Heterogeneous Persecution: Lesbianism and the Nazi State

Abstract

In recent years scholars have shown increasing interest in lesbianism under National Socialism. But because female homosexuality was never criminalized in Nazi Germany, excluding Austria, historians have few archival sources through which to recount this past. That lack of evidence has led to strikingly different interpretations in the scholarly literature, with some historians claiming lesbians were a persecuted group and others insisting they were not. This article presents three archival case studies, each of which epitomizes a different mode in the relationship between lesbians and the Nazi state. In presenting these cases, the article contextualizes them with twenty-seven other cases from the literature, arguing that these different modes illustrate why different women met with such radically different fates. In so doing, it attempts to bridge the divide in the scholarship, putting persecution and tolerance into a single frame of reference for understanding the lives of lesbians in the Third Reich.

Against anticipation, or, camp reading as reparative to the trans feminine past: A microhistory in Nazi‐Era Vienna

“…P.'s two successive successes in court seem anomalous, but they are indicative of how P.'s zany behaviour impacted on legal practice. 50 Whilst seemingly whimsical, a micro element to be discarded, the Camp antics in her case helped her, at least initially, evade victimhood. Before the Kühne case came to trial, however, another complaint was filed against P., and she was arrested for a new charge, again under Section 129.…”

“…One reason for this is because transphobia is often twinned with homophobia, and queer persecution under Nazism is now indisputable (although heterogeneously nuanced). 23 Homophobia is also historically wed to gender non-conformity, thus positioning transphobia not (only) as a natural outgrowth of homophobia, but its ontological predecessor and signifier (if taxonomically sequential). 24 If sexual deviants were persecuted, the expectation is that trans people were too (if not worse).…”