Our hour has come: The homosexual rights movement in the Weimar Republic

This work focuses on the homosexual rights movement during the Weimar Republic, which became a vocal part of the burgeoning sexual and reproductive rights movement in Germany. This was not simply the quixotic effort of some small insignificant voice in the wilderness. The homosexual rights movement in the Weimar Republic encompassed a number of groups and almost succeeded in overturning legal penalties against homosexual acts between males in October 1929. Although ultimately unsuccessful, the efforts of gay rights groups during this decade opened public debate in Germany beyond the medical and scientific community on the subject of homosexuality. Twenty-five gay organizations existed and over thirty gay periodicals were published in Germany during the 1920s. Although the majority of these groups were short-lived and concerned with social activities, the three largest, the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen, the Bund für Menschenrecht , and the Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitee, worked actively toward overturning Paragraph 175 of the German penal code, the law which forbade homosexual acts and had some success in reaching political leaders. This dissertation examines the actions, both political and cultural, of the Gemeinschaft, the Bund, and the Komitee. Because each of these groups had different, and contrary, perceptions of the nature of homosexuality and each attempted to reach a distinct segment of society, they often worked at cross-purposes to each other. Part of this study focuses on the limited ability of these three groups to work together toward their common objective of legal equality and, more significantly, their attempts to foil each other’s efforts. Finally, this work examines the reasons behind the partial success of their efforts, and those behind their ultimate failure. In so doing, it attempts to determine the breadth and depth of the activities of the three main organizations, both within the German gay community and in the country as a whole, and to determine how effective, or ineffective, their methods were in achieving their stated goal of legal and social acceptance of male homosexuality.