There are, I am informed, several large cafes in Berlin which are almost exclusively patronized by inverts who come here to flirt and make acquaintances; as these cafes are frequented by male street prostitutes (Pupenjunge) the invert risks being blackmailed or robbed if he goes home or to a hotel with a cafe acquaintance.  There are also a considerable number of homosexual Kneipen, small and unpretentious bar-rooms, which are really male brothels, the inmates being sexually normal working men and boys, out of employment or in quest of a few marks as pocket money; these places are regarded by inverts as very safe, as the proprietors insist on good order and allow no extortion, while the police, though of course aware of their existence, never interfere.  Homosexual cafes for women are also found in Berlin.

There is some reason for believing that homosexuality is especially prominent in Germany and among Germans.  I have elsewhere referred to the highly emotional and sentimental traits which have frequently marked German friendships.  Germany is the only country in which there is a definite and well-supported movement for the defense and social rehabilitation of inverts.  The study of sexual inversion began in Germany, and the scientific and literary publications dealing with homosexuality issued from the German press probably surpass in quantity and importance those issued from all other countries put together.  The homosexual tendencies of Germans outside Germany have been noted in various countries.  Among my English cases I have found that a strain of German blood occurs much more frequently than we are entitled to expect; Parisian prostitutes are said to be aware of the homosexual tastes of Germans; it is significant that (as a German invert familiar with Turkey informed Naecke), at Constantinople, the procurers, who naturally supply girls as well as youths, regard Germans and Austrians as more tending to homosexuality than the foreigners from any other land.  Germans usually deny, however, that there is any special German proclivity to inversion, and it would not appear that such statistics as are available (though all such statistics cannot be regarded as more than approximations) show any pronounced predominance of inversion among Germans.  It is to Hirschfeld that we owe the chief attempt to gain some notion of the percentage of homosexual persons among the general population.[104] It may be said to vary in different regions and more especially in different occupations, from 1 to 10 per cent.  But the average when the individuals belonging to a large number of groups are combined is generally found to be rather over 2 per cent.  So that there are about a million and a half inverted persons in Germany.[105] This would be a minimum which can scarcely fail to be below the actual proportion, as no one can be certain that he is acquainted with the real proclivities of all the persons comprising a larger group of acquaintances.[106]