Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis (original) (raw)
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Laurie Marhoefer's study explores the complexities of sexual politics during the Weimar Republic, arguing that the period from 1918 to 1933 established a compromised form of sexual freedom known as the Weimar Settlement on Sexual Politics. This settlement led to the liberalization of various sexual laws and the growth of homosexual emancipation movements, while simultaneously confining sexual expression to the private sphere and intensifying regulations on marginalized sexualities. The author contends that sexual politics did not fundamentally destabilize the Republic or facilitate the Nazis' rise to power, which must be understood through broader socio-economic factors and political miscalculations.
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2020
There are many people who supported my research and writing for this honours thesis who must be acknowledged. I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Lauren Faulkner Rossi, my supervisor, for her patience, time, and editing for which this would not have come to fruition without. I would like to thank Dr. Roxanne Panchasi for teaching me the importance of historiography, to Dr. Jeremy Brown for his efforts to help me develop my methodology and for giving me the tools to grow into an improved writer, to Dr. Sarah Walshaw whose kindness and compassion helped me become a better learner, and to the Department of History at Simon Fraser University for this opportunity. I extend my very great appreciation for their endless support, reviews, advice, and extra spoons to my cohort:
University of Toronto Quarterly, 2017
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As historians have stressed, World War I had catalytic effects on many aspects of society. Long-lasting processes were accelerated and, in part, became more dynamic. 1 As Gabriele Metzler and Dirk Schumann have shown recently, this phase of uncertainty and confusion led to initial shifts of power and attempts to redefine 'gender' in post-war Germany. 2 Several studies have determined how the war also significantly influenced gender relations, notably due to the male absence during the war and the temporary surplus of women in sexual maturity during and after the war. As a result of the war, the availability of people to marry has significantly changed. 3 Birthe Kundrus has stated that World War I and its aftermath were in many respects a time of sexual awakening. Even if not having been a 'turning point in gender relations and identity', the gain of female self-confidence was regarded as a provoking challenge for the restoration of male hegemony, which was an important structural element of inequality during the German Empire. 4 In a period of economic crisis, political instability, and thus social as well as moral confusion and uncertainty progressive interpretations like 'companionate marriages' (Kameradschaftsehe) 5 -in other words, cohabitation without a certificate of marriage and without the desire to have children -or the rising sexual self-confidence in general contrasted with a moral and sexual-political counter-revolution. Regarding the increase in divorces and illegitimate relationships, which evoked the fear that the normative nuclear family could be undermined, contemporaries such as the demographer Friedrich Burgdörfer spoke of 'trials and tribulations ' (Irrungen und Wirrungen) in the fields of sexuality and morality. 6 These developments were seen as a severe test for the nation state, and the diffusion of eugenic knowledge within the nation state was the inevitable result. Thereby, the connection between sexuality, nation, race, and gender became increasingly important.
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