Sex and the Weimar Republic
German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11480966 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kirsten Leng (0000-0001-6638-2273, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 500-502 |
| Publication date | 2016-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | German History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0266-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-089X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/gerhis/ghw049 |
| OpenAlex | W2473091869 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
In her highly original and wide-ranging study, Laurie Marhoefer makes a number of provocative and persuasive arguments regarding the character and significance of sexual politics in the Weimar Republic. She specifically examines the creation of a certain kind of sexual freedom between 1918 and 1933, and the relationship between sex and the stability of democracy during those same years. According to Marhoefer, the particular texture of sexual freedom that emerged over the course of the Weimar Republic was the result of compromise. This compromise was the result of ‘the long decline of religious morality and the rise of science and secular notions of individual rights, democracy, and citizenship’ and ‘compromise between moderate conservative and moderate progressives’ (p. 3, 9). This compromise manifested itself in the liberalization of a range of sexual laws and policies—specifically those concerning non-reproductive sexualities, for laws governing reproductive heterosex (especially divorce and abortion) remained an intractable site of conflict. Marhoefer calls this compromise the Weimar Settlement on Sexual Politics (p. 13). The Weimar Settlement expressed itself in relaxed censorship laws (the subject of Chapters 1 and 2), the decriminalization of prostitution through new regulations seeking to contain venereal diseases (Chapter 3), and the (ultimately failed) effort to strike down Paragraph 175, which criminalized sex acts between men (Chapter 4).
Compromise · Nazi Germany · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Weimar Republic · European history and politics · German History and Society · German legal, social, and political studies · Law
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2018 - 2025 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |