The city begins to glow with anticipation, as streets prepare to hold the weight of joy, protest, and everything in between

In Berlin, July doesn’t just bring sun. It brings something else, something felt in the body long before it’s seen. There’s a shift in the air. Rainbow flags start appearing in windows. Posters go up. Old friends start messaging. And you realise, again, that Pride in this city isn’t just a date. It’s a return.

The week begins with the Lesbisch schwules Stadtfest on 19 and 20 July, a kind of hometown ritual in Schöneberg, and gathers force until everything converges at Christopher Street Day Berlin on 26 July, the march, the speeches, the uncontainable crowds. Both events carry different weights. But they hold hands. And together, they remind us why we show up.

Schöneberg’s City Festival: Where Pride Begins

Some people call it the warm-up to Berlin Pride, but that’s not quite right. The Stadtfest feels more like a gathering of extended chosen family, the kind of people who know the neighbourhood, who helped build it, and who have been doing the work long before the floats arrive.

For two days, the streets around Nollendorfplatz shift into something new. Not in a flashy way. More like a reclaiming. Cafés spill out onto the pavements. Queer organisations set up folding tables covered in zines and flyers and handmade badges. There’s music from every direction. People you haven’t seen in years hug like no time has passed.

Five zones stretch across the district. Film, Politics, Health and Wellness, Sports, and Fetish. Each holding their own rhythm. Some stalls offer HIV testing or asylum advice. Others hand out queer books or make room for a quiet conversation. Every street corner carries its own mood. The soft energy of the FLINTA stage. The heavy pulse of the Boxer stage. The unapologetic storytelling at the Queer Media stage.

One of the most moving moments happens not on a dancefloor but on a sofa. Literally. Das wilde Sofa, a live talk show where queer thinkers and artists speak plainly about politics and culture, cuts through the noise with something slower and true. And later that evening, the Rainbow Award is handed out. Not for fame. For service. For care. This year, it goes to Alain Rappsilber.

This isn’t a festival built on spectacle. It’s built on years of community. The kind that still remembers why Schöneberg matters. It’s the first place in Germany where gay bars opened again after the war. It’s where people gathered, and grieved, and made new ways of being. And the Stadtfest remembers that. You can feel it in the way strangers speak to each other. In the quiet confidence of it all.

CSD Berlin 2025: A Parade with Purpose

The following Saturday, everything expands. What was grounded becomes loud. The Christopher Street Day parade starts near Leipziger Straße at 11:30, with people already filling the streets hours earlier. There are speeches, faces on rooftops, flags out every window. The march begins at noon, and it doesn’t stop moving for hours.

The route carries the city. Past Potsdamer Platz. Through Nollendorfplatz. Toward Brandenburg Gate. Along the way, you see everything. Hand-painted signs. Tears. Kisses. Impromptu voguing. Tired parents in mesh. Dancers in wheelchairs. Drag queens walking barefoot because their shoes gave out.

This year’s theme is Never Silent Again. It sounds like a slogan. But in Berlin, it feels personal. Organisers are demanding that Germany’s Basic Law finally include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected rights. The push is not symbolic. It’s needed. Especially now, when the world feels like it’s leaning backward in too many places at once.

And yet, this parade is never just reaction. It is joy. It is messy and hot and unscripted. It holds contradictions. Protesters chant beside club floats. Survivors walk beside first timers. And when the final rally takes shape at the Brandenburg Gate, something fragile and strong begins to settle over the crowd. You feel it. A kind of shared breath. A held moment. The knowledge that queer Berlin is still here.

Last year, half a million people showed up. This year, more are expected. But numbers don’t tell you what it’s like to march through your own city and feel safe for once. What it’s like to be seen by strangers and not flinch.

Beyond the Parade

The week around CSD is a festival in its own right. Not everything is big. And not everything needs to be.

There is CSD on the Spree, a boat parade on 24 July that turns the river into a slow, floating party. There is the Dyke March on 25 July in Kreuzberg, loud, political, intentionally built by and for lesbians and queers who often get erased in wider Pride narratives. On 26 July, after the march, House of Pride becomes a temporary world of lights, sweat, and release inside the walls of Ritter Butzke.

Between all of this, you’ll find film nights, readings, conversations tucked into gallery corners and community spaces across Mitte and Neukölln. Not everything is announced. Sometimes you just follow the sound of music or the feeling of something being possible.

Travel, Access, and Staying Safe

The city makes space for the crowd, but it’s worth knowing how to move through it.

• U-Bahn access is easiest from U2 Nollendorfplatz or U5 Brandenburger Tor
• Wheelchair accessible viewing points, public toilets, and sign-language interpretation are available
• What to bring: sunscreen, water, a power bank, and something that makes you feel like yourself, more than usual

Berlin Shows Up

Whether you are drawn to the drag choirs and queer punk bands of the Stadtfest or the mass energy of the CSD march, Berlin allows space for it all. Some come to protest. Some come to heal. Some come just to exist without being questioned.

Pride in Berlin is not a performance. It is a tradition shaped by struggle, protest, grief, and love. And when the music fades and the banners come down, what stays is the reminder that showing up still matters.

The 31st Lesbisch schwules Stadtfest takes place on 19 and 20 July 2025 around Nollendorfplatz in Berlin Schöneberg. Entry is free. Full program at stadtfest.berlin
Christopher Street Day Berlin happens Saturday 26 July 2025. Parade begins at 12:00 from Leipziger Straße. Route details and updates at csd-berlin.de and visitberlin.de