Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis

by Laurie Marhoefer

Liberated, licentious, or merely liberal, the sexual freedoms of Germany s Weimar Republic have become legendary. The home of the world s first gay rights movement, the republic embodied a progressive, secular vision of sexual liberation. Immortalized however misleadingly in Christopher Isherwood s Berlin Stories and the musical Cabaret, Weimar s freedoms have become a touchstone for the politics of sexual emancipation.

Yet, as Laurie Marhoefer shows in Sex and Weimar Republic, those sexual freedoms were only obtained at the expense of a minority who were deemed sexually disordered. In Weimar Germany, the citizen s right to sexual freedom came with a duty to keep sexuality private, non-commercial, and respectable.

Sex and the Weimar Republic examines the rise of sexual tolerance through the debates which surrounded immoral sexuality: obscenity, male homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender identity, heterosexual promiscuity, and prostitution. It follows the sexual politics of a swath of Weimar society ranging from sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld to Nazi stormtrooper Ernst Rohm. Tracing the connections between toleration and regulation, Marhoefer s observations remain relevant to the politics of sexuality today.

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Genres: History, Nonfiction, LGBT, Germany, Queer, Gender, Queer Studies

340 pages, Hardcover

First published September 9, 2015

About the author

@L_Marhoefer

https://badgayspod.com/episode-archiv...

Reviews

[sophie esther · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides well-informed insight on the nature of sexual politics during the Weimar Republic, and dispels the misconception that sex in any way caused the rise of the Nazis. However, Marhoefer's biases are a bit too prevalent in terms of her perspective on the sexual liberation during the Weimar period as mostly benevolent, when there was still a lot of corruption and twisted happenings behind the scenes. She also claims that the Weimar Republic had nothing to do with the Nazis' agenda, when it is pretty clear that Hitler and his buddies used conservative animosity towards the Weimar period as a way to gain support, considering all the accounts by National Socialists condemning Weimar liberalism, praising Nazi "purity", and blaming Jews for "perverting" the German population. It's easy to exploit such bitterness, and I think the information Marhoefer provides in this book actually proves the state's use of conservative resentment to its benefit.

[Stephen Arkley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really great contestation of the narrative that the Nazis rose to power on the back of "Weimar degeneracy".

[L.M. Elm · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me two months to read this book. Not because of bad writing or a vague premise. After every chapter I would shut the book and thin—which is something great non-fiction should make a reader do.

Laurie Marhoefer’s argument is the sexual liberalism of Germany’s Weimar Republic did not single handily bring about the rise of the Nazis. Sex happened to be just one piece in a million sized jigsaw puzzle in German fascism.

The strongest points of the work focus on the liberal press, LGBTQ+ activism, and public health. Various publications of magazines, novels and tristes, offered to educate the public on sexual expressions. Education emboldened men and women to seek out others in bars, organizations, and clubs. Less severe criminalization of prostitution through the rise of public health, gave people choices they might not have had before. Open homosexuality was even tolerated in the Nazi party until it wasn’t (Ernst Rohm). Marhoefer does take detours into the various individuals behind certain political movements which loosen Marhoefer’s argument at times. But I never lost track of the main premise.

Sex is a tool to offer freedom or repression. The citizens of Germany experienced both extremes in just a couple of decades.

[Coby Friesen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was more of scholarly read than I am used to so I really had to focus but I’m glad I did. The nuance that Laurie Marhoefer brings to the table here is impressive. With this subject I definitely came in wanting to romanticize what had been deemed as the ‘first gay rights movement’ and yet that is the last thing Marhoefer does. Not to say it wasn’t a great time of queer emancipation but our author argues that it wasn’t so simple. There were many different parties at play that complicated the queer movement at the time and actually create a picture that is far less progressive than our modern eyes want to remember. As much I want to revere and appreciate that past it also important to remember that critique is just as important. Oversimplification could very well be an act of violence.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy read, but an important one - probably not for the generalist, certainly not for anyone who is just looking to get their Isherwood/Cabaret presuppositions confirmed. It is definitely for anyone interested inn the history of Weimar. I heartily recommend it but do not want anyone to be confused about what they are going to be reading.

[vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marhoefer argues that the history of homosexual, and other, emancipations in Weimar Germany was based on a sexual politics 'settlement,' which recognised some of the sexual outsiders, deemed as respectable, at the expense of others. These ‘others’ were identified according to the markers of disability, ‘degeneration,’ and class. They argue that the just-functioning Weimar democracy allowed for sexual emancipation in privacy while attempting to curtail the already insecure space of sexual minorities in the public sphere. Furthermore, Marhoefer demonstrates that contrary to popular accounts, sexual emancipation played an epiphenomenal role in the conservative backlash and the rise of Nazism. Methodologically, the book claims to draw on the body of queer theory, but in reality, is theoretically very thin (a result of the editorial difficulties of turning a dissertation into a book). Finally, Marhoefer attempts to historicise ‘homonormativity.’ They demonstrate that the dilemma of the choice between a radical emancipatory movement and a narrow one based on respectability is inherent in the struggles for non-heteronormative sexual liberation — even today.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book which engages and considers the various movements, figure, and studies that informed the early pursuit of “homosexual emancipation” - that is the pursuit of equity in some form, the author readily engages us with many aspects of the rise of studies, publications, organizations, and more. Moreover, the text provides information about how these organizations did and did not align, how the pursuit was not always aligned with its actors, and how society shifted in various ways as the Nazis came to power. An important piece of scholarship and engagement in historical social movement analysis.

[Colin Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book very interesting. It discusses the politics around that time, and from my opinion how decisions made as usual had consequences that the individual(s) did not expect. It also discuss how religious conservatives, both Catholic and Protestant played a part in the rise of the Nazis.

I would have hoped we would have learnt from the past, but the rise of conservatism has occurred and is occurring. An example is the compulsion of the Conservative Australian Government to allow religious individuals, groups and Organisation's to discriminate against others in 2020.

[Paul Bergeron · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This was a fascinating read - densely researched, sharply argued, and grounded in a bibliography nearly 200 pages long.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its refusal to romanticize the Weimar period. It traces genuine advances in homosexual reform while also showing how those same reforms were sometimes weaponized: rights made conditional, recognition turned into regulation. It also pushes back against the narrative that Nazism was a conservative corrective to Weimar “degeneracy.”

[Scadger · Rating 3 out of 5]

2024 - No.13:

”The politics of immorality did not play a major role in the fall of the Weimar Republic or in the rise of the Nazis. The durability of notions to the contrary - that sex did help to bring down democracy in a significant way - is attributable to the ways in which the backlash thesis drew strenght from a strong theme in post-war historiography and popular culture […]”

[ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

ok so full disclosure i only read about half this book for research but whatever whatever it was pretty cool and had an impressive amount of citations and the shocking (ridiculous) true story of german gay people from the 1920s hooray

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most informative works of history I've ever read. Has been indispensable to my thinking about queer, Jewish, and radical history over the past few years.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I saw "libertinism" on the second page I knew I was in for a treat

[Beele · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most facinating books i've ever read

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically the idea that the Weimar government was tougher on LGBT than the Kaiser. A very wasabi isn’t real wasabi just because if and when it also has other stuff in it type argument.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of the book (or at least the subtitle) is a bit misleading. The work covers hetero- as well as homosexual attitudes, mores, and laws in Weimar era Germany. The author also proves herself knowledgeable about the Wilhelmine era that preceded Weimar, and the Nazi government that seized the reigns of power in the aftermath of the democratic republic's collapse.

The work is thorough, well-sourced, and highly readable. The book makes several contentions that certain beliefs about the Weimar government need to be reevaluated. Chief among these beliefs is the idea that somehow the sexual licentiousness/permissiveness of the Berlin Kabaret/Kleinkunstbuhne nightlife culture somehow disgusted the average German and thus allowed the Nazis to get a foothold in Germany. The author does a meticulous job of showing how this was simply not the case, and that there is very little evidence (unless you count a Bob Fosse movie) to support this narrative. She also credibly questions whether the Weimar experiment was as fractious and ineffective as claimed, or that there was some kind of fatalist cloud hanging over Germany's experiment with democracy and that it was doomed from its inception. She shows this just isn't true, and that for about a solid decade Germany was a land whose laws and morality were built on a functioning compromise encompassing issues from welfare to freedom of the press (the exception was abortion/Abtreibung, which was and continues to remain a third rail in politics).

The book deals heavily with "bio-politics" and gender constructions in a way that is enlightening and non-didactic/preachy. If you're the kind of person whose eyes glaze over when you start being lectured about "gender," don't worry: the tone of this book isn't hectoring or polemical, and the author seems to have no agenda except to shed some light on history and to correct some longstanding myths which have gone unchallenged until now. Recommended.

[jules · Rating 3 out of 5]

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