Ingeborg Boxhammer:
Lesbische Liebe und Kleptomanie. Presseberichte über Kölner Unterschlagungen 1930
Lesbian Love and Kleptomania – Press Reports of Embezzlement in 1930s Cologne
English abstract
In the late 1930s, eleven mostly regional German newspapers reported in two phases the case of a female bookkeeper in Cologne, who had embezzled a large sum of money to ensure a joint future and the financial security for her and her girlfriend, a shorthand-typist. Following the reports, the press acted as a narrative director, staging a scandal that was both fabricated and media-based. Beyond the embezzlement itself, the press delved into the private lives of the two women (re)constructing and focusing on their lesbian relationship according to gender-conformist standards, which would equally condemn both their criminal offence and their lesbianism as a morally and diseased misdemeanor. The newspapers scandalized the bookkeeper as a pathological criminal, connecting "lesbian love and kleptomania". Because of her homosexuality, the bookkeeper was imputed to have fallen into an unhealthy codependency in which abnormal sexuality made her vulnerable to the bad influences of her girlfriend. The scandal offers strong insights into the homophobic handling of lesbian related themes in the press of the Weimar Republic.