I Am My Own Wife: The Real Story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf

From Publishers Weekly
Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, born Lothar Berfelde in 1928 in Mahlsdorf, was the son of a benevolent mother and a tyrannical father. At a very early age (seven or eight), he discovered that he liked to wear his mother's old clothes, jauntily noting that "I still have my mania for aprons." His story is not all lightness and lipstick, however. Mahlsdorf recalls being transferred from public to private school after a teacher beat him for making a crack about Hitler Youth. He found a job working after school in an antique furniture store. But then a Jewish co-worker was taken away ("They probably need farm workers in Poland," his employer insisted hopefully), and more and more often they began dealing in "Jewish bequests." Mahlsdorf escaped the war and his father by going with his mother, sister and brother to East Prussia, and from there to stay on his aunt's farm, where he was encouraged and nurtured by his lesbian aunt, herself a cross-dresser. Near the end of the war, when he returned to his home village, he killed his violent father during a confrontation and used a precursor of battered women's syndrome as his defense. Mahlsdorf did not slow down a bit in later years. He recalls creating a house-museum almost from scratch, East Germany's underground gay culture, the persecution he suffered from appearing in women's clothing in public and the divisiveness of the Berlin Wall. Although this is nonfiction, I Am My Own Woman reads like a traditional action-adventure story?with a cross-dressing furniture buff as the hero. Photos. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times
"Nothing short of breathtaking. A terrific story."


The Village Voice
"Charlotte’s been smacked and pawed for decades by a gallery of rogues and brutes…and she’s resisted."


Time Magazine
"As a child, Lothar Berfelde loved to wear an apron and polish porcelain....Instead his life took a bumpier course.


New York Newsday, June 13, 2004
"Von Mahlsdorf’s book is a ‘Wife’-time achievement."


Book Description
A soft-spoken transvestite wanting nothing more than to live as a hausfrau, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf instead was caught up in the most harrowing dramas of 20th-century Europe, surviving both the Nazis and the Communists. Originally published as I Am My Own Woman, this exquisitely written autobiography reveals her lifelong pursuit of sexual liberty. The story is reaching an entirely new readership of enthusiastic theater fans with I Am My Own Wife, the new Broadway show by Doug Wright about the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in drama.


Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German


About the Author
Charlotte von Mahlsdorf lived all her life in Berlin. She died in 2000, age 74.


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Hailed by the New York Times, Time magazine, and the Village Voice, here is the amazing story of a mild-mannered transvestite who triumphed over a violent childhood and the brutalities of both the Nazis and Communists to carve out a dignified life as an open cross-dresser in East Berlin. Charlotte￯﾿ﾽs tale, like her life, is a surprising and provocative weave of sex, politics, and history.


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