Associations of Love: How Male Homosexual Couples Signified Respectability in Early Twentieth-Century Germany

Despite the self-actualization of a homosexual community in Berlin both pre- and post-World War I, Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code continued to marginalize the male homosexual as a type that was both asocial and criminal. Just the same, corrective discourses that were intended to keep such societal outsiders on the margins of society were no longer accessible only to those in legal and medical professions. As public interest in “popular science” grew, many of these societal outsiders began to learn of these discourses and thus gained “knowledge” about themselves. The 1919 film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others), co-produced by the Berlin sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935), was meant to enlighten persons of “normal sexual orientation” about the plight of the homosexual under µ 175. It tells the story of Paul Körner (played by Conrad Veidt), a respectable, renowned violinist. After an incident with blackmailer Franz Bollek (played by Reinhold Schünzel) leads to the unveiling of Körner's homosexuality, his exclusion from social and professional circles, and the ruin of his career, Körner takes his own life. Different from the Others portrays a respectable homosexual's failed search for a respectable partner. However, there were many other representations of queer couples who led happy lives together. The idea of a shared life based on committed love mirrored the ideal bourgeois (heterosexual) marriage of the day: it enjoyed official recognition because it was respectable, and it was respectable because it enjoyed official recognition. The committed couple embodied respectable sexuality. Examining texts by Magnus Hirschfeld and Friedrich Radszuweit (1876-1932), this paper will illustrate how the male homosexual couple became a signifier of queer respectability in the movement to repeal µ 175.