Volkswartbund

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The Volkswartbund (VWB) was an association in Germany affiliated to the Roman Catholic Church , with its headquarters in Cologne , which saw itself committed to the fight against violations of public morality and had up to 80 local groups. The main concern was indexing in the mass media such as in the press, books or films. The chairman was appointed by the Archbishop of Cologne. General secretary and extremely active in the work of the association was Michael Calmes from 1927 until his death in 1958 . He was particularly influential in the Adenauer era ; At the end of the 1960s, the association lost its importance.

History and direction

The Volkswartbund was founded in 1927 and went back to the "Cologne Men's Association to Combat Public Immorality", which was founded in 1896 by the central politician Hermann Roeren . Other sources name the nationwide association "Catholic Association for Combating Public Immorality" founded in 1898. The organ of the association was Der Volkswart from 1908 to 1932 , then communications of the Volkswartbund until 1943 . In the mid-1960s it had around 3,000 members.

He fought homosexuality in pamphlets, books and lectures (cf. § 175 ). According to the historian Sybille Steinbacher , the content- related orientation was nationally oriented before 1945, combined military ability with morality and was characterized by anti-Semitic and anti-modernist elements. There was also close cooperation with Nazi authorities. According to the theologian and historian Christoph Kösters , their own work was sometimes presented in the club's journal as " völkisch inflated". In September 1951, the Bonn District Court Judge Richard Gatzweiler published his first pamphlet on the subject of homosexuality in the Volkswartbund, in which he called for a tightening of the procedure and the criminal liability of female homosexuality and justified with the biblical metaphor “But what can one do with a tree that the Fertility has failed? ”. Sometimes homosexuals were defamed as "Moscow's new guard" in the Cold War of the Adenauer era.

In addition, the Volkswartbund turned against nudity and naturism . He litigated Richard Ungewitter for years. Other goals of his “struggle for morality and decency” were people like Beate Uhse , books like Katz und Maus and films like Die Sünderin . The lawsuits he initiated and the strenuous lawsuits he initiated have made a significant indirect contribution to the delimitation and maintenance of freedom of the press and freedom of expression as well as civil rights in the young Federal Republic.

The Volkswartbund observed the magazine, film and book market and, as it was not entitled to apply, supplied the interior ministries of the federal states with elaborated indexing applications. In 1951 it was subtitled with "Bishop's Office for Questions of Popular Morality", which transferred the Fulda Bishops ' Conference to 'above all the perception of literary youth protection and the fight against public immorality'. Between 1959 and 1962, the VWB initiated 271 indexing applications at the Federal Testing Office for writings harmful to young people , 91 of which led to indexing.

According to his own information, he had checked 593 novels and educational publications and 26 journals, magazines, films and series of pictures by then. His general secretary Friedrich Weyer formulated this with the words: “With the claim to be art”, a literary genre penetrates the German book market, which “aims to tear down social taboos, to lead a 'morbid' moral order ad absurdum, and finally as disguised pornography to advance to a bestseller ”and cited examples such as Lady Chatterley by DH Lawrence, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and La Nola by Alberto Moravia , which he called“ abdominal literature ”. In addition, magazines and magazines, nude films from France and Scandinavia as well as mail-order companies whose assortment also included sex-hygienic articles are recommended ; but also satire directed against them, for example the pardon targeted by the Volkswartbund.

From 1965 the VWB published the magazine Concepte . In 1971 he named himself - already meaningless and detached from the Catholic Church - to "Central Office for Questions of Social Ethics and Social Hygiene eV", then to "Central Office for Social Ethics" without clearly naming his origin. The public recognition as a provider of free youth welfare was canceled in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2014.

literature

  • Black longing . In: Der Spiegel . No. 43 , 1962, pp. 48 ( Online - Oct. 24, 1962 ).
  • The work of the Volkswartbund u. a. in: Sybille Steinbacher : How sex came to Germany. The struggle for morality and decency in the early Federal Republic. Munich, Siedler 2011, ISBN 978-3-88680-977-6

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Volkswartbund: Black Longing of October 24, 1962: In Der Spiegel 43/1962; accessed on May 31, 2019
  2. ↑ Horst, Ernst: The naked and the raging. - Munich, 2013. - Chapter "The dirt and trash law of 1953 and the Volkswartbund"
  3. ↑ a b c d Katharina Ebner: Religion in Parliament: Homosexuality as a subject of parliamentary debates in the United Kingdom and in the Federal Republic of Germany (1945–1990) ; Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 2018, pp. 133f. online in google books
  4. ↑ Watch on the Rhine ; Der Spiegel 25/1964 of June 17, 1964; online , accessed May 31, 2019
  5. ↑ Joanna Gotzmann: The Volkswartbund. The episcopal office for questions of popular morality in the fight against homosexuals , in: Balser et al. (Ed.), "Heaven and Hell", The Life of Cologne Homosexuals 1945–1969, Cologne 1995, pp. 169–183.
  6. ↑ Gottfried Lorenz: Richard Gatzweiler . On the occasion of the guided tour through the exhibition "Persecution of Homosexuals in Hamburg" (Hamburg State Library) on February 25, 2007.
  7. ^ Andreas Pretzel: Nazi Victims with Reservation: Homosexual Men in Berlin after 1945. Lit Verlag, Berlin / Hamburg / Münster 2002, ISBN 3-8258-6390-5 , p. 306 f.
  8. ↑ Germany Archive 2018 of the Federal Agency for Civic Education ; accessed on June 1, 2019
  9. ^ Arnd Krüger : There goes this art of manliness. Journal of Sport History 18: 1, 135-159 (1991);  http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH1991/JSH1801/jsh1801i.pdf on . 19th February 2017.
  10. ↑ Prof. Sybille Steinbacher: How sex came to Germany, chap. 1; Film, 2011: Beate Uhse - The right to love
  11. ↑ Irene Ferchl in: Ed. Michael Kienzle u. Dirk Mende. Censorship in the Federal Republic. Munich: Heyne Verlag, 1981. p. 265
  12. ↑ Sinja-Mareike Busche: The development of youth media protection in Germany. Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-89913-457-5 , p. 133.
  13. ↑ Ministerialblatt for the State of North Rhine-Westphalia ; P. 235 - No. 13 of May 7, 2014; on-line