States of Liberation
Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11480971 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Craig Griffiths (0000-0003-3910-5267, Manchester Metropolitan University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 146-147 |
| Publication date | 2023-02-23 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| 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/ghac077 |
| OpenAlex | W4309763560 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
In States of Liberation, Samuel Huneke explores the entangled, crooked and often surprising paths of gay life and gay rights in the two German states. Compellingly, the author shows that gay liberation is historically contingent and should not be unproblematically woven into success stories extolling the merits and superiority of capitalist liberal democracies. After all, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), unlike East Germany, kept the National Socialist version of Paragraph 175, the sodomy law, totally unchanged, until 1969. Calling into question characterizations of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as implacably hostile to gays and lesbians, Huneke argues that the policy response of the mid-to-late 1980s reveals ‘a dictatorship acting in its citizens’ social interests by constructively responding to public pressure from a committed group of activists’ (p. 214). While Huneke by no means offers an exculpatory account of that dictatorship, he reminds us that ‘consumer capitalism should not be our yardstick for progress’ (p. 80). This is a message that deserves to be heard, and reflected upon, far beyond the field of queer history.
Democracy · Dictatorship · Economic history · German · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · European history and politics · German History and Society · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,75 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2023 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |