Kevin Dubout / Raimund Wolfert
"Eigentümliche Städte, sympathische Völker und Sehenswürdigkeiten
von großer Schönheit".
Kevin Dubout / Raimund Wolfert
"Peculiar cities, congenial peoples and sights of great beauty".
WhK activist Eugen Wilhelm travels through Scandinavia in 1901
English abstract
The lawyer Eugen Wilhelm (1866–1951) from Strasbourg was chairman of the Scientific–Humanitarian Committee (WhK), contributed to the Yearbook for Sexual Intermediaries and thus can be considered a major protagonist of the first homosexual emancipation movement in Germany. Therefore, the discovery of Wilhelm’s collected diaries in 2009 caused nothing short of a sensation. Wilhelm wrote more than 7000 pages and rendered a comprehensive account of his life and thoughts for 66 years, from 1885 to 1951. In their article, Kevin Dubout and Raimund Wolfert address a diary entry from 1901 which shortly records Wilhelm’s journey to Scandinavia. It becomes apparent that Wilhelm did not only travel within the framework of the ideals of the educated middle classes but also used this journey to internationalize the WhK. He also engaged in same–sex adventures – something that would have been potentially threatening to his position in his hometown of Strasbourg. Dubout and Wolfert additionally highlight the role of the Danish police officer Carl Hansen (1870–1939) and the Norwegian historian of law Ebbe Hertzberg (1847–1912) whom Wilhelm both met en route. The authors are thus able to show that an urban homosexual live already existed in Scandinavia around 1901. Consequently, this article exemplarily demonstrates how significant and rich Eugen Wilhelm’s diary is for research on the history of homosexualities.