Gay Berlin

by Robert Beachy

  After the newspaper report on the blackmail attempt, Brand began sending Dasbach copies of Der Eigene and some of his CoS literature, hoping, no doubt, that he had found not only a potential opponent of the anti-sodomy statute but also an advocate for Greek Freundesliebe, like himself. It appears that Brand expected Dasbach to find his own theories more compelling than the doctrine of “sexual intermediacy” promoted by the SHC. Dasbach ignored Brand for several months, but finally met with him in July 1904. In the pamphlet, Brand gives a detailed account of this encounter: Brand confronted Dasbach with the rumors of his many Berlin dalliances with male prostitutes; the priest cum parliamentarian swore to Brand that he had never experienced sexual attraction to men or to women. Brand also claimed to know that Dasbach purchased nude photographs of adolescent boys and young men, including some of Brand’s own publications, which Dasbach categorically denied.90

  Dasbach’s explanation of his actions, as recounted by Brand in the pamphlet, gives a remarkably sympathetic portrait of a naive, confused, and sexually repressed man. Admitting to frequent interactions with the Friedrichstraße rent boys in Berlin, Dasbach averred that his intentions had been completely charitable. Before arriving in Berlin, Dasbach claimed, he had never even heard of homosexuality. He was therefore astonished to learn that the capital harbored such a large population of male prostitutes. His aim had been only to make contact with and help these apparently destitute street urchins. (The story might remind us of British prime minister William Gladstone’s evening ministration to the female streetwalkers of London.) In any case, Dasbach reiterated his opposition to a reform of the anti-sodomy statute, and threatened Brand with a libel suite, forcing Brand to retract the insinuation that Dasbach had sex with men. Dasbach weathered the potential scandal caused by Brand’s publication, which—at least according to Brand—sold in large numbers. Unremarkable, perhaps, was Dasbach’s subsequent demise: soon after, he was accused of frequenting a Berlin hotel whose proprietor was convicted of homosexual procurement. All of this was likewise reported in the press.91 As a result Dasbach was relieved of his position as the leader of the Center Party in 1905, and he died in 1907 under mysterious circumstances. Suicide was suspected.92

  The competition between Hirschfeld and those who hoped to promote an alternative to his theory of sexual intermediacy led ultimately to a rupture in the movement. This rift was probably inevitable, and therefore Hirschfeld deserves credit for attempting to accommodate views contrary to his own. Routinely the SHC sponsored lectures—including ones delivered by Friedlaender and Bab—and promoted or at least reported on new scholarship that did not conform to SHC doctrine. All the same, Hirschfeld ultimately controlled the theoretical orientation and the practical activities of the SHC, and those who openly countered his positions were ultimately forced to find other avenues for pursuing their own vision of legal, social, and cultural reform.

  Brand challenged Hirschfeld openly, of course, and he maintained—with Der Eigene and the CoS—an organizational base independent of the SHC. But it was also the case that his literary and aesthetic interests created a niche that actually prevented him from (or allowed him to avoid) competing directly with the SHC. Many active SHC members were also Der Eigene subscribers, and some even maintained close ties with Brand, attending his symposia and other events. Brand’s volatile temperament made him something of a loose canon, moreover, and his perennial legal and financial difficulties deflated any expectations that even his closest supporters might have harbored.

  Hirschfeld’s more direct and effective challenge came from Benedict Friedlaender, whose influence was amplified by his inherited wealth. The great surprise, perhaps, was that Friedlaender remained a major financial supporter of the SHC as late as 1905, when his extra donations for “propaganda” were reported in the monthly newsletters.93 All the same, Friedlaender announced in December 1906 his new Secession movement (Sezession des WHK), a splinter organization that would maintain the SHC moniker but sever any other affiliation. The Secession took inspiration from the writings of a number of masculinists, including Bab, Wille, and, of course, Friedlaender himself, whose Renaissance des Eros Uranios (Renaissance of uranian eros) offered something of an official primer on the masculinists’ creed.

  Friedlaender not only rejected any characterization of same-sex erotic love as an expression of effeminacy; he asserted the precise opposite, namely, that men who loved men were more virile than most. The “virile” men who loved other men—Alexander the Great or Frederick the Great—were often military or political figures who commanded the loyalty of soldiers and subjects. In Friedlaender’s view, social and cultural progress required that the super-virile man be allowed to fulfill his destiny as a charismatic leader. Of course, this required the recognition and even valorization of his homoerotic nature. Obstacles to this cultural vanguard included both the “deception of Christianity” (Pfaffentrug) and the “reign of women” (Weiberherrschaft). As the domain of women, the bourgeois family—and its values—posed an increasing threat to the future. The reformed society that Friedlaender envisioned would be based, in contrast, on the domination of hyper-virile, homophilic supermen. The only role women would be expected to play in this misogynistic dystopia would be as the vessels of biological reproduction.94

  The masculinists’ misogyny was another important point of difference with Hirschfeld and the SHC, which certainly admitted women, even if relatively few were ever directly involved. For Hirschfeld, the biological determinism of same-sex erotic love applied equally to men and women; lesbians experienced their sexuality as a natural feature of personhood no differently than male homosexuals. Hirschfeld also established close ties to left-wing feminists, who, in turn, supported the cause of homosexual emancipation and legal reform. Hirschfeld’s closest feminist colleague was Helene Stöcker, who cofounded (with Hirschfeld’s support) the progressive League for the Protection of Mothers and Sexual Reform (Bund für Mutterschutz und Sexualreform) in 1905. Under Stöcker’s leadership, the group supported women’s rights to sexual self-expression and access to information about birth control. Eventually the league lobbied for the decriminalization of abortion.95

  The masculinists were also marked by their subtle anti-Semitism. This was expressed negatively as a völkisch nationalism, an adjective derived from the German word for people (Volk). A kind of hyper-nationalism, this ideology emphasized the racial character of “German” identity and was implicitly if not explicitly anti-Semitic. Beginning in the 1920s, the Nazis represented the most extreme of the völkisch political parties. In the vein of völkisch thinking, Brand and Friedlaender promoted the superiority of the German race, and cited the super-virile homosexual as distinctly or at least especially German. This was a subtle dig at Hirschfeld, of course, and also a way of denigrating the SHC more generally. A huge percentage of the progressive medical establishment, which supported the anti-sodomy petition, was in fact Jewish. Of course, Friedlaender had himself earned a doctorate in zoology, and although he never evinced any sort of Jewish identity, he was sometimes described as a “baptized Jew” (getaufter Jude), an obnoxious German expression that elevated “racial” identity above any formal religious affiliation. It appears likely that his grandfather converted to Lutheranism sometime in the nineteenth century.96

  Friedlaender failed to build an organization that could counter Hirschfeld or the SHC. Stricken with colon cancer, he took his own life in June 1908. Friedlaender’s initiative was not without consequences, however; the Secession demoralized many erstwhile SHC supporters, and contributed to the dissolution of the Leipzig and Munich chapters. The minutes of the Munich subcommittee complained, for example, that as the conflict between Hirschfeld and Friedlaender unfolded it was difficult to take sides. In a lengthy position paper (Denkschrift), the Munich members described their relative ambivalence with both positions. The exaggerated praise for the qualities and accomplishments of homosexuals—a central feature in Friedlaender’s characterization of the hyper-vir
ile leader—was excessive: “[S]ome brochures present homosexuals as the noblest specimens of humankind, and one cannot blame those who think differently…when they condemn writings that depict the honor of humanity as something that rests in homosexual hands and that only same-sex eroticism allows mankind to achieve its spiritual potential.” The subcommittee offered sharp criticisms of Hirschfeld as well: “We cannot spare Dr. Hirschfeld the reproach that the alleged sickness of homosexuality has been overemphasized and that the broad depictions of Berlin’s cross-dressing and street prostitution in many of his writings have seriously damaged our cause.” Reports from throughout 1907 indicated a dwindling Munich membership, and in May 1908 the subcommittee dissolved itself and directed that remaining members pay dues and correspond directly with the Berlin SHC.97 The activities of the other subcommittees are not well documented. Certainly the absence of a paper trail suggests that groups in Leipzig, Hamburg, Hanover, and southwest Germany were no longer (or barely) active by the date of Friedlaender’s death.

  The direct and immediate influence of the Secession can best be seen in its negative influence on the SHC, and its ability to thwart and undermine Hirschfeld and his colleagues. Even so, Hirschfeld, arguably, won the day. His definition of homosexuality as an immutable, hardwired personality trait was widely accepted, certainly among an educated German elite that characterized a small percentage of the total population as well as within most social classes in Berlin. As described in the Introduction (this page), the German-language encyclopedias Meyers and Brockhaus followed Hirschfeld’s position, explaining that male and female homosexuals suffer from an “inborn and perverse feeling,” that they could be found in all social classes, and that they likely made up 1.5 to 2 percent of the population—figures taken from Hirschfeld’s survey.98

  The schism created by Friedlaender and Brand within Berlin’s early homosexual rights movement was influential in other respects, however. The “masculinist” impulse within the German movement certainly survived Friedlaender’s death in 1908. Those who quibbled with Hirschfeld’s biological determinism never disappeared, of course; Brand, certainly, remained a prominent if controversial figure throughout the Weimar Republic. Due in part to theoretical differences and the personal rivalries they inspired, the homosexual rights movement of the Weimar Republic was every bit as divided as its prewar precursor. Friedlaender and the masculinists had a powerful influence not only on self-conscious sexual minorities, moreover, but also on political and social theories of homosocial—if not homoerotic—masculine association. Friedlaender’s most important intellectual protégé, Hans Blüher, became a prominent and culturally influential proponent of the idea of a German Männerbund (male association)—also modeled to some extent on ancient Greek models—which bonded as a collectivity through homoerotic and even explicitly homosexual ties. The role of homosociality and friend-love would soon be introduced to the social sciences more generally.

  • CHAPTER FOUR •

  The Eulenburg Scandal and the Politics of Outing

  They [the Germans] are not satisfied simply being pederasts, like the rest of the world. They have to invent homosexuality. Where science goes and finds itself a niche, my God? They study pederasty, just as they study epigraphy…. Pederasts with emphasis, sodomites with erudition! And in place of men simply making love together, through vice, they are homosexuals with pedantry. Go to Berlin, I tell you—see you in Berlin. That is the journey.

  —OCTAVE MIRBEAU, “Berlin-Sodome,” La 628–E8 (Paris, 1907)

  On November 7, 1906, the German Kaiser William II (1859–1941) traveled a short distance north of Berlin to the estate of one of his closest friends, Prince Philipp zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld (1847–1921). The occasion was unremarkable. The Kaiser often enjoyed yacht cruises or weeklong hunting parties with a circle of friends, courtiers, and officials. Some twelve years older than the Kaiser, Eulenburg had befriended William II in 1887 before his ascension to the throne. At the youthful age of twenty-nine, William II became the German emperor, following the deaths in 1888 of both his aged grandfather Emperor William I and his father, Emperor Frederick III, who reigned for just a few months before succumbing to cancer. In 1900 the Kaiser elevated Eulenburg to the rank of prince and named him a hereditary peer in the Prussian House of Lords, an institution modeled on the British House of Lords and created with the adoption of the Prussian constitution in 1850.1 Eulenburg’s close friendship with William II endowed him with a special status, enabling him not only to exert significant behind-the-scenes influence but also to forge a network of officials and aristocrats who often escorted and entertained the monarch. So often had Eulenburg accompanied and even hosted the Kaiser, in fact, that the title of his country estate, Liebenberg, provided the nickname for the Kaiser’s circle of close friends: the “Liebenberg Roundtable” (Tafelrunde).

  The Liebenberg Roundtable had become a veritable institution, though one that was despised and resented. Many political observers, including members of the Kaiser’s own government, referred to the group as a “camarilla,” a cadre of friends who used their position at court to exercise private political power. These camarilla members, it was thought, abused their friendship with the Kaiser to gain positions for themselves and, even worse, to influence the Kaiser’s views on German foreign policy. Eulenburg provoked the greatest ire. He was blamed for encouraging William II to dismiss Chancellor Bismarck in 1890; the appointments of at least two of Bismarck’s successors, Georg Leo Graf von Caprivi and Prince Chlodwig von Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst, were ascribed to his machinations. Into the twentieth century, William II had established an increasingly autocratic “personal monarchy,” for which he was manifestly ill-suited. For this, too, Eulenburg and his close associates were frequently blamed; their sycophancy and idolization of the feckless Kaiser reinforced many of his worst characteristics. Eulenburg’s critics also disliked his apparent “pacifism” and his support for closer diplomatic ties with France, which seemed to influence the Kaiser’s foreign policy, at least for a time.2

  The three-day hunting excursion was attended by a cast of familiar characters. Among the high-ranking ministers and elite courtiers was one prominent Liebenberg regular, Eulenburg’s closest friend Kuno von Moltke (1847-1923). Descended from a prominent Prussian lineage that included many generals, Moltke’s career as a Prussian officer and a member of the diplomatic corps was assured at his birth. His achievements, however, were conspicuously disappointing; in 1905 the Kaiser appointed Moltke military commander of the city of Berlin, a high-profile though largely honorific position. A more surprising guest at Liebenberg on this occasion was the French ambassador in Berlin, Raymond Lecomte. Rumors that Lecomte had enjoyed nearly unfettered access to the Kaiser at Liebenberg roiled the German political class, though Lecomte claimed soon after that in his presence the Kaiser discussed only banalities.3 For Lecomte’s apparent access to the Kaiser, Eulenburg was likewise blamed, since he not only hosted the hunting excursion but was also known to socialize with Lecomte. In addition to serving the French Republic, Lecomte had an unsavory reputation; Berlin police commissioner Tresckow labeled him “king of the pederasts.”4 Monitored by the city police, the French ambassador patronized Berlin’s homosexual bars and entertainments, and this too was widely discussed among the city’s elite.5

  Because of Lecomte’s presence, this particular outing to Liebenberg marked a fateful turning point for Eulenburg, as well as for the Kaiser. Critics had a powerful weapon with which to neutralize the Liebenberg Roundtable, namely the alleged homosexuality of Eulenburg and his friends. Eulenburg himself was married and had five children. All the same, many believed that he had been targeted for blackmail while posted to the German embassy in Vienna; allegedly, Eulenburg left the post in 1902 to avoid the exposure of his homosexual dalliances.6 His closest associates, Moltke among them, were also suspected of sexual “abnormalities.” Members of the Liebenberg Roundtable, including Eulenburg, wrote poetry and composed songs; they were described as �
��spiritualists” and known to conduct séances. It also became clear that they cultivated a cult of neo-romantic male friendship, and their correspondence was filled with seemingly homoerotic attestations of friendship. Eulenburg himself was often addressed as “Phili” or “Philine,” while Moltke enjoyed the nickname “Tutu.” Perhaps most damning was the pet name “Liebchen” or “darling,” which they used for the Kaiser.7

  At the center of this incipient scandal was Maximilian Harden (1861–1927), an influential Berlin journalist who edited a weekly news magazine, Die Zukunft. In November 1906 Harden published two derisive articles, implying that Moltke, Eulenburg, and the larger group that made up the Kaiser’s entourage were homosexual.8 Harden published a third piece in January, suggesting that Eulenburg had an inappropriate relationship with Raymond Lecomte. Another article in April accused Eulenburg directly of being homosexual and implied that his behavior was treasonous.9 When William II eventually learned of the offending accusations in May 1907, he banned both Eulenburg and Moltke from his court and demanded that they respond to Harden’s slander. The Kaiser’s response was clumsy, however, and forced Moltke to bring charges of libel against Harden, creating a public platform for Harden’s accusations. The initial trial triggered a concatenation of subsequent trials, which continued into 1909. Of course, accusations of libel prompted a process of extensive legal discovery. Ultimately, not only Eulenburg but also a significant list of Prussian aristocrats and military officers were suspected of having violated the anti-sodomy statute.