raided and some 20,000 books destroyed. Eldorado was shut down along with all of the other queer venues. As Germany fell to fascism, its queer citizens were increasingly targeted, controlled, and killed — all of this culminating in the horrific events of World War II. But, between the battles, queer love survived — and Eldorado has plenty of love stories to tell, too.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The romantic part of the film, especially the focus on tennis star Gottfried von Cramm whose queer relationship made him a target for the Nazis, makes this feel like a more intense relative of Netflix’s A Secret Love.

Performance Worth Watching: The performers in every reenactment scene are truly magnetic — even the ones who aren’t playing someone with a clear historical counterpart. There’s an inner life to all of them, and it honestly feels like watching a party montage in an episode of Pose. I want this show. Also you have to absolutely adore Walter Arlen, the 102-year-old survivor of Nazi Germany who made his way to America, began working as a composer, and has been with the same man since 1959. I also want that show.

Memorable Dialogue: The last line of the doc, re: what remains from the halcyon 1920s: “No names. No memory. Nothing.” This line is spoken over a montage of mugshots of unknown queer people who were likely arrested when the fascist government made being queer illegal.

Sex and Skin: The party montages and the queer love story scenes, of which there are many, all have the sensual feel of a Chris Isaak music video.

Our Take: Yes, Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate is another World War II documentary — but its focus is on an under explored aspect of the era. It’s understandable why these stories aren’t widely known, either, as the persistence of anti-queer laws in Germany after World War II made it impossible for any survivors to honestly speak about their experience. What we have in Eldorado are a handful of the stories that did survive: Gottfried von Cramm’s relationship with Jewish actor Manasse Herbst; the camaraderie turned companionship between Toni Ebel and Charlotte Charlaque, two of the first trans women to undergo gender-affirming surgery; and the still-living Walter Arlen’s summer flings with his boyhood friend, affectionately nicknamed Lumpi.

Eldorado also, by way of frequent attendee and Nazi leader Ernst Röhm, digs into the damnable and cowardly hypocrisy within the Nazi party. Homosexuals like Röhm were able to party at Eldorado in the ’20s and he expected to survive the strict, anti-queer hostilities that were intrinsic to the Nazi ethos just because he was buds with Hitler. The documentary examines Röhm from a queer perspective by reading letters that he wrote where he proclaims his gay “pride” and dissecting the overtly homoerotic vibes of his paramilitary wing. Juxtaposing Röhm’s self-serving, fascistic, hypocritical, and grim tale with all of the romance above allows Eldorado to assemble a more complex puzzle from the historical pieces that remain from this time.

Overall, the film looks amazing — like The Great Gatsby but informational — and the information provided is given the right amount of emotional weight. It’s clear that all of these people experienced more than just the utter despair and trauma that we’re so used to seeing in queer history docs. The only time the film falls short, though, is when it loses sight of it’s very specific focus. There are so many World War II stories out there, that it’s easy to zone out the instant Eldorado goes a minute without talking about anything gay. You don’t want a movie with this clear of purpose to come across as generic, even for a moment.

Thankfully those moments are few and far between in Eldorado. Instead, it succeeds in preserving these nearly lost stories and lets queers of the world add another historical haven to our canon. Long live Eldorado.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate is the perfect closer to a Pride Month in a year where fascists have repeatedly attacked the queer community.