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you can call me Alev

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A Woman Rebels? Gender Roles in 1930s Motion Pictures, Julie Human (2000)

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Versöhnungstheater by Max Czollek (2023)

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english translation:

Third and last example for German non-understanding: sometime during the second lockdown, me and my friend decided, half out of curiosity, half out of desperation, to discover Brandenburg. During one of these trips we went to Oranienburg, a typical destination of Old Berlin situated north of the city, with ostentatious houses, touristy restaurants, sparkling lake and an old concentration camp. Since it was spring and a weekend however, we decided to take a walk on the other side of the shore, half hoping to avoid the memorial for the KZ Sachsenhausen, half to get a better look at the architecture of the camp itself.

But before we knew it, we encountered behind the mansions, the bathing areas and the nature trail, a former satellite camp: an old bakery, a brick factory (Klinkerwerk) and a harbour, which the inmates had to build under horrendous conditions. Instead of distancing ourselves from Sachsenhausen, we walked right into a different part of the camp's area; the containment of the memorial architecture lead us astray. "Built for the production of necessary resources for the rebuilding of Berlin as Germania by Albert Speer" we read on an orphaned memorial plaque by the canal of the harbour, where nowadays new resource depots are located. The description concluded with the brief note that the SS dumped eight tonnes of human ash into the canal before the end of the war, to destroy evidence of any extermination. Eight thousand kilograms. I looked at my friend, then we looked at the canal, mentally retracing our steps to the nature trail, bathing areas, new and old mansions only a kilometre downstream. On the other side of the shore, we saw a couple men letting their fishing rods dangle in the water.

In this scene is concentrated the localisation of forgetting in the theatre of German reconcilitation. On one side the places of remembrance, the KZ memorials and Stolpersteine and plaques, on the other side the remaining social space, equally contaminated by violence but somehow simultaneously seeming untainted by this history, so that one can let their fishing rods dangle in the canal again. Eight thousand kilograms. In the remembrance architecture, violence is not only preserved, but people are safe of it. So when a Stolperstein refers to jews having lived in this house, they didn't do so on the other side of the street. When jews were deported from an abandoned train track, then the train will just roll on the other tracks. When the KZ memorial site is on the other side of the shore, I'm free to bathe on this side of the lake and so on.

If you look at the branching network of seven thousand concentration camps and satellites and ghettos, the many places of displacement and abuse and concentration, of deportation and murder, then that which our little walk was a microcosm of becomes clear: each of these small containments is a small step towards exoneration of the omnipresence of destruction and violence, which is also to say responsibility and guilt. Because if all that happened everywhere, then everyone must've gotten wind of it. The theatre of reconciliation is also there to bridge any doubts, so that we can go from the past to the present.

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Versöhnungstheater by Max Czollek (2023)

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footnote from Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes by Magnus Hirschfeld (1914), concerning asexuality (translation under the cut)

Next to these three [categories of heterosexuals, homosexuals and bisexuals] two other groups could be considered, which are occasionally mentioned in the literature: the asexuals and the monosexuals. The asexuals, of which in my assessment it has not yet been determined whether they indeed exist outside of deep-seated mental disorders, are said to exist in a state of complete sexual indifference towards any sexual imagination and be free of temptation for their whole life. This specialist experience shows that often persons which competently manage to be discreet about the deviation of their sexual orientation, and these exist in big numbers, are often assumed by their environment, including doctors, to be asexual. Namely, on the occasion of judicial assessments I heard, in consultation with close acquaintances of the accused again and again: "we thought until now, he was unpredisposed towards sensuality; we assumed he was frigid, asexual." Certainly, among these supposed asexuals there may as well be those belonging to the mentioned group of monosexuals. In this group, whose numbers and kind have also not been fully cleared-up as a category of the sexually abnormal, one's own person is not only their own object os sexual activity but the content of the sexual imagination. Kertbeny, who first used the word "monosexual" in 1869 in contrast to the term "homosexual" which he coined, in passing mentions that these are people "whose self-pollution became a chronic desire." Gustav Jaeger in his 1878 "Discovery of the Soul" speaks similarly of "monosexual idiosyncrasy" as a state in which masturbation needs no imagination of another individual. Later in 1900, in the 2nd Yearbook for Intermediate Sexual Types Prof. Jaeger published a previously unprinted chapter on homosexuality from "Discovery of the Soul," in which the anonymous informant Dr. M. describes monosexuals as "those that make do with themselves" and gives the example of "the unfortunately genius Lenau, this born onanist." I myself wrote in 1903 for the 5th Yearbook under the title "Causes and Being of Uranism" the following:

"The origins of language is often preserved through obscure terms. The word Sexus - "sex" comes from sequi - "to follow," the sexual drive originally is merely the drive to follow, to join others and therefore has an admittedly only quietly transparent psychological background of social stirring. The monosexual only follows himself; the few monosexuals I personally saw were three lonesome, self-absorbed onanists with a distinct antipathy towards both sexes, and distinguished themselves by an immense indifference not only towards all humans, but all things as well."

Rohleder cites this passage, remarking that it tracks with what he describes as multiple cases of automonosexualism, also called sexual egoism, as "a form of sex life, in which the individual alone is his start and endpoint of the sexual drive." Of other authors dealing with similar phenomena, we will briefly mention two: Havelock Ellis, who defined spontaneous sexual stirrings without (in-)direct cause by another person as auto-erotism, and Näcke, who describes examples of being in love with oneself as narcissism. Being in love with oneself can also be coloured as homo- or heterosexual; homosexual if the concerned men and women consider themselves as such; heterosexual if they are transvestites. Nonetheless, we have to admit Rohleder is correct that the reflection of the sexual drive on itself can be ascribed to neither homo- or heterosexualism, but that monosexualism is its own discrete group. In one case which I recently had the opportunity to observe, the fantasies concerned the own mirror image as incubus, wich the patient as succubus masturbated to ad ejaculationem. It is quite astonishing, how the incidental view of ones nude body during medical consultation could arouse such high sexual ecstasy.

[almanci]

Camile Pissarro's Turpitudes Sociales and Late Nineteenth-Century French Anarchist Anti-Feminism (1987) by John Hutton

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Among Women. From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World, edited by Nancy Rabinowitz & Lisa Auanger (2002); Introduction by Nancy Rabinowitz

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Türkische Studien: Die griechischen und romanischen Bestandtheile im Wortschatze des Osmanisch-Türkischen. I, Band 128, Teile 1-12, Gustav Meyer (1893)

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Melancholia Scytharum: the early modern psychiatry of transgender identification (2021) by Diederik F. Janssen

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Wolfsmenschen und nächtliche Heimsuchungen. Zur kulturhistorischen Verortung vormoderner Konzepte von Lykanthropie und Ephialtes, Nadine Metzger (2011)

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Wolfsmenschen und nächtliche Heimsuchungen. Zur kulturhistorischen Verortung vormoderner Konzepte von Lykanthropie und Ephialtes, Nadine Metzger (2011)

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Wolfsmenschen und nächtliche Heimsuchungen. Zur kulturhistorischen Verortung vormoderner Konzepte von Lykanthropie und Ephialtes (Wolf-men and nocturnal hauntings. On the cultural-historical positioning of pre-modern concepts of lycanthropy and ephialtes) by Nadine Metzger (2011)

[...] What all rationalistic explanations have in common is that they make the behaviour of historical actors comprehensible within modern categories (products of imagination, drug abuse, illness). A confrontation of historical cosmologies and meanings does not take place. This approach is characterised by its disinterest in the interpretation of the lived world by historical actors themselves, whose value comes second to modern models of explanation. It is overlooked that monocausal explanations such as hallucination or a specific illness can only be seen as superficial catalysts, as they are not suitable in approaching the diverse and rich elaboration of the wolf transformation in the sources. An understanding of the phenomenon within its cultural context is not possible this way and therefore misses the main concerns of the historian.

[...] Through his conception of lycanthropy, Markellos of Side particularly highlights this form of melancholy, in which the affected behave like wolves (or dogs). The transition of human behaviour to wolf-like madness was assigned so much relevance that it was dedicated its own unit of illness. Oreibasios, Aetios of Amida and Paulos of Aigina, which adopted Markellos' lycanthropy with only slight alterations into their own medical compendia, chose the same consciously - therefore for them too this illness must have had significance. The rather specific behavioural symptoms of lycanthropy - wolf-like behaviour, nocturnal dwelling in cemeteries and leg injuries - make it unlikely that these doctors commonly saw anyone with these symptoms. Its significance therefore needs to lie in the wider cultural background of these medical authors. Why did it makes sense in their eyes to assume a wolf-like madness? Why did the affected wander cemeteries at night? Why did the affected take themselves for wolves or dogs instead of other animals? [...]

[lmpressionismus]

America’s War on Language

by Dennis Baron

[...] The war on language was fought on two fronts, one legal, the other, in the schools. Its impact was immediate and long-lasting. German was the target, but the other “foreign” tongues suffered collateral damage. Immigrant languages in America went into decline, and there was a precipitous drop in the study of foreign languages in US schools as well.

Speak English, it’s the law

Boycotting German was the first step in the campaign, but legislating against the language quickly followed. Scribner’s was urged to publish no German titles during the war. Sheet music dealers refused to handle German songs. At least one American Berlin was renamed Liberty. Even German foods were rebranded. Just as later, during the Iraq War, French fries would become freedom fries, in the America of World War I, German fried potatoes became American fries, sauerkraut morphed into liberty cabbage, and superpatriots even caught the liberty measles.

In addition, new laws regulated the use of foreign languages. Responding to a growing sentiment that using anything but English gave aid and comfort to the enemy, the Trading with the Enemy Act (50 USC Appendix), passed in June, 1917, suppressed the American foreign-language press and declared non-English printed matter unmailable without a certified English translation.

Across the country, state and local ordinances forbade the use of foreign languages, urged immigrants to switch to English immediately, and punished those who failed to comply. On May 23, 1918, Iowa Gov. William Harding banned the use of any foreign language in public: in schools, on the streets, in trains, even over the telephone, a more public instrument then than it is today. For Harding, the First Amendment “is not a guaranty of the right to use a language other than the language of this country—the English language.”

[...]

At the federal level, Congress responded to a new wave of isolationism that was sweeping the country with the Immigration Act of 1924. The law slowed immigration from the nonanglophone countries of Europe to a trickle and denied admission to anyone from just about everywhere else (Asians were banned completely, and in the debate over the bill, Jews were singled out as particularly unassimilable). When immigration re-opened again in 1965, Americans who, after more than 40 years of “reform” simply assumed that their country had always been monolingual, reacted to the new, unfamiliar immigrant languages by declaring English endangered, attacking bilingual education, and passing new laws making English the official language of government, the workplace, and the schools. 

Speak the language of your flag

The schools opened up a second front in the Great War on foreign languages in World War I America. In 1918, the New York Times reported that as many as 25 states had already removed German from the curriculum, an action the newspaper applauded as “a matter of polity, of patriotism, of Americanism,” and “good hard common sense.”

Schools banned foreign languages from classrooms and schoolyards, promoting English not just as the best way to succeed in life, but also as the language for patriots. In 1918, the Chicago Woman’s Club launched Better American Speech Week to further this agenda. With slogans like “Speak the language of your flag”; “American Speech means American loyalty”; and “Better Speech for Better Americans,” children were encouraged to learn English, and those who already spoke the language were asked to speak it better. [...]

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excerpts from Kertbeny's "Homosexuality" by Robert Tobin, in Genealogies of Identity: Interdisciplinary Readings on Sex and Sexuality, published by Margaret Sönser Breen and Fiona Peters

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Wilhelm Hertz, Der Werwolf - Beitrag zur Sagengeschichte (1862)

In Erfurt they tell of a strange wolf that roamed a town district in the summer of 1555, embracing and cuddling the people, especially the women; it did no harm to anyone, though those that encountered him were terrified of the size of its maw.

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Wilhelm Hertz, Der Werwolf - Beitrag zur Sagengeschichte (1862)

Above we saw that calling out the christian name had a disenchanting effect; so too in this Hessian tale: A farmer's wife always presents him with meat for dinner, for a long time not saying where she was getting it from. Finally, she promised to show him under the condition that he wouldn't say her name. Together they went to a field with grazing sheep; there the woman threw a ring over herself and instantly turned into a wolf, attacked the herd and ran off with a sheep. The man stood frozen, but as he saw the shepherd and his dogs run after the werewolf and realise the danger his wife was in, he forgot his promise and called out: "Ach, Margareit!" and the wolf disappeared, in its place was the naked woman in the field.

The werewolf is also often disenchanted by mere recognition without explicit naming: A farmer encountered an old female wolf in a field. She constantly jumped at his horse to bite its neck. Her voice seemed so familiar to the farmer that he called out: "Büst Du dat, myne olle Möem odder bist Du dat nich? [Is that you, my old Ma or is it not?]" such that his own aged mother stood before him in the flesh and could not move a limb. The farmer hoisted her into his wagon and brought her home, where she died soon after. [...]

Furthermore, the werewolf is enchanted by throwing iron or steel over it. In Westphalia they call this "den Wolf, die Hexe blank maken"; during this, the werewolf's pelt explodes away from a cross-shaped mark on his forehead, and the naked human comes out of this opening. A wealthy woman close to Wolfshagen used to leave her house every night and roam the fields as a werewolf. One time the shepherd threw his pocket knife over her head and shoulders and she stood naked before him. Once upon a time, when a farmer was riding in his wagon at night, he bumped into a werewolf; immediately he bound his fire striker to his whip and threw it over the wolf's head. The latter however caught the whip, and now the farmer had to save himself by fleeing. - Whoever saves himself into a field of rye has nothing to fear from werewolves.

A werewolf can be bound, if you stick a rapier into the ground in a way where its tip points towards the werewolf; it has to stand until the hour of his transformation, when he turns back human. It can also be caught by easter wood [...]

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Wilhelm Hertz, Der Werwolf - Beitrag zur Sagengeschichte (1862)

A farmer caught a werewolf that had broken into his sheep pen, so that the entire night he had to stand in front of the house with a sheep in his mouth. Come next morning, the farmer opened his front window and said: "Neighbour, that sheep is 24 bucks; if you'll send me that much, you can take the sheep with you." The wolf nodded with its head and left. In the following night, he put 24 bucks enveloped in a slip of paper in front of the farmer's door, but as retaliation broke into the sheep pen again and choked every sheep without taking even one.

A hunter shot a wolf's back with his rifle and instantly, a pelt-wearing woman stands before him and pleads with a trembling voice: "O dear hunter Mardä, why are you shooting me today? Didn't I send you cakes for carnival (Fastnacht) just three days ago."

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Neighbour to Livonia and Estonia, the island Swedish on Oesel, Dagö, Runö and Worms, talk as well of man-wolves, folkwargar, but claim that they can not be found among the Swedish. They have a special word for female werewolves - wargkelng (wolf-hag, old norse kerling, crone). Under Newe lived such a woman, who would roll around on the ground and rise as a wolf; then she would run into a herd, pick a fat sheep or a good lamb and drag it home to devour it. On the floor she had a wealth of sheep and ram hides. Once upon a time, her brother, who lives a couple hundred steps away from her, noticed a wolf carrying away a sheep, ran home to get his rifle, but failed to find the wolf again. Right after, he visited his sister and found the robbed sheep dead in her hands. Finally, she confessed her bad deed and promised to never do it again.

Wilhelm Hertz, Der Werwolf (1862)

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A merchant in Reval was turned into a wolf by a farmer after a dispute during a salt purchase. After two years, an Estonian farmer and his wife went out to mow their hay before sitting down for lunch. A wolf appeared nearby, who did not look dangerous but rather sad, approaching slowly and deferently to look up at their meal. The woman said: "Look how sad this forest creature is looking up at us! Give him a piece of bread!" The farmer stuck a piece of bread on the tip of his knife to reach over to the wolf, who greedily grabbed the knife out of his hands and ran back into the woods. There, he ate the bread and instantly turned back into a man, as he was bewitched in a way where a piece of bread that a human gave him in pity would return his human form. Later, with the help of the knife, he found his beneficiary and rewarded him generously.