Gay Berlin

by Robert Beachy

  Ulrichs did find an interlocutor in Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902), the Austrian physician who became a leading late-nineteenth-century sexologist. In his second pamphlet, “Inclusa,” Ulrichs cited one of Krafft-Ebing’s first essays, published in 1864, and heralded his commitment to the scientific scholarship that could displace ignorant prejudice. “The protectors of justice should not shun the results yielded by natural science,” Krafft-Ebing claimed, “but rather they should conform to them.” Ulrichs sent Krafft-Ebing his first five pamphlets in 1866, when the young physician was just finishing an internship at the University of Vienna. The inspiration was mutual, and Ulrichs in turn shaped Krafft-Ebing’s views of same-sex love. Krafft-Ebing’s first article to address same-sex eroticism explicitly appeared in 1877. And in 1886 the first edition of Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia sexualis, the perennial best seller that appeared in multiple expanded editions, cited Ulrichs’s pamphlets.43 Krafft-Ebing also expressed his appreciation in a letter to Ulrichs: “The research in your writings on love between men has interested me in a high degree…. From that day on when you sent me your writings, I have given my full attention to the phenomenon…. [I]t was the knowledge of your writings alone, which gave rise to my research in this highly important field.”44 This glowing encomium from one of the world’s most celebrated psychiatrists, at least before Freud, illustrates the impact of Ulrichs’s publications.

  By publishing his experiences and theories of same-sex love, Ulrichs offered himself as both subject and muse for medical doctors who studied the subject. German psychiatrists such as Carl Westphal, Albert Moll, and Iwan Bloch discussed Ulrichs and cited his tracts. Ulrichs’s writings were also important for prominent French, English, Italian, and Russian specialists of “perversion” and same-sex love, including Havelock Ellis, Paolo Mantegazza, and Marc-André Raffalovich. Ulrichs reached many educated laymen, as well, who read his writings for personal reasons or from sheer curiosity. In 1870 even Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels exchanged letters—albeit disparaging—about Ulrichs and his first pamphlets.45

  Of course, German speakers searching for some affirmation of their same-sex attraction read Ulrichs’s work most avidly. The letters and notes published by Krafft-Ebing in later editions of Psychopathia sexualis offer the best evidence of this influence. As one of Krafft-Ebing’s correspondents claimed, “When I was thirty years old, I found the work of Numa [Ulrichs’s pseudonym], and I cannot describe what a salvation it was for me to learn that there are many other men who are sexually constituted the way I am, and that my sexual feeling was not an aberration but rather a sexual orientation determined by nature…. I no longer attempted to fight this orientation, and since I have given my Urning nature freer reign, I have become happier, healthier, and more productive.”46 Ulrichs was also the source of youthful self-discovery. “When I was about 24,” one man wrote to Krafft-Ebing, “I learned by reading Ulrichs that I am not the only man of this persuasion.”47 Another credited Ulrichs with solving the riddle of his existence: “I encountered a few books by Numa Numantius and from these I was enlightened about my condition, which up to this point had been completely inexplicable.”48 Sadly for a few, reading materials, including the publications of Ulrichs and Krafft-Ebing, took the place of human contact. “Even though I have never met another Urning,” one reader admitted, “I am very familiar with my condition because I have been able to read almost all of the relevant literature. Recently I was confronted by your work Psychopathia sexualis.”49 The most striking evidence of Ulrichs’s impact was the rapid and widespread adoption of the Urning name for those inclined to love their own sex. By 1900 the term was commonly used in German to describe same-sex attraction, and not only in specialized psychiatric literature. Both German-language encyclopedias, Meyers and Brockhaus, included entries for “homosexuality” that either cross-referenced Urningsliebe (the love of Urnings) or used the term Urning.50 Ulrichs’s nomenclature likely influenced the English language, as well, though this is disputed by some.51

  Since the German criminal codes varied greatly—a legacy of political fragmentation—the continued existence of laws punishing same-sex eroticism remained an open question and one that could be resolved only with unification. By the early nineteenth century, however, all of the German territories had eliminated the death penalty as a punishment for same-sex sodomy. The striking counterpoint was Britain, where sodomy convictions remained punishable by death until 1868. In contrast, the French Revolution had established the liberal principle of shielding private, consensual, sexual relations from state control, and revolutionary France chose not to include an anti-sodomy law in its criminal code of 1791. France influenced much of Europe’s legal culture, in turn, and other states adopted this progressive element of the new French law: Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium (after 1830), and most Italian states rescinded their laws punishing sodomy.

  Bavaria was the first German territory, in 1813, to exempt same-sex eroticism from criminal prosecution (except in the application of force or with youths under the age of twelve). Baden and Württemberg in southwestern Germany, where the Napoleonic Code was also imposed for a short period, eliminated laws against sodomy after 1815.52 By the 1820s Hanover and Brunswick had followed suit, albeit with minor variations. An important caveat in considering more progressive penal codes—including the French—was the persistence of public decency laws, which were often applied to harass and imprison men for offensive public behaviors. This helps to explain the threat that compelled Ulrichs to resign his Hanoverian post even though he had violated no law. Of course, several German states maintained their laws punishing private sexual acts between adults, including Prussia, Austria, Saxony, and the city-republics of Hamburg and Bremen. Austria’s anti-sodomy statute deserves special mention since it was unique in German central Europe for criminalizing sexual acts between women.53

  Because Prussia led the unification of Germany, its criminal code and punishment of sodomy had a profound influence in the new empire after 1871. As Bismarck predicted in the wake of the failed 1848 revolution, the “German question” would be resolved through “blood and iron” (or warfare), not through the idealism of bourgeois nationalists. The first of the three wars of German unification was fought in 1864, when Prussia joined with Austria and defeated Denmark for control of the northern duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Like most Germans, Ulrichs applauded the Austro-Prussian collaboration, something he had called for in a short pamphlet published in 1862.54 The Danes quickly sued for peace, but the precise status of the duchies remained unresolved. Bismarck had little use for nationalism—kleindeutsch or großdeutsch—and hoped instead to increase Prussia’s control over all of northern Germany.

  The second war of German unification was fought between Prussia and Austria in 1866, when Bismarck maneuvered to exploit the Danish conflict and further limit Austrian influence. The unresolved status of Schleswig and Holstein provided Bismarck with a pretext for goading Austria to war. Prussia alienated most of the middling German states, the so-called “third Germany” of Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria, and Württemberg, which had consistently promoted Habsburg influence in German affairs, since they viewed Austria as a necessary counterweight to Prussian strength and the guarantor of their own independence.

  Before the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War, Prussia demanded neutrality from Hanover. When the king of Hanover, George V, refused, Prussia invaded, and George V was forced to capitulate and cede his property to Prussia. The terms of the armistice stipulated that Hanoverian troops remain neutral for the remainder of the conflict. Within two weeks, on July 3, 1866, Prussia defeated Austria at the Battle of Königgrätz, ending any hope that King George might regain his realm. By formal decree, Prussia annexed Hanover in September, leaving the Hanoverian dynasty stateless. The Prussians returned the personal property of King George, but the dethroned monarch was forced into permanent exile in Austria. Ulrichs, as a proud Hanoverian patriot, declared himself a Prussian adversary and attempted
to rally support for his king. The Prussians monitored Ulrichs—always skilled at attracting attention—and imprisoned him twice during the first half of 1867. They interrogated him during both periods of detention, and then banished him permanently from Hanover. These detentions also gave Prussian officials the opportunity to search Ulrichs’s home in Burgdorf, where they confiscated a collection of his manuscripts and correspondence. The letters and other documents they seized proved to be very sensitive, and one file listed the names of 150 prominent Berlin residents alleged to be Urnings.55

  Ulrichs petitioned for the return of his property and also for damages suffered from the detentions, which he claimed were unlawful. Except for a few papers forwarded to his new address in Bavaria, he was never able to recover these materials. As it turned out, Bismarck himself had taken a personal interest in Ulrichs, and ordered that his papers be delivered to his own desk. Undoubtedly, the shrewd Prussian minister president was not going to miss an opportunity to collect information that might allow him to manipulate allies or blackmail enemies. Ulrichs’s dossier—more than seventy pages—was eventually deposited in the Prussian state archive, but only after the sensitive list of alleged Urnings had been removed.56

  Prussia quickly consolidated the gains from its victory over Austria and established the North German Confederation in 1867. This truncated version of the former German Confederation excluded Austria, as well as the southwestern states of Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg. This outcome deviated widely from the großdeutsch solution hoped for by Ulrichs and many others, and forced a rapid reorientation by German nationalists of every perspective. But if some großdeutsch partisans despaired of Prussia’s growing influence, others began to view Bismarck as a kind of savior who might succeed, where the bourgeois nationalists had failed, in creating a unified Germany. The anticipation of unification also encouraged the activity of those cultural associations that intended to support the needs of an emergent Germany. The nationalist Association of Jurists had sponsored congresses since its inception in 1860, and its sixth congress was scheduled to be held in Munich in August 1867.

  It was at this meeting that Ulrichs publicly demanded an open debate on the legal status of same-sex love and recommended a dramatic revision of the remaining German anti-sodomy statutes. The path leading to Ulrichs’s historic appeal was a complicated one and required significant wrangling. Two years earlier he had submitted his first five volumes on Urning love to the planning commission of the German jurists along with the following resolution for discussion at the sixth congress:

  I. That inborn love for persons of the male sex is to be punished under the same conditions under which love of persons of the female sex are punished; that it is, therefore, to remain free of punishment, so long as: neither rights are violated (through application or threat of force, misuse of prepubescent person, the unconscious, etc.) nor public offense is given;

  II. That, however, the present, often thoroughly unclear requirements for “giving public offense by sexual acts” be replaced by such as preserve legal guarantees.57

  The committee attempted to suppress the petition, dismissing it as “unsuitable.” Ulrichs was undaunted, and he wrote the congress chairman demanding an opportunity to protest “the exclusion of an agenda proposal” at the closing plenary session. The request was granted, and Ulrichs prepared for this unprecedented opportunity. Although silenced by jeering and tumult, Ulrichs managed to present the subject of Urning emancipation, which introduced his cause to the leading legal minds of the German world. The five hundred lawyers, officials, and legal scholars who attended the closing meeting would certainly remember Ulrichs and his impassioned appeal.58

  Despite his dispiriting Munich reception, the unflappable Ulrichs pressed ahead with his writing campaign. In 1868 he published the sixth and seventh pamphlets in his series, and for the first time under his own name. The sixth volume, “Gladius Furens” (“Raging Sword”), gave a detailed account of his Munich experience and a stinging rebuke to the congress for his treatment there. Ulrichs also identified the larger significance of his seemingly quixotic effort: “I raised my voice in free and open protest against a thousand years of injustice. Unbiased, oral, and open debate of man-manly love has been until now kept under lock and key…. Hatred alone has enjoyed freedom of speech. These barriers I have forcefully broken through—broken through without having offended thereby my duties to uphold public morality. By so doing I gave the impetus to restore to the other side the freedom of scientific public debate.” This was only one aspect of Ulrichs’s struggle. He also explained how even his lone voice would empower those too inhibited to act on their own. “The present battle situation has totally changed,” Ulrichs claimed. “We were a scattered body of defenseless weaklings, persecuted and mangled.” But now, he wrote, “We have found courage! Henceforth we shall take a decisive stand and face these persecutions. We shall be steadfast. We refuse further persecution.”59

  The printed word, Ulrichs believed, was the medium that would drive this collective action. Public interest in the pamphlets bolstered Ulrichs’s confidence, and he was also heartened by the correspondence that followed each new volume. Ulrichs began most installments, including the seventh, “Memnon,” with a description of the responses to the previous publication. This usually included notes from anonymous Urnings, as well as from officials, lawyers, and doctors, who were variously contemptuous, supportive, or, at a minimum, intrigued enough to write him. The immediate influence of Ulrichs’s campaign is difficult to gauge. Many jurists rejected his ideas, and dismissed him as a misguided eccentric or worse. His rapport with physicians and psychiatrists was equally problematic. While Krafft-Ebing praised Ulrichs effusively, many others described him as unscientific and took greater interest in his status as an Urning and potential case study than as a professional researcher.

  All the same, Ulrichs managed to place himself at the center of an unfolding legal and medical debate that gained increasing relevance with the march toward unification. The North German Confederation was governed by a new federal constitution and hoped to create a uniform penal code with jurisdiction over all member states. This marked an important departure from the much weaker constitution of the former German Confederation, which had left intact—from 1815 to 1866—the individual law codes of its thirty-nine members. Prussian officials wanted to “homogenize” the German penal codes, using their own legal system as a template. But the prospect that Prussia would replace the more liberal Hanoverian treatment of private sexual behavior with its own antisodomy statute was in Ulrichs’s view an especially grave threat.

  In June 1868 Bismarck ordered the preparation of a revised code by the Prussian minister of justice, who commissioned the Prussian Medical Affairs Board to study the anti-sodomy statute. The board chairman was Berlin pathologist Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), one of the most famous doctors of his age, who also served—as cofounder and member of the German Liberal Party (Deutsche Fortschrittspartei)—in the Berlin City Council, the Prussian Diet, and later the German Reichstag.60 The other board members were prominent physicians and psychiatrists with academic posts in the medical faculty at the University of Berlin. Under Virchow’s leadership, the board submitted a formal report in March 1869 recommending against the anti-sodomy statute. The group argued that male-male sexual relations were “no more injurious than other forms [of illicit sexuality],” like fornication or adultery. They claimed further that they were unable “to offer reasons why sex between men should be punished by law when other forms of illicit relations are not.”61 Surprisingly, perhaps, the board’s recommendation reflected the liberalism of its members, who largely supported free trade, minimal government interference in the lives of private citizens, and, not least of all, the determinations of modern science. No doubt the French decriminalization of sodomy also influenced their thinking.

  While considering the anti-sodomy statute, the Justice Ministry received nearly one hundred petitions—from jurists, medical
doctors, and private individuals—most arguing against the anti-sodomy statute. Ulrichs initiated this chorus for legal reform by submitting his first of five petitions in September 1868, along with two of his published pamphlets. “The hermaphrodite [Urning] is not only a human being,” Ulrichs pleaded; “he is also a competent citizen of the constitutional state and as such he may demand, so long as he neither harms the rights of others nor gives public offense, that he too not be punished for the expression of his sexual love.”62 The Medical Affairs Board announced its conclusions in March, and newspapers reported that officials had determined to exclude the anti-sodomy statute from the new penal code. Ulrichs took this satisfying victory as an opportunity to send one last petition, this time requesting pardons for those convicted or incarcerated for sexual crimes related to their Urning identity.

  One significant result of this legal review was the invention of the word Homosexualität, homosexuality. The man who coined this influential neologism was the enigmatic author and journalist Karl Maria Kertbeny (1824–1882), who introduced his terminology in two short publications protesting the anti-sodomy statute. Submitted anonymously to Prussian minister of justice Leonhardt in 1869, Kertbeny’s self-published pamphlets were also circulated by booksellers in Leipzig and Berlin. As the anonymous author, Kertbeny maintained in the two pamphlets that he was sexually “normal” but argued passionately—based on the conclusions of Virchow’s board, as well as the findings of other psychiatric authorities, including Casper—that “homosexuality” was an inborn condition and that the anti-sodomy statute violated the fundamental civic and constitutional rights of “homosexuals.” Kertbeny rejected Ulrichs’s Urning theory of psychological hermaphroditism, but he clearly took inspiration from Ulrichs’s public campaign, and the two had corresponded since 1865. Kertbeny never made public his support for homosexual emancipation, however, and so guarded was he that even Ulrichs was unaware—until much later—of his identity as the anonymous author.63