Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The history of the gay rights movement in Germany can be traced to the mid-eighteenth century reign of Frederick the Great. In the century that followed, the movement was characterized by legal maneuvering, scientific theorization, and varied literary exploits. As the German nation was born out of the Prussian states in the 1870s, these modes of activism continued to grow and were gradually joined by more organized approaches that were enabled by communal identification and the dialogue that had been developing for over 100 years. Despite facing death and persecution during Hitler's Third Reich, the gay rights movement managed to reappear and continually reinvent itself throughout the second half of the twentieth century and into the present day. During the Enlightenment, although sodomy remained illegal in some parts of Germany, a gradual separation between law and morality appeared, reflected in new understandings of criminal processes and acceptable punishable offenses. Philosophers such as Cesare Beccaria (1738–94) succeeded in moving sodomy and homosexuality from a crime punishable by death to a mere infraction of socially acceptable behavior. This in turn enabled a gay community with increased self-awareness to emerge. Enlightenment theories greatly affected the personal, political, and legal development of Frederick the Great, a homosexual who ruled Prussia for over forty ... log in or subscribe to read full text