Love in the Trenches: German Soldiers’ Conceptions of Sexual Deviance and Hegemonic Masculinity in the First World War (original) (raw)

An intimate history of the front: masculinity, sexuality, and German soldiers in the First World War

First World War Studies

In his classic thriller Greenmantle, first published in 1916, John Buchan describes his hero Richard Hannay's first encounter with his adversary, the German officer Colonel Ulrich von Stumm, in a fashion which hints at a hidden strain of sexual deviance within the German armed forces: We went up a staircase to a room at the end of a long corridor. Stumm locked the door behind him and laid the key on a table. That room took my breath away, it was so unexpected. A thick grey carpet covered the floor, and the chairs were low and soft and upholstered like a lady's boudoir... At first sight you would have said it was a woman's drawing-room.

'A Homosexual Institution': Same-sex Desire in the Army during World War II

Army Journal, culture edition, 10, 3 (2013): 23-40

Sex, gender and sexuality have always been the subject of lively debates within and around the military -from the age-old problem of the on and off-duty sexual behaviour of servicemen to the more recent process of creating a place for women as front-line fighters. In recent years a spate of scandals has challenged the reputation and operation of the armed services. But there is another side that needs to be taken into account -increasingly, very public action is being taken in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) personnel against those accused of sexism and homophobia. This article seeks to place these developments in an historical context, focussing on homosexuality during World War II. Drawing on the memories and memoirs of homosexual men as well as archival records of the responses of Army officials and other servicemen who encountered same-sex behaviour, we explore a range of homosexual behaviours HISTORY and identities present in the armed services. We are particularly interested in how a vilified, marginalised and criminalised minority made lives for themselves in the forces and, for all the risks and penalties they faced, the fact that these lives were characterised by pleasure and conviviality as much as by fear and victimisation. Three forces were at work, each shaping the homosexual sub-cultures in their own ways -the commanding echelons, homosexual men, and the broader mass of service personnel.

Workshop Two - MASCULINITIES IN TIMES OF (POST)WAR: THE GERMAN CASE

Even though warfare is seen as a genuinely male experience, armed conflicts always profoundly alter the contours of gender relations, both within and between the sexes. Studying the German case seems particularly significant as Germany spurred a massive outbreak of violence throughout Europe. Whereas traditional military history has focused mainly on the strategic, logistical, tactical, and doctrinal aspects of war, recent critical approaches also consider socio-cultural dynamics and the everyday experiences of men and soldiers at war. These new methodologies recognize gender and sexuality as key categories of understanding how violence is perpetrated. By revisiting a broad array of sources and examining the contours of group cohesion and male bonding, these scholars study the ways in which the practices of manhood and identities were formed through the experience of war.

This is absolutely gay!" - Homosexuality within the German Armed Forces

Kvinder, Køn & Forskning

Drawing on Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity and Foucault’s concept of ‘dispositive’, this paper analyses historical and contemporary discourses on homosexuality within the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces). I argue that the interconnected norms that shape the construction of homosexuality in the Bundeswehr – hegemonic masculinity as a core norm for male as well as female soldiers, and the dispositives of strength and equality – have different impacts on gay men and lesbians, empowering lesbian and devaluating gay soldiers. Through a discourse analysis of legal documents, internet forum discussions, drillmasters’ utterances, and interviews with gay and lesbian soldiers, I show how these gender norms and dispositives reflect the experiences of homosexual soldiers as well as their coping strategies.

Comrades in Arms: Military Masculinities in East German Culture

Berghahn Books, 2020

Without question, the East German National People’s Army was a profoundly masculine institution that emphasized traditional ideals of stoicism, sacrifice, and physical courage. Nonetheless, as this innovative study demonstrates, depictions of the military in the film and literature of the GDR were far more nuanced and ambivalent. Departing from past studies that have found in such portrayals an unchanging, idealized masculinity, Comrades in Arms shows how cultural works both before and after reunification place violence, physical vulnerability, and military theatricality, as well as conscripts’ powerful emotions and desires, at the center of soldiers’ lives and the military institution itself.

Sexuality, Sexual Relations, Homosexuality | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1)

2021

This article provides an international overview of the history of sexuality in the Great War, including (1) the venereal disease epidemic, prostitution, and expanding state surveillance of sexuality; (2) the war’s effects on perceptions of intimacy and sexuality; and (3) the war’s effects on sexual reform movements, particular the homosexual emancipation movement in Germany. While military authorities in both democratic and authoritarian societies tried to enforce hegemonic gender and sexual norms, the war fragmented and complicated soldiers’ and civilians’ perceptions of “normal” sexuality, which were transformed in response to the traumatic effects of total war.

Men, Masculinities and Male Culture in the Second World War, ed. Linsey Robb and Juliette Pattinson

The English Historical Review, 2019

Palgrave Macmillan's series, Genders and Sexualities in History, accommodates and fosters new approaches to historical research in the fields of genders and sexualities. The series promotes world-class scholarship, which concentrates upon the interconnected themes of genders, sexualities, religions/religiosity, civil society, politics and war. Historical studies of gender and sexuality have, until recently, been more or less disconnected fields. In recent years, historical analyses of genders and sexualities have synthesised, creating new departures in historiography. The additional connectedness of genders and sexualities with questions of religion, religiosity, development of civil societies, politics and the contexts of war and conflict is reflective of the movements in scholarship away from narrow history of science and scientific thought, and history of legal processes approaches, that have dominated these paradigms until recently. The series brings together scholarship from Contemporary, Modern, Early Modern, Medieval, Classical and Non-Western History. The series provides a diachronic forum for scholarship that incorporates new approaches to genders and sexualities in history.