#fashion revolution germany

[klaineccfanficlibrary]

Do you know of any fics that are being regularly updated? Like current fics where the next chapter is being upload every tot days? I miss having a new chapter of a fic to look forward to reading 🥲🥲 please and thanks ♡♡

One way to check is to go on A03 and in work search, select the relationship you want - "Blaine anderson/Kurt Hummel" and you can select Works in Progress. Currently here are a handful updating regularly, if i don't mention your fic, please feel free to let me know. ~Jen

Undiscovered By @heartsmadeofbooks chap 1/?

All Blaine Anderson needs is a little help to put himself through school. That’s all. But he’s going to get so much more than he hoped for when he meets Kurt Hummel, the successful, sexy workaholic who in turn needs someone to make the loneliness disappear.

~~~~~

Klueless by @kurtsascot chap 4/22

It’s 1995. Kurt’s a senior at McKinley High, and he’s looking to lose his virginity and get his love life in order before he goes off to college.

Unfortunately, Blaine, the pretentious son of Burt’s ex-wife, is in Lima to intern for Burt’s congressional reelection campaign, and Kurt is stuck dealing with him until the election is over.

~~~~~

14 Stones of A curse by Anna_Timberlake @shame-is-a-wasted-emotion chap 5/15

“It's the only way to break the curse, Kurt. Believe me.”

These were the words that had driven 29-year-old Kurt Hummel to take a long break from his prestigious job at Vogue.com and travel approximately 3300 miles. He didn't know if it was true. But if it was, will he be able to break the long impending curse of his soulmate? Welcome to the journey of Kurt Hummel discoverying his past self and his soulmate.

Soulmates and fantasy- AU and reincarnation.

~~~~~

Falling for you By @bitbybitwrites chap 4/5

Doctor!blaine, florist!Kurt, Dadfic, Christmas

~~~~~

And longer fic, updating weekly/monthly:

Sonder by @gleefulpoppet chap 77/?

 Kurt is one of the most respected and talked about men in the fashion industry and business world. His app Style•Revolution is the fastest-growing app in history, still rising after three years. Recently, he moved the company to Seattle to be at the heart of the newest technology epicenter in the United States. Yet, with all his success, experience keeps teaching him to be wary of people’s motives who want to be close to him, and he wonders if he’ll be alone forever. Or maybe this city has plans for him that he can’t imagine when his gaze locks with a mysterious, honey-hazel-eyed busker.

~~~~~

Out of Eden By @wowbright chap 64/75 est

As a gay Mormon, Kurt Hummel has decided to go the rest of his life without falling in love. But toward the end of his two years as a missionary in Germany, Elder Anderson moves into his apartment—and Kurt's best-laid plans fall apart.

~~~~~

Head over Feet By @spaceorphan18 chap 8/15

After Kurt and Blaine broke up the second time, they went their separate ways, living their separate lives in New York City. Fifteen years later, a retirement party brings them back together into each other's orbit, with surprising, for both of them, consequences. Are they able to fit each other into their already complicated and messy lives? And are these newfound feelings real? Or just echoes of a past relationship?

~~~~~

The Queen's Passageway By @coffeegleek Part 4 of one shots of Everybody's Naked & There's a Country to Run verse

This is an expansion upon the one-shot, Passage Ways, chapter 12 of One-Shots in the Everybody’s Naked & There’s a Country To Run verse. You don't have to know the verse to read it.

[rammingthestein]

🔥 ON THIS DAY 🔥

4/5/1998

Rammstein Play At The Metro in Chicago with no pyrotechnics.

No Fire This Time Rammstein Forced To Rely Strictly On The Music | May 07, 1998 | By Joshua Klein for the Tribune.

"The rebellious subtext of heavy metal changes depending on what country is doing the headbanging. In America, metalhead teens rail against the restraints imposed by relatively minor authority figures, like parents or the high school principal. In Eastern Europe, before the fall of Communism, heavy metal was an outlet for frustrations generated by repressive governments. Thus when Western acts finally began to filter through the red tape and play in Communist countries, what seemed to American fans like novel musical diplomacy seemed to audiences in the Soviet bloc the stuff of revolution.

The six members of European superstars Rammstein grew up in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now the neo-industrial band avidly espouses the tenets of free expression, although in general it eschews politics in favor of lurid lyrics. Rammstein (whose name, appropriately enough, translates roughly to “battering ram”) has gleaned more than a few shock tactic tricks, like bondage gear wardrobes and staged scenes of S&M submission, from fellow faux freaks Marilyn Manson. But Rammstein's hulking singer (and former Olympic swimmer) Till Linderman is unique in his propensity to light himself and everything around him on fire, and it's his pyromania that has played a big part in the band's rapidly spreading reputation.

The Chicago Fire Department curtailed Linderman's right to blow things up Monday night at Metro, so Rammstein had to stick with less flammable forms of entertainment. Keyboardist Flake rode an inflatable raft out into the sold-out crowd, and Linderman lashed himself with a whip. But most impressive was Linderman's insistence on singing in German. Translations don't do justice to songs like “Du Hast” and “Tier,” whose English equivalents miss the meaning in the double-edged words. The guttural growls and rolling “r”s of Linderman offered the thrill of something different, something forbidden. The crowd even shouted along with the title track from Rammstein's domestic debut “Sehnsucht,” and cheered wildly in response to “Engel,” the band's most potent pairing of pop hooks and metallic bite.

Though watching Rammstein play without fire could have been akin to watching a horror movie with the lights on, the band revealed that at the heart of its art lies some truly potent songs. Rammstein overcame the conspicuous lack of explosions with its danceable dirges.

The ridiculously Teutonic opening band, Hanzel Und Gretyl, wore matching red and black lederhosen, but its music — typically fast, one-chord metal drones — wasn't nearly as memorable as its fashion choices."

[peterrsthomas]

The Handmaid’s Tale in the Age of Trump’s Republic

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel set in a near-future patriarchal world, following Offred, the titular handmaid (i.e., a woman whose role in society is solely to get pregnant). The Republic of Gilead in which Offred lives is rigid and highly religious, oppressive and authoritarian. Women go through a process of reeducation in training for their new roles, and memories of the time before the revolution that brought the Republic about are hazy. The novel was arresting enough when it was published in 1985, but it has taken on a new salience with the resurgence of the fanatical evangelical Right in America—the faction most devoted to the ironically areligious and immoral Trump.

A key theme of the book is the use of religion as a vessel for power. The Republic of Gilead isn’t based on any meaningful interpretation of religious scripture; rather, religion is a tool for exercising control. Similarly, with Trump’s evangelical base, it does not matter that Trump is a liar and an adulterer—and embodiment of many other sins besides. They see him as a hammer, a tool with which to exercise their will over the population. For as long as he serves their interests (see: social conservatism, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ rights, and more), they will follow him, regardless of his character. Leaders of evangelical groups will willingly overlook these flaws and contradictions if it means greater power for themselves and their ideologies.

The book highlights the dangers of the intersection of religion and politics, in particular where the former coopts the latter. When the separation of church and state is eroded, this is devastating for women, religious, sexual, and ethnic minorities, and anyone who doesn’t fit neatly with the ‘in-group’ (in this case, White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant). Civil liberties are eroded—in the book, people are murdered and pinned against a wall in medieval fashion for all to see.

Most striking is the wrestle for control over women’s bodies. In The Handmaid's Tale this takes the form of reproductive rights. Certain women are given the right to have children, though they will not become the children’s mothers—that role goes to someone else—at the expense of all other rights to self-determination. The scary thing is that this is not so far-fetched; today, religious conservatives are eroding hard-won rights, in particular reproductive rights and access to reproductive medical facilities, abortion rights, and adoption rights for LGBTQ+ couples.

Frighteningly, the novel is resonant not just in America, where it is set, but elsewhere in the world. Germany, France, Sweden and elsewhere are seeing an insurgent Right; the incumbent party in the UK is being split between its centre-right and more fanatical fringes. In other countries, such as India, the dominant party is explicitly religious and is shored up by its majority religion base. All this to say that democracy is fragile, and when people fall victim to economic misfortune or experience cultural shifts, the mechanisms of democracy can be weaponised by bad actors against minorities and vulnerable groups. The media can, and often does, play a part in this, too, especially when a few large corporations own multiple outlets. The organisations spread lies and misinformation, and stoke paranoia.

Like with all good dystopian novels, The Handmaid’s Tale is incredibly prescient; the prospect of such a future coming into fruition is alarmingly real. But the novel is not just a story about a horrifying future; it is a story of resistance. And the future it describes is a future we must be prepared to face head on and challenge at every opportunity.

[racefortheironthrone]

Is there room in a standalone ask to talk about why Eduard Bernstein "concluded...that Marx was basically wrong about the internal dynamics of capitalism, their effects on the class structure of society, and the implications for political action"?

Ok, so there's part of this that I'm really not going to get into, because all you really need to understand is that Marx had this theory of falling rates of profit being inherent to capitalism, and Bernstein did all of these calculations of German industry at the turn of the 20th century that he felt showed that wasn't happening, and all of that stuff is really only interesting to Marxist political economists of a particular age.

What I find more interesting is Bernstein's work on immiseration and the class composition of the industrial workforce. A big part of Marx's theory of the inevitability of revolution is that he argued that capitalism would constantly oppress workers with lower wages and worse working conditions (in order to extract more surplus labor-value from them), that artisans and the petit bourgeois would find themselves squeezed down into the proletariat by the forces of capitalist competition, and in this fashion, the industrial proletariat would not only become radicalized, but they would also become the overwhelming majority such that they could overthrow the capitalist system by force of numbers, once they had been properly educated and organized.

Bernstein did a bunch of empirical analyses of the industrial workforce of Germany and realized that Marx's predictions were not coming true - wages were going up not down, but more importantly the middle classes were not becoming proletarianized, nor were the proletariat becoming the numerical majority. Instead, what was happening was that industrial capitalism was calling forth a new middle class - engineers, clerks, accountants, corporate lawyers, foremen, etc. - and the working class was becoming increasingly subdivided between unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled workers.

To Bernstein, this empirical fact had important political ramifications: if the socialist movement wanted to prosper, it needed to build a cross-class alliance with the bourgeois political parties of the middle classes to establish democracy and civil rights, and then to use those rights to push for the eight hour day and old age pensions and other reforms that would improve the immediate material conditions of the working class.

And, arguably, Bernstein was right about this - a lot of socialist and social democratic parties got into office for the first time through alliances with non-socialist political parties, whether that's the Scheidemann cabinet pulling together the SPD, the DDP, and the Center Party or the Swedish SAP starting their historic run at government with an alliance with the Swedish farmers' party.

[into-september]

Some observations and a poor attempt at analysing the depiction of wealth in Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir

Blame the people putting things on youtube titled “Die kapitalistische Ideologie in BIBI & TINA”. Said video makes it a point that “Bibi und Tina” - or at least the two films which he analysed - joins into a Disney-esque discourse on capitalism where the bad money people are the ones who made their own fortune rather than having inherited it. Old money is instead depicted as natural parts of society, and no-one questions how the wealth of their ancestors was once aquired and the fairness of them being better off than others because of the family to which they were born. Instead of fighting for a fair distribution of wealth, the lower classes stand with the (natural) Old Money against the (exploitative and unfair) New Money. 

Of course, Bibi Blocksberg is the cultural product of a very different political history than Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and of course: I know didly squat about either of those political histories except “France had the revolution and Germany didn’t, something something Vormärz and the failure of the Weimar Republic”. I haven’t even read Piketty and at this point I can’t be arsed to go back and watched all the relevant MLB episodes for exact detail, but that obviously didn’t stop me. 

And that is your warning to not take any of this seriously. 

ARISTOCRATIC DIGNITY VERSUS THE NOVEAU RICHE

The most prominent representatives of the wealthy elite in MLB is also an unclear case. The name "Bourgeois" alone clearly makes the point of a non-aristocratic background, but their wealth seems to rely on what in 2015 effectively would be old money: they own the most luxurious hotel in Paris, a property which must either be inherited or aquired by inherited wealth given that we never see either parent pursue any large-scale financial pursuits, instead devoting themselves to politics and fashion, respectively.  

Their new money status is the point of an entire episode: “Darkblade”, where Mr. D’Argencourt has been humiliated in an attempt to run against Mr. Bourgeois as mayor of Paris. The election campaign is only depicted indirectly, in Chloé’s claims to take ques from her father when she runs against Marinette for the position as class president. This does not cast Mr. Bourgeois in a kind light, because Chloé uses intimidation, bribery and attempts at espionage to get her way. On the other hand, the episode never depicts Mr. Bourgeois engaging in the tactics his daughter asserts she learned from him, or evilly celebrating his supposedly undeserved victory - in the few scenes he’s seen, he is exactly the same bumbling adult as always who only takes action when Marinette gives him the explicit comand to do so. He was clearly so certain in his win that D’Argencourt never could have stood a chance anyway, as the landslide defeat also would suggest.

In fact, more time is spent casting D’Argencourt as a poor loser with tyranical aspirations. What is his political agenda? The only thing we know is his speech to Adrien, where he establishes that his main goal is restoring what he considers his family’s right to rule over Paris. A rule that was established by violence going by the illustrations and was carried out “with an iron fist”. But Darkblade fell to a popular uprising, which D’Argencourt blames on an a member of the bourgeoise having “bought the people’s alliance”. The corresponding illustration leaves no doubt about the moral value of this choice, nevermind that for the “people” in medieval times, money would have been a question of survival, not comfort. 

The episode is thus curiously ambivalent on the question, particularly since the D’Argencourt-Bourgeois duel clearly parallels the Dupain-Cheng-Bourgeois duel. We’re usually meant to sympathise with akuma victims, but unlike Marinette, D’Argencourt isn’t depicted as having any ambitions about working for the greater good of the his electorate: his only concern is his pride and his family history, and he in fact regrets that the tyranny fell. The only reason given to sympathise with his pain, is the possibility that he during the election faced attacks from Chloé’s father comparable to those Marinette suffers from Chloé. But this, as said, is never shown to happen. 

Despite this introduction, D’Argencourt isn’t demonised for his authoritarian political ideas - later episodes will establish his intense pride in his students (”Riposte”), and his sincere care for them (”Risk”). Instead, D’Argencourt is a classical conservative who values the old ways, as is seen in both his devotion to pride, his maintaining old family fencing techniques, and his old-fashion way of speaking.

Interestingly, the show is equally ambivalent about Mr. Bourgeois. As a politician, he is clearly incompetent; generally inept and easily led, spineless in the face of his domineering family, occasionally displaying the belief that his status as an elected leader means he is entitled absolute power. Like D’Argencourt’s dubious political philosophy, one would expect the text to paint Mr. Bourgeois as a harmful presence, but that’s not the case: Instead, it takes the time to highlight qualities such as a deep - if tragically misguided - love of his daughter, his kindness and compassion for the step-daughter who by all in-universe logic must be the result of his wife’s unfaithfullness, and at least a general sense of right and wrong he rarely has the backbone to stand by. He’s even given a bittersweet backstory about how his youthful dreams of creative pursuits were buried by societal expectations and the demands of his abusive wife. In “Mega-Leech”, he is the figurehead of the capitalist pursuits destroying the environment - but not out of evil, but because the true evil (the Tsurugi and Agreste corporations) duped him into believing he was acting for the good of his electorate. 

TRUE BLUE BLOOD

The most privileged character yet seen on the show is unquestionably Prince Ali. Ali’s name, design and royal title would all suggest that the Kingdom of Achu is a fictional representative of the real world Arab monarchies which generally aren’t known for being great on the whole “democracy” thing. Ali however is depicted as a benevolent figure, a Queen Rania in training. 

There are several parallels drawn between Ali and Adrien. Like Adrien, Ali is a child born into wealth and fame, and doesn’t appear to feel entitled to the attention this brings him; note the contrast in both to that of Chloé. Where she revels in social status, Ali and Adrien suffer it and the expectations of performance while they wish for freedom to not perform to their status. Ali is officially set to inherit a position of absolute political power, which Adrien of course won’t; though he can safely assume financial influence and social power through his parents’ separate celebrity status and connections to other people with formal power. 

Ali’s likely future as the despot in an absolutist monarchy has yet to be brought up as a problem, possibly because Ali is yet too young to make any moral judgments about the power he is given through his family tree. 

OLD NAMES, OLD MONEY

Season 4 concluded by (not really) ending the stalemate defining the Hawkmoth-Ladybug war as a third party of unclear aliance enters the battle and casts his weight in Hawkmoth’s favour - but not for the purpose of Gabriel’s benefit. The wild card is Gabriel’s nephew from his wife’s side of the family, but there is no love lost between the two. It is evident to all that Felix would just as easily have teamed up against his uncle, if that would give him what he wanted. Indeed, for most of his on-screen presence, it is hard to argue that Felix is a better person than Gabriel is; he certainly has no more kindness to spare Adrien and in fact puts a lot of effort into making his life miserable for no discernable reason.

The exact background of the Graham de Vanilly family has yet to be detailed on screen, but they are aristocracy in posession of family heirlooms with “legends” attached to them, and Felix’ father was an American billionaire. Felix, as such, comes from a background of double privilege, but little is made out of this beyond his access to advanced technology and training to excel far beyond his age in several fields. 

Another wealthy family is the Tsurugi clan, which traces its roots back to the warrior elite of some age past and which to this day maintains a strict adherence to family and tradition. Little is known about them beyond Kagami, her mother and her grandfather all being martial artists of considerable merit; with the focus on family over the individual, it seems likely that their contemporary commercial empire was built on pre-existing conditions. Tomoe is the only person outside of Felix and Nathalie who know Hawkmoth’s identity, and is in fact revealed to be aiding him in his pursuits - though for what purpose remains to be seen. Notable, however, is that Kagami - true to her name - mirrors Adrien from several angles: controlled by her parent(s?), deprived of agency and freedom, isolated from her peers her entire life, and fundamentally good despite their parents being unicovently cruel.

The cruelty of their parents however renders irrelevant the show’s only attempt at problematising capitalism: namely the negative depiction of the Tsurugi-Agreste corporations. Laudable though it is to teach children that Brands Are Not Our Friends, the shady characterisation of Gabriel and Tomoe makes it impossible to say that it is their companies that are the problem when the CEOs are regularly comitting crimes far beyond the scope of public misinformation. 

ARTISTIC INTEGRITY VERSUS THE COMMERCIALISATION OF CULTURE

A different angle of the narrative assertion that the wish to be wealthy makes means that you are morally deficient is seen in the professional artists present on the show and their placement next to their manager: Bob Roth, in charge of marketing Jagged Stone, XY, and Harry Clown. In addition to these, he’s seen pursuing a line of one-off projects, both as hired hand (producing ads for Gabriel, directing for Chloé) and on his own accord.

Bob Roth has three character traits: His vulgarity, his ambition in pursuing wealth, and his callousness to others. Though he makes his living by promoting the creative labour of others, he clearly has no appreciation of art. He has manufactured his son into a commercial vampire who makes money by poorly imitating true artists, and has repeatedly stated his disregard of art for the sake of art: To Bob Roth, the only art of merit is that which can be molded for maximum profit. He insists on streamlining Jagged Stone into what would be commercially well-received instead of an expression of what Jagged truly is. He ridicules Harry Clown for wishing to go new ways as an artist, because the idea of abandoning a proven moneymaker for an untested idea is to him unthinkable. 

On Bob’s artist roster is only one obviously rich person: Jagged Stone’s rock star lifestyle which has him permanently settled in the city’s top hotel, personal assistant and personal crocodile, private helicopter and a caravan with a baby grand on the roof. Unlike the Bourgeois family with whom he shares his de facto adress, however, Jagged’s wealth is never depicted as a defining aspect of his character - instead, it is the incidental byproduct of sincere artistic genius. So unimportant is Jagged’s money that it has yet to factor into his relationship with his offspring who are living in far more moderate conditions. 

Bob doesn’t appear particularly wealthy, despite his son’s fame as an artist. It’s entirely possible that the two live in a mansion with gold loos, but if that is the case, then Bob clearly isn’t satisfied with what he’s got. XY hasn’t yet been depicted to share his father’s compulsive pursuit of money; whatever his reasons for pursuing music are, the closest we get to an answer must be a wish for fame. One could speculate about a wish to win his father’s approval or a poor attempt at creating true art like the artists he plagiarises, but neither of those things are yet confirmed.

Interestingly, one factor not painting the Bourgeois family as new money is how heavily Bob Roth is coded as such: his garish fashion, lacking sophistication and blatant disregard of all social rules if money is involved are all introduced in contrast to Mr. Bourgeois - even though the two are regular aquaintances.

IN CONCLUSION: YOU TRIED

Wealth is an apolitical topic in Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, beyond the reductive moral that only bad people want to be rich. The unfair distribution of wealth is only a problem when the affluent use it for evil; lack of money is never a struggle faced by anyone in a universe where every character appears to be at least comfortably middle class. Inherited wealth is never depicted as in intrinsically problematic, while characters actively pursuing money are uniformly morally deprived. The clearest case is probably the young Miss Bourgeois, who is portrayed as parodically evil while flaunting her family’s wealth and influence - in contrast to numerous characters who are equally or more privileged (Zoé, Adrien, Kagami, Ali) but act as if unaware of the benefits they get from their family backgrounds. 

The problem, then, is not wealth itself but the recognition and active use of it; Jagged Stone is stinking rich, but a sympathetic character seemingly unconscious of his material wealth while focusing solely his artistic aspirations. In repeated contrast stands Bob Roth who has less money, less fame, less influence, but all the more lust for the things to which Jagged appears completely indifferent. The show thus broadcasts the kindergarten moral that greed is bad, but that is the extent of the commentary it has made on social inequality. Wealth and privilege is only a problem if conscious and selfish use are made of them; they are forces of good when people like Ali and Adrien use their influence for altruistic purposes.

“Wealth” ultimately becomes a question not of de facto capital in your posession, but the individual’s attitude towards it. The rich children who don’t act as if they’re rich are in fact presented by the narrative as victims of their wealth; haunted by the public eye, repressed by fame where the public image is more important than sincere expression, held down by heavy family names with equally heavy expectations of excellence. That they live in absurd material comfort, in families where economical worries will never happen and with social (and indeed, political) influence at their feet, is never something that the show considers categorically unfair. 

Per the show’s depiction of good and bad people, the privileges of financial power only exist if you on an individual level make an active and conscious choice of utilising it. The societal dynamics of the haves and have nots are in this show non-existent - as they necesserily have to be in a universe where some of the most expensive areas in the world are a “working class neighborhood”.

ETA because the most important part evidently was lost to a draft I didn't save: The perhaps most important observation to make from all of this isn't how the show goes about the people who have money, but the people who in a realistic setting would suffer from their affluence: namely the poor. Who seemingly don't exist in the MLB universe, where every character appears to be at least comfortably middle class.

When you don't have to engage with the tangible consequences of never knowing financial security thanks to the system rigged against you, it is easy to reduce the amassing of wealth to a moral judgment, and leave it at that. But for things to change for the people sleeping on the streets of Paris, it's not enough to say that money made Chloé Bourgeois evil. We need to talk about how her money can be shared with those who need it.

[aliitvodeson]

Another Jewish artist to appreciate

Sonia Delaunay was born as Sarah Stern, in Ukraine, and grew up in St Petersburg, where her maternal Uncle&Aunt adopted her and exposed her to a lot of art and music. She then moved to Germany, and eventurally Paris, studying art all the while.

Sonia helped create the theory of Orphism - an art theory that used colours and shape to achieve visual intensity in a work. Sonia used the theory to express movement within very abstract works.

One of her earliest textile works seems to have been the baby blanket she made for her son, in 1911. After the Russian Revolution cut her off from her income renting properties in St Petersburg, she became working as a costume designer for various theater productions and ballets.

When the Nazis invaded France, Sonia, her husband Robert, and their son fled to the unoccupied South. Sonia continued producing fashion, painting and decor, though her style grew more muted after Robert's death from cancer.

Sonia was the first female artist to have an exhibition in the Louvre while living, in 1964. She received the Légion d’honneur in 1975

Sonia Delaunay - born 1885 in Gradizhsk, Ukraine - died 1979 in Paris, France

Market at Minho, 1915

Le Bal Bullier, 1913

Robes simultanées, 1925

Simultaneous dress, 1913

Swimsuit, 1928

Coat, 1924

Sources: one | two | three

[demonfox38]

I can't think anyone but a handful of my mutuals will care about my opinions regarding this, but here's my thoughts on the "Castlevania: Nocturne" trailer:

Looks like we ain't getting a "Castlevania: Bloodlines" adaptation, huh? 😅

I still don't know why this team didn't have a Simon Belmont run. Dude's super recognizable and about as free as it gets for canon shenanigans. I don't think many people would argue against Simon having an ultra-violent, exploitatively gory adventure…Especially not after that whole "picking up Dracula's body parts, reanimating him, and beating the shit out of him again" situation.

I can see the appeal of writing a French Revolution "Castlevania" story, but it's a little off, too? Like, the only roughly French person was Maria, and even that's a tangential stretch based on her last name (which I think came from some university one of the game developers was associated with, if I remember correctly.) I suppose what I've gotta point out is that the intro to "Rondo of Blood" is very, very much in German, which is super unique for the series. If this story was happening outside of Romania, I'd have to peg it to Germany for that reason.   

I'd almost be certain that we're going to see Marie Antoinette die in an exploitatively gruesome fashion, but I wonder if Konami would put a stop to that. Not that they care much outside of getting cash money for licensing, of course. It's just that most Japanese media tends to have a more sympathetic view of her, so I wonder if that would filter over even to an American adaptation of a Japanese video game series. Then again, they let S3E9-10 happen, so…

Interesting spin on Orlox. There's definitely potential to play with there! Dude's almost free in terms of canon, unless you want to get into Japanese light novels post "Dawn of Sorrow." But that's way, way, way, way in the future…

Don't know why he wouldn't just kill Richter as a kid, though. Unless we're setting up some kind of "Berserk" style misery gambit.

Honestly, I almost thought Isaac would show up 300 years later with schemes to get Dracula back. A different flavor of Shaft, if you will. Although damn, does that not sound right.

Actually, what the hell kind of happy ending fuckery are they going to do with what happened at the end of S4? That was surprisingly rainbows out the ass for this series. Like…When did Lisa die again? How does Dracula react to that? How fucked up did the CV3 hero set end up afterwards? Something had to put Alucard back under, right? I doubt these people would let SOTN slip by, and that definitely starts with him waking up from an extra-long nap…

There's going to be such hell-on-earth pandemonium if this interpretation of Annette also ends up as a succubus/vampire lady. Like, that's not worse than what "Berserk"'s Casca went through, but it's a disturbing enough thought... I don't know why I keep thinking of "Berserk" for a series comparison….

Also—say! That's an interesting idea, having a character from the Caribbean. You know what else is famously associated with that location? Pirates! I wonder if maybe they could have had, I don't know, some kind of knife-throwing, acrobatic pirate thief in the last series…But that would have just been silly, right? 😑

Anyone got a bead on Doctor Iris, or did Richter forget to save her?

Also, is it me, or does this Tera interpretation look more like Yoko Belnades than the character she's actually based on?

Haven't had a Netflix subscription in years. Probably will get around to seeing this at some point, but I'd like to have a buffer first. Maybe listen for the screamings of other damned souls before sticking my head into the hell portal.

Honestly, I probably would get back to that "Lupin" series first...

[odysseywritings]

Interviewing the Sorceress

@flashfictionfridayofficial

She caught my eye with her colorful purple clothes, half her hair jet black and half white, and a collection of gold trinkets that had no obvious origin, such as a cyclops and a three headed alien. For privacy, her real name and location have been omitted, yet her van had an elaborate painting of a wizard surrounded by trees. She appears to be born in the 50s yet her energy is youthful and loose.

My dad fought in the Second World War, and he never shook that off, so I grew up a military brat. I went across the states but also Germany. And everywhere I went, I saw premonitions coming from anything at any time. I didn't think about them a lot until they came true. It started off small with what food would be in school or what buildings I'd see. You couldn't say this stuff out loud or you'd be labeled insane so I kept it inside like a good little patriot.

Then bombs showed up nearly every week, us being the "Duck and Cover" generation, and I had this growing anxiety that the world would end. It made me cold and violent toward anything and anyone, small or big. Why bother being good if the world would turn to fire and rubble before I could drive or get my first kiss?

My teenage years had me running away a lot, meeting outcasts, smoking, bussing with rock stars, joining protests, all that. I dabbled in tarot and psychedelics, but what I saw was different, more real. By the 70s, I'd go through these invisible doors that would open up.

When did you realize you were entering these doors?

They would be around corners: alleys, woods, interiors. I didn't feel anything change on my body, but I felt I was in a transient state. Like a caterpillar turning into mush in a chrysalis. Suddenly, I was no longer in my world. It was like being in an alien planet in those hokey B-movies. (laughs)

People looked the same, but the fashion was radical, people were teleporting in these phone booth things, and robots were much more life-like. And before I knew it, I'd flip back to the world of tie dye and an energy crisis.

Some people claim to be abducted by aliens. Do you think you experienced a similar fate?

Oh, goodness, no. I didn't see any little green or gray men. I always felt like I stayed on Earth. The free love movement and sexual revolution made the culture shock easier to absorb, but it was overwhelming at first. As the 80s went on, and progress was slowing down, I felt a longing to go back. I was so tired of people being cruel and dumb, getting obsessed with yuppie greed, settling down in unhappy marriages and jobs. Things were becoming hazy and I wondered if there was any optimism.

It took a few years before another door opened and I couldn't wait! Everything was even more futuristic. There was no smog, no poverty, no real divisions. People had magic, or some kind of advanced technology, where they could just create things out of thin air!

I spent so much time in that future, I left my old one for... I think, 8 years. In that time, I could feel the universe and grab all the atoms. They could be weaved and crafted like a sewing kit for any problem. Viruses, fuel shortages, broken bones, hunger, all gone. I didn't worry about survival like I used to, and I studied and traveled with all the time in the world. I even trained to be an astronaut!

I could see so much of the galaxy and beyond. Even in space, the most terrifying and lonely place, I felt secure knowing I was closer to knowing life in its entirety.

What made you decide to return here?

I didn't want to learn everything while I was still healthy. What else would I do besides get bored to death? I'm over 70 but I haven't felt this young before. All the regrets, shame, anger, confusion, and pessimism in my youth are so distant that they belong to someone who doesn't exist anymore.

What matters is that I keep doing new things, making the impossible happen, and delivering the truth to others. I know I seem like a crazy old lady, but you can find doors to enter if you turn your head around the corner, and discover a new way to live life when everything seems to drag you down.

Thank you for taking the time for this interview.

My pleasure, dear!

[rosethreeart]

Any fun Amelia headcanons? Sfw or nsfw

Idk if you have any specific topics(?) in mind but

Abbigail views prussia as like an older brother / fatherly figure and he calls her little ducking cause she would always follow and cling to him during the revolution :}

Even when I’m not shipping the two Abby and Germany definitely have some sort of bromance going on LMAO

She’s constantly struggling with societal expectations of her being feminine, a world power, and the inherent forced masculinity that a lot of woc get out into, and feels both an odd mixture of guilt and freedom when it comes to her enjoyment of traditionally feminine things.

She’s not much of a sports girlie but gets extremely competitive and will decimate her opponents in any given sport

I Would Rather Die Then Not Win mentality

I could write a whole essay about her relationship to her father oh my god

She actually really likes tea, especially when her dad makes it

She’s agoraphobic

So Many Self Esteem Issues

She doesn’t really understand fashion and hates waste so it’s not uncommon to see her in clothes that are decades or even a century old in day to day life

[s4g2]

Harnessing Global SEO Power: Tailoring Strategies to Flourish in International Markets

The world is more connected than ever. Businesses, irrespective of their size, have the potential to reach a global audience. But as opportunities expand, so does the complexity of tapping into new markets. Each country, with its distinct cultural and digital footprint, demands a unique SEO approach. At S4G2 Marketing Agency, we delve deep into these intricacies, crafting tailor-made strategies for each nation. Let's embark on a journey across the world, exploring our specialized SEO services for various countries.

Australia and New Zealand: SEO Down Under

Whether it's Sydney's bustling marketplaces or Auckland's thriving hubs, businesses in the Australasian region need a unique approach. Localized content that resonates with the ANZAC spirit combined with mobile-optimized strategies makes for a winning formula here.

European Majors: France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain

Europe is a melting pot of cultures, languages, and digital behaviors. Each country, be it the fashion-centric Parisians or the tech-savvy Berliners, demands a distinct strategy. Our approach leans into cultural nuances while respecting GDPR and other regional regulations.

Emerging Powerhouses: India, Brazil, Nigeria, Indonesia

Rapidly growing economies with a vast digital footprint, these countries present immense opportunities. Local languages, mobile-first approaches, and understanding the pulse of the youth are key here.

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With a strong emphasis on technology and innovation, businesses here need to be ahead of the curve. Incorporating the latest in tech trends, like AI and AR, into SEO strategies can be particularly rewarding.

North American Giants: United States and Canada

Arguably the most competitive markets, the US and Canada require a blend of localized and broad-reaching strategies. Keeping up with the ever-evolving algorithms of major search engines is paramount.

Nordic Nations: Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark

Known for their tech-savviness, the Nordic countries appreciate well-structured, user-friendly websites. Transparent, ethical SEO practices resonate well with the audience here.

Eastern European Blend: Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria

A mix of languages and cultures, Eastern Europe demands regional and local SEO. Focusing on local directories and integrating with regional social networks can yield great results.

Middle Eastern Gems: UAE, Israel, Iraq

Businesses looking to penetrate these markets need to understand the delicate balance of modernity and tradition. Multilingual SEO, especially with Arabic content, is key.

African Potential: South Africa, Zimbabwe

While still in the nascent stages of the digital revolution, Africa presents vast opportunities. Mobile-focused strategies, combined with local content, are the way forward.

Latin American Charm: Mexico, Belize, Brazil

Spanish, Portuguese, and a host of indigenous languages make this region unique. Engaging with local influencers and creating culturally resonant content is vital.

Rest of the World: From Austria to Vietnam

Every nation, be it the snow-capped peaks of Switzerland or the bustling streets of Tokyo, has its own digital signature. At S4G2 Marketing Agency, we understand and respect these distinctions. By crafting bespoke strategies, we ensure businesses don't just reach their target audience; they resonate with them.

Conclusion:

In today's digital age, the world is your marketplace. But global reach demands global understanding. At S4G2 Marketing Agency, our expertise spans continents, ensuring your business's voice is heard, understood, and appreciated, no matter where your audience is. Dive into the world of possibilities with our tailored global SEO solutions.

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[thinkingabouthistory]

The Politics of Homophobia: Examining the Intersection of Political Expediency and Nazi Ideology

This is the entirety of my first published piece of writing. Abstract

Homosexual men in Nazi Germany experienced legal and social oppression that was rooted in both the cultural homophobia of Twentieth Century Germany and the existential homophobia of high-ranking Nazi officials. However, the Nazi Regime’s enforcement of homonegative policy was not unilateral, often ignoring the actions of members of Nazi-affiliated groups. This inconsistency often resulted in leniency for party insiders, and brutality for gay men in occupied territory, and Nazi-era policy, reinforced by cultural homophobia, left a lasting effect on the legal treatment of gay men in West Germany. By using public comments and private correspondence, this paper explores the existential homophobia of Himmler, his influence on Hitler and the Nazi carceral system, and the inconsistencies of the Regime’s criminal enforcement of homonegative policies. Furthermore, by utilizing the memoirs of gay men, this paper explores the impact of homonegative policy on homosexual men that lacked proximity to power. Lastly, this paper utilizes court records and firsthand accounts to explore the post-war treatment of gay men in West Germany. This paper seeks to not only explain the origins and outcomes of Nazi homonegative policy, but also to understand patterns of homonegative rhetoric in order to combat queerphobic policies in our own society. Text

“Röhm, you are under arrest.” These words, uttered by Adolf Hitler in June 1934 during the Rӧhm Purge, changed the power dynamics of the Nazi Party. Hitler and Joseph Goebbels found Ernst Rӧhm and several other SA leaders with young SS officers, all in various states of undress, many caught having sex at the moment of their discovery. The Fuhrer, though, had greater concerns than Röhm’s sexual proclivities. He was there to oust a political rival. Röhm, sitting comfortably in a Bad Wiessee hotel room in a fashionable blue suit with a cigar in the corner of his mouth, responded with the simple words: “Heil, my Fuhrer.” Hitler shouted for his arrest a second time, and left Rӧhm’s hotel room. Rӧhm was escorted out of the Hotel Hanselbauer without a challenge, now a prisoner of the Nazi Regime, alongside dozens of SA men. On July 1st, 1934, Ernst Röhm was executed in his Munich cell. Despite the fact that Röhm was targeted as a threat to Hitler’s political power, the Nazi Regime made his homosexuality a key feature of the discussions surrounding his execution. On July 3rd, 1934, the Völkischer Beobachter, the official Nazi Party newspaper, ran articles discussing the Fuhrer’s swift squashing of a “second revolution,” as well as an article discussing how the German people were “saved from the serious danger” of homosexual subterfuge. Later, in August of 1934, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler excitedly told Gestapo officers that the execution of Ernst Rӧhm was necessary to avoid “the capture of the state by homosexuals.” 

Prior to this attack on the SA’s leadership, now known as the Night of the Long Knives, Röhm’s homosexuality was not seen as much of an issue by Hitler and other members of Nazi leadership, so long as it was kept behind closed doors. The Nazi party tolerated homosexuality within its ranks, and Röhm’s Sturmabteilung (SA) cultivated an openly homosocial culture amongst its members. Other institutions within the Nazi Regime, like Heinrich Himmler’s Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Hitler Youth, cultivated a similar homosocial culture, and members of each organization were known to engage in homosexual acts. So why then was Röhm’s homsexuality manufactured as a crisis following his death?

In the wake of Röhm’s arrest and execution, the Nazi party increasingly targeted homosexual men. Scholars estimate that between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi Regime arrested more than 100,000 gay men for allegedly violating Reich Criminal Code Paragraph 175, which the regime revised in 1935 by broadening the definition of homosexuality and creating harsher penalties for those convicted of violating Paragraph 175. Further, the Nazis incarcerated as many as 15,000 gay men in concentration camps, and the testimonies of some concentration camp survivors suggest that gay men were among the most abused populations within the camps. How can we explain this change in legal and persecutorial practices?

While the Nazi Regime wielded accusations of homosexuality as a tool of political power, it is also the case that the Nazi persecution of gay men frankly represented the irreducible homophobia of leadership within the Nazi Regime. Despite the ideological homophobia of some Nazi leaders, the Nazi Regime was highly opportunistic in its implementation and enforcement of homonegative policy. This inconsistency often, though not always, resulted in leniency for Nazi Party insiders, and brutality for gay men in occupied territory, and solidified fear and isolation as key components of Germany’s Post-War queer culture. While homosexuality was conditionally tolerated in the early years of the Nazi regime, the conspiratorial beliefs of high-ranking Nazi officials, like Heinrich Himmler, coupled with the Nazi Party’s obsession with proliferation and purification of the Volkskörper, necessitated, within the framework of the Nazi ideology, the elimination, marginalization, or otherwise removal of homosexuality from German culture. 

As the Nazi Party solidified its control of the German state, the pursuit of a pure Volkskörper, or racial body, came into focus. To this end, the regime marginalized those considered racially impure, or those incapable of producing offspring; the Nazis, therefore, viewed homosexual men, unable to reproduce, as a drain on the Volksgemeinschaft. But the regime’s focus on procreation and family policy does not necessarily explain its violent suppression of homosexuality, or the murder of thousands of gay men. While not socially or politically prioritized, there is no evidence to suggest that the Nazi Regime murdered infertile women, for example, en masse. But cultural homophobia placed gay men on the fringes of society, which made violence against them easy to justify. Furthermore, accusations of homosexuality against political opposition became a very convenient weapon wielded by the Nazi Party. The vehement bigotry against gay men expressed by Heinrich Himmler filtered down to local police officers, which likely further desensitized Germans to violence against gay men, and pushed for the excision of homosexuality from German culture. After all, the Reich would do anything to rid the Volkskörper of a “cancer” like homosexuality. 

The history of homosexuality in Germany is colored in shades of gray. The Nazi Regime capitalized on cultural and religious homophobia, as well as a desensitization to violence powered by the Nazi propaganda apparatus, to commit atrocities against gay men. However, Germany in the late 19th Century was the home to the first proper homosexual movement. While Imperial Germany included Paragraph 175 in the legal code adopted in 1871, just after Germany unified, which criminalized homosexuality, there was also a robust movement for the destigmatization, decriminalization, and integration of homosexuality in mainstream German society as early as the 1890s. Early LGBT publications first began to appear in Germany during this period. And Magnus Hirschfeld founded the first gay rights organization, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, in Berlin in 1897. Much of the gay rights activism happening in Imperial Germany, which included activism in support of gay men, lesbian women, bisexual folks, and transgender individuals, centered around the thesis of the innate nature of homosexuality, which posits that homosexuality, or any facet of queer identities, is naturally occurring and immutable. 

Colloquial understandings of the Weimar period (1919-1933) frame this era of Germany as sexually liberated and nearly utopian. In fact, Nazi propaganda disparaged the Weimar Republic’s social progressivism as a source of hedonism and degeneracy. However, far from liberated, the Weimar policy towards queer communities was repressive and shrouded in secrecy. Despite pressure from the burgeoning metropolitan queer community, most notably in Berlin, and a general sense of tolerance, the Weimar legislature did not repeal Paragraph 175. However, Weimar Germany’s federal system allowed for different states to adopt a policy of non-enforcement towards the persecution of gay men. During this period, while queer communities—gay men in particular—faced oppression from both the state and society at large, in many instances, gay men experienced greater freedom from the punishments of Paragraph 175, so long as they did not disturb broader society. It is in this environment of simultaneous secrecy and tolerance that a robust, yet ultimately underground, queer culture emerged in the Weimar republic, allowing for a golden age for queer communities in Germany, and in Berlin especially. In this period, Berlin’s queer community produced magazines, fiction literature, and art specifically for queer Germans. Gay men also had enclaves of social interaction, music, and performance in Germany’s gay bars and clubs, like the famous Eldorado night club.

The Weimar period represented a golden age for queer art, activism, and progress. Weimar Germany’s queer movement prioritized the social tolerance of some gay men over others. As a part of its respectability politics, the queer movement in the Weimar Republic promoted the image of hypermasculine homosexuality, and in many cases, hypermasculinity as homosexuality. These hypermasculine men, often engaged in dangerous work like timberwork, factory work, and even military service, were the face of the homosexual movement in Weimar Germany, often appearing as the main characters in homosexual fiction and as the focus of queer magazines in Berlin. These men represented the pinnacle of German masculinity, which many saw as legitimizing their sexuality to a heteronormative society. This version of homosexuality grew out of the various inter-war men’s groups, which brought together communities of disenfranchised veterans of the Great War, and fostered a homosocial culture between its members. In some cases, these groups even permitted homosexual and homoromantic relationships. This culture, which fostered many anti-war sentiments, may itself have its roots in the Wandervogel movement,  an anti-industrialist German youth movement that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Wandervogel faced a great deal of public backlash, in part because of its tolerance of homosexuality, which many Germans saw as a promotion of degeneracy. It is worth noting that, because of this focus on hypermasculine homosexuality, the queer movement in Germany often excluded effeminate or otherwise gender nonconforming gay men, out of fear that they may damage the movement’s respectability in broader culture. 

This golden era of German queer politics came to an abrupt end when the Nazi Regime took power. In June 1935, the Nazi Regime amended Paragraph 175 of the Reich Criminal Code as a part of a broad reformation of the German legal code, broadening the government’s definition of homosexuality and reclassifying the offense as felonious in nature. In the two years immediately following Hitler’s rise to power, the Nazi Regime had to collaborate with far-right and conservative political blocs in the Reichstag. This 1935 legal reform was likely an effort to shore up support from the German right-wing. Under this amended version of Paragraph 175, which legally conflated homosexual sex between men with bestiality, men engaging in “lustful acts” with other men could be imprisoned for as little as three months or as many as ten years. The inclusion of the language of “lustful acts” greatly increased the Nazi Regime’s power over homosexual men. Prior to the implementation of Paragraph 175a, the threshold for conviction under 175 was quite high, as prosecutors had to prove anal penetration in a para-coital fashion. This meant that non-penetrative sexual acts between men, including mutual masturbation and oral sex were difficult to prosecute. This changed with the 1935 amendments to 175. The regime, perhaps deliberately, failed to define “lustful acts,” which allowed local officers to individually interpret 175a. In some cases, “lustful acts” were as benign as being in an emotionally deep relationship with another man, regardless of its sexual nature or lack thereof. Lustful acts, as interpreted by local officers, included small acts of affection, like holding hands and kissing, as well as explicitly sexual acts like mutual masturbation and penetrative sex. But it also included “suspicious cohabitation,” which could be interpreted as homoromantic. 

The amendment, in its entirety, contains four subsections pertaining to male-male homosexual sex. Of these four, only one legislates consensual homosexual sex between adult men; the law made no mention of lesbianism or other homosexual acts between women. The other three sections dealth with male-male rape, sexual coercion, and male prostitution. Rape victimizing women was legislated through Paragraphs 176 and 177, the sexual coercion of women is legislated through Paragraph 179, and female prostitution is legislated through Paragraph 181. The Nazi regime separated rape, coercion, and prostitution as experienced by women in an effort to frame homosexual men as predatory and pedophilic. Furthermore, the statute includes language that highlights the criminality of relationships between men over the age of twenty-one and those under the age of twenty-one. Additionally, the statute includes provisions for men under twenty-one to receive a lighter sentence, or even face no criminal liability provided they engage in reform work. This reform work was often enrolled in anti-homosexual programs by the Hitler Youth.

Despite existing laws against homosexuality and the Nazi Party’s collaboration with the German conservative political bloc, Ernst Röhm, an openly gay man, was the commander of the SA, which was the Nazis’ paramilitary wing. As an early Nazi figure, he led the SA from its infancy in 1921 until his murder in 1934. In this role, he organized street fights, sabotages, and assassinations against socialists, communists, antifascists, and even random Germans in an attempt to cause chaos which could only be stopped by the Nazi Regime. The actions of the SA under Röhm were of great benefit to Hitler and the Nazi Party during its struggle for and rise to power, despite the fact that Röhm held great contempt for the bureaucracy of the Nazi Party. Despite the direction of the regime’s later actions, this does not appear to be a point of great contention within the early Nazi Party. In fact, there were many gay men in Röhm’s SA. This could be, in part, because the Nazi Party and the SA, much like the interwar men’s groups, fostered an informal homosocial environment. However, there were high-ranking Nazi officials who resented Röhm for his homosexuality, but ultimately allowed him to continue his work while it was useful. Additionally, Röhm was not above committing acts of violence and oppression against the queer community in Germany. Röhm’s SA commandeered the Eldorado, Berlin’s most famous gay bar, as the SA headquarters just ahead of the 1933 elections, and carried out raids on Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research on May 6th, 1933, just months after Hitler’s rise to power. 

Chief among these hesitantly permissive Nazis was Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS. During the Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler ordered the arrest and execution of Röhm and many other Nazi Party members that he viewed as a threat to his control. As the result of intelligence meetings with Hermann Göring and Himmler, Hitler feared that Röhm was preparing to stage a coup. Additionally, Röhm’s SA was adamantly opposed to the continued involvement of traditional conservative elites, whom Hitler still required the support of, in the German government. Himmler was quick to share his satisfaction with Röhm’s death, telling SS officials that the regime had just narrowly avoided “capture of the state” by homosexuals. Himmler viewed homosexuality as an existential threat to the German state and his  conspiratorial homophobia influenced Adolf Hitler’s homonegative actions. Later, in February 1937, just as the regime began incarcerating racial, religious, and social enemies of the state, Himmler referred to homosexual men as a “cancer” on the Volkskörper in a speech given at a conference of SS officers. During this speech, Himmler stressed that the eradication of homosexuality from German culture was critical to the Aryan race’s survival and future, stating “all things which take place in the sexual sphere are not the private affair of the individual, but signify the life and death of the nation.” As Reichsfuhrer SS and Chief of German Police since 1936, Himmler’s homophobia trickled down to many facets of the regime’s carceral system, with local police chiefs echoing Himmler’s existentialist fears and conspiratorial beliefs about the nature and consequences of gay men later in June of 1937. It is therefore likely that Himmler’s essentialist homophobia motivated the escalation and advancement of violence against gay men, and that his rhetoric desensitized the public to violence against an already maligned population.

This research is concerned with the intersection of political and legal justifications the Nazi Regime used to commit violence against gay men, and the cultural homophobia that facilitated this violence. It is therefore necessary to examine the individual experiences of gay men living in this intersection. To this end, this project will utilize memoirs and diaries written by gay men in Nazi Germany, like the writings of Gad Beck and Josef Kohout. This is done with a recognition that, particularly for memoirs written after the fact, the human memory is imperfect, fallible, and subject to its own biases. Additionally, this research will draw on Reich Criminal Code, Gestapo case files, and the transcriptions of speeches and remarks made by Nazi officials. This research is relying on translations of these documents, typically carried out by the US and British governments. Lastly, this research engages with the historiography of this topic by drawing from, supporting, or countering the work of historians who have previously written on this topic. This is of particular note because, through a combination of social stigmatization and the broad persistence of the criminalization of homosexuality in European and Euro-descendent countries, English-speaking scholars wrote relatively little on this subject prior to the new millennium. 

Homophobic crimes committed by the Nazi Regime are often seen as purely ideological; that the Nazi Party as a whole was concerned with homosexuality as an ideological ill. However, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels’ early tolerance of Ernst Röhm, as well as the accepted homosocial circles in early Nazi groups, suggest that the Nazis’ homophobia was not rooted strictly in an ideological opposition to queerness. The nature of early actions against queer communities, like SA raids on Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research, were likely the result of the Nazis’ desire to squash Weimar's social liberalism as a whole. Additionally, many queer folks were aligned with the Socialist and Communist parties, even as these parties held their own homophobic beliefs, making them political enemies early on. The very fact that Ernst Röhm was the head of the SA while being openly homosexual demonstrates that gay men that fell in line with the Nazi ideology could survive, provided their homosexuality remained a private affair. However, the Night of the Long Knives changed this.

Homosexuality was at once a great concern for the Nazi Regime as well as an easy and effective tool to oust political opposition. It was, at the same time, an existential threat to the German race, and a politically debilitating accusation to level against the opposition. While the enforcement of homonegative policies in Nazi Germany was inconsistent, they provide a clear window into the thought processes of high-ranking Nazi officials. Any suggestion that the Nazi persecution of gay men was done purely as a means of political expediency ignores how the Nazi Regime deliberately employed racialized language and weaponized the court systems to oppress gay men. Conversely, any argument that posits that the regime’s detestation of homosexuality is in any way comparable to the regime’s antisemitism ignores both the totality of exterminationist policies against Jewish people and the highly selective manner in which the Nazi Regime enforced homonegative policies. By focusing strictly on the legal mechanisms of Nazi homonegative policy, or only on the social and cultural homophobia that enabled these policies, the field has created a gap in research. There is a distinct intersection of political expediency and genuine homophobia that motivated Nazi homonegative violence. It is important to understand the intersection of political opportunism and essential homophobia when analyzing Nazi homonegative policy, as it is from that intersection that we see the greatest harm done to gay men. 

As the old hegemony fades, we are only now beginning to understand the Nazis’ persecution of homosexual men. Many countries in the western world continued to criminalize homosexuality in the decades after World War II, and queerness remains socially and politically stigmatized the world over. Laws against sodomy, which have historically been used to criminalize homosexuality, remained in place in a majority of US states throughout the 20th century, only being federally decriminalized in 2003. The United Kingdom did not decriminalize homosexuality until twenty years after World War II. It is likely that a culture that codified homonegativity and homophobia into law would place a lesser significance on the crimes the Nazi Regime committed against gay men. It is therefore unsurprising that scholars have placed a lesser focus on understanding the social, legal, ideological, and political roots of the Nazi Party’s violent and suppressive crimes against gay men. Furthermore, homosexual men never constituted more than one percent of all concentration camp inmates. This, coupled with the fact that the Nazi Regime additionally identified many men sent to concentration camps for homosexuality as sexual or racial criminals, meaning that, although the treatment of homosexual men was abhorrent, they remained a small enough population in the broader victimology of Nazi crimes against humanity, allowing them to be easily overlooked. The issue remained dramatically under-researched for roughly fifty years after the fall of the Nazi Regime, gaining early interest in the 1990s, with research accelerating and broadening in the late 2000s and early 2010s. 

A great deal of research into the Nazis’ persecution of queerness has been done in the past thirty years, with the bulk of such research occurring in just the past ten. In that time, the historical interrogations of the Nazi Party’s oppression of gay men broadly follow two trends. Firstly, historians have investigated the persecution of gay men through a legal and political lens, seeking to understand the criminal codes, judicial decisions, and political prescriptions that advanced homonegative action in Nazi Germany. These historians are generally concerned with the mechanics of Nazi oppression, or the “how.” Subsequently, they rely heavily on political and legal documentation that demonstrates the direction and execution of Nazi homonegative policy at a local, state, and federal level. However, other historians have chosen to focus on the ideological underpinnings of Nazi homophobia, or the “why.” These historians examine the social and political origins of the Nazis’ oppression of gay men, particularly as they relate to Nazi conceptions of masculinity and Nazi racial science. And to that end, these historians examine memoirs, interrogation records, propaganda, and Weimar-era queer politics to understand Nazi homophobia. These trends are not mutually exclusive, and can feature significant overlap. However, different adjacent fields clearly influence the respective foci of these historians, and their writings therefore diverge in meaningful ways.

Historians concerned with the political and legal underpinnings of the Nazi oppression of gay men, subsequently referred to as our legal historians, explore the Nazi Regime’s use of the legal system to persecute gay men. The work of historian Geoffrey Giles examines the methods that Nazi judges, Kripo officers, and Gestapo officers used to twist and weaponize the German legal code to justify the castration of homosexual men. Giles argues that Nazi police used “exceptional zeal in prosecuting actual or supposed homosexuals” and that “the lines of definition were blurred” pursuant to the ends of castrating homosexual men for the crime of homosexuality. Giles would later argue that the regime broadened the legal definition of homosexuality, in part, to tighten social control and shore up support from the conservative bloc. He additionally argues that the Nazi Regime weaponized the reactionary conservative courts in an effort to capitalize on cultural homophobia and build political consensus among the German right wing. In both of these works, Giles utilizes court records, Kripo files, and the Nazi legal code itself to build his case. In both his writing and his source work, Giles has deeply influenced subsequent scholarship, and his work represents the forefront of legal history regarding this subject. 

Since the turn of the millennium, historians have continued to analyze the Nazi persecution of gay men through a variety of academic lenses, and many of these historians, who will be referred to as our social historians, have interrogated the sociopolitical underpinnings of Nazi homonegative policy and violence. Social history is a broad field, and scholars who utilize this style of inquiry employ many angles of analysis. The historians outlined here utilize gender as their primary lens of analysis, but categorizing their work as strictly “gender history” is not entirely accurate, as they also employ an interdisciplinary understanding of sexuality, power, and racialization to understand the Nazi persecution of gay men. Dr. Clayton Whisnant has written two extensive texts on queerness in Germany. The first of these texts, Queer Identities and Politics in Germany, 1880-1945, published in 2016, examines the political movements of the flourishing underground queer culture throughout the first half of the 20th century. Whisnant argues that the Nazi regime was particularly brutal in its legal and extralegal persecution of gay men, noting that many gay men died extra judiciously in concentration camps as a result “cruel and sadistic games” that targeted these men, who were seen as failing to live up to the hegemonic ideal of German masculinity. Subsequently, Dr. Jason Crouthamel expanded on this idea of the hegemonic ideal of German masculinity by using the interrogation records of homosexual World War I veterans to illustrate how these men reconciled their masculinity and gendered expectations with their sexuality. Using these men as examples, Crouthamel argues that the Nazi Regime targeted homosexuals, in part, because homosexual men asserting their “agency” and masculinity threatened Nazi images of masculinity as an inherently heterosexual trait. These historians employ a modern understanding of gender as performance, as well as memoirs, interviews, and Nazi political speeches to build their case, supplementing their arguments with the foundation of legal history built by scholars like Giles. 

The Nazi persecution of queerness is a subject that is sadly under-researched, with the experiences of lesbian women and transgender folks constituting a significant gap in the historiography. However, Dr. Laurie Marhoefer has proven to be as influential in social history literature as Dr. Giles is for the legal history of the subject. Dr. Marhoefer published a robust microhistory on the persecution of lesbians and gender nonconforming folks in Nazi Germany. Marhoefer argues that the Nazi Regime had a broad definition of lesbianism, similar to their broad definition of homosexuality as it related to men, and that transgender, gender nonconforming individuals, and women engaged in same-sex relationships were at unseen and subtle social risk in Nazi Germany. Their work expands historical definitions of persecution, and considers “the concept of risk” as experienced by lesbians, transgender folks, and gender nonconforming folks. Dr. Marhoefer utilizes gender and queer theories that position gender as a social performance and sexuality as fluid, and explores the sexual liberalism of the Weimar period through these theories. They argue that the sexual tolerance of the Weimar Republic was conditionally ensured by the comfort of a heteronormative society, meaning that queerness needed to be kept behind closed doors or sectioned off from polite society, which had the knock on effect of denouncing gender nonconformity and platforming the image of hypermasculine performance as an expression of homosexuality. In the eyes of many movement leaders, gay men needed to conform to the ideal of German masculinity in order for their social and sexual identities to be tolerated, if not necessarily validated, by the broader culture. These factors, Marhoefer argues, all but guaranteed that Nazi Party’s reactionary fascism would easily dismantle the sexual liberalism of the Weimar Republic. The echoes of Dr. Marhoefer’s work can be seen in much of the history written in the past seven years, as historians like Whisnant and Crouthamel iterate on Marhoefer’s ideas of masculine performance and queer respectability politics in Nazi Germany. 

Some historians have used the framework of social history to explore the homosocial environments of Nazi Regime institutions, like the Schutzstaffel, the Sturmabteilung, the Hitler Youth, and the German military. Giles explores the contradictions between Nazi political rhetoric and the observed reality of the SS. In doing so, he asserts that Himmler’s unwillingness to acknowledge the homosocial culture of the SS was likely a result of the Nazi Regime’s desire to maintain ideological consistency. The SS needed to maintain its image as a racially perfect institution. However, racialized language of degeneracy and cancer ascribed to homosexuals by the Nazi Regime, and especially by Heinrich Himmler himself, would have complicated that racially pure image should the SS be seen as a homosocial group. Giles, in this work and others, makes frequent references to Heinrich Himmler’s personal homophobia, and cites speeches wherein the Reichsführer of the SS refers to homosexuals as a disease of the Volkskörper. 

The study of the Nazi persecution of homosexuality is a small field still in its relative infancy compared to other segments of Holocaust histories. This is likely due to the present but diminishing social stigma around queerness; as queerness continues to be destigmatized, a greater number of queer historians and historians interested in queer histories will no doubt enter the field and advance the historiography. These new historians will likely continue to analyze Nazi persecution through interdisciplinary lenses, building on the legal history of scholars like Geoffrey Giles, and continuing the work of social historians like Jason Crouthamel, Clayton Whisnant, and Laurie Marhoefer. Some historians, like Giles and Marhoefer, are academic trailblazers, carving a new niche in the field and exploring questions previously unanswered. Others will build theoretically rigorous and detailed works situated comfortably within those niches, such as Whisnant’s two-part book series on queer politics in Germany. It is therefore the goal of this work to navigate the intersections of the legal and social histories laid out by prior historians, and to understand ideological and political causes of the Nazi persecution of gay men. 

To address this gap in historiography, and to understand the overlaps of political expediency and Nazi homophobia, it is important to draw from a wide variety of documents. The nature of researching the Nazi Regime’s crimes necessitates using a great deal of perpetrator documents, such as Gestapo case files, Nazi speeches, and governmental decrees. Additionally, the relative lack of interest in the Nazi persecution of gay men until the 1990s means that very few contemporary documents from ally governments pay close attention to the treatment of gay men in Nazi Germany. Much of what we know from the individual perspective comes from a combination of legal records and the very few memoirs of gay concentration camp survivors, who suffered a death rate as high as 60%. In order to get a clear picture of Nazi homonegative policy and its implementation, the memoirs of Josef Kohout and Gad Beck are of particular importance. These humanizing stories demonstrate both the resiliency of those targeted by Nazi oppression and the cruelty of the regime, and are therefore critical to understanding the human cost of Nazi homonegative politics.

A young German Jewish man, against all odds, deceived a Schutzstaffel officer tasked with overseeing the deportation of Jews from Berlin. By disguising himself as a member of the Hitler Youth, he was able to sneak into the processing area and save a young man just before hundreds of other Jewish folks were sent away on the rails. But he did not do this for himself. He was not trapped there. He did this for one chance to free his lover, Manfred Lewin. But, to the man’s shock, this would still be their last embrace. “I can’t go with you,” Lewin told his brave partner. “My family needs me. If I abandon them now, I could never be free.” And so, with a stoic look of resolve, Lewin turned and left his young lover, returning to his family bound for Nazi incarceration. In 1942, Manfred Lewin and his family died in Auschwitz. Gad Beck remembered the pain of losing his young partner until his death in 2012. Of that day, Beck said “In those seconds, watching him go, I grew up.” The pain that Beck experienced, and the pain he saw inflicted on those around him, pushed him to action. In 1942, shortly after Beck learned of Manfred Lewin’s death at the hands of the Nazis, Beck joined the Chug Chaluzi, a Jewish resistance group whose name translates to “Pioneer Circle,” which worked to help German Jews escape the Nazi reign of terror to Switzerland. Gad Beck passed away in 2012, just weeks before his 89th birthday. Though he saw himself as only a small part of antifascist resistance in Nazi Germany, he continues to be regarded as a hero.

Beck’s memoir, published in 2014, two years after his death, tells a familiar and heartbreaking story of a man’s life torn asunder by war, and how he was pushed into action by the pain and loss all around him in Austria. He dedicated his life at the time to helping Jews in German occupied territory escape to Switzerland, but he never escaped himself. He withstood arrests, beatings, shootouts, and air raids because of his antifascist work. Gad Beck’s memoir is dripping with pain; in every interaction, the words remembered by this man are colored by sadness and fear, but defiance and bravery above all else. Beck’s story is one of an antifascist organizer, who survived the Nazi Regime’s reign of terror through community action. Other survivors, like Josef Kohout, were regular civilians who survived by chance, and experienced brutal violence and vindictive experimentation in Nazi concentration camps.

The intersection of politics and bigotry is emblematic of many of the Nazi Regime’s greatest crimes. In his dictated memoir, originally published in 1972 by his friend Hans Neumann under the pseudonym Heinz Heger, Kohout outlines his experience as a gay man under Nazi rule.  Kohout was in a relationship with the son of a Nazi official for about a year, from March 1938, until Kohout was arrested by the Gestapo in March 1939. It is of particular note that the son of the Nazi official was not arrested like Kohout. Despite the regime’s position on homosexuality, it was not uncommon for men, and young men in particular, with connections to party officials to avoid incarceration for homosexual activity. Many young men, especially those in the SS or with connections to the SS, had their sentences commuted. Josef Kohout was not so lucky, nor so well-connected. 

Josef Kohout’s memoir provides a grizzly depiction of life inside a Nazi concentration camp from the perspective of a gay man. The Nazi courts sentenced Kohout to just under a year in prison for ongoing and persistent homosexual behavior. However, upon his release in 1940, he was simply greeted by an SS officer, who took him from his prison in Austria to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen. This camp was his prison and home for the next five years, until the Allied Forces liberated the camps after the war. While Kohout was in the concentration camp, Nazi scientists forced a whole host of experiments on the homosexual men in its population. Some of these experiments harken back to Imperial and Weimar Germany’s scientific exploration of curing homosexuality, including the splicing of heterosexual mens’ testicles into the scrotum of homosexual men. The Nazi psychiatrists experimenting on the Sachsenhausen population also tried behavioral training to rid men of their homosexual tendencies. Kohout recalls “compulsory and regular visits to the brothel in Flossenbürg” as one such method of social reinforcement, and SS guards sexually assaulting gay men as another. 

SS guards in Sachsenhausen brutally mistreated gay prisoners; some guards used foreign objects like batons to rape male prisoners. The guards were so ruthless that at least one prisoner died from injuries sustained during the abuse. SS officers justified their actions by describing them as a punishment they had carried out on behalf of the regime. Nazi leaders never disciplined these guards for their actions, and the regime’s inaction illustrates the gap in enforcement of Nazi homonegative policies between German civilians and Nazi officials. Nazi officials, so long as they were sufficiently well-connected or acting in the interest of the regime’s racial policies, could typically avoid significant punishment for homosexuality. However, civilians without these connections to the regime could expect incarceration, violence, and even death for their homosexuality. The life that Kohout details is gut-wrenching, and he takes great care to describe the heartbreak and devastation felt by these men, many of whom were driven to suicide while in the camps. Lamenting the circumstances of his incarceration, he asks “What does it say about the world we live in, if an adult man is told how and whom he should love? And what does it say if that world would see him dead?” That question points to the heart of this overlap between the political and the ideological. Kohout went to prison, and later a concentration camp for his homosexuality. But his well-connected partner faced no such consequences, in part because there was no political value in sending an otherwise upstanding Aryan of military age with connections to the Nazi Party to a concentration camp for a supposedly one-off homosexual relationship.

In 1941, Adolf Hitler issued a decree ordering the execution of any SS or police officer found to have engaged in homosexual activity “in an effort to keep the SS and Police clean of vermin with homsexual inclinations.” This decree was meant to apply to SS and police officers “instead of §§175 and 175a of the Reich Penal Code.” The punishment under criminal code 175a was intentionally broad. Convicts could expect anywhere between three months and ten years in prison for their homosexual activity. However, men under twenty-one may have their punishments commuted, or carried out through the Hitler Youth, further illustrating the inconsistency of enforcement of Paragraph 175a. That same year, Hitler argued in a speech that members of the Hitler Youth who engaged in homosexual actions should also be executed. These policies were not vigorously enforced; very few members of the SS or police were executed for homosexuality. However, the fact that Hitler issued these decrees and policies demonstrates the regime’s concern with homosexuality as a societal and racial ill that the supposedly racially perfect Nazi Party should be free from. The racialization of homosexuality both proves how important ridding German society of homosexuality was to several high-ranking Nazi officials, and how effective the use of homosexuality as a smear against political opponents was in the social and political environment of Nazi Germany.

While internal policy against homosexuality in the Nazi Regime was not particularly clear or consistent, the regime emboldened and weaponized cultural homophobia against those seen as a political threat to the power of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle. The Nazi Regime killed or ousted multiple Nazi officials or affiliates under accusations of homosexuality, accurate or otherwise. In addition to Ernst Rӧhm’s execution, the regime ousted Werner von Fritsch, who served as the Commander in Chief of the German Army from 1934 to 1938, under false accusations of homosexuality. Fritsch was an old guard conservative from the pre-Nazi military, and by all accounts, an excellent commander. He did, however, oppose the infiltration of the military with political operatives, as he believed that “such influences can lead only to fragmentation and dissolution.” From an early point in the Nazi Regime, Fritsch felt that Hitler was attempting to seize control of the military for political purposes. His suspicions would, of course, prove to be correct. He was also deeply distrustful of Heinrich Himmler and the SS, noting that many of his commanding officers felt that the SS was “spying” on them, and that the SS was the sole Nazi Party institution with which Fritsch could not reconcile. While Fritsch singularly refutes the accusations leveled against him, the slightest whiff of homosexuality in Nazi politics was powerful enough to have him removed from his post.

Four years prior to Fritsch’s ousting, Himmler was all too happy to point to Ernst Rӧhm’s homosexuality as a justification for his murder, and after 1934, Himmler spoke regularly about his belief that homosexuality was a “cancer” or a “virus on the Volkskörper.” This demonstrates that Heinrich Himmler had a clear record of using his conspiratorial homophobia as a tool of consensus building throughout the course of the Nazi Regime’s reign. Himmler believed that homosexuality was an existential threat to the German race, and that conspiratorial homophobia was no doubt shared by other Germans, and weaponized by the regime to justify pushing out or killing political opposition. Heinrich Himmler was adamant that homosexuality be stomped out, and he believed that it should be extinguished harshly within the regime’s internal bodies. It was, in fact, Himmler that pushed Hitler to issue his 1941 Decree on Preserving the Purity of the SS and Police, wherein Hitler delegates all power of enforcement of said decree to the Reichsfuhrer SS. However, it is worth noting that Himmler executed relatively few SS or police officers for their homosexuality. Himmler nearly always commuted their sentences, and dramatically downplayed the occurrence of homosexual incidents within the regime. Such niceties were almost never afforded to civilians convicted of homosexual acts, especially not those seen as racially inferior. The Nazi Regime prosecuted more than 100,000 men under Paragraph 175a, and as many as 15,000 were sent to concentration camps, including veterans of the Great War. The regime wielded homophobia as a careful tactic of political subterfuge within its own ranks, and a bloody mace to the queer men of its occupied territories. The inconsistency with which the Nazi Regime enforced homonegative policies reveals the role that political opportunism played in the persecution of gay men.

Because of the shockingly high mortality rate of gay men in Nazi concentration camps, we have very few firsthand accounts of the experiences of gay men under the Nazi Regime. However, those we do have tell the story of men who struggled to be seen during the Weimar period, and struggled to be seen as human after the Nazis’ rise to power. High-ranking Nazi officials, especially Heinrich Himmler, pushed this dehumanization of gay men. He spoke of gay men in the language of Nazi race science, framing them as a cancer to the Volkskörper, and believed that homosexuality must be eradicated, socially or physically, to ensure a healthy and prosperous Volksgemeinschaft. By couching homophobic propaganda in the language of Nazi race science and weaving in long held stereotypes about gay men, the Nazi regime was able to desensitize the public to violence against gay men, and exert violent suppressive forces on queer communities. But this conspiratorial homophobia was not weaponized universally, as Himmler regularly commuted the death sentences of SS and police officers found to have engaged in homosexual activity. Instead, the Nazi Regime used homophobia selectively, often as a political weapon.

Adolf Hitler was far more concerned with Ernst Rӧhm’s capacity to obstruct his rise to power than his homosexuality. While Heinrich Himmler stoked fears about homosexuals as an existential threat to the regime, Hitler was concerned with the political power accumulated by Rӧhm and his SA. In short, Rӧhm was a threat to Hitler’s autocratic power. That is why Hitler went to Rӧhm personally to have him arrested in Munich. Hitler wanted to ensure that Rӧhm was removed from power, and that Hitler could execute total control over the Nazi political, legal, and social systems. In 1938, four years after Rӧhm’s execution, Werner von Fritsch was forced out of his position as the Commander in Chief of the German military under false accusations that he was a homosexual. Fritsch remarked that he believed that this was done so that Hitler could seize total control of the German military, and that homosexuality was simply a convenient political cudgel that would allow the Fuhrer to do this. Furthermore, those with connections to the SS, like the young partner of Josef Kohout, would often skirt consequences, even though the expanded language of Paragraph 175a would surely stand as grounds for their incarceration. It seems that, more than anything, Hitler’s 1941 decree demanding the execution of gay men in the SS and German police was posturing, designed to condemn homosexuality within its ranks and identify homosexuality as an existential threat to the German people. The lack of any meaningful enforcement reveals this move to be little more than political theater.

With the end of the war in 1945, the Allies occupied Germany until 1949, creating a fractured German state in which the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France oversaw the rebuilding of German systems of governance, while also playing out the early stages of Cold War proxy-politics. During this period, the experiences of gay men varied greatly depending on which nation occupied their particular piece of Germany. For gay Germans in the southwest French-occupied Germany, a return to the Weimar period’s non-enforcement allowed for cautious celebration in the post-war years. However, the Soviet Union’s policies towards homosexuality in eastern Germany in this period required gay men to remain largely hidden, and any attempt for queer populations to advocate for themselves were “thwarted at every turn by the GDR (German Democratic Republic) and the SED (Socialist Union of Germany) party.” And the enforcement of Paragraph 175 that occurred in American and British occupied Germany signaled the future of German policy towards homosexuality in the post-war years. The anti-LGBT policies of the United States and Great Britain (which eventually combined with French-occupied Germany into what would become the Federal Republic of Germany) likely contributed to the ready enforcement of Paragraph 175, but powerful fundamentalist Protestant churches, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, exercised considerable influence over West Germany’s post-war politics, especially as they related to gay men.

The collapse of the Nazi Regime in 1945 brought about reform, occupation, and a forced reckoning with the crime of the Third Reich. Although the Allied occupation of Germany in the years following the war included some denazification efforts in the criminal code and governmental structures of Germany, it did not include a total reexamination of the Reich Criminal Code. The Allied Forces, motivated in part by the early rumblings of Cold War tensions, had a series of conflicting approaches to the reconstruction of Germany. Likely in an attempt to maintain the legal tradition of Germany, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany’s constitutional document) ended up drawing extensively from the constitution of the Weimar Republic, which kept much of the pre-Nazi legal code intact. On paper, this should have left gay men in, more or less, the same legal position they had been before Hitler’s rise to power. However, it is notable that, not only did the Federal Republic of Germany keep Paragraph 175 on the books, in 1949 the legislature chose to keep the Nazi Regime’s amendment to the law as well, allowing for harsh prison sentences and broader interpretations for homosexual acts in Germany. While Articles 1 and 20 of the Basic Law are protected by eternity clauses, which explicitly refute principles of National Socialism and are meant to prevent the rise of another autocrat, the legal persecution of gay men escalated in comparison to the relaxed Weimar era interpretation of Paragraph 175. With regards to the treatment of gay men, the post-war period can be seen as a backslide that moved Germany from its progressive history in the Weimar era towards legal practices roughly in line with other Western liberal democracies of the time.

The political power of Christian fundamentalism in the governance of West Germany can be clearly seen in the Federal Republic’s legislation of morality, and draws apt comparisons to the emerging religious right of the United States. Prior to the Nazi Regime, religiously affiliated political parties, like the big tent class-spanning Catholic Centre Party, held massive cultural and political influence in Germany. And after the collapse of the Nazi Regime, former members of the Catholic Centre Party formed the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in coalition with leaders from other center-right parties. The CDU constituted the dominant political bloc in West Germany until 1969, and it remains a notable force in German politics to this day. Often building center-right coalitions, the CDU capitalized on Germany’s long held religiosity to implement social and economic reform that brought post-war Germany in line with other Western democracies. The CDU, adopting many of the positions of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, was adamantly anti-LGBT, which likely contributed to legislative oversights in the de-Nazification of the German criminal code, and the active pursuit of gay communities that were not broadly prosecuted during the Weimar period. 

In 1949, a young gay man of just 16 years would know nothing but the harsh criminalization of his sexuality. While the post-war government was certainly not taking the same extreme and extrajudicial measures that the Nazi Regime had taken with regards to homosexuality, the Federal Republic certainly took a harsher, more conservative stance against homosexuality than the essentially dead-letter interpretation that was dominant in Weimar-era cities. Certainly, the democratization of post-war Germany allowed for some of these laws to be challenged, and Paragraph 175 was certainly challenged. In 1951, two men referred to in court documents as Günter R. and Oskar K., challenged the constitutionality of Paragraph 175. Attempting to appeal a Paragraph 175 conviction, their case dragged on for six years, suggesting the complexity of the constitutional questions at play in this case. The appellates argued that law violated the founding principles of the Federal Republic, which positioned the Nazi Regime and Nazi laws as criminal in nature. The appellates argued that Paragraph 175, especially in its current form, represented an “embodiment of National Socialist racial thought.” Furthermore, the two men, who had been convicted of homosexual acts under Paragraph 175, argued that the law violated Article 2 of the Basic Law, which guaranteed each individual the right to “free development of his personality.” And lastly, the appellates argued that, because Paragraph 175 criminalized homosexuality between men, but not between women, it also violated Article 3, which guaranteed the equal rights of men and women. 

The appellates in this case, which was officially decided by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1957, sought to repeal Paragraph 175 and decriminalize homosexuality in Germany. However, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that Paragraph 175 denied the appeal on every ground. The Federal Constitutional Court’s sitting president Josef Wintrich drafted the opinion. Wintrich was a conservative legal scholar from Munich who had previously had his license to practice law revoked by the Nazi Regime after raising concerns about the skyrocketing death tolls in Dachau. According to historian Robert Moeller, with this decision, West Germany’s highest court “unambiguously expressed its view that the criminalization of male homosexual activity violated no part of the Basic Law nor did it undermine the foundations of a ‘free democracy.’” Concerning the claim that Paragraph 175 was an embodiment of Nazi racial thought, the courts determined that Paragraph 175 was not a law “shaped by National Socialism to such a degree that it should be denied force in a free democratic state,” suggesting that the criminalization of homosexuality is not inherently tied to Nazi ideology, as the Allies occasionally enforced Paragraph 175 during their occupation. Additionally, the courts argue that all contemporary Western democracies, with the exception of France, similarly criminalized homosexuality, meaning that the criminalization of homosexuality was not antithetical to liberal democracy in the same way that National Socialism had been. The Constitutional Court’s position on this issue made clear that the legal persecution of gay men fell with in the bounds of the German state’s interpretation of liberal democratic values, motivated in no small part by the anti-LGBT laws of the Allied Nations. 

The Constitutional Court further argued that Paragraph 175 did not violate Article 2 of the Basic Law because Germany’s historical moral law supersedes even the Basic Law. The courts stated “In Germany, the laws justifying the punishment of homosexual immorality have always made reference to the moral views of the people [...] Moral sensibility still condemns homosexuality today.” In its final refutation, the Constitutional Court asserted that Paragraph 175 did not violate Article 3 of the Basic Law because the differences between a relationship between homosexual men and lesbian women is so vastly different as to be totally incomparable. The court pointed to everything from the perceived differences in the sex drives of men and women, to the supposedly predatory nature of male-male homosexuality in teens, to even blurred lines between intense female friendships and outright lesbianism that apparently do not exist in male-male relationships. The court dedicated the majority of its opinion to refuting the appeal on the grounds of Article 3, solidifying male-male homosexuality as criminal, and lesbianism as essentially non-existent. The concerted effort to maintain a German legal tradition created a continuity of criminal enforcement that persisted from one regime to the next, and subsequently rehabilitated German homonegativity under “explicitly Christian auspices.”

Queer men and women in post-war Germany created an underground queer culture that more closely resembled the United States’ queer culture than it did the Weimar Period’s golden age, in part as a response to the religiously motivated repression exercised by the Federal Republic. With the 1957 Federal Constitutional Court case decision, Germany solidified its homonegative policy for another 11 years, until the Federal Republic decriminalized homosexuality in 1969. For 24 years, gay men that had survived the Nazi Regime, and those born after it, continued to live an exceptionally underground existence, fearing criminal repercussions, motivated in large part by the massive influence of the Christian Democratic Union, the major political force in post-war Germany. The CDU, frequently in coalition with the Free Democratic Party, drew many of its foundational social policies from fundamentalist Protestant movements in the post-war period. In the 1950s, both the United States and Germany dedicated government resources to the judicial disruption of queer communities. The willingness of German criminal courts to prosecute Paragraph 175 charges allowed for the German police to exercise nearly indiscriminate force when disbanding gatherings of gay men, sheltered by a hegemonic Christian culture that lambasted homosexuality. This was similar to the “vice squads” that existed in many major American cities. These vice squads patrolled known gay communities, harassing, beating, and arresting gay men. American vice squads are perhaps most famous for their raids of gay bars, and for violently breaking up hookups. However, they were also responsible for violence against gay activists, and regularly advocated against prosecuting crimes committed against gay men. Additionally, in the United States as in Germany, much of the anti-queer policies were motivated by fundamentalist Protestant values, which have been a cornerstone of American conservatism since its inception.

While continued criminal prosecution drove many queer communities in the Federal Republic underground, it is in that subversive locale that much of the post-war queer culture thrived. As has always been the case, communities of homosexual engagement, or “scenes,” existed in post-war Germany at the local level, often operating out of bars, night clubs, apartment complexes, and other community centers typically associated with urbanization. These scenes were diverse in their navigation of the post-war criminal justice system, but often shared many similarities, both with each other, and with the historic strategies of the Weimar homosexual movement. Gay men in major cities could often avoid prosecution, due to a combination of more liberal local law enforcement and a greater access to large bodies of tight-lipped gay men willing to protect one another. These communities protected themselves by owning businesses that could operate as covers for gay scenes. Additionally, these businesses served to entrench the owners and the patrons as members of a given community. The post-war liberalization of the German economy actually allowed for Hamburg bars and nightclubs to cultivate several thriving queer scenes, even rivaling Berlin as the home of German queer culture throughout the 1950s.

Similar to the patterns that can be observed during the Weimar period, gay men in post-war Germany did not face equilateral prosecution; gay men in rural communities had much smaller social support networks, and were often faced with much more harshly conservative local politics. These rural gay men, therefore, faced much more extreme scrutiny from local law enforcement, and more open violence and discrimination than their urban counterparts. Urban communities in West Germany maintained much of the Marxist social and political structures that existed in cities during the Weimar period, and could therefore rely on non-hegemonic social structures for support. Additionally, urban scenes benefited from rhetorical defenses from the budding sexual liberation movement in German cities, which often saw sexual repression and capitalist exploitation as interconnected. However, rural gay men lacked community centers amenable to their sexuality. Local homonegative policy often stemmed directly from religious institutions, including both protestant and Catholic churches. Additionally, most rural communities lacked multiple bars to differentiate queer friendly spaces from heteronormative ones, let alone access to something as metropolitan as a nightclub. That isn’t to say that gay men in rural West Germany were completely isolated; there were simply more barriers to homosexual expression in rural communities, a pattern which persists today regardless of the nation.

In urban scenes like those in Berlin and Hamburg, gay men lived lives not dissimilar from the lives of gay men in major US cities; tenuously engaging with their sexuality, working to create a meaningful career for themselves, and desperately hoping for legislative change. Albrecht Becker perhaps embodies the ideal situation for gay men in post-war West Germany. Becker volunteered for service in the German military during the war as a way of lessening his sentence after his 1941 conviction under Paragraph 175. After the Nazi Regime decommissioned him in March of 1945, after being struck by shrapnel on the Eastern Front, Becker worked as a translator for the Allied Forces until 1947. After the Allied occupation of West Germany, Becker began working as a set designer for film studios in Hamburg. He also worked in theater, and moonlit as an opera performer. Becker hid his relationships from the public, but it was well known in Hamburg that he was gay. When he was interviewed by the University of Southern California in 1997, at the age of 91, he spoke about the good fortune he had to navigate Hamburg as a gay man, but that he never ignored the plight of gay men outside of Hamburg and Berlin. Becker spent much of his life as an outspoken advocate for queer liberation, and tattooed nearly every inch of his body beneath clothes with the stories of LGBT people he encountered in his work. But Becker remained closed off about his sexuality, even in the relatively safe environment of Hamburg, until the Federal Republic decriminalized homosexuality in 1969.

When asked about the post-war period, Albrecht Becker stated that the oppression that had occurred during the Holocaust wasn’t talked about amongst the public. While the West German government had to wrestle with the legacy of the Third Reich, many common Germans simply wanted to move on and “return to normal as soon as possible.” This desire to silently step past the atrocities of the Nazi Regime extended beyond Aryan Germans who may have been complicit in the actions of the Nazi Party. As Becker notes, “everything was suppressed. Everyone was happy to go back to normal. Jews especially had had enough. They didn’t want to tell anyone that they were Jewish.” Becker goes on to suggest that many gay men felt the same. In the years immediately following the war, Becker had no desire to discuss what the Nazi Regime had done, though his attitude changed over time. In those years, Becker, and certainly many other gay men in relatively secure urban scenes, simply wanted to move on from the Nazi years. As time went on, however, many of them would go on to be artists and activists agitating for change. Perhaps the immense community trauma of Nazi persecution combined with the Federal Republic’s conservative attitudes towards homosexuality to create a period of uncertainty, fear, and silence in many of Germany’s post-war gay communities. 

The cultural homophobia of 20th Century Germany remained after the fall of the Nazi Regime. Prior to 1969, this manifested in the legal persecution motivated by Christian morality, but even after the legalization of homosexuality, homophobic rhetoric remained as gay people began campaigning for medical and legal equality, including marriage and power of attorney rights. Once again drawing on the historical strategies of German civil rights activists, and particularly the work of LGBT activists in Germany, queer folks in post-war Germany used art to advocate for themselves and agitate for change. In 1973, a transgender woman and filmmaker named Rosa von Praunheim released a film that depicted an inverse of German society. That is, she created a film in which homosexuality was the norm, and heterosexuals were a marginal and oft-forgotten population in West Germany. Her film depicted a world so different from the German norm that Der Spiegel referred to it as “bordering on caricature.” Her goal was to encourage queer people to relieve themselves of fear and boldly champion for their liberties, but it had the added effect of infuriating the heteronormative majority. Many Germans, even after the 1969 decriminalization of homosexuality, felt that homosexuals, and gay men and transgender folks in particular, needed to remain hidden, as they violate the “unwritten laws of society.” Uncritically, German reporting on von Praunheim’s film accepted the idea that queer folks will be subject to “undisguised contempt and social ostracism,” even after decriminalization. During this time, German media and national politics took the position that the actions of consenting adults should not be legislated, even if they should be held in disdain.

Real men suffered as a result of the Nazi Regime’s homonegative policy. The pain inflicted on queer communities in German occupied territory during this period cannot be overstated. These communities had their lives forced even further underground. They had their gathering places commandeered and repurposed as Nazi office headquarters and propaganda backdrops. They were arrested, interrogated, beaten, tortured, raped, and killed, all in the name of Nazi racial and social politics. Regular civilians suffered, and those who were seen as politically inconvenient were targeted with smears of homosexuality. And the vestiges of Nazi homonegativity remained beyond the collapse of the regime, even as post-war Germany took stock of many of its historic bigotries. But homosexuality was not a key issue for many Nazis. Himmler was obsessed with homosexuals as a legitimate threat to Germany, and it's clear that his whisperings influenced Hitler’s actions. Gay men were targeted by German police, the Gestapo, the SA, and the SS because it was convenient to do so. Even from its earliest days in power, the regime could act confidently, knowing that it would face little to no pushback for attacks on queer communities or on gay men specifically. Even as homosexuality was eventually decriminalized in West Germany, queer culture still relied on secrecy and underground operation, as many Germans still viewed them as a threat to society. And while the cultural homophobia of 20th Century Germany didn’t start with the Nazi Regime, the regime’s desire for a racially and socially pure Volkskörper combined with the political ease of committing homophobic violence to turn gay men into politically disposable pawns and punching bags who would continue to struggle for safety and security in a post-Nazi Germany.

[laguna-lesbian]

So.. my history exam is on tuesday and I'm Stressed with a capital S.

I'm very scared of blanking on the day, so I've decided that every evening between now and then I'm gonna share some facts relating to whatever I've learned.

Hopefully It'll help me remember and you might even learn something :)

•○•○•

(We're covering the industrial revolution in Britain, the impact of the Great War on Scotland, and the Nazis contol of 1930s Germany):

•○•○•

The first steam powered locomotive (not engine, locomotive) was invented by Richard Trevithick in 1804 for his iron works at Pennydarren (Wales). It could pull 10 tons of iron but was highly unreliable.

Munitionettes produced 80% of all weapons used by the British army over the course of WWI. By 1918 they numbered 31,500 and had gained the nickname canaries as the poisons they worked with turned their skin yellow.

Britain shipped 3.2 million tons of food to the front lines during WWI ('food priorities' which were part of the reason rationing was introduced). There was also 300,000 employed to cook or supply food to the front lines.

The Munich Putsch occurred on the 8th/9th November 1923 and saw the deaths of 16 Nazis and 4 policemen. Following the Putsch, Hitler was arrested and sentenced to 5 years in prison, although he only served 9 months. During this time he wrote his autobiography: 'Mein Kampf' which would later replace the Bible in the Reich Church.

The Swing Kids were a Nazi opposition group who defined themselves in swing culture. They partook in non violent refusal of civil order and Nazi culture. They would listen to swing music which was considered 'black' and therefore unacceptable, and wore all the latest American fashions which were seen as immodest and not inkeeping with the Nazis view of women.

[rabbitcruiser]

International Women’s Day

Mother, sisters, wives, girlfriends, and fiancees…what would we ever do without them? Nobody can honestly say we don’t owe an enormous amount to the women in our lives, from the mothers who made us chicken soup when we were sick as children, to the sisters who helped us decide what to wear on our first date, to the wives who somehow manage to juggle both a career and a family, never missing a beat. Women’s Day is all about celebrating these incredible people and showing them how much we love, respect and value them.

This holiday is perhaps especially important in parts of the world where women are still forced to deal with shocking inequality on a daily basis and is meant to raise awareness of the challenges and struggles faced by these women. Women’s Day celebrates women’s history, highlighting key events, milestones, and achievements, and aims to further promote and raise awareness of women’s rights and to achieve equal opportunity status in all walks of life.

History of International Women’s Day

It may come as a rather sad surprise that International Women’s Day was first celebrated on February 28th, 1909 in New York. Two years later, German socialist Luise Zietz proposed that the holiday become an annually observed one that would celebrate various women’s issues, such as suffrage, so as to promote equal rights for women. The first few International Women’s Days were celebrated in a quite different fashion than they are nowadays, with hundreds of demonstrations taking place in Europe. During these demonstrations, women demanded they finally be given both the right to vote and to hold public office.

Employment sex discrimination was also an important issue. In 1917, the International Women’s Day demonstrations in Saint Petersburg, Russia, helped initiate the February Revolution, when women marched through the city demanding an end to World War I. This shocked even Leon Trotsky, who, much like other Russian leaders of the day, did not expect the Women’s Day protests to cause that much of a stir. Until 1977, Women’s Day was celebrated mainly in socialist countries. It was only after the United Nations General Assembly’s decision to proclaim March 8th International Women’s Day that the holiday gained worldwide popularity.

International Women’s Day Timeline

1848 Seneca Falls Convention

The first convention held in the United States in support of Women’s Rights, this New York meeting, held in July, signaled the beginning of the Women’s Suffrage Movement.

February 28, 1909 First Women’s Day in the United States

National Women’s Day begins in the United States, prompted by a growing movement toward women’s rights. It’s organized by the Socialist Party of America and celebrated on a Sunday so working women can participate.

1910 International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen

The idea for an international day acknowledging women is brought forth by Clara Zetkin, a German political leader. This suggestion is approved by more than 100 women from 17 different countries.

1911 First International Women’s Day Observed

More than 1 million women and men throughout Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Denmark, attend various rallies.

1913 Russian Women Celebrate

Just prior to the outbreak of World War I, Russians celebrate International Women’s Day. It is agreed to celebrate annually on March 8 (by the Gregorian Calendar).

1917 Russian Women’s Day Leads to Women’s Right to Vote

Feminist demonstrations in Russia are part of a chain of events that lead to the abdication of the Czar and the Russian Revolution, ultimately resulting in the right to vote for women.

1918 Some Women in England Gain Right to Vote

Women in England over the age of 30 with property qualifications receive the right to vote (men qualify beginning at ages 19-21).

1920 American Women Earn Right to Vote

After many attempts, the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution is finally passed.

1928 England Adopts Equal Voting Rights

English women earn the same access to voting as men.

1945 United Nations Recognizes Equality

The Charger of the UN becomes the first international agreement to state equality between women and men.

1975 United Nations First Acknowledges International Women’s Day

IWD is first celebrated by the UN.

1977 UN General Assembly Adopts Women’s Day Resolution

The UN calls Member States to observe a “United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace” on any day of their choosing throughout the year.

2001 Women’s Day Goes Online

In need of a reboot after having lost momentum over the last decades of the 20th century, the International Women’s Day Movement launches online. The website helps with women’s campaigns and leads out in raising money for charities that impact equality for women.

How to celebrate International Women’s Day

There are many ways that you can go about celebrating this holiday, but all of them have a similar goal: to raise awareness about the struggles of women the world over and honor their achievements. Of course, not all achievements are huge, worldwide game-changers like women finally obtaining the right to vote—there are all sorts of other, smaller feats that women you know manage on an everyday basis that you may not pay too much attention to until you try calming 2 crying toddlers, making dinner and explaining the particulars of a newly-acquired client to your boss over the phone at the same time. This may sound ridiculously hard to pull off, but this is something thousands of women pull off every day, something that should be deeply appreciated and something that nobody should take for granted. Grand gestures aren’t necessarily required to show appreciation, either—sometimes a simple “thank you, I have no idea how you do it” is enough to lift an overworked woman’s spirits.

International Women’s Day Is Also About Women’s Rights

If you’d like to do something more, though, there is a virtually endless amount of things you can do to help improve women’s lives the world. You can attend one of the 1000+ events organized globally where you can learn about what women’s lives are like in different countries and make a donation to the event you attend. Reading books is also a great way of broadening your horizons, and biographies of women like fearless Somalian women’s rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali will definitely open your eyes and inspire you to see women’s lives and problems completely differently.

It’s no secret that women’s rights have evolved greatly. However, things could still be a lot better! People such as Malala Yousafzai, a young activist for female education in Pakistan. Her story, I am Malala, describes her fight for education as a woman in Pakistan, and the dramatic consequences of her activism. Targeted by a Taliban’s assassination, Malala was shot in 2012. She was transported to different hospitals before being rushed to the UK, where she was treated and survived her injuries. Her autobiography is an eye-opening shockwave that will make you aware of the struggles that many women continue to face. Nowadays, Malala is a student at the world famous University of Oxford in the UK!

Broadening your horizon on Women’s Day to understand the differences between countries and how women are treated in the world can offer a new appreciation for women. Let Malala’s story inspire you to attend events or support more initiatives to help women. Why not keep your eyes open for books like Malala’s autobiography that share the experience of women in different cultures?

Supporting a Woman on International Women’s Day

Have you ever stopped to consider what it means to be a woman? Aside from the biological definition, there is a lot that goes into defining, feeling, experiencing and celebrating womanhood on Women’s Day. No, it doesn’t have to be a philosophical debate about what makes a woman who she is! But in a day and age where gender issues and gender roles are being questioned, it’s only fair to broaden your perception of what a woman can be and do. The first and most important thing you need to remember is that women are sick of hearing about gender stereotypes. Therefore, Women’s Day is a day to be embraced with an open mind. Question your assumptions about what people can and can’t do based on gender. Why not support a female friend to follow her dreams?

Spend International Women’s Day With Women Who Don’t Let Conventions Define Them

What makes her a woman? Women, such as Anne Lister, have chosen to define their womanhood on their own terms. During the 19th century in England, Anne Lister, also nicknamed Gentleman Jack, took part in activities that were otherwise reserved to men and also ran typically men’s businesses. She also chose to marry another woman, and lived with her, despite not receiving any legal recognition. Gentleman Jack cultivated her free spirit without compromising, which her autobiography, Gentleman Jack, reveals.

Another autobiography that enhances the definition of being a woman is Trans, a Memoir, by Juliet Jacques. Jacques describes what it means to be a woman throughout the transitioning process. On International Women’s Day, show your full support by celebrating and embracing different perceptions of what it means to be a woman.

Spend A Day In Her Shoes On International Women’s Day

Challenges exist in different shapes. It’s something Nicole Byers, the bubbly “Nailed It” presenter on Netflix knows well. Her podcast, Why Won’t You Date Me, describes with humor her quest for love and the modern expectations that society has for women. The sweet dreams of childhood are nothing like the harsh reality, like the podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You explains. Spend the day listening to the stories of everyday women, who could be your sister, your mother, or your wife.

Source

[opedguy]

Ayatollah’s Predictable Response

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Oct. 3, 2022.--Over two weeks after the death at the hands of the Basij militia of 22-year-old Kurdish women Mahsa Amini for not wearing her hijab properly, 83-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei officially speaks out. Amini was allegedly beaten to death with a truncheon by the Basij “morality police,” for defying Iran’s strict women’s dress code.  Showing why its pure madness for the U.S. and EU to reinvent former President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iranian Nuke Deal AKA the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA], Khamenei blamed the nationwide protests over Amini’s death on the U.S. and Israel.  Like the old Nazi regime, the Jews were the cause of all Germany’s past defeats and economic woes, leading to the worst massacre in human history.  But Khamenei uses the same predicable playbook, blaming the U.S. and Israel for explosive rioting occurring in 80 cities and towns around Iran.

Iran has lingering regret over Ayatollah Ruhollah Khamenei’s 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the progressive regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Palavi, who brought Iran out of the dark ages to incorporate U.S. and EU values into Iranian society.  Women during the Shah’s reign were not required to wear head-scarves, receiving comparable treatment in education and jobs in Iranian society.  Khomenei’s Islamic Revoution turned back the clock on 100 years of progress under the Shah and his father’s rule.  So, when it comes to nationwide protests, Amini was a catalyst for the population frustrated from the oppression of strict Shiite Islamic rule.  Khamenei approved the nationwide crack down on protesters, blaming the U.S. and Israel for trying to topple the Mullah regime.  But the aging-and-sick Khamenei knows that you can only oppress a population for so long.

Iran’s nationwide protests speak volumes about a population yearning for the good old days under the Shah when Tehran was a mini-Paris, a hub of haute couture, music, art and fashionable night life, letting Iranians work and live their lives without government oppression.  While the Shah had his “secret police” to prevent an Islamic takeover, the Basij militia were not tormenting Iran’s youth for wearing lipstick or listening to Western music.  “This rioting was planned,” Khamenei said.  “These riots and insecurities were designed by America and the Zionist regime, and their employees,” putting all the blame on imaginary foreign sources. Khameni and his Mullah regime knows that the protests are against oppressive Mullah rule, where the Basij and Revolutionary Gurards protect the regime at all costs, even massacring the population when it threatens the Mullah regime.

Students at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran announced that classes had been cancelled at the start of the new term, except for doctoral students.  Revolutionary Guards used tear gas to breakup crowds of students holed up in the university protesting the death of Amini, but, more importantly, demanding human rights.  Plain-clothed Revolutionary guards surrounded the university in a show of force.  State run IRNA downplayed the crackdown at Sharif University, saying that many students had been released from detention.  German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock condemned “the regime’s brute force” at Sharif Universit, calling it “an expression of sheer fear and the power of education and freedom,  Baerbook knows her German history, the same kind of tactics used by the Nazi SS to coerce and brutalize the German people into full conformity with Hitler’s regime.

Khamenei condemned the scenes of women burning hijabs and cutting of their hair as “actions that are not normal, that are unnatural,” warning that “those that foment unrest to sabotage the Islamic Republic deserve harsh prosecution and punishment,” said Khamenei.  Iran’s spasm of nationwide rioting occurred in 1999, right before the last gasps of pro-Shah protesters were forced out of the country.  Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia tightened their grip on Iranian society, driving out residual malcontents with Mullah rule.  Over 41 deaths and at least 1,500 protesters have been arrested by plain-clothed Revolutionary Guards.  Alborz Mexami, an economic reporter, was arrested for subversive activities.  As the crack down proceeds, Iranian exiles in London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles, gathered to wave Iranian flags and protest the Ayatollah’s brutal crack down.

How ironic that most the protesters are under 25-years-of-age, never knowing in their lifetimes life before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.  Tehran-based university teacher Shaindokht Kharazimi said the new generation knows how to fight back against the Mullah regime.  “The [young protesters] have learned the strategy from video games and play to win,” said Kharazimi told the pro-reform Etemad newspapers.  “There is no such thing as defeat for them,” not knowing that periodic regime protests have gone on for over 40 years.  Kharazimi recalls the 1999 student protests when reformist President Mohammad Khatami backed the most violent street demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.   “Don’t’ call it a protest, it’s a revolution now,” students showed at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran.  Those students don’t know the Revolutionary Guard crack down currently underway.

About the Author    

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.    

[eviesessays]

2. Who are the funniest people in your family?

I was born in 1935 and those early years will not be remembered as an era  of great humor. Hitler was the dictator of Germany and head of the Nazi party.  He invaded Poland in 1939 and began his sinister extermination of nearly six million Jews.  Benito Mussolini was the Fascist dictator in Italy,  He invaded Albania in 1939.  I was entering first grade.  Mussolini died by firing squad in 1945 and he was hung upside down with his mistress in Milan for all to see. Prime Minister Winston Churchill in England was fighting for the very survival of his motherland against relentless bombing. We sat silently listening to great speeches on the radio and we prayed for outcomes, the severity of which  we scarcely knew.

I vaguely remember being taken with my brothers down to the railroad station to see King George V and Queen Mary as they stopped in Sioux Lookout on their cross Canada tour.  They were drumming up support for the war but Canada had already committed troops to many battles overseas.  We had many friends whose Dads were, “away at the war”,  Our dear neighbours, Austin and Gertie McIvor had four sons away at battle.  Ivan was in the Army and married an English war bride.  Bert and Douglas were in the Navy. Roderick, their oldest son was in the Air Force.  His plane was shot down and he is buried in France. We had a friend whose Dad came back with only one leg. At home gas was rationed, as was sugar, butter and meat. We drank powdered milk. We mixed a yellow colouring into the margarine when our butter coupons were exhausted. These were small sacrifices compared to the price some paid.

These were worrisome and trying times that required some comic relief somewhere and my Dad was a more than willing supporter of a little humor and levity.  My Mother was devoid of any sense of humor and my Dad was more than happy to compensate.  On Sundays we walked to Fasano’s Candy store and for five cents each we could pick out candy treats.  We went on to the Drug Store and got a NY newspaper that had the best funnies. Every Sunday my Dad read us, “The Teeny Weenies”.  He regaled us with fanciful stories about almost catching the Easter Bunny and he had a few tufts of hair to demonstrate how close an encounter this really was.  He once had a few whiskers from Santa’s beard.He fancied himself a great skater and taught us all to do his figure eights. He assured us that if your nose ran and your feet smelled, you were built upside down. All of his grandchildren were remarkable and in his one word description, they were all,”chubbyhealthygoodlooking” children. This was their identity until about the age of six. Once when he visited, Jaylyn came home with a new pair of dungarees which were in high fashion in high schools at the time.  When she asked my Dad if he liked them he responded, “Well I spent a lot of years hoping I would never have to wear those pants ever again. But if you like them, I like them.”  My Dad’s family were potato farmers in East Selkirk, Manitoba.  They were immigrants from Galacia escaping the Bolshevik Revolution.  On his last visit to us I met him at Logan Airport in Boston.  He walked with a limp since his last stroke.  I told him he looked like Charlie Chaplin.  He said he wished someone paid him as much to walk like that.  My Dad was a funny man.

My Dad was funny but here comes the “but”, my brother, Kip, (Clifford), was even funnier.  He saw the humor in everything.  He was different than Carl and I and later Michael and Elizabeth. He was kind and gentle.  I don’t know why he was like that but he was.  He was born in 1934 and was immediately diagnosed as a “blue baby” which was obvious from his color.  This was as scientifically advanced as Medicine was about congenital heart anomalies in Sioux Lookout in 1934.  Kip, in much later years was diagnosed with Ebsteins  anomaly in which parts of the heart are missing.  The tricuspid valve does not work efficiently.  Doctor Bell advised my mother not to send him to school’  He thought it would be too hard on his heart and he was not going to live to make use of an education..  Being a stout German woman from whom nobody was given a pass  Kip started school at age 6. I was 5 and sent along to, “watch out for him”’.  I always felt protective of Kip but over time I more than realized, he was really my rock and my redeemer.

As children we all learned to swim  We all  learned to skate.  No exceptions were made for Kip  unless being made goalie instead of a defense man  on the hockey team matters.  He curled on our High School Curling team.  He wrote the hockey news for our local paper.

When Kip was about 18 the local Rotary Club wanted to make Kip’s heart their project.  Mayo Clinic had just begun doing heart surgery and the plan was to get Kip to the Mayo and repair his heart.  He had to be seen in Winnipeg for clearance and was told there that he was not a candidate for the type of surgery now available.  He accepted this with the equanimity with which he accepted everything in his life. When I admonished him for what I thought was excessive carousing, he replied that he had to fit a lot of life in a lot less years.  When Kip turned 34 he wrote to me acknowledging that he now made it longer than Jesus Christ and added that he could never have put odds on himself.

In 1969 he had married Roberta (Bobbie) Law.  In four years they had four children. the youngest , Kim and Kent are twins.  Kip continued to work at the Imperial Bank of Canada where he began as a teller the day after we graduated from high school.. They managed to move between all the babies deliveries  Banks in Canada transfer employees as frequently as the military.  Through amalgamations the Imperial Bank now became, The Imperial Bank of Commerce of Canada.  It was from there Kip was medically retired at the age of 59.

Kip died on August 18, 2005.  He had outlived Dr Bell’s life expectancy prognostication by 50 plus years and much of it was spent laughing.  Near his end in a conversation with his cardiologist, Dr. Belands of the Heart Institute he agreed to donate his heart to the Institute and he asked only that they be certain he was done with it.  At his wake many told stories of his’ “Kipisms”.  A bank colleague told about a golf tournament at which Kip whiffed the first stroke on the first hole.. He looked  around and  exclaimed, “This really is a tough course”.  He said their dining room at home ran on pool house rules, One foot on the floor at all times.  whenever asked what he was up to he generally responded, “Oh about 6 foot 2 inches.”  He felt that the best thing about central air conditioning was that it allowed him to wear his winter clothes all year round.  About his health, he said he felt like a cat with nine lives and only wished he knew how many he had already used up.  Their neighbor, Maureen was clapping her hands at the blue jays monopolizing the bird feeder.and observed they were not deterred.  Kip said the jays thought they were getting a standing ovation.  He was once bemoaning his weight loss and described himself as a telephone pole with glasses..

I visited Kip often in that last year of his life..  When I was home in Warner, I called him frequently.  I always asked how he was and his response was always the same,  “Oh I”m 100 percent.  I just don’t know of what.”  Kip was the funniest person in our family.  I miss him dreadfully but still laugh out loud when recalling times with him.

[researchgroupreports]

Luxury Footwear Market Size, Share, Trends, Forecast 2024-2032

IMARC Group's report titled "Luxury Footwear Market Report by Product (Formal Shoes, Casual Shoes), End User (Men, Women, Children), Distribution Channel (Online, Offline), and Region 2024-2032". The global luxury footwear market size reached US$ 30.6 Billion in 2023. Looking forward, IMARC Group expects the market to reach US$ 43.0 Billion by 2032, exhibiting a growth rate (CAGR) of 3.83% during 2024-2032.

For an in-depth analysis, you can refer sample copy of the report: https://www.imarcgroup.com/luxury-footwear-market/requestsample

Factors Affecting the Growth of the Luxury Footwear Industry:

Rising Consumer Aspirations for Premium Brands: 

The luxury footwear industry is driven by the rising consumer aspirations for premium and exclusive brands. Customers are drawn to luxury footwear for its exceptional craftsmanship, quality, and prestige. Owning luxury shoes symbolizes a status and style statement. As individuals increasingly seek unique and prestigious styles, they are now more willing to invest significantly in high-end footwear, thus propelling market growth. This aspiration for luxury and exclusivity sustains demand and encourages luxury brands to innovate and expand their product offerings, thereby driving fostering market growth.

Increasing Influence of Fashion and Celebrity Endorsements: 

Fashion trends and celebrity endorsements have a substantial influence over consumer preferences in the luxury footwear market. High-profile endorsements, fashion influencers, and celebrity collaborations with luxury shoe brands can significantly shape consumers' choices. People are attracted to unique styles and brands endorsed by their fashion icons. The allure of wearing shoes seen on celebrities or featured in prominent fashion shows can lead to higher sales and innovation within the luxury footwear industry as brands strive to align with current trends and influencers.

Rapid Digital Transformation and E-commerce: 

The ongoing digital revolution, particularly the rapid growth of e-commerce and online luxury platforms, is catalyzing market growth. Consumers can now access and purchase luxury shoes from around the world with ease and convenience. This digital accessibility expands the global customer base for luxury footwear brands, making high-end products more accessible to a wider audience. The ability to offer personalized shopping experiences online further is contributing to the market growth, catering to the evolving shopping habits of modern consumers.

Leading Companies Operating in the Global Luxury Footwear Industry:

A.Testoni (Sitoy Group Holdings Ltd)

Adidas AG

Base London

Burberry

Chanel S.A. (CHANEL International B.V.)

Dr. Martens (Airwair Group Limited)

Hermès International S.A.

Lottusse - Mallorca

LVMH Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton

Prada S.p.A (LUDO srl)

Salvatore Ferragamo S.P.A.

Silvano Lattanzi srl.

Luxury Footwear Market Report Segmentation:

By Product:

Formal Shoes

Casual Shoes

Formal shoes represented the leading segment due to the rising demand for premium and stylish formal footwear for special occasions and professional settings.

By End User:

Men

Women

Children

Women accounted for the largest market shareowing to their strong affinity for luxury footwear, with a heightened focus on fashion-forward styles and trends.

By Distribution Channel:

Online

Offline

Offline represented the largest segment as it allows customers to experience the luxury and craftsmanship of high-end footwear in physical stores, offering a personalized shopping experience.

Regional Insights:

North America (United States, Canada)

Asia Pacific (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Others)

Europe (Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Russia, Others)

Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Others)

Middle East and Africa

Asia Pacific’s dominance in the luxury footwear market is attributed to the region's growing affluence, burgeoning middle class, and strong appetite for luxury goods, including high-end footwear.

Global Luxury Footwear Market Trends:

The increasing preference for premium and exclusive products among consumers seeking unique styles and exceptional craftsmanship represents the primary factor driving industry growth. Apart from this, the rising influence of celebrity endorsements, fashion influencers, and social media that boosts awareness and desire for luxury shoe brands is another major growth-inducing factor. Moreover, the rapid digital transformation of retail, particularly the rise of e-commerce and online luxury platforms that offers accessibility and convenience to a global customer base, expanding the reach of luxury footwear brands and propelling market growth. Furthermore, escalating sustainability and ethical concerns that prompt luxury footwear manufacturers to embrace eco-friendly materials and ethical production practices, aligning with the increasing environmental consciousness of consumers, is accelerating market growth.

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