LGBT history in Germany

This is a list of events in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history in Germany.

Medieval and early modern periods

"Sodom and Gomorrah" from the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel, 1493.
Albrecht Dürer, Lot and His Daughters

Seventeenth-Century

The Flight of Lot and His Family from-Sodom by Peter Paul Rubens,1613-15.

Eighteenth Century

19th century

  • 1852 – Johann Ludwig Casper writes an article about homosexuality known under the title, Über Nothzucht und Päderastie und deren Ermittlung Seitens des Gerichtsarztes.[4]
  • 1854 – Wilhelm Gollmann writes about homosexuality in the Homeopathic Guide to all Diseases Urinary and Sexual Organs.[5]
  • 1859 – Arthur Schopenhauer briefly writes about homosexuality in the chapter on the Metaphysics of Love in his third edition of The World as Will and Representation.[6]
  • 1864 – Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a lawyer, confesses under the pseudonym, Numa Numantius, his secret transgender inclinations in his book, Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (Researches on the Riddle of Male-Male Love). He proposes a concept of transgender identity through the term, urning.[7]
  • 1864 – Johann Ludwig Casper dedicated his third chapter on homosexuality in the first part of the Special Divisions section in the third edition (third volume) of A Handbook of the Practice of Forensic Medicine.[8]
  • 1867 – On August 29, 1867, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs became the first self-proclaimed homosexual to speak out publicly for homosexual rights when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of anti-homosexual laws.
  • 1869 – The term "homosexuality" appears in print for the first time in a German-Hungarian pamphlet written by Karl-Maria Kertbeny (1824–1882).
  • 1870 – Friedrich Christian Oppenhoff mentions Paragraph 175 in Das Strafgesetzbuch für den Norddeutschen Bund.[9]
  • 1871 – Homosexuality is criminalized throughout the German Empire by Paragraph 175 of the Reich Criminal Code.[10]

20th century

1901–1930

  • 1907 – Adolf Brand, the activist leader of the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen, working to overturn Paragraph 175, publishes a piece "outing" the imperial chancellor of Germany, Prince Bernhard von Bülow. The Prince sues Brand for libel and clears his name; Brand is sentenced to 18 months in prison.[11]
  • 1907–1909 – Harden-Eulenburg Affair in Germany[12]
  • 1919 – In Berlin, Germany, Doctor Magnus Hirschfeld co-founds the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sex Research), a pioneering private research institute and counseling office. Its library of thousands of books was destroyed by Nazis in May, 1933.[13][14][15]
  • 1919 - Different from the Others, one of the first explicitly gay films, is released. Magnus Hirschfeld has a cameo in the film and partially funded its production.
  • 1929 - On October 16, a Reichstag Committee votes to repeal Paragraph 175. The Social Democrats and other leftist parties backed the repeal, while the Catholic Center party and other right-wing parties opposed the repeal. The Nazis' rise to power prevents the implementation of the vote.

1931–1970

  • 1931 - Mädchen in Uniform, one of the first explicitly lesbian films and the first pro-lesbian film, is released.
Students of the Deutsche Studentenschaft, organized by the Nazi party, parade in front of the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin on May 6, 1933; they later attacked it, looting the archives, and setting afire much of the material

1971–2000

  • 1974 - General Gay Association, the second openly LGBT rights organization in German history, is established.
  • 1985 - Herbert Rusche becomes the first openly gay member of the Bundestag.
  • 1987 - Jutta Oesterle-Schwerin becomes the first lesbian member of the Bundestag.
  • 1994 - After German reunifaction, the Supreme Court rules that the age of consent for sex must be equalized.
  • 2000 - The Bundestag officially apologizes to gays and lesbians persecuted under the Nazi regime, and for "harm done to homosexual citizens up to 1969".

21st century

  • 2001 - Germany recognizes civil partnerships for same-sex couples (without joint adoption until Oct 2004, then with step-adoption); Klaus Wowereit becomes the first openly gay politician elected mayor of Berlin (and, by virtue of Berlin's status as a state, one of the two first openly gay premier of a German state; also makes Berlin the largest city in the world with an openly gay mayor); Ole von Beust becomes the first openly gay mayor of Hamburg.
  • 2004 - same-sex stepchild adoption is legalized; Guido Westerwelle, leader of the FDP, becomes the first leader of a major party to come out.
  • 2009 - Westerwelle becomes the first openly gay member of the Federal Cabinet (Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister under Angela Merkel coalition government).
  • 2013 Barbara Hendricks becomes first openly lesbian member of the Federal Cabinet (Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety under Angela Merkel coalition government)
  • 2017 - In June 2017 the pardoning men convicted in the postwar era under Paragraph 175 was passed by law in the Bundestag. One week later, a majority of Bundestag MPs voted in favor of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage and granting homosexual couples full adoption rights.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 (Fone, 2000)
  2. ↑ Ebers, John (1798). The New and Complete Dictionary of the German and English Languages, Composed Chiefly after the German Dictionaries of Mr. Adulung & of Mr. Schwan. Vol. II. Brietkopf and Haertel.
  3. ↑ Ebers, John (1799). The New and Complete Dictionary of the German and English Languages, Composed Chiefly after the German Dictionaries of Mr. Adulung & of Mr. Schwan. Vol. III. Brietkopf and Haertel.
  4. ↑ Casper, Johann Ludwig (1852). Über Nothzucht und Päderastie und deren Ermittlung Seitens des Gerichtsarztes. Vierteljahrsschrift für gerichtliche und öffentliche Medicin. Unter Mitwirkung der Königlichen wissenschaftlichen Deputation für das Medicinalwesen im Ministerium der geistlichen, Unterrichts- und Medicinal-Angelegenheiten.
  5. ↑ Gollmann, Wilhelm (1854). Homeopathic Guide to all Diseases Urinary and Sexual Organ. Charles Julius Hempel. Rademacher & Sheek.
  6. ↑ Schopenhauer, Arthur (1909). The World as Will and Representation. Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane and J. Kemp. Charles Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company.
  7. ↑ Ulrichs, Karl Heinrich (1864). Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe, Volume 1. Self-published; sold by Heinrich Matthes.
  8. ↑ Casper, Johann Ludwig (1864). A Handbook of the Practice of Forensic Medicine. Edition III. George William Balfour. The New Sydenham Society.
  9. ↑ Oppenhoff, Friedrich Christian (1870). Das Strafgesetzbuch für den Norddeutschen Bund. Bundesgesetzblatt des Norddeutschen Bundes Band 1870, Nr. 16, Seite 197–273.
  10. 1 2 3 "Where is it illegal to be gay?". BBC News. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
  11. ↑ Marc Vargo. Scandal: infamous gay controversies of the twentieth century Routledge, 2003. pp 165–7.
  12. ↑ Steakley, James D. (revised 1989). "Iconography of a Scandal: Political Cartoons and the Eulenburg Affair in Wilhelmin Germany", Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay & Lesbian Past (1990), Duberman, et al., eds. New York: Meridian, New American Library, Penguin Books. ISBN 0-452-01067-5.
  13. ↑ hirschfeld.in-berlin.de, The first Institute for Sexual Science
  14. ↑ Famous GLBT & GLBTI People - Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld stonewallsociety
  15. ↑ Atina Grossmann. Reforming Sex. Oxford University Press, 1995.
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