Burkhardt Riechers
Freundschaft und Anständigkeit
Leitbilder im Selbstverständnis männlicher Homosexueller in der frühen Bundesrepublik
Friendship and Decency
Ideals of Identity of Male Homosexuals in the Early Federal Republic
of Germany
English abstract
Images regarding humans, the world and society, here called "ideals", which homosexuals constructed in their journals in the early Federal Republic of Germany, were to a great extent conducted by the Zeitgeist, that is by the taboo of sexuality and criminalized male homosexuality as well as official censorship, with the pretense of enforcing protection of youth. Stereotypical assignments of "homosexuals" and "homosexuality" were supposed to be repealed through the "ideals". The "ideals" of the homosexuals in the 1950s and 60s, who were mostly orientated towards the educated classes (Bildungsbürgertum) and were humble believers of science, consisted not only of "humanity and tolerance", which they expected to achieve through "scientific enlightenment". Also sublimated "friendship", which should not refer directly to sexuality, and the "Greek antique", which in the opinion of the authors and readers of these journals could serve as a role model, were among the most important "ideals". The authors were eager to leave no doubt about the "masculinity" of homosexuals. In the center of the dicourse in the homosexuals‘ journals stood the effort, to determine the conduct of the single member of the species in a way that he was under no circumstances negatively conspicious in public, since homosexuals were afraid that their conduct could confirm anti-homosexual prejudices. The facts that the aggravated penalty against same-sex acts from 1935 was maintained after 1945 and that the horrible Nazi repressions like imprisonment in concentration camps and compulsory castrations were not publicly discussed until the mid of the 1960s, prevented, that the "Nazi concentration camp-victim" became a new "ideal" of its own in the homosexuals‘ journals after 1945.