ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the close relationship between the evolving discourse on homosexuality and the realm of the political space within the German Empire. At the time when the nascent movement for the emancipation of homosexuals was fighting for the repeal of paragraph 175, the figure of the homosexual was ascribed in new medical and racialized terms. The Eulenburg scandal, which involved Kaiser Wilhelm II, led not only to an unprecedented spread of the concept of homosexuality, but also created a link between the degeneration of state and race on the one hand and homosexuality on the other. This became the basis of the ensuing debate about homosexuality in Germany. Freud, Hirschfeld, Blüher, Harden, Heimsoth, and others referred to this connection in their writings, even if they drew differing conclusions from it. As current debates show, homophobia, raison d’état and (anti-)racism remain interlinked to this day in a complex manner.
