Why does Hildegard Knef have such a following among the gay community

There are entertainers, one remarks as one gets older, who for some unknown yet charismatic reason remain icons for certain social minorities. This is what Hildegard Knef is for many in the gay community. Why, one can well ask and I have trouble even venturing a possibel answer. Her voice, her songs, her wit? Her truth? The woman who outraged press in German in the early fifties by apeparing naked in a performance and replies - "Have they forgotten Ausschwitz."
For those of you who do not know or who have not heard of Hildegard Knef, (one of her most famous songs - "May it rain red roses on me") she epitomizes in many ways the pre-war German Berlin.  She was an actress, a film star and a singer and although in spite of trying her luck in Hollywood with David Selsnick, it never happened in the US. A woman who admitted herself that she earned 35 million German marks and ended her life a quarter of a million in debt, a woman who mastered the gay rights movement and the fight against aids through charity concerts. Her voice is haunting, smokey, inimitable and in many cases outdoes Marlene Dietrich in Dietrich's own creations. In fact life is so strange. Was it chance that she and Marlene Dietrich were one time neighbours in Berlin. After a life-long friendship when Dietrich advised her that Yves St Laurent should come to Berlin to help with her wardrobe, they fell out and never spoke again. Yet upon Dietrich's death it was discovered that she had kept every press cutting of Knef's long after their friendship broke up.
Knef, a woman who gave up her German citizenship when she abandoned the country for the US  and who was given it back again shortly before her death - thansk to the efforts of the then prime minister, Schroeder. A woman who dressed as aman to avoid rape by invading Soviet troops, and whow as then released fro a Soviet camp when they discovered her gender. A  woman who spent the second half of her life fighting off cancer.