I wish to thank the University of Texas at Arlington Organized Research Fund, which made possible the research for this project, and Konrad Jarausch and Leslie Page Moch, who offered helpful suggestions and criticisms. A preliminary draft of this paper was presented at the Western Association for German Studies Conference, 1979.

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5. Marcus, The Other Victorians, p. 282; Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, pp. 19, 81–93.

6. On the changing attitudes toward women, children, and the family in the nineteenth century, see: Ariès, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Baldick, Robert (New York, 1962), esp. pp. 284–5, 365–415Google Scholar; John, and Demos, Virginia, “Adolescence in Historical Perspective,” in The American Family in Social-Historical Perspective, ed. Gordon, Michael (New York, 1973), pp. 209–21Google Scholar; Gillis, John, Youth in History: Tradition and Change in European Age Relations 1770 to the Present (New York, 1974), pp. 95–131CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robertson, Priscilla, “Home as a Nest: Middle-Class Childhood in Nineteenth-Century Europe,” in The History of Childhood, ed. de Mause, Lloyd (New York, 1974), pp. 407—31Google Scholar; Stearns, Peter, European Society in Upheaval: Social History Since 1750, 2nd ed. (New York, 1975), pp. 139–43, 232–34Google Scholar; Branca, Patricia, Silent Sisterhood (London, 1975), pp. 108–12Google Scholar, and Women in Europe Since 1750 (London, 1978), pp. 99–131Google Scholar; Trudgill, Eric, Madonnas and Magdalens: The Origins and Development of Victorian Sexual Attitudes (London, 1976), pp. 38–100Google Scholar; Barker-Benfield, G. J., The Horror of the Half-Known Life: Male Attitudes Towards Women and Sexuality in Nineteenth Century America (New York, 1976), pp. 138–40, 215–17, 224–25, 282–85Google Scholar; Shorter, Edward, The Making of the Modem Family (New York, 1977), esp. pp. 191–99, 227–34Google Scholar; Lasch, Christopher, Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged (New York, 1977), pp. 5–8Google Scholar; Stone, Lawrence, “Family History in the 1980s. Past Achievements and Future Trends,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12 (Summer 1981): 73–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, pp. 24–44, 48–52, 72–81, 126–28. Also Victorian Women: A Documentary Account of Women's Lives in Nineteenth Century England, France, and the United States, ed. Hellerstein, Erna O. et al. , (Stanford, 1981)Google Scholar. For the effects of these changes upon male and female sexual behavior and upon the institution of prostitution, see: John-Stevas, Norman St., Obscenity and the Law (London, 1956), pp. 60–61, 114, 118Google Scholar; Pearson, Michael, The Age of Consent: Victorian Prostitution and Its Enemies (Newton Abbot, 1972), pp. 23–27, 77Google Scholar; Pearsall, Ronald, Public Purity, Private Shame: Victorian Sexual Hypocrisy Exposed (London, 1976), pp. 72–94Google Scholar; Trudgill, Madonnas and Magdalens, pp. 101–51; Evans, Richard J., “Prostitution, State, and Society in Imperial Germany,” Past & Present 70 (02 1976): 106–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vern, and Bullough, Bonnie, Sin, Sickness and Sanity: A History of Sexual Attitudes (New York, 1977), p. 166Google Scholar; Corbin, Alain, Les filles de noce (Paris, 1978)Google Scholar; Zeldin, France, p. 291; and Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, p. 30. Also Walkowitz, Judith, Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and State (Cambridge, 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Marcus The Other Victorians, p. 282; Zeldin, France, p. 312.

8. Johnson, Living in Sin, pp. 4–10; Taylor, Sex in History, pp. 215–16; Lewis, Literature, Obscenity, and Law, p. 1; Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1: An Introduction, trans. Hurley, Robert (New York, 1978)Google Scholar. See also Boyer, Purity in Print, p. 44; Pearsall, Ronald, The Worm in the Bud: The World of Victorian Sexuality (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; and Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, pp. 11–16, 19–23. “What seems to be happening in the nineteenth century, in response to major social changes (rapid industrialization and urbanisation, the disruption of old class patterns and the rise of capitalist social relations, the development of new and sharp class conflicts with their related social and intellectual manifestations) is a continuous battle over the definition of acceptable sexual behavior within the context of changing class and power relations” (ibid., p. 23).

9. Johnson, Living in Sin, p. 10; Bullough, Sin, Sickness and Society, p. 2; and Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Order, p. 3.

10. Foucault, History of Sexuality, pp. 25–26, 36–37; Mosse, George L., Masses and Man: Nationalist and Fascist Perceptions of Reality (New York, 1980), pp. 12–13Google Scholar; Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, pp. 82–84, 122–38, 141–45.

11. The “social purity” movement was perhaps most prominent in the United States. See: Boyer, Purity in Print, pp. 3–16, and Urban Masses and Moral Order; Lewis, Literature, Obscenity and Law, pp. 8ff.; Broun, Heywood and Leech, Margaret, Anthony Comstock: Roundsman of the Lord (New York, 1927)Google Scholar; Haney, R. W., Comstockery in America (Boston, 1960)Google Scholar; Pivar, David, Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868–1900 (Westport, Conn., 1973), esp. p. 235Google Scholar; and Schauer, Frederick F., The Law of Obscenity (Washington, D.C., 1976), pp. 12ffGoogle Scholar. For similar movements in Europe, see: Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, esp. pp. 81–93; Bristow, Edward J., Vice and Vigilance: Purity Movements in Britain Since 1700 (Dublin, 1977)Google Scholar; Lenman, “Censorship and Society,” esp. pp. 166–209; and Zeldin, France, p. 312.

12. Loth, Erotic in Literature, pp. 75, 105, 110, 123, 132, 163–64, 186; Johnson, Living in Sin, pp. 4–8; Marcus, The Other Victorians, pp. 283–85; Taylor, Sex in History, pp. 215–16; Barber, Pornography and Society, pp. 59, 60, 85; Boyer, Purity in Print, p. 44; Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, pp. 19, 30. Also Goodman, Paul, “Pornography, Art, and Censorship,” in Perspectives in Pornography, ed. Hughes, D. A. (New York, 1970), p. 48Google Scholar. Some sociologists regard pornography, like prostitution, as a necessary outlet for those sexual inclinations that society labels antisocial (i.e., impersonal, transitory, nonmarital) but that cannot be fully suppressed. By providing a safety valve for the discharge of antisocial sex, prostitution and pornography ameliorate the conflict between sexual inclinations and social requirements and thus help maintain society's officially sanctioned norms: “both prostitutes and pornographers are stigmatized because they provide for the socially illegitimate expression of sex, yet their very existence helps to make tolerable the institutionalization of legitimate sex in the family.” (Polsky, Ned, “On the Sociology of Por nography,” in Hustlers, Beats, and Others [Chicago, 1967], pp. 187–88Google Scholar). According to this view, Victorian pornography and Victorian puritanism are complementary phenomena, each requisite to the other.

13. Foucault, History of Sexuality, p. 45.

14. Ibid., p. 48.

15. As quoted in Englisch, Geschichte der erotischen Literatur, p. 237.

16. Memo of interior minister, Jan. 3, 1879, in Generallandesarchiv (hereafter cited as: GLA) Karlsruhe, Abt. 357/1973/51, Nr. 2001.

17. Report of Berlin police, Dec. 18, 1913, in Zentrales Staatsarchiv (hereafter cited as: ZStA) Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Adh. 1, Bd. 2.

18. Report of 1. Staatsanwalt Berlin, Jan. 7, 1913, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Bd. 10.

19. Report of 1. Staatsanwalt Berlin, Dec. 30, 1911, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit, 380, Nr. 7, Bd. 9.

20. The primary foreign suppliers of pornography for Germany were: Gustav Grimm (Budapest); Sachs & Pollack (Budapest); Alois Hyneck (Prague); Fritz Freund's Wiener Verlag (Vienna); C. W. Stern (Vienna); C. Gustav Bellack (Amsterdam); Henninger & Keidels (Amsterdam); Chas. Offensteht (Paris); Albert Mericant (Paris); Albin Michel (Paris); Libraire Parisienne (Paris); Adolf Ebert (Barcelona); Engels & Co. (Barcelona); and A. Rozan (Barcelona). The Grimm, Sachs & Pollack, Wiener, and Stern houses were probably the largest producers of pornography in Europe, perhaps in the world. See ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Bd. 5; also Nr. 7, Adh. 1, Bd. 2, and Adh. zu Bd. 11; Staatsarchiv (hereafter cited as: StA) Bremen, 4,89/1, Nr. 314; StA Hamburg, Politische Polizei, Nr. 4140; GLA Karlsruhe, 233/3242; and Englisch, Geschichte der erotischen Literatur, pp. 253ff.

21. Berlin police to Bremen police, Feb. 5, 1912, StA Bremen, 4,89/1, Nr. 314.

22. Verwaltungsbericht des Polizei-Präsidiums Berlin, p. 505; Berlin police to Prussian interior ministry, Oct. 7, 1878, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Bd. 2; report of Berlin police to Prussian interior ministry, Dec. 18, 1913, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Adh. 1, Bd. 2; Englisch, Geschichte der erotischen Literatur, pp. 284–85.

23. Lenman, “Censorship and Society,” pp. 168–69; report of 1. Staatsanwalt Berlin, Dec. 30, 1911, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Bd. 9; report of Berlin police to Prussian interior ministry, Dec. 18, 1913, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Adh. 1, Bd. 2.

24. Report of 1. Staatsanwalt Berlin, Dec. 30, 1911, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Bd. 9.

25. Ibid. This work was probably an album of Japanese woodcuts produced by the prestigious Piper Verlag; Munich police prosecuted the publishing house in 1907 for printing the volume (Lenman, “Censorship and Society,” p. 169).

26. Report of Berlin police, July 16, 1912, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Adh. 1, Bd. 2; report of police president of Berlin-Charlottenburg, Aug. 13, 1898, StA Potsdam, Rep. 30 Berlin C, Tit. 74, Th. 96; report of 1. Staatsanwalt Köln, Jan. 30, 1900, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Bd. 5. The investigation into the activities of the Württemberg Rittmeister had to be dropped because of “intense pressure from military circles.”

27. Englisch, Geschichte der erotischen Literatur, p. 283; Marcuse, Ludwig, Obszön: Geschichte einer Entrüstung (Munich, 1962), p. 35Google Scholar; Lenman, “Censorship and Society,” p. 169.

28. Schauer, Rudolf, Zum Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift: Ein Beitrag zur Erläuterung des §184 R.St.G.B. (Leipzig, 1893), pp. 59ff.Google Scholar; also Fullerton, Ronald A., “Creating a Mass Book Market in Germany: The Story of the ‘Colporteur Novel’ 1870–1890,” Journal of Social History 10 (1977): 265–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and his “Toward a Commercial Popular Culture.”

29. Lenman, Robin J. V., “Art, Society, and the Law in Wilhelmine Germany: The Lex Heinze,” Oxford German Studies, No. 8 (Oxford, 1973), p. 91Google Scholar; articles in Deutsches Blatt (Hamburg), 08 31, 1894 and 10 18, 1894Google Scholar. On sexual stereotypes concerning Jews, see Mosse, George L., The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich (New York, 1964), p. 141.Google Scholar

30. Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, pp. 141–56; Evans, Richard J., The Feminist Movement in Germany, 1894–1933 (London and Beverly Hills, 1976), p. 123.Google Scholar

31. Schauer, Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift, p. 3; Roeren, Hermann, Die öffentliche Unsitt lichkeit und ihre Bekämpfung: Flugschrift des Kölner Männervereins zur Bekämpfung der öffentlicher Unsittlichkeit (Cologne, 1904), pp. 11, 15Google Scholar; Bloch, Iwan, Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit in seinen Beziehungen zur modernen Kultur, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1907), p. 801Google Scholar; Wulffen, Erich, Der Sexualverbrecher: Ein Handbuch für Juristen, Verwaltungsbeamte und Ärtze, vol. 8 of Enzyklopädie der modernen Kriminalistik (Berlin, 1910), p. 134Google Scholar. See also Lenman, “Censorship and Society,” p. 167, and Hennig, Adolf, Die öffentliche Sittenlosigkeit und die Arbeit der Sittlichkeitsvereine: Eine Denkschrift (Berlin, n.d.)Google Scholar. On the rising level of juvenile delinquency in imperial Germany, see Johnson, Eric A. and McHale, Vincent E., “Socioeconomic Aspects of the Delinquency Rate in Imperial Germany, 1882–1914,” Journal of Social History 13 (Spring 1980): 387–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. Hatzipetros, Nicolaus, Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift und ihrer Verbreitung (St.G.B. §184) (Inaugural diss., U. of Göttingen; Guben, 1896), p. 5Google Scholar; Schauer, Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift, p. 1. A modern analyst, Abraham Kaplan, has explained why obscenity is so often seen as a threat to established order: “To attack established morality in any respect is to undermine the authority of every established pattern.… It is a commonplace that mores tend everywhere to be moralized, so that unconventionality of any kind is condemned as immoral and, if sexual, as obscene.… If they begin by attacking accepted standards of sexual behavior, so the theory runs, they will end by rejecting all social constraints in an orgy of anarchic egoism.” (“Obscenity as an Esthetic Category,” in The Pornography Controversy, ed. Rist, Roy C. [New Brunswick, 1975], pp. 26, 27.)Google Scholar

33. Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, p. 6, as quoted in Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, p. 81. The anti-modernist Cassandra Max Nordau was even more vehement in his warnings; of the “filth-loving herd of swine, the professional pornographists,” he said: “The systematic incitation to lasciviousness causes the gravest injury to the bodily and mental health of individuals, and a society composed of individuals sexually over-stimulated, knowing no longer any self-control, any discipline, any shame, marches to its certain ruin, because it is too worn out and flaccid to perform great tasks. The pornographist poisons the springs whence flows the life of future generations. No task of civilization has been so painfully laborious as the subjugation of lasciviousness. The pornographist would take from us the fruit of this, the hardest struggle of humanity. To him we must show no mercy.” (Nordau, , Degeneration, trans, from the Second Edition of the German Work [1895; reprint ed., New York, 1968], p. 557.Google Scholar) Such concerns were not unique to Germany. In England, St. Loe Strachey, editor of The Spectator, declared in 1895 that “unless the citizens of a State put before themselves the principles of duty, self-sacrifice, self-control, and continence,…the life of the State must be short and precarious.” (Quoted in Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, p. 92.)

34. Quoted in Lenman, “Censorship and Society,” pp. 167–68.

35. Abraham Böhmländer, as quoted in ibid., p. 197. See also the comments of Adolf Hennig, secretary of the General Conference of German Morality Leagues (Allgemeine Konferenz der deutschen Sittlichkeitsvereine), in ibid., p. 52.

36. Schauer, Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift, pp. 1–2; Wulffen, Erich, Psychologie des Verbrechens: Ein Handbuch für Juristen, Ärtze, Pädagogen, und Gebildeten aller Stände, vols. 1 and 2 of Enzyklopädie der modernen Kriminalistik (Berlin, 1908), 2: 350ffGoogle Scholar. Wulffen, imperial Germany's leading criminologist, maintained that upper-class children were given separate sleeping quarters at a much earlier age than working-class children. Because boys and girls of the lower classes slept together in the same room longer, their Schamgefühl was lower than that of upper-class children, and in later life they were more susceptible to sexual suggestion and arousal.

37. This definition was established by the Reichsgericht in its decisions of Dec. 15, 1879, Feb. 16, 1881, and Feb. 19, 1883.

38. Reichsgericht decisions of Dec. 15, 1879, Feb. 14, 1893, and Mar. 22, 1895.

39. Zeldin, France, p. 312. During the 1890s, France had a total population of approximately thirty-eight million, compared to Germany's fifty-five million.

40. The number of convictions for sexual offenses (rape, incest, etc.) roughly doubled between the mid-1880s and the mid-1890s. (Statistik des deutschen Reiches, n.s., vol. 146 [Kriminalstatistik für das Jahr 1901], pp. ii, 26.) In Britain, too, there was a considerable increase in sexual offenses after 1885. (Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, p. 90.)

41. Reichsgericht decision of Jan. 13, 1893; also decision of Dec. 7/8, 1899.

42. For a detailed account of the origins of and controversy over the Lex Heinze, see Lenman, “Art, Society, and the Law,” pp. 86–113.

43. It now also became illegal to publicly advertise articles such as condoms or contraceptive devices, or to place advertisements seeking a partner for an extramarital liaison. The complete amended law, which became effective on June 25, 1900, read:

“Mit Gefängnis bis zu einem Jahr und mit Geldstrafe bis zu eintausend Mark oder mit einer dieser Strafen wird bestraft, wer

1. unzüchtige Schriften, Abbildungen oder Darstellungen feilhält, verkauft, vertheilt, an Orten, welche dem Publikum zugänglich sind, ausstellte oder anschlägt oder sonst verbreitet, sie zum Zweck der Verbreitung herstellt oder zu demselben Zweck vorräthig hält, ankündigt oder anpreist;

2. unzüchtige Schriften, Abbildungen, oder Darstellungen einer Person unter sechzehn Jahren gegen Entgelt überlässt oder anbietet;

3. Gegenstände, die zu unzüchtigen Gebrauche bestimmt sind, an Orten, welche dem Publikum zugänglich sind, ausstellt oder solche Gegenstände dem Publikum ankündigt oder anpreist;

4. öffentliche Ankündigungen erlässt, welche dazu bestimmt sind, unzüchtigen Verkehr herbeizuführen.

Neben der Gefängnisstrafe kann auf Verlust der bürgerlichen Ehrenrechte sowie auf Zulässigkeit von Polizei-Aufsicht erkannt werden.”

44. Prussian interior ministry to Berlin police, Oct. 11, 1901, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 2772, Nr. 15.

45. Reichsgericht decision of Feb. 21, 1902.

46. Prussian interior ministry to Berlin police, Dec. 28, 1901, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 2772, Nr. 15. Likewise, in December, 1907, the Bavarian Oberste Landesgericht ruled that since the display of indecent material could be considered an attack upon public order, offenders could automatically be charged with grober Unfug. (Lenman, “Censorship and Society,” p. 170.)

47. Lenman, “Censorship and Society,” p. 170.

48. The complete text of the treaty was published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1911, pp. 209ff. On the effect of this treaty on day-to-day pornography control in Germany, see memo of Hessian interior minister, Jan. 14, 1913, StA Darmstadt, 615 Heppenheim, Abt. 2, vol. 776.

49. Report of Berlin police, Dec. 18, 1913, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Adh. 1, Bd. 2.

50. See ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Adh. 1, Bd. 1, 2.

51. Statistik des deutschen Reiches, n.s., vols. 302, 304, 342 (Kriminalstatistik für das Jahr 1916, 1917, 1918). No figures are available on the number of women prosecuted under Paragraph 184 before 1914, although police commented that women seemed more active in the pornography trade during the war. (Report of Berlin police, Apr. 5, 1919, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Adh. 1, Bd. 2.)

52. Ibid.

53. The leading authority on Paragraph 184 also took pains to point out that “the artist who wants to portray life as it is must above all portray those factors that shape and direct life. Sexual love is one of the most powerful mainsprings of human existence; without love, no family, without the family, no state.… Sexual love, which has played so great a role in civilization, has always especially attracted the artist. Sexual love offers so many different forms, such interesting psychological problems, that it inevitably inspires the artist to apply his talents to its portrayal.… The artist is therefore permitted to say things that it would not be proper to mention in regular society.… We therefore come to the conclusion: sensuality is permitted to the graphic artist; indeed, it is indispensable for him. It should be condemned [in art] only when it passes over into the vulgar and thus turns the artist's whole effort into an obscene one” (Schauer, Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift, pp. 39–41).

54. Berlin police to Prussian interior ministry, Feb. 7, 1911, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380, Nr. 7, Adh. 1, Bd. 1. The interior minister, in defining the competencies and powers of the new office, made it clear that if the police were to interpret the law too narrowly and confiscate great works of art or prosecute serious scholars under Paragraph 184, they would only make the law against pornography look ridiculous and thus reduce its effectiveness in upholding public morality (memo to Berlin police, Oct. 11, 1911, ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 2772, Nr. 15).

55. Schauer, Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift, pp. 36–37; Hatzipetros, Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift, p. 26; Bloch, Sexualleben, p. 795. A crucial Reichsgericht decision of Mar. 22, 1895 ruled that “it is not sufficient [grounds for declaring a work obscene] that individual passages or sentences of that work, in themselves and taken out of context, offend the sense of morality. Rather, it is far more a matter of the character of the work as a whole. Scholarly works, reports, and debates often contain things that, in the context of the larger whole, are permissible, indeed even necessary.” See also the Reichsgericht decision of Feb. 19, 1883. According to imperial Germany's leading expert on sexuality, in legitimate works of art and science “higher artistic or scientific goals [will outweigh] the purely sexual elements; the [sexual objects] portrayed are divested of their topicality [Akualität] and, completely ignoring considerations of time and place, are considered from their general human aspect. Furthermore, in portraying the purely sexual or physical, the author expresses a kind of transcendent viewpoint, or he makes evident the causal relations of what he portrays” (Bloch, Sexualleben, p. 795).

56. “Beschluss in der Strafsache wider den Schriftsteller Otto Brahm und den Redakteur Wilhelm Bölsche wegen Vergehens gegen §184 des Strafgesetzbuches,” Freie Bühne 2 (1891): 129–30Google Scholar. French law made a similar distinction between erotic art and pornography; the former was tolerated because it was considered “artistic, excluding all idea of lucre and addressing itself to an elite,” while the latter was considered obscene because it had merely “low and pecuniary aims.” According to a decree of the Tribunal de la Seine, Feb. 11, 1884, “obscenity exists where…art does not intervene to raise up the ideal and where the appeal to the instincts and gross appetites is not opposed or defeated by any superior sentiment.” (Zeldin, France, p. 311.) No such clear distinction existed in English law, however. After the turn of the century there was a growing concern in England that the law against obscenity was too often being applied against genuine art and literature. A Joint Select Committee was established in 1908 to amend the law to insure that “any book of literary merit or reputation or any genuine work of art” would be exempted from legal prosecution. Parliament, however, ignored the recommendations of the committee and the law was never altered (Barber, Pornography and Society, p. 34).

57. A Reichsgericht decision of Dec. 10, 1897 ruled that “works that are absolutely and universally obscene are rare. More often, the determination of whether something is obscene or not depends on the circumstances: the people involved, the conditions, the place, the purpose for which it is intended, and so on.” See also Reichsgericht decision of Nov. 6, 1893. Another key decision (Jan. 15, 1891) ruled that “not merely the form or content [of a work] determines whether or not it is obscene; its perceived intent and the use to which it is put are equally decisive. If a work is intended to serve art or scholarship, then it can't normally be considered to be a work that aims at sexual arousal [and thus is not obscene]. If, however, an artistic work containing objectively offensive elements is intended or used for sexual arousal, then it can be branded as an obscene work. For the way a work of art is exhibited or distributed can give it an obscene character. And, conversely, works that have an explicit sexual content without having any higher artistic or scholarly intent may not be obscene if, for example, they are sold to someone who wants to place them in an art-historical collection.”

58. Prussian Obertribunal decision of July 19, 1874.

59. Reichsgericht decision of Mar. 22, 1895; Schauer, Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift, pp. 36–37.

60. Hatzipetros, Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift, p. 29.

61. Karlsruhe Landesgericht decision of Feb. 12, 1910, in GLA Karlsruhe, 233/33607. (In addition the postcards, according to the court, had a crasser coloration than the original paintings, which made certain parts of the anatomy stand out more in the reproductions.) On Nov. 6, 1893 and Nov. 22, 1904 the Reichsgericht reached the same conclusion in cases that were almost identical to this. The 1904 decision, for example, stated that “what must be determined is whether these pictures—which in their original form as paintings in a Paris salon may not offend anyone—in their present form, as postcard photos being peddled in the streets to anyone, regardless of age, sex, or educational level, are obscene in regard to the way they are being offered in this particular situation.”

62. Schauer, Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift, pp. 47–48; Berlin police report of Sept. 1, 1882 regarding Nana ZStA Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 380. Nr. 7, Bd. 3.

63. Schauer, Begriff der unzüchtigen Schrift, pp. 38, 44–49.

64. Ibid., pp. 37–38.

65. Riess, Erotica! Erotica!, p. 12; Marcuse, Obszön, p. 53. See also Loth, Erotic in Literature.

66. See Pascal, Roy, From Naturalism to Expressionism: German Literature and Society 1880–1918 (London, 1973), pp. 253, 305, 311Google Scholar; Rosenhaupt, H. W., Der deutsche Dichter um die Jahrhundertwende und seine Abgelöstheit von der Gesellschaft (Berne, 1939)Google Scholar; Hamann, Richard and Hermand, Jost, Epochen deutscher Kultur von 1870 bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 2: Naturalismus (Frankfurt, 1977), p. 68.Google Scholar

67. Certain “public” editions of the following literary works were banned at one time or another in imperial Germany: Alberti, C., Die Alten und die Jungen (banned 1889)Google Scholar; Zola, Renate (banned 1890) and Die schöne Adelheid (banned 1891); Bahr, Hermann, Russische Reise and Fin de Siècle (banned 1892)Google Scholar; Strindberg, A., Die Beichte eines Toren (banned 1893)Google Scholar; Dehmel, Richard, Aber die Liebe (banned 1893, but later reversed; banned again 1899, but later reversed)Google Scholar; Panizza, O., Das Liebeskonsul (banned 1895)Google Scholar; Dehmel, R., Weib und Welt (banned 1897)Google Scholar; Zola, Der Bauch von Paris (banned 1899); Schur, E., Dalldorfer Lyrik (banned 1899)Google Scholar; Remer, P., Unter fremder Sonne (banned 1899, later reversed)Google Scholar; d'Au-becq-Linder, Barrisons (banned 1899, later reversed); Kabelitz, T., Gründe und Abgründe (banned 1899)Google Scholar; Schnitzler, A., Reigen (banned 1904)Google Scholar; and Hugo, Victor, Der Roman der kleinen Violette (banned 1912)Google Scholar. As another example of the application of “relative obscenity,” Dehmel's poem “Venus Consulatrix,” included in the Weib und Welt book, was found to be obscene, and this section of the book was confiscated and destroyed. It was legal for Dehmel to print the poem privately and distribute it to a small circle of authors, however, which he did in 1907 (only 150 copies were printed). See Houben, Heinrich H., Verbotene Literatur von der klassischen Zeit bis zur Gegenwart: Ein kritisch-historisches Lexikon über verbotene Bücher, Zeitschriften und Theaterstücke, Schriftsteller und Verleger, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1924), 1: 116–30.Google Scholar

68. See for example Panizza, Oskar, Parisjana: Deutsche Verse aus Paris (Zurich, 1899), esp. pp. 4–7, 29–30, 81–82Google Scholar, written after Panizza's release from prison, and Bahr's, Hermann “Galante Bücher,” Die Gegenwart 39, no. 2 (01 10, 1891): 25–26Google Scholar, which Bahr wrote immediately after one of his works had been banned.

69. Bahr, “Galante Bücher,” pp. 25–26.

70. Mauthner, , “Die freien Bühnen und die Theaterzensur,” Das Magazin für Literatur 60, no. 5 (12 19, 1891): 802.Google Scholar

71. See the comments of Ned Polsky, cited in note 12, above.