The Gay Capal of the Neteenth Century | The New Yorker

Contents:

• THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC. GOALS AND TENTNS
• BERL WAS A LIBERAL HOTBED OF HOMOSEXUALY UNTIL THE NAZIS ME TO POWER, GAY BERL REVEALS
• GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC. GOALS AND TENTNS

Acrdg to some social historians, many men had enjoyed homosexual experienc the trench durg the First World War and, their cursy well and tly piqued, were keen to enjoy their new eedom as much as possible.

Combed wh the general air of liberty and open-mdns Berl om 1920 onwards, this meant that homosexualy beme creasgly tolerated – cludg the prence of male prostut on the streets of the pal. The magaz might also feature adverts for private tectiv – many gay men were victims of attempted blackmail and there was a huge market for tectiv pable of fdg out who might be behd such a sm.

As the tle suggts, this guibook shunned the ual palac and parks and stead poted the cur visor the directn of homosexual bars like the Topp, transvte barets and plac they uld pick up a girl (or boy) for the night.

BERL WAS A LIBERAL HOTBED OF HOMOSEXUALY UNTIL THE NAZIS ME TO POWER, GAY BERL REVEALS

Whisnant wr about the "homosexual movement" lnched Germany the 1890s and s var factns (and s sndals and polil movements) that led up to the openns of the Weimer Republic the 1920s. While is important to strs the signifince of Stonewall for the LGBT muny, would be wrong to perceive of the gay rights movement as an entirely ntemporary phenomenon (L- rsen and Thorstad 1995: 3). Th, is important to historicize the urse of the early homosexual liberatn movement, not only to give cred to the pneers the fight for the advancement of sexual mori but also to better unrstand the origs and therefore the tactics and obstacl of today's gay rights movement and social movements general.

Germany is of special importance to the history of the homosexual emancipatn movement: is both the birthplace of the gay rights movement and the untry which the most gome atroci agast homosexuals were mted (Steakley 1975: 4, 103119). This brief scriptn of the homosexual emancipatn movement Weimar Germany is followed by an examatn of s four ma goals, which clus the ntext which they were pursued, the means which were employed to achieve them and how succsful the movement was s efforts. Among them was the lawyer Karl Hez Ulrichs whose theory of homosexualy, which views same-sex love as a ngenal tra that is neher ntag nor dangero, me to be very fluential and built the basis for later theori on this topic.

Ulrichs theoretil wrgs are of great signifince for the history of gay rights and homosexual emancipatn, as they reprent the first systematic and sympathetic treatment of homosexualy. In addn to his theoretil wrgs, Ulrichs also was an active opponent of the growg fluence of Pssia among the German stat, which put prsure on smaller stat like Hanover to adopt Pssian laws and statut unr which homosexualy was illegal (Steakley 1975: 4-8). Tied to this advocy of male raship and ancient Greek culture was a feelg of superry, which kept the Communy of the Special largely om workg wh other segments of the homosexual emancipatn movement as well as wh other liberatn movements general, and led them to adopt a rather rogative attu toward certa societal groups like Jews and pecially women (Steakley 1975: 44-49, 60-62).

GAY MEN UNR THE NAZI REGIME

The foundatn of the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee marks another important pot the history of gay rights and homosexual liberatn, as was the “world's first self-nscly homosexual polil anizatn” (Beachy 2010: 805). This publitn ntaed reports on the Commtee's activi as well as lerary, historil, anthropologil, polemil, and scientific studi on the subject of homosexualy and other sex-related phenomena (Lrsen and Thorstad 1995: 8). The approach of the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee was based on scientific rearch on homosexualy, which is reflected by s slogan “jtice through science” (Lrsen and Thorstad 1995: 30).

In addn to the two tablished anizatns, a third major group emerged which some associate wh the stggle for homosexual emancipatn Weimar Germany: the Dtsche Liga für Menschenrechte (“German League for Human Rights”).

The reason why the League is often associated wh the German gay rights movement is that one of s members, Kurt Hiller, was also one of the most proment members of the Humanarian-Scientific Commtee and an outspoken proponent of homosexual liberatn (Reisner 2009: 114). The three anizatns - the German League for Human Rights, the Communy of the Special and the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee - are the on most monly affiliated wh the gay rights movement the Weimar Republic.

Consequently, the League was more ncerned wh issu such as disarmament, anti-arism and European unifitn (Kuczynski 1926b: 11-15; Der Brüsseler Kongreß 1926: 1-9) and ls wh the liberatn of homosexuals, which is why I do not nsir part of the gay rights movement Weimar Germany for the purpose of this paper. Instead of actively participatg the natnal stggle for homosexual emancipatn, the Communy of the Special beme creasgly isolated and foced on cultural rather than polil issu (Lehmstedt 2004: 44; Steakley 1975: 77, 83-84). Therefore, n be said that durg the years om 1919 to 1932, the Scientific- Humanarian Commtee wh s two leadg figur Hirschfeld and Hiller was the sgle most important anizatn wh the German gay rights movement (Steakley 1975: 77).

In one of the early issu of s yearbook, the Commtee stated s goals as follows: “(1) to w legislative bodi to the posn of abolishg the antigay paragraph of the German penal , Paragraph 175; (2) enlighteng public opn on homosexualy; (3) ‘tertg the homosexual himself the stggle for his rights’” (Lrsen and Thorstad 1995: 8). In the Weimar Republic, homosexualy was illegal unr Paragraph 175, which read as follows: “Unnatural vice mted by two persons of the male sex or by people wh animals is to be punished by imprisonment; the verdict may also clu the loss of civil rights” (no thor 1997: 63).