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The Homosexual Scare and the Masculinization of German Politics before World War I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2015

Norman Domeier
Norman Domeier*
Affiliation:
University of Stuttgart
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Extract

It may seem strange today to study aspects of the political sphere—from foreign policy to diplomacy and the military—in the context of sexuality. But the Belle Epoque (1871–1914) was an era of prestige politics, also with respect to the politics of sexuality. This article reveals how the Eulenburg Scandal of 1906 to 1909 used sexual morality as a way to explain and interpret the tensions that pervaded Germany's domestic affairs and international relations. The reliance on sexual mores as an explanation for large-scale political events was the result of an ever-intensifying chain of national and international complications—complications that later undermined Germany's sense of national honor. The Eulenburg Scandal is remembered today mainly as the first major homosexual scandal of the twentieth century, but contemporaries experienced it in a wider sense: it became Germany's counterpart to the Dreyfus Affair in France—two examples of political, social, and cultural conflict that threatened the foundations of their respective countries.

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Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 737 - 759
Copyright
Copyright © Central European History Society of the American Historical Association 2015 

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References

1 This is treated in greater depth in Domeier, Norman, Der Eulenburg-Skandal. Eine politische Kulturgeschichte des Kaiserreichs (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2010)Google Scholar, 301–61. An English translation will appear with Camden House in spring 2015.

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10 Domeier, Eulenburg-Skandal, 141–42.

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15 Harden's eloquent attack on the “sweetheart” Wilhelm II found its way into literature: in his novella Der Tod in Venedig (1911), Thomas Mann has the aging dandy—as a messenger of death—pay compliments to the “sweetheart, the most beloved, most beautiful sweetheart.” See Mann, Thomas, Der Tod in Venedig (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1988)Google Scholar, 29.

16 Friedländer, Hugo, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse von kulturhistorischer Bedeutung. Darstellung merkwürdiger Strafrechtsfälle aus Gegenwart und Jüngstvergangenheit, 12 vols. (Berlin: 1910–1920)Google Scholar [digital version available at http://www.zeno.org/], 4110–13, 4104. King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia found himself dependent for years on the reactionary camarilla around the Gerlach brothers.

17 Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, 3994–97, 4207–8.

18 See Schilling, René, Kriegshelden. Deutungsmuster heroischer Männlichkeit in Deutschland 1813–1945 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2002), 195–204Google Scholar, 209. For more on the middle-class women's rights movement, see Reagin, Nancy Ruth, A German Women's Movement: Class and Gender in Hanover, 1880–1933 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

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21 “Peinliche Fragen,” Rheinisch-Westfälische-Zeitung, Oct. 31, 1907.

22 Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, 3973–80.

23 “Feminismus,” Volkskorrespondenz, Nov. 22, 1907.

24 See Hübinger, Gangolf, “Max Weber. Ein politischer Intellektueller im Deutschen Kaiserreich,” in Intellektuelle im Deutschen Kaiserreich, ed. Hübinger, Gangolf and Mommsen, Wolfgang J. (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1993), 33–62Google Scholar.

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26 Hamburger Nachrichten, May 20, 1908.

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28 Maximilian Harden, “Schlussvortrag,” Die Zukunft, Nov. 9, 1907.

29 France had agreed in early July 1905 to attend an international conference on Morocco. See “Die Zeugen im Prozess Harden-Moltke,” B.Z. am Mittag, Oct. 21, 1907.

30 Holstein wrote that Harden had flown into a tantrum when he heard that Lecomte had been invited to Liebenberg. See von Holstein, Friedrich, Lebensbekenntnis in Briefen an eine Frau, ed. Rogge, Helmuth (Berlin: Ullstein, 1932)Google Scholar, 296. Harden's press campaign began two weeks later, on November 24, 1906. During the trial, it was revealed that Lecomte had been invited to the hunt at Liebenberg on the express wish of Wilhelm II. See Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, 4163.

31 In reality, the peaceful intentions of Wilhelm II during the Morocco Crisis reached France from the envoy of the Welfen-dynasty, Hermann von Hodenberg, and from the Center Party deputies Franz von Arenberg and Emile Wetterlé. In addition, a file on Moroccan policy that contained a revealing comment by the Kaiser—“But no war because of this!”—was stolen from the Foreign Office. See Mayer, Martin, Geheime Diplomatie und öffentliche Meinung. Die Parlamente in Frankreich, Deutschland und Großbritannien und die Erste Marokkokrise 1904–1906 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2002), 177, 214–19, 307Google Scholar.

32 Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, 4110–13.

33 Union Prag, Oct. 30, 1907.

34 “Liebenberg und Place de l'Opera,” Germania, Oct. 31, 1907.

35 “Des Harden-Prozesses zweiter Teil,” Berliner Tageblatt, Dec. 16, 1907.

36 Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, 4266.

37 Ibid., 4270.

38 “Rückblick,” Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, July 6, 1908.

39 Neue Bayerische Landeszeitung, April 25, 1908.

40 “Der Schmutzprozess,” Die Hilfe, Nov. 3, 1907; Linsert, Richard, Kabale und Liebe. Über Politik und Geschlechtsleben (Berlin: Man, 1931)Google Scholar.

41 See the bellicose voices in the press quoted later in this article. Also see Daniel, Ute, “Einkreisung und Kaiserdämmerung. Ein Versuch, der Kulturgeschichte vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg auf die Spur zu kommen,” in Was heißt Kulturgeschichte des Politischen?, ed. Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2005), 279–328Google Scholar.

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44 Compare Martin Geyer and Johannes Paulmann, eds., The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society, and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar. A historical study of the “homosexual international” remains a desideratum.

45 Domeier, Eulenburg-Skandal, 158–84.

46 Maximilian Harden, Prozesse. Köpfe III. Teil (Berlin: Erich Reiss, 1913), 182.

47 Linsert, Kabale und Liebe, 145, 161.

48 Reeser, Masculinities in Theory, 174.

49 §175 of the Penal Code is meant here: “Unnatural fornication practiced between individuals of the male sex or by human beings with animals is punishable by prison; as well as by the loss of rights of civil honor.”

50 “Die große Kloake,” Neue Bayerische Landeszeitung, Oct. 31, 1907.

51 The concept of the homosexual international is mentioned in Hull, Entourage, 11, 135. Compare this with the focus on a male union as a social structure in Bruns, Claudia, “Skandale im Beraterkreis um Kaiser Wilhelm II. Die homoerotische Verbündelung der Liebenberger Tafelrunde als Politikum,” in Homosexualität und Staatsräson. Männlichkeit, Homophobie und Politik in Deutschland 1900–1945, ed. Nieden, Susanne zur (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2005), 52–80Google Scholar.

52 See the contributions in Dudink, Stefan et al. , eds., Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

53 Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, 4007, 4158–60, 4269–73.

54 Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, 3962, 4024, 4060–64, 4113, 4269.

55 “Der Schmutzprozess,” Die Hilfe, Nov. 3, 1907.

56 Neue Freie Presse, Jan. 3, 1908.

57 BLHA 566, “Erster Teil der Schlußrede Hardens im 2. Prozess.“

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60 The Standard, Oct. 30, 1907. For mignons as potential traitors, see J. H. Elliott and L.W. B. Brockliss, eds., The World of the Favorite (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999)Google ScholarPubMed. For the supposedly treasonous nature of homosexuals, see Hull, Entourage, 135.

61 On the awareness of a crisis of masculinity immediately before World War I, see Berenson, Edward, The Trial of Madame Caillaux (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 169–207Google Scholar; Forth, Christopher, The Dreyfus Affair and the Crisis of French Manhood (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

62 Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality, 34.

63 Reeser, Masculinities in Theory, 177.

64 Friedländer, Interessante Kriminal-Prozesse, 4086–88.

65 See also Kessel, Martina, “The ‘Whole Man’: The Longing for a Masculine World in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” Gender & History 15 no. 1 (2003): 1–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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67 Mommsen, Wolfgang J., “Homosexualität, aristokratische Kultur und Weltpolitik. Die Herausforderung des wilhelminischen Establishments durch Maximilian Harden 1906–1908,” in Große Prozesse. Recht und Gerechtigkeit in der Geschichte, ed. Schultz, Uwe (Munich: Beck, 2001), 279–88Google Scholar.

68 On the Pan-Germans more generally, see Chickering, Roger, We Men Who Feel Most German: A Cultural Study of the Pan-German League, 1886–1914 (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1984)Google Scholar.

69 Berliner Tageblatt, Wo sind die Schuldigen?, Oct. 30, 1907.

70 Maximilian Harden, “Monte Carlino,” Die Zukunft, April 13, 1907, 44–45. There is no credible evidence that Chancellor Bülow was homosexual. On this very point, see my review of Winzen, Peter, Im Schatten Wilhelms II. Bülows und Eulenburgs Poker um die Macht im Kaiserreich (Cologne: Böhlau, 2011)Google Scholar, in Historische Zeitschrift 296, no. 2 (2013): 541–43.

71 For more on this development, see the essays in Nieden, Homosexualität und Staatsräson.

72 “Harden über die Angelegenheit des Fürsten Eulenburg,” Berliner Lokalanzeiger, May 7, 1908.

73 “Vertige Royal,” Le Gaulois, Oct. 28, 1907. See references to the (homosexual) ascription of masculinity in the Prussian army in MacDonnel, Patricia, “Essentially Masculine: Masden Hartley, Gay Identity, and the Wilhelmine German Military,” Art Journal 65, no. 2 (1997), 62–69Google Scholar. On the elite hyper-heterosexual self-image, see Sösemann, Bernd, “Die Hunnenrede Wilhelms II,” Historische Zeitschrift 222 (1976): 342–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 For more on the military foundation myth of the German Empire, see Becker, Frank, Bilder von Krieg und Nation. Die Einigungskriege in der bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeit Deutschlands 1864–1913 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001), 292–376CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 See “Vertige Royal,” Le Gaulois. The Foreign Legion was notorious for its homosexuality, which the German press held up as an example of military decadence in France. See “Nach zwei Sensationsprozessen,” Augsburger Abendzeitung, Nov. 1, 1907.

76 Libre Parole und Intransigeant quoted in “Beleidigungsprozess Moltke-Harden,” Augsburger Abendzeitung, Oct. 29, 1907.

77 See “Vertige Royal,” Le Gaulois. Compare the comprehensive contemporary analysis of the Eulenburg Scandal from the French perspective in Weindel, Henri de, L'Homosexualité en Allemagne (Paris: Juven, 1908)Google Scholar.

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80 “Der Prozess Moltke-Harden,” Kölnische Zeitung, Oct. 28, 1907.

81 For one critique of the state of the army after the scandal, see Stein, Adolf, Wilhelm II. (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1909), 72–85Google Scholar.

82 Kreuzzeitung, Oct. 27, 1907.

83 “Beleidigungsprozess Moltke-Harden,” Augsburger Abendzeitung, Oct. 29, 1907.

84 “Die Köpfe hoch, die Herzen hoch!,” Deutsche Tageszeitung, Nov. 2, 1907.

85 See the letter of Oct. 26, 1907, from Bülow to Wilhelm II in Die geheimen Papiere Friedrich von Holsteins, vol. 4: 1897–1909, ed. Rich, Norman and Fisher, M. H. (Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1963), 451–52Google Scholar.

86 For a discussion of the “space of experience” (Erfahrungsraum) and the “spectrum of expectation” (Erwartungshorizont) as historical categories, see Koselleck, Reinhart, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), 349–75Google Scholar. A case for the Eulenburg Scandal as a mental prerequisite for World War I is made in Baumont, Maurice, L'Affaire Eulenburg et les origines de la guerre mondiale (Paris: Payot, 1933)Google Scholar.

87 A clear indication is the distribution of pornography. See Stark, Gary D., “Pornography, Society, and the Law in Imperial Germany,” Central European History 14, no. 3 (September 1981): 200–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 “Das Urteil im Prozess Moltke-Harden,” Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, Jan. 4, 1908.

89 Maximilian Harden, “Schlussvortrag,” Die Zukunft, Nov. 9, 1907.

90 See also Steakley, James D., “Iconography of a Scandal: Political Cartoons and the Eulenburg Affair,” in History of Homosexuality in Europe and America, ed. Dynes, Wayne R. (New York: Garland, 1992), 323–85Google Scholar.

91 Le Temps quoted in “Hardens Rückzug,” Vorwärts, June 18, 1907.

92 “Le vrai but,” Le Figaro, July 18, 1908.

93 Compare Nieden, Susanne zur, “Der homosexuelle Staatsfeind. Zur Geschichte einer Idee,” in Ideen als gesellschaftliche Gestaltungskraft im Europa der Neuzeit. Beiträge für eine erneuerte Geistesgeschichte (Munich: Oldenburg, 2006), 394–427Google Scholar.

94 On the early development of political homophobia, see the inflammatory self-published pamphlet by Fried, Eugen, Das männliche Urningtum in seiner sozialen Bedeutung (Wien, 1919)Google Scholar. The Redl Affair was interpreted by contemporaries as an international homosexual-Jewish conspiracy; see Emil Witte's self-published Wider das Juden- und Kynädenregiment (Berlin, 1914), 14.

95 Steakley, Iconography, 348.

96 Dean, Robert, Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001), 72, 113, 131, 152Google Scholar.

97 “Eulenburgs politische Geständnisse,” New Yorker Staatszeitung, July 28, 1908. See also Domeier, Eulenburg-Skandal, 327–45.

98 See Bruns, Claudia, Politik des Eros. Der Männerbund in Wissenschaft, Politik und Jugendkultur 1880–1934 (Cologne: Böhlau, 2008)Google Scholar.

99 Susanne zur Nieden, “Aufstieg und Fall des virilen Männerhelden. Der Skandal um Ernst Röhm und seine Ermordung,” in Homosexualität und Staatsräson. Männlichkeit, Homophobie und Politik in Deutschland 1900–1945, ed. Susanne zur Nieden (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2005), 147–92.

100 “Das große Reinemachen,” Die Neue Zeit, Nov. 9, 1907.

101 See Reeser, Masculinities in Theory, 183.

102 Clark, Christopher, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (London: Lane, 2012)Google Scholar.

103 On the plurality and hierarchy of masculinities as the fundamental feature of the concept of hegemonic masculinities, see Connell and Messerschmidt, Hegemonic Masculinity, 846.

104 See Koch, Friedrich, Sexuelle Denunziation. Die Sexualität in der politischen Auseinandersetzung (Frankfurt am Main: Syndikat, 1986)Google Scholar. The cases discussed in this book affirm historical continuity.