Gay Berlin

by Robert Beachy

  48. Keilson-Lauritz, “Benedict Friedlaender und die Anfänge der Sexualwissenschaft.”

  49. Karl Friedrich Jordan [Max Katte, pseud.], “Der Daseinszweck der Homosexuellen,” JfsZ 4 (1902): 272–88, qu. 274, 286. The identification of historical figures alleged to be “homosexual” begins no later than with Ulrichs in his pamphlets. It can be found throughout the medical and psychiatric literature, including Krafft-Ebing and Albert Moll, who published an entire volume devoted to the topic: Berühmte Homosexuelle.

  50. Lucien Römer, “Heinrich der Dritte, König von Frankreich und Polen,” JfsZ 4 (1902): 573–669.

  51. Keilson-Lauritz, Die Geschichte der eigenen Geschichte, pp. 277, 356.

  52. JfsZ 7 (1905): 165. The aphorism Hirschfeld cited was no. 75 in Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (New York, 2003), p. 60.

  53. Keilson-Lauritz, Die Geschichte der eigenen Geschichte, pp. 70, 78.

  54. On the German reception of Nietzsche see Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890–1990. See also the biography of Nietzsche that explores his alleged homosexuality, as well as the rumor that he contracted syphilis in a “homosexual brothel in Genoa,” Köhler, Zarathustra’s Secret, pp. 210–12.

  55. Monatsbericht, 1 January 1904 (no. 1), p. 8.

  56. The “anthology” appeared in the second volume of his larger work on Greek same-sex love: Eros oder die Männerliebe der Griechen, vol. 2, pp. 53–150.

  57. Frey, Der Eros und die Kunst, quoted from p. 317. Although he published additional essays in JfsZ, the identity of Ludwig Frey remains a mystery. See Keilson-Lauritz, Die Geschichte der eigenen Geschichte, p. 402.

  58. Carpenter, Ioläus.

  59. Consider the “queering” of the German literary canon in the essays in Kuzniar, ed., Outing Goethe and His Age, or the work of Robert Tobin, Warm Brothers.

  60. Derks, Die Schande der heiligen Päderastie.

  61. Raffalovich, Uranisme et Unisexualité, pp. 157–59, 310–54.

  62. Karl Friedrich Jordan [Max Katte, pseud.], “Aus dem Leben eines Homosexuellen,” JfsZ 2 (1900): 295–323. Also Keilson-Lauritzen, Die Geschichte der eigenen Geschichte, pp. 277, 288ff.

  63. See the essays in Der Eigene, including those of Peter Hamecher, “Heinrich von Kleist: Eine Studie,” no. 8–9 (1899–1900): 254–60, and “Heinrich von Kleists Liebesleben,” no. 1 (1906): 154–65; and Hans Rau, “Heinrich von Kleist: Eine psychologische Studie,” no. 2 (1905): 39–47. See also Detering, Das offene Geheimnis, pp. 115–20.

  64. Der Eigene 5 (1903): 313.

  65. Translation cited from Friedrich Schiller: Poet of Freedom, vol. 3 (Washington, DC, 1990), pp. 6–7.

  Wars nicht dies allmächtige Getriebe,

  Das zum ewgen Jubelbund der Liebe

  Unsre Herzen aneinander zwang?

  Freund, an deinem Arm—o Wonne!

  Wag auch ich zur großen Geistersonne

  Freudigmutig den Vollendungsgang.

  Glücklich! glücklich! Dich hab ich gefunden,

  Hab aus Millionen dich umwunden,

  Und aus Millionen mein bist du—

  Laß das Chaos diese Welt umrütteln,

  Durcheinander die Atomen schütteln:

  Ewig fliehn sich unsre Herzen zu.

  Muß ich nicht aus deinen Flammenaugen

  Meiner Wollust Widerstrahlen saugen?

  Nur in dir bestaun ich mich—

  Schöner malt sich mir die schöne Erde,

  Heller spiegelt in des Freunds Gebärde,

  Reizender der Himmel sich.

  Schwermut wirft die bange Tränenlasten,

  Süßer von des Leidens Sturm zu rasten,

  In der Liebe Busen ab;—

  Sucht nicht selbst das folternde Entzücken

  In des Freunds beredten Strahlenblicken

  Ungeduldig ein wollüstges Grab?

  66. The judgment was cited in Vw, 13 October 1903 (no. 239).

  67. Keilson-Lauritz, Die Geschichte der eigenen Geschichte, pp. 91–95.

  68. Monatsbericht, 1 April 1907 (no. 4).

  69. JfsZ 14 (1914): 338–41.

  70. Philip Kitcher critiques this meme in the Thomas Mann reception in his recent Deaths in Venice, pp. 26, 38–46.

  71. Essebac, Dédé.

  72. Eekhoud, Escal-Vigor.

  73. Reviews in JfsZ 5 (1902): 1047–55; 7 (1905): 883. The German translation, Der Immoralist (Minden, 1905), was completed by Felix P. Greve.

  74. Bang, Michael.

  75. Monatsbericht, 1 July 1907 (no. 7 ), p. 144; Kuzmin, Flügel.

  76. Spohr capitalized on this interest and published a pamphlet on the trial, Der Fall Wilde und das Problem der Homosexualität: Ein Prozeß und Interview, in 1896.

  77. Lehmsted, Bücher für das “dritte Geschlecht,” pp. 131–40.

  78. Eduard Bertz, “Walt Whitman: Ein Charakterbild,” JfsZ 7 (1905): 153–287. According to Whitman scholar Gay Wilson Allen, Bertz’s Jahrbuch essay was the very first time that Whitman was described as “homosexual”—see The New Walt Whitman Handbook, pp. 23–24.

  79. Bertz, “Walt Whitman,” p. 192.

  80. Grünzweig provides a detailed account of the debate in Constructing the German Walt Whitman, quoted from p. 198.

  81. Schlaf, Walt Whitman Homosexueller?; see also Bertz’s response to Schlaf’s pamphlet, Der Yankee-Heiland.

  82. The review author was German-American Georg Sylvester Viereck writing in the July 1906 issue of Current Literature. See Monatsbericht, 1 September 1906 (no. 9).

  83. See the CoS newsletter Gemeinschaft der Eigenen 4 (1905), and for Stegemann’s biography, Hergemöller, Mann für Mann, p. 673.

  84. Gemeinschaft der Eigenen 1 (1906), and for Hamecher’s biography, Hergemöller, Mann für Mann, pp. 321–22.

  85. Monatsbericht (1 February 2005), no. 2.

  86. Moll, “Sexuelle Zwischenstufen,” Die Zukunft 40 (1902): 425–33, quoted from p. 433.

  87. Brand, Kaplan Dasbach und die Freundesliebe.

  88. KI, Hirschfeld Scrapbook, box 2, folder 6, “Monatsbericht Mai 1902.”

  89. Vw, 7 April 1904 (no. 83); also BMp, 3 April 1904 (no. 79).

  90. Brand, Kaplan Dasbach und die Freundesliebe, p. 10.

  91. Vw, 23 July 1904 (no. 171).

  92. See accounts in Monatsbericht 5, 6, 8–9, 10, and 11 (1904); 1, 3, 6 (1905). Also Keilson-Lauritz, Geschichte der eigenen Geschichte, pp. 97–103; as well as the Dasbach biography by Thoma, Georg Friedrich Dasbach.

  93. Monatsbericht, 1 May 1905 (no. 5).

  94. KI, Hirschfeld Scrapbook, box 2, folder 1, no. 40; see also Keilson-Lauritz, “Benedict Friedlaender und die Anfänge der Sexualwissenschaft.”

  95. Hackett, “Helene Stöcker: Left-Wing Intellectual and Sex Reformer.”

  96. Hergemöller, Mann für Mann, pp. 244–45.

  97. KI, Hirschfeld Scrapbook, box 1, folder 2, no. 25.

  98. Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, 16 vols. (Leipzig, 1908), 9: 526; Brockhaus Konver-sations-Lexikon, 17 vols. (Leipzig, 1908), 9: 315, 10: 599, 16: 127.

  CHAPTER FOUR The Eulenburg Scandal and the Politics of Outing

  1. Wedler, Maximilian Harden und die “Zukunft,” p. 163.

  2. Röhl, Wilhelm II, p. 592. In addition to Röhl’s and other biographies of the Kaiser, several book-length studies treat the Eulenburg scandal more narrowly, including Hull, The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1888–1918; Hecht, “Die Harden-Prozesse”; Jungblut, Famose Kerle; Domeier, Der Eulenburg-Skandal; and Winzen, Das Ende der Kaiserherrlichkeit.

  3. Consider the gossip recorded in the letters of the Hohenzollern courtier Marie Fürstin Radziwill, Briefe fom deutschen Kaiserhof 1889–1915, pp. 288–89.

  4. Tresckow, Von Fürsten und anderen Sterblichen, p. 168.

  5. Ibid., p. 113.

  6. Röhl, ed., Philipp Eulenburgs politische Korrespondenz, vol. 3: Krisen, Krieg und Katastrophen: 1895–1921, p. 1986.

  7. Hull, “Kaiser Wilhelm I and the ‘Liebenberg Circle,’ ” pp. 193–220.

&
nbsp; 8. Maximilian Harden, “Praeludium” and “Dies Irae,” Die Zukunft 57 (1906): 251–66, 287–302.

  9. Maximilian Harden, “Symphonie” and “Roulette,” Die Zukunft 58 (1907): 157–74; 59 (1907): 118–30.

  10. Huber, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789, vol. 4, p. 301.

  11. Frederic William Wile, Men Around the Kaiser: The Makers of Modern Germany (Indianapolis, 1914), p. 193.

  12. GstA PK, I. HA Rep. 84a, nos. 49838–49840.

  13. Hecht, “Die Harden-Prozesse,” p. 295.

  14. Young, Maximilian Harden; Weller, Maximilian Harden und die “Zukunft”; Neumann and Neumann, Maximilian Harden (1861–1927).

  15. Neumann and Neumann, Maximilian Harden (1861–1927), pp. 21–26. See also the assessment of Hull, The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1888–1918, pp. 135–43.

  16. Domeier, Der Eulenburg-Skandal, pp. 36, 312.

  17. Details of Holstein’s machinations and his relationship to Harden are provided in Holstein’s translated diaries and correspondence: see The Holstein Papers, pp. 447–52.

  18. Die Zukunft, 13 April 1907 (no. 58), p. 44.

  19. Die Zukunft, 27 April 1907 (no. 58), p. 118.

  20. Tresckow, Von Fürsten und anderen Sterblichen, p. 125, and also Zedlitz-Trützschler, Zwölf Jahre am deutschen Kaiserhof, p. 162.

  21. Die Zukunft, 27 April 1907, p. 118.

  22. Bernhard von Bülow, Denkwürdigkeiten, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1930–31), 2: 312.

  23. Domeier, Der Eulenburg-Skandal, pp. 86–95.

  24. BTb, 26 October 1907 (no. 545).

  25. VZ, 23 October 1907 (no. 498). See additional description of the atmosphere of the first days of the trial in BTb, 23 October 1907 (no. 540).

  26. Harden documented elements of the trials in Die Zukunft—see “Prozeß Moltke,” 5 October 1907 (vol. 61), pp. 50–51. Detailed trial transcripts are also provided by veteran court reporter Hugo Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, published in twelve volumes from 1911 to 1921. The collection is now available in a digital “re-publication” from 2001.

  27. Weller, Maximilian Harden, pp. 168–69.

  28. Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, p. 3898.

  29. Ibid., pp. 3988–89.

  30. Ibid., p. 3990.

  31. Ibid., pp. 3991–92.

  32. Ibid., pp. 3992–93.

  33. Herzer, Magnus Hirschfeld, p. 72.

  34. “Fürst Bülow und die Abschaffung des § 175,” Die Gemeinschaft der Eigenen, 10 September 1907, and also reprinted in Capri 17 (1994): 17–19.

  35. Capri 17 (1994): 17–19.

  36. Court protocol from Berliner Neueste Nachrichten, 6 November 1907 (evening edition).

  37. Brand, Interessante Briefe und Dokumente zur Bülow-Eulenburg-Intrige.

  38. Linsert, Kabale und Liebe, p. 471.

  39. Brand, Interessante Briefe und Dokumente, p. 20.

  40. Domeier, Der Eulenburg-Skandal, pp. 269–72.

  41. Herzer, Magnus Hirschfeld, p. 83.

  42. Bild Zeitung am Mittag, 22 January 1908.

  43. Ibid.

  44. Holstein, The Holstein Papers, vol. 2: 411, 455.

  45. Bild Zeitung am Mittag, 25 January 1908.

  46. Harden later published detailed accounts of the Moltke and Eulenburg trials in Köpfe, vol. 3: “Eulenburg,” pp. 169–286, and “Moltke wider Harden,” pp. 409–508.

  47. Harden, Köpfe, vol. 3, pp. 233–39.

  48. Tresckow, Von Fürsten und anderen Sterblichen, p. 205.

  49. Domeier, Der Eulenburg-Skandal, pp. 272–4.

  50. Haller, Philip Eulenburg, pp. 421–23.

  51. “Wedel und Eulenburg,” Vw, 7 July 1908.

  52. Tresckow, Von Fürsten und anderen Sterblichen, p. 143.

  53. BT, 8 July 1908; BLa, 9 July 1908.

  54. Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, pp. 4355–57.

  55. Ibid., p. 4361.

  56. Harden, Köpfe, vol. 3, pp. 503–06.

  57. Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, p. 4365.

  58. Méténier, Vertus et Vices allemands, pp. 112–13.

  59. See Mirbeau, La 628-E8, pp. 407–14. The book went through multiple editions and was reissued as late as 1939.

  60. Grand-Carteret, Derrière “Lui,” L’Allemagne et la Caricature européenne en 1907, p. 63.

  61. Weindel and Fischer, L’Homosexualité en Allemagne, pp. 81–96.

  62. Murat, La loi du genre, pp. 272–73.

  63. See Raffalovich’s initial essay, “Les groupes uranistes a Paris et a Berlin,” pp. 926–36; Näcke’s response, “Le monde homo-sexuel de Paris,” pp. 182–85; Raffalovich’s reply to Näcke, “A propos du syndicat des uranistes,” pp. 283–86; and Näcke’s answer to Raffalovich, “Quelques details sur les homo-sexuels de Paris,” pp. 411–14.

  64. Saint-Paul, “Note,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle 23 (1908): 313–16, quoted from p. 314.

  65. Saint-Paul, “Note,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle 24 (1909): 693–96, quoted from p. 693.

  66. Ibid., p. 694. Laupts’s textbook was Tares et Poisons, and he reviewed the arguments he made there in “Dégénérescence ou plethora?” In 1910 he issued a revised edition, L’homosexualité et les types homosexuals (Paris, 1910).

  67. Eugen Wilhelm, “A propos de l’article du Dr. Laupts sur l’homosexualité,” Archives d’anthropologie criminelle 24 (1909): 198–207; “Publications allemandes sur les questions sexuelles,” pp. 301–09, quoted from p. 301.

  68. Hirschfeld, Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes, p. 532.

  69. Ibid., pp. 22, 561.

  CHAPTER FIVE Hans Blüher, the Wandervogel Movement, and the Männerbund

  1. Blüher’s relative obscurity is clear from the paucity of scholarship on his life and work. An excellent and recent study is the intellectual biography by Claudia Bruns, Politik des Eros. See also Geuter, Homosexualität in der deutschen Jugendbewegung, pp. 67–117.

  2. Blüher provides copious biographical detail in the first volume of his Wandervogel history, Wandervogel, and in his autobiography, Werk und Tage, which he revised and expanded for a new edition near the end of his life (Munich, 1953).

  3. Scholarship on the Wandervogel and the German Youth Movement more generally is extensive. See Laqueur, Young Germany; Müller, Die Jugendbewegung als deutsche Hauptrichtung neukonservativer Reform; Neuloh and Zilius, Die Wandervögel; Geuter, Homosexualität in der deutschen Jugendbewegung; Mogge, “Jugendbewegung”; as well as the essay collections Koebner, ed., “Mit uns zieht die neue Zeit,” and Joachim H. Knoll, ed., Typisch deutsch: Die Jugendbewegung (Leske, 1988). There are also several published source collections edited by Werner Kindt, including Die Wandervogelzeit and Die deutsche Jugendbewegung 1920 bis 1933.

  4. Blüher, Wandervogel, vol. 2, pp. 149, 152–54, 162.

  5. Blüher, Werk und Tage: Geschichte eines Denkers (Munich, 1953), pp. 186–87.

  6. Blüher, Wandervogel, vol. 1, pp. 97–150; vol. 2, pp. 5–77.

  7. Bruns, Politik des Eros, pp. 242–66.

  8. Ibid., p. 233; Hergemöller, Mann für Mann, pp. 395–96.

  9. Geuter, Homosexualität in der deutschen Jugendbewegung, pp. 49–58; Bruns, Politik des Eros, pp. 138–66.

  10. Bruns, Politik des Eros, p. 219.

  11. Ibid., p. 237.

  12. Stabi Berlin, Nachlass Blüher, Kasten 1, M. 9; Blüher, Werk und Tage, pp. 42–47.

  13. Stabi Berlin, Nachlass Blüher, Kasten 10, Blüher to his parents, 21 April 1912.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Stabi Berlin, Nachlass Blüher, Kasten 10, Blüher to Jansen, 21 July 1910.

  16. Geuter, Homosexualität in der deutschen Jugendbewegung, pp. 42–43.

  17. Ibid., pp. 49–58.

  18. Schurtz, Alterklassen und Männerbünde, p. 21.

  19. Ibid., pp. 17–20.

  20. Planert, Antifeminismus im Kaiserreich, pp. 118–51.

  21. On the women’s movement in imperial Germany, see Evans, The Feminist
Movement in Germany, and Frevert, Frauen-Geschichte.

  22. Geuter, Homosexualität in der deutschen Jugendbewegung, pp. 59–66; Bruns, Politik des Eros, pp. 230–34.

  23. Bruns, Politik des Eros, pp. 350–55.

  24. On Blüher’s relationships to both Hirschfeld and Freud, see Bruns, Politik des Eros, pp. 257–66, 290–98; Geuter, Homosexualität in der deutschen Jugendbewegung, pp. 114–17.

  25. Bruns, Politik des Eros, p. 337, fn. 34.

  26. See the Blüher-Freud correspondence in Stabi Berlin, Nachlass Blüher, Kasten 12, six letters from 1910–13.

  27. Blüher, “Die drei Grundformen der sexuellen Homosexualität: Eine sexuologische Studie,” in JfSZ 13 (1913): 139–65, 326–42, 411–44.

  28. See the critique in Numa Praetorius [Eugen Wilhelm], “Die Bibliographie der Homosexualität aus dem Jahre 1913,” JfsZ 14 (1914): 342–53.

  29. Blüher, Die drei Grundformen der sexuellen Inversion (Homosexualität).

  30. H. Albrecht, “Hans Blüher über die Wandervogelbewegung,” Zeitschrift der Zentralstelle für Volkswohlfahrt 3, Sonderdruck (March 1913): 1–4.

  31. Quoted from the source collection, Kindt, ed., Die Wandervogelzeit, p. 251.

  32. Bruns, Politik des Eros, p. 356.

  33. Reprinted in Kindt, ed., Die Wandervogelzeit, pp. 253–54.

  34. Quoted from Bruns, Politik des Eros, pp. 375–76.

  35. Alternative German- and Austrian-Jewish youth organizations had been organized by 1900, inspired often by the Zionist project of Theodor Herzl. See Gert Mattenklott, “ ;‘Nicht durch Kampfesmacht und nicht durch Körperkraft…’: Alternativen jüdischer Jugendbewegung in Deutschland von Anfang bis 1933,” in Koebner, ed., “Mit uns zieht die neue Zeit,” pp. 338–59.

  36. All quotations from Bruns, Politik des Eros, pp. 371–73.

  37. Blüher, Secessio Judaica, p. 15.

  38. Ibid., pp. 15–16.

  39. Ibid., pp. 21–22.

  40. Thomas Mann, Essays, vol. 2: Für das neue Deutschland, 1919–1925, ed. Hermann Kurzke and Stephan Stachorski (Frankfurt, 1993), pp. 271–73.

  41. Hiller, Leben gegen die Zeit, p. 117.

  CHAPTER SIX Weimar Sexual Reform and the Institute for Sexual Science