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WORK TITLE: Sex and the Weimar Republic
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http://depts.washington.edu/history/people/317 * https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/uploadedFiles/Laurie_marhoefer_CV.pdf * http://asnews.syr.edu/newsevents_2015/releases/Laurie_Marhoefer_Book.html
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Columbia University, B.A., 2000; Rutgers University, Ph.D., 2008.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, 2008-09; Syracuse University, assistant professor, 2009; University of Washington, assistant professor.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles to journals, including American Historical Review and German Studies Review.
SIDELIGHTS
In her first book, Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis, Laura Marhoefer examines sexual politics in Germany before World War II. In particular, the author addresses homosexuality, social attitudes toward homosexuality, and efforts to gain social and legal acceptance. By focusing on gender issues and sexual norms, Marhoefer explores the prevalent attitudes that drove the acceptance (or lack of acceptance) of homosexuality during Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919-1933). By challenging ideas of normalcy and morality, activists were able to make some gains for homosexual rights. Ultimately, those rights were advanced by focusing on sexual liberation in general. From there, Marhoefer provides a historiography, critiquing and amending the work of her predecessors. In doing so, Marhoefer challenges accepted histories of homosexual emancipation in the Weimar Republic. She also offers a detailed analysis of lesbian culture within this milieu, an aspect often overlooked by other historians.
Discussing Sex and the Weimar Republic in a Syracuse University Web site interview with Sarah Scalese, Marhoefer remarked: “I hope readers will see that gay, lesbian, and transgender activists have been forced to make trade-offs. . . . Many [early activists] didn’t think that they could win equality and liberation for all LGBT people. Rather, they tried to win it for the ‘better sorts’ of LGBT people. As a result, they actually ended up throwing rowdy working-class types ‘under the bus.'” Indeed, as Amos Lassen asserted in the online Reviews by Amos Lassen, “tracing the connections between toleration and regulation, Marhoefer’s observations remain relevant to the politics of sexuality today.” Geoffrey J. Giles, writing in the Canadian Journal of History, was also impressed, advising that the author’s “comprehensive approach makes this probably the best book to date in either English or German. And it is not simply a chronological narrative: Marhoefer deals with several major issues in the historiography, pointing out repeatedly that she differs from the standard view.” Giles added that Marhoefer “has looked more closely at the issues than her predecessors, and come up with some fresh ideas like this. She encourages the reader to think carefully along with her, and one cannot ask for more than that in this engaging first book.” Offering further applause in Choice, B. Boovy announced that Sex and the Weimar Republic “not only adds to the historical knowledge of this complex period but also enhances understanding of the intersections of gender and sexuality.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Canadian Journal of History, winter, 2016, Geoffrey J. Giles, review of Sex in the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis.
Choice, June, 2016, B. Boovy, review of Sex in the Weimar Republic.
ONLINE
Reviews by Amos Lassen, http://reviewsbyamoslassen.com/ (June 11, 2015), Amos Lassen, review of Sex and the Weimar Republic.
Syracuse University Web site, http://asnews.syr.edu/ (September 9, 2015), Sarah Scalese, author interview.
University of Washington, Department of History Web site, http://depts.washington.edu/ (May 9, 2017), author profile.*
LAURIE MARHOEFER145 Eggers HallSyracuse University Syracuse NY 13244-1020 EMPLOYMENTAssistant Professor of History Syracuse University (as of August 2009)Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Jackman Humanities Institute, University of TorontoJuly 2008-July 2009 EDUCATIONGraduate Division, Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ 2003-2008 Ph.D., October 2008Modern European History (Germany) and Women’s and Gender HistoryDissertation: Among Abnormals: The Queer Sexual Politics of Germany’s Weimar Republic, 1918-1933Columbia College, Columbia University, New York, NY 1996-2000 BA, Political Science and History (double major) May 2000Dean’s List Spring 1996-Fall 1999Thesis: History of U.S. marriage law CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS“Illusionary Liberation? German Politics and Sexuality in the Weimar era, 1918-1933”Joint Initiative in German and European Studies, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, January 30, 2009“Progressive Sexual Politics in Weimar-era Germany and the 1929 Vote to Repeal Paragraph 175” Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, January 22, 2009“Eugenic Sterilization and Non-normative Sexualities”Presentation to the Graduate Colloquium on Women and Gender, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, October 2008“The Politics of Eugenic Sterilization During the Weimar Republic” German Studies Association Thirty-First Annual Conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, October 2008
“Dancer, Transvestite, Father: The Politics of Maleness in Berlin, 1931” Midwestern German History Workshop, 2008, University of Toronto, September 2008“Dirty Books and Degenerate Bodies: Lesbian Organizing in Germany, 1918-1933” Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, Minneapolis, MN, June 2008 “The Queer Empire: Germans Imagining Same-Sex Sexuality Outside of Europe” Queer Exoticism: Second Annual LGBT Symposium, Hofstra University, October 2007 “Researching Queer Berlin” What’s New in Queer Theory, Norse Gender Institute, University of Lund, Sweden, May 2007 “Imaging a ‘Manhater:’ Suspicion, Lesbianism and the Gestapo in a German City, 1933-1943” 27th Annual Warren I. Susman Graduate History Conference, Rutgers University, April 2005 Organizing Committee Co-Chair, “Intimate Matters, Public Histories: 28th Annual Warren I. Susman Graduate History Conference” Rutgers University, April 2006 Organizing Committee, “Imagining Histories: 27th Annual Warren I. Susman Graduate History Conference” Rutgers University, April 2005FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AND AWARDS2008-2009 Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto2008-2009 Graduate Fellowship, Center for Cultural Analysis, Rutgers (declined)2008-2009 Graduate Fellowship, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis (declined)2007-2008 Graduate Fellow, Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers University2006-2007 Rutgers History Department Excellency Fellowship 2005 Rutgers University Pre-Dissertation Special Study Award2004 Rutgers University Pre-Dissertation Special Study Award2003-2004 Rutgers History Department Excellency FellowshipTEACHING University of Toronto Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Toronto, ON
Instructor, Undergraduate Seminar: The History of Sexuality (Spring 2008)University of Toronto Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Toronto, ON Instructor, Sexuality and State in Modern Europe (Fall 2008)Rutgers University, Newark, NJInstructor, History of Twentieth Century Europe (Spring 2008) Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJInstructor, Age of European Expansion 1500-2000 (Summer 2007)Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJInstructor, History of Twentieth Century Europe (Summer 2006) Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJInstructor, History of the Holocaust (Summer 2005 and Summer 2007)Douglass College, Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJInstructor, interdisciplinary introductory course in Women’s and Gender Studies “Shaping a Life” (2004-2005) Rutgers University, New Brunswick, History Department Head Teaching Assistant (2005-2006) Rutgers University History DepartmentTeaching Assistant, (Fall 2004-Spring 2006) LANGUAGESGermanFrench
Sunday, April 9, 2017
Syracuse History Professor Makes Authorial Debut
Maxwell’s Laurie Marhoefer explores origins of gay rights movement
Sep 9, 2015 | Article by: Sarah Scalese
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Laurie Marhoefer
For decades, equal rights activists have supported same-sex marriage. It was only this past June, however, that the United States Supreme Court ruled, in a historic decision, that same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marry. What many people don’t realize is that the gay rights movement actually began a century earlier in Germany.
In her authorial debut, Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis (University of Toronto Press, 2015), Laurie Marhoefer, assistant professor of history in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University, explores the rise of sexual tolerance through debates surrounding “immoral” sexuality: obscenity, male homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender identity, heterosexual promiscuity, and prostitution. The book is intended for scholars and lay people alike.
“I hope readers will see that gay, lesbian, and transgender activists have been forced to make trade-offs,” says Marhoefer, who lived in a commune in Berlin and learned to speak German while researching her book. “Many [early activists] didn't think that they could win equality and liberation for all LGBT people. Rather, they tried to win it for the ‘better sorts’ of LGBT people. As a result, they actually ended up throwing rowdy working-class types ‘under the bus,’ so to speak—sacrificing them, in order to win political victories that benefited people they deemed respectable.”
Marhoeferbook_Cas.jpg
Sex and the Weimar Republic follows the sexual politics of a swath of Weimar society, ranging from sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld to Nazi stormtrooper Ernst Röhm. Tracing the connections between toleration and regulation, Marhoefer has created something relevant to the politics of sexuality today.
Elizabeth Heineman, professor and chair of the Department of History at The University of Iowa, calls it an “ambitious book.” “Marhoefer asks us to reconsider the politics of sexuality in the Weimar years—including its role in bringing Hitler to power,” she says. “Sex and the Weimar Republic is carefully researched, broad in its scope, and packs important insights for those interested in queer politics today.”
“Sex and the Weimar Republic makes a compelling argument about the importance of sexual politics--writ large—in the Weimar Republic,” says Robert Moeller, professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. “It is an important book, of interest to those who study 20th-century Germany and to those interested in the history of sexuality.”
Marhoefer says the project is both personally and professionally significant.
“Publishing this book culminates an 11-year quest to research and write a book about the world's first LGBT movement, in the course of which I traveled all over Germany and had many adventures and made sacrifices along the way,” she says. “Professionally, if the book is well-received by historians, it's like you've arrived as a real historian. I'm also excited to make an extended contribution to the conversations going on among scholars about the history of LGBT rights and of Germany. And I think that it’s really important to understand the first gay rights movement, because it set the model for movements that came after it, including the one that is shaping our lives today.”
Marhoefer, who joined the Syracuse faculty in 2009, earned a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2008.
LAURIE MARHOEFER
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, 2008, B.A. Columbia, 2000
Fields: Modern Germany, Modern Europe, History of Gender and Sexuality, Weimar Republic, Queer history, History of Race and Racism
marl@uw.edu
Office: SMI 118 |
Website: You can find links to some of my publications at my academia.edu page.
I'm a historian of modern Germany and of gender and sexuality, queer sexuality in particular. My first book, Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis (2015), reexamines the gay rights movement of the 1920s and the broader sexual politics of Germany's first democracy. I am currently at work on a number of projects, including one on queer sexuality and transgender and the Nazi State, one on blackness and citizenship in Germany in the 1920s, and a third on the transnational history of gay politics. Before joining the history department at the University of Washington, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, and then an assisstant and associate professor at Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY.
Bibliography:
“Lesbianism, Transvestitism, and the Nazi State: A Microhistory of a Gestapo Investigation, 1939-1943.” American Historical Review October 2016.
Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis (University of Toronto Press, 2015)
“‘The book was a revelation, I recognized myself in it’: Lesbian Sexuality, Censorship, and the Queer Press in Weimar-era Germany.” Journal of Women’s History 27:2 (2015): 62-86.
“Homosexuality and Theories of Culture.” In Was ist Homosexualität? Forschungsgeschichte, gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen und Perspektiven, edited by Jennifer V. Evans, Florian Mildenberger, Rüdiger Lautmann, Jakob Pastötter. Hamburg: Männerschwarm, 2014: 255-269.
“Degeneration, Sexual Freedom, and the Politics of the Weimar Republic, 1918-1933.” German Studies Review 34 No. 3 (2011): 529-550.
Sex in the Weimar Republic: German
Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the
Nazis
Geoffrey J. Giles
Canadian Journal of History.
51.3 (Winter 2016): p606.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/CJH.ACH.51.3.05
COPYRIGHT 2016 University of Toronto Press
http://www.usask.ca/history/cjh/
Full Text:
Sex in the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis, by Laurie Marhoefer.
Toronto & Buffalo, University of Toronto Press, 2015. xvi, 340 pp. $85.00 Cdn (cloth), $32.95 Cdn (paper).
Lesbian sex "does not interfere with the conditions necessary for normal sexual activity, or indeed make normal sexual
activity totally impossible, as is the case for men" (74). Thus wrote the Weimar Republic's expert on the law
concerning homosexuality in 1925. Historians have been appalled by the Nazis' similar reasons a decade later for
omitting women from their revision of [section] 175, the law against homosexual offences: principally that, while gay
men were physically incapable of sex with a woman, a lesbian could nevertheless be impregnated to produce children
for Germany, even against her will. "Women are always ready for sex," as Saxon Justice Minister Thierack put it in
1934. Though she does not make this connection, Laurie Marhoefer's splendid study permits us to see that some of the
obnoxious views current in the Third Reich were already well entrenched in respectable circles in the supposedly
liberal Weimar Republic.
While most treatments of homosexuality in Germany focus almost entirely on men, Marhoefer devotes two prominent
chapters to lesbians, and to female prostitution, amply justifying the importance of these questions to the overall
discussion of sexuality in the preNazi period. Her comprehensive approach makes this probably the best book to date
in either English or German. And it is not simply a chronological narrative: Marhoefer deals with several major issues
in the historiography, pointing out repeatedly that she differs from the standard view. Phrases like "historians have not
considered how ..." or "this ... differs from other historians' explanations" underline her fresh interpretation, and make
this a valuable textbook for demonstrating sound historical methodology to students.
The authorities' handling of censorship was mixed, despite an ostensibly strong weapon in the Trash and Smut Law of
1926. Some gay magazines were allowed to continue, provided they were not displayed publicly or sold to minors.
This strategy, the author concludes, was the typical Weimar response to homosexuality and immorality: containment,
or allowing subcultures some limited space out of the direct public gaze, it was hoped, would prevent their spreading.
"Controlling media was more of a priority for politicians and bureaucrats than was suppressing lesbian sex" (54). Not
that they seemed to think too much about what the latter entailed, assuming that it could not possibly be penetrative
(the criterion for conviction of men under [section] 175). Although the Munich police regularly seized "artificial male
members," no commentator suggested that these dildos were used by women (73). Incidentally, her close attention to
cities like Munich make this a more credible study than Robert Beachy's rather contrived Gay Berlin (New York,
2014).
The less than aggressive policing of some personal areas led conservative forces, especially after 1945, to see in the
Weimar Republic a decadence that led to its collapse, as the Nazis promised to restore order. At the same time, other
intellectuals, led by the irresponsible Frankfurt School, spawned the myth that the Nazis themselves were largely
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sexual perverts. This was then turned on its head to suggest that homosexuals tended to be fascists. Marhoefer
resolutely denies this, and hammers home her theses with determination (usefully for inattentive students!). For
example, she repeats her central and persuasive assertion, discrediting what she calls the "backlash thesis," some two
dozen times in as many pages. That is, that "the politics of immorality did not play a major role in the fall of the
Weimar Republic or in the rise of the Nazis" (201). Yet her style does not irritate as redundantly repetitive; it is
cogently and tightly argued, sometimes with a flash of humour. When she reports on the ubiquity of thinly disguised
small ads by male prostitutes in the press, she notes that they even turned up in the Catholic Center Party's magazine
Germania, but muses that the editorial staff probably did not realize that the offer of '"Spanish instruction' did not mean
learning to speak Spanish" (46). Although otherwise carefully edited, the book does contain one serious typo, when she
writes that: "Electoral success alone did deliver the chancellorship to Hitler" (177). But it is clear from the following
sentence that she actually agrees with the consensus of other historians, and meant to say "did not deliver." And I do
not claim to be an expert on women's lingerie, but I do know the difference between a brassiere and a corset. Strangely
for a female historian, Marhoefer mistakenly describes a still photograph from the film, Cabaret, as showing the cast
clad only in bras.
An important section casts out the rumours surrounding Magnus Hirschfeld's ouster as chairman of his ScientificHumanitarian
Committee (WhK) in 1929, under pressure from his two closest lieutenants, Kurt Hiller and Richard
Linsert. The bone of contention was that Hirschfeld, working with the Criminal Law Reform Commission, had agreed
to a compromise: that homosexual offences could be decriminalized, if new laws were introduced to raise the age of
consent for males over that for females (to protect them from homosexual predators); and harsh penalties would be
introduced for male prostitution (previously outside the law) while those against female prostitutes had been relaxed in
favour of welfare measures. Hirschfeld swung the commission's support toward the abolition of [section] 175 (which
ultimately never came before parliament) by persuading the members that homosexuals had an inborn disposition that
they could do nothing about, and were for the most part respectable and responsible citizens; yet male prostitutes were
degenerate criminals. The Communist Richard Linsert rejected the latter view, maintaining that they entered the trade
out of dire economic distress, caused by the capitalist system. Hirschfeld persuaded through science; Linsert and Hiller
worked to push the WhK in a purely political direction to convince the public that male prostitutes were normal young
men fallen on hard times, and potentially decent Germans. They had misunderstood what Marhoefer terms "the
Weimar settlement," by which she means the willingness of the elite to tolerate some forms of nonnormative sexuality
if kept out of sight, provided controls could be put in place to punish those deemed wicked and deviant. In many of the
chapters, the author has looked more closely at the issues than her predecessors, and come up with some fresh ideas
like this. She encourages the reader to think carefully along with her, and one cannot ask for more than that in this
engaging first book.
DOI:10.3138/CJH.ACH.51.3.05
Geoffrey J. Giles, University of Florida
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Giles, Geoffrey J. "Sex in the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis."
Canadian Journal of History, vol. 51, no. 3, 2016, p. 606+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA477085845&it=r&asid=89a2e94fbe4a50bc12a3757f91b5474d.
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Marhoefer, Laurie. Sex and the Weimar
Republic: German homosexual emancipation and
the rise of the Nazis
B. Boovy
CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries.
53.10 (June 2016): p1536.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Full Text:
Marhoefer, Laurie. Sex and the Weimar Republic: German homosexual emancipation and the rise of the Nazis.
Toronto, 2015. 340p bibl index afp (German and European studies, 23) ISBN 9781442649156 cloth, $85.00; ISBN
9781442626577 pbk, $32.95; ISBN 9781442619562 ebook, $32.95
534552
HQ76
Can. CIP
Marhoefer (history, Syracuse Univ.) makes an important contribution to the expanding knowledge of sexuality and
sexual politics in Germany. Focusing on the Weimar Republic, the author uses a queer methodological approach to
reframe the history of homosexual emancipation, focusing on the construction of "gender and sexual norms" and the
ways in which notions of "immorality" and "abnormality" defined the discursive boundaries of mainstream
homosexual emancipation. In this context, more radical wings of early20thcentury movements for sexual liberation
were relegated to the margins of German political culture. Marhoefer further challenges conventional histories of
homosexual emancipation by centering samesex desire among women, from lesbian political and cultural engagement
and reading practices to the links between mental health and female prostitution. In this respect, the book not only adds
to the historical knowledge of this complex period but also enhances understanding of the intersections of gender and
sexuality in 20thcentury movements for homosexual emancipation. Marhoefer's book will be an excellent addition to
graduate collections in German history and cultural studies, European studies, and history of sexuality. Excerpts from
the book will also make fine additions to upperdivision undergraduate courses. Summing Up: ** Recommended.
Upperdivision undergraduates and above.B. Boovy, Oregon State University
Boovy, B.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Boovy, B. "Marhoefer, Laurie. Sex and the Weimar Republic: German homosexual emancipation and the rise of the
Nazis." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, June 2016, p. 1536+. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA454942963&it=r&asid=2d1bc745be438ef850568643e0dd2bf6.
Accessed 9 Apr. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A454942963
“Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis” by Laurie Marhoefer— Sexual Freedom in the Weimar Republic
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sex and the weimar
Marhoefer, Laurie. “Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis”, University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 2015.
Sexual Freedom in the Weimar Republic
Amos Lassen
The sexual mores and liberation of the German Weimar Republic are legendary. It was the home of the world’s first gay rights movement and the republic embodied a progressive, secular vision of sexual liberation. Weimar’s freedoms have become a touchstone for the politics of sexual emancipation.
Laurie Marhoefer, the author of “Sex and the Weimar Republic” shows that the sexual freedoms that were there were then came as a result of a minority who were deemed sexually disordered. “In Weimar Germany, the citizen’s right to sexual freedom came with a duty to keep sexuality private, non-commercial, and respectable”.
Marhoefer examines the rise of sexual tolerance through the debates which surrounded “immoral” sexuality and what was regarded as immoral were obscenity, male homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender identity, heterosexual promiscuity, and prostitution. It follows the sexual politics of many in Weimar society including sexologist Magnus Hirschfield and Nazi storm trooper Ernst Röhm. Tracing the connections between toleration and regulation, Marhoefer’s observations remain relevant to the politics of sexuality today and she shows this by giving the connections between regulation and toleration. Look for this book in September.