Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

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Karl Heinrich Ulrichs
Memorial plaque on Magnus-Hirschfeld-Ufer, in Berlin-Moabit

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (born August 28, 1825 in Westerfeld, today Kirchdorf district in Aurich ( East Friesland ); † July 14, 1895 in L'Aquila , Italy ) was a German lawyer , journalist , publisher , writer , pioneer of sexology and one of the first known pioneer for the legal equality of homosexuals .

He researched and published about same-sex love, which he called "Uranism", and promoted the possibility of marriage between two men , which he called "Urnian marriage". The made-up word “homosexual” did not yet exist at that time. He also publicly and confidently confessed to his disposition, which was an unheard-of process in his time and not without danger due to the threat of criminal prosecution. Volkmar Sigusch called him the "first gay man in world history".

At the German Juristentag in Munich in 1867, he publicly called for the impunity of same-sex sexual acts for the first time in a speech, as these were based on a natural disposition, which led to tumultuous scenes among the audience and his speech to be broken off. Ulrichs is considered an early pioneer and fighter of today's lesbian and gay movement , but remained an outsider with his ideas and demands during his lifetime. Instead of the desired liberalization, he had to witness the increasing state repression against homosexuals after the German Empire was founded in 1871, which is why he went into exile in Italy in 1880, disappointed . After his death, parts of his scientific theories on sexuality were taken up by other pioneers in sex science such as Magnus Hirschfeld . Largely forgotten for more than 100 years after his death, his work and his person have been enjoying increasing recognition in sex science and the lesbian and gay movement for several years.

Live and act

From 1844 to 1846 he studied theology and jurisprudence at the University of Göttingen - there he first joined the fraternity community in 1844 , then the fraternities Al (l) emannia (1845) and Hercynia (1845/46) - then until 1848 he studied history at the University of Berlin , dissertation (in Latin) on the Peace of Westphalia . When he was a court assessor in Hildesheim in 1854 , an investigation was initiated against him because, according to a rumor, he was "indulging in unnatural lust with other men". Although homosexuality was not criminalized in the Kingdom of Hanover , there were public annoyances associated with it (Section 276 of the Criminal Law for the Kingdom of Hanover). Ulrichs then immediately left the civil service and settled in Burgdorf as a lawyer in 1856 . In 1859, however, the Higher Appeal Court in Celle issued an occupational ban after relevant investigations by the ministry. Ulrichs made his way as a journalist (among other things as a correspondent for the famous Allgemeine Zeitung of the publisher Johann Friedrich Cotta ), as a private secretary and with foreign language lessons. Ulrichs was considered one of the best Latin connoisseurs of his time.

Grave of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in L'Aquila (white plate next to the tomb of the Persechetti family)

In 1864 Ulrichs published the first of a total of 12 researches on the riddle of male-male love that were banned in some German states. In them Ulrichs put forward the hypothesis of the female soul in the male body. He called same-sex love uranism (the term homosexuality was first coined in 1869 by the Austro-Hungarian writer Karl Maria Kertbeny ). Ulrichs publicly known himself as Urning . He assumed a natural, non-pathological disposition and therefore demanded the impunity of homosexual acts. Through this research and publications he became one of the pioneers of the then still nascent sexual science .

In 1867 he made this demand publicly for the first time: At the German Juristentag in Munich in front of 500 members, however, it called out tumultuous scenes in which his speech was lost. Ulrichs was proud of this performance and later wrote:

"Until my death I will consider it to my credit that on August 29, 1867 in Munich I found the courage in me to face a thousand-year-old, many thousand-headed, furious-looking hydra that made me and my fellow naturalists [meaning: homosexual men] has only been too long, sprayed with poison and drool, drove many to suicide, their happiness in life poisoned everyone. Yes, I am proud that I found the strength to give the Hydra of public contempt a first lance thrust. "

The sexologist Volkmar Sigusch called Ulrichs the “first gay in world history” because of this conscious “ coming out ” and his self-confident attitude . With his demand for an urnian marriage and his idea for an Urnings union , he anticipated the demands of an emancipatory lesbian-gay civil rights movement.

In L'Aquila, the square in front of the castle was named after Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

Mainly because of the increasingly rampant persecution of homosexuals after the founding of the empire under Prussia (see § 175 ), but also bitter and resigned because of his unsuccessfulness, Ulrichs went into exile in Italy in 1880 and settled in Naples .

In Italy he published a small magazine called “Alaudae” ( larks ) to which friends of Latin subscribed on several continents . In it he pursued a new idealistic goal: the revival of the Latin language as the lingua franca of the humanistically educated. In June 1883 he moved to L'Aquila, where he died twelve years later. His grave has become a destination for spiritually interested homosexuals.

Urnings and dionings

Title page of the Uranus magazine published by Ulrichs , 1870.

Because the expressions used up to now for the representatives of the third sex seemed too negative to him, Ulrichs introduced his own terms. His terminology was based on Pausania's speech in Plato's Symposium (Chapters 8 and 9), which introduces two forms of the goddess of love Aphrodite : Ulrichs called the heterosexual man Dioning - after the goddess Aphrodite Dionea, who had Zeus as father and Dione as mother thus represented opposite sex love. The gay man called Ulrich as urning - after the goddess Aphrodite Urania , which according to the legend of severed body parts of her father Uranus arose represented so unisexual love. Ulrichs' system also included the term Urninde for a homosexual woman .

Ulrichs was convinced that the Urninge and the Dioninge were of different natures and therefore the expression "unnatural fornication" was not applicable to love between Urningen. In Ulrich's opinion, the love between two Urningen was highly ethical, because it allows the two individuals to develop according to their nature. In his writings, Ulrichs also discussed the question of a marriage between an Urning and a Dioning and to what extent this was ethically justifiable.

Due to his publications, Ulrichs received many correspondence and became known through the extensive and extensive correspondence with those affected, also with different degrees and varieties of same-sex tendencies. Because of this, he developed his theory further and finally came to a kind of intermediate level theory, which was later taken up by Magnus Hirschfeld (who was still able to talk to Ulrichs' sister Ulrike about it). He wrote: “The sexual dualism, which without exception is present in the germ in every human individual, is only expressed in hermaphrodites and Uranians to a greater degree than in the common man and woman. In the Uranian it is only expressed in a different way than in the hermaphrodite. "

Urningsbund

In his draft of the "Statutes for the Urningsbund", Ulrichs stated under "Purposes":

“A) to tear the urnings out of their previous isolation and to unite them into a solidarity-bound compact mass.
b) To defend the innate human rights of the Urnings vis-à-vis public opinion and the organs of the state, namely to vindicate them on the same level as the Dionings before the law and in human society in general.
c) to found an Urnish literature.
d) To promote suitable Urnish scripts for printing at federal expense.
e) to work for the purposes of the urnings in the daily press.
f) to assist the individual Urningen, who have to endure because of their uranism, in every need and danger, and if at all possible to help them to a suitable position in life. "

Honors

Italian LGBT activists at a memorial service for Ulrichs' birthday at his grave, August 2009.
Signs for Karl-Heinrich-Ulrich-Platz in Aurich, erected at the first local CSD on August 30, 2014
Unveiling of the Ulrichs memorial plaque on December 2nd, 2016 at the house of the superintendent in Burgdorf (near Hanover)
The plaque
  • The city of Aurich, where Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was born today, hosted Heinz-Werner Windhorst (Mayor of Aurich) and Sebastian Schulze (Mayor of Aurich Mitte) as well as Minister of Social Affairs Cornelia Rundt (patron of CSD Aurich) on August 30, 2014 the first local Christopher Street Day a place named after Karl Heinrich Ulrichs.
  • On May 17, 2015, a square in downtown Frankfurt on Weißadlergasse was named after Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Nearby is the Free German Hochstift, which Ulrichs banned from its walls 150 years ago.
  • In 2015, the Dreiecksplatz located in the south district at the intersection of Lehenstrasse and Filderstrasse was named Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Platz in Stuttgart .
  • In 2016 a memorial plaque for Ulrichs was unveiled by Superintendent Sabine Preuschoff-Kleinschmidt at the Superintendent's house at Spittaplatz 3 in Burgdorf (near Hanover).

Exhibitions

  • 4th July to 15th September 2000: ' Karl Heinrich Ulrichs on his 175th birthday: Life - Work - Effect'. Exhibition location in the Sub - Schwules Kommunikation- und Kulturzentrum München eV (accessed: April 2, 2019). Organizer: Munich Ulrichs Comité c / o Wolfram Setz , Munich in cooperation with the Forum Homosexuality and History eV, Rosa Liste eV and SUB eV: Birthday party on August 26th, 2:00 pm at Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Platz and then to the gay street festival of the SUB eV in the Hans-Sachs-Straße. The exhibition was accompanied by a series of lectures: ' The history of homosexualities and the gay identity at the turn of the millennium' in the Café Regenbogen of the Münchner AIDS-Hilfe eV on July 6th by Gerd Hekma (Amsterdam): The bourgeois society and its sexual outsiders ; on July 13th by Volkmar Sigusch (Frankfurt): Karl Heinrich Ulrichs - The first gay in world history ; on July 20 by Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller (Hamburg): From the 'silent sin' to the 'disappearance of homosexuality' ; on July 27th by Dirck Linck (Hanover): ' The literature and the outsiders - The outsiders and the literature'; on August 3rd by Jörg Hutter (Bremen): ' On the benefits and disadvantages of history for (today's) homosexuals'; on August 24 by Michael Lombardi-Nash (Jacksonville, Florida): ' Karl Heinrichs Ulrichs und Amerika' ; on September 7th by Bert Thinius (Berlin): ' Outsiders in socialism. Historical review of (not) a discussion ' and on September 14th by Martin Dannecker (Frankfurt):' The ordinary homosexual on the threshold of the new millennium? ' The exhibition and lecture series were supported by the Cultural Office (accessed: April 2, 2019) of the City of Munich.
  • 7th to 25th May 2015: ' Exclusion of a gay person - Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and the Free German Hochstift' in the arcade hall of the Frankfurt Goethe-Haus Free German Hochstift in Frankfurt am Main. According to the press release, 'the exhibition [...] was curated by the manuscript department of the Free German Hochstift'. online . (PDF file accessed: April 2, 2019). The exhibition was accompanied by a special event on the renaming of the street on May 17th by the local council 1 of the city of Frankfurt. online (accessed: April 2, 2019).

Fonts

  • Fori reconventionis origines et doctrina ("Origins and teaching of the jurisdiction of the counterclaim"), Göttingen 1846 ( online )
  • Pax Westphalica quid constituerit de principum jure reformando religionisque exercitio subditorum? (Study on the Peace of Westphalia, 1848, unprinted)
  • The German post-principality, otherwise imperial direct: now federal direct. In: Archives for the Public Law of the German Confederation 4, no. 2, 1861 (on the postal monopoly of Thurn and Taxis)
  • The Nassau-Taxis postal contract and the Braun application , Gießen 1861 (on the postal monopoly of Thurn and Taxis)
  • Greater German program and solution to the Greater German problem , Frankfurt am Main 1862
  • Araxes. Call for the liberation of the Urning nature from the criminal law , 1870
  • On Bienchen's wings. A flight around the globe in epigrams and poetic images , Leipzig 1875
  • Apicula Latina. Latin student songs , Leipzig 1880
  • Sailor stories. Sulitelma. Atlantis. Manor. The monk of Sumbö , Leipzig 1885
  • Cupressi. Carmina in memoriam Ludovici II regis Bavariae , Berlin 1887
  • Gladius furens , 1868
  • Uranus - journal for the interests of Uranism (planned as a monthly journal, only 1 issue under the title Prometheus - No. X below - published)
  • Alaudae , 1889–1895 (Lerchen, "a small entertainment book for educated people with Latin knowledge", 33 consecutively paginated editions with a total of 388 pages)
    [Reprint with an introduction by Wilfried Stroh , Männerschwarm, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-935596-52-9 ]
  • Research on the Enigma of Man-Male Love
    [Links to online editions on Wikisource; Annotated new edition in 4 volumes (= library rosa Winkel Vol. 7-10), ed. Hubert Kennedy, Verlag rosa Winkel, Berlin 1994 ISBN 3-86149-025-0 ; Vol. 1: Letters and I – V, ISBN 3-86149-026-9 ; Vol. 2: VI-VII, ISBN 3-86149-027-7 ; Vol. 3: VIII-IX, ISBN 3-86149-028-5 ; Vol. 4: X – XII and Der Urning und seine Recht , ISBN 3-86149-029-3 ]
    • I. Vindex , 1864 ("Defender"; under a pseudonym; 2nd edition with a foreword by Magnus Hirschfeld, Max Spohr, Leipzig 1898)
    • II. Inclusa , 1864 ("The included"; under a pseudonym)
    • III. Vindicta , 1865 ("Vengeance"; under a pseudonym)
    • IV. Formatrix , 1865 ("She [nature] who creates"; under a pseudonym)
    • V. Ara spei , 1865 ("Refuge of Hope"; under a pseudonym)
    • VI. Gladius furens , 1868 ("the wild sword", → Gladius (weapon) )
    • VII. Memnon , 1868 (→ Memnon (Mythology) ; 2 volumes: 1st department & 2nd department)
    • VIII. Incubus , 1869 (→ Incubus (demon) , a nightmarish night-active demon)
    • IX. Argonauticus , 1869 (→ Argonautensage )
    • X. Prometheus , 1870 (→ Prometheus , friend and founder of human culture, fire bringer)
    • XI. Araxes , 1870 (→ Araxes , name of a river)
    • XII. Critical Arrows , 1879

Posthumous compilations

  • Manor. A novella . Verlag Rosa Winkel, Berlin 1995.
  • Wolfram Setz (Ed.): Sailor stories and poems. A reading book (= library rosa Winkel , vol. 18). Verlag Rosa Winkel (now at Männerschwarm), Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-86149-070-6 (literary by Ulrichs)
  • Wolfram Setz (Ed.): Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in honor. Materials on life and work . Verlag Rosa Winkel (now at Männerschwarm), Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86149-107-9 (previously scattered documents)
  • Wolfram Setz (Hrsg.): Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: Auf Bienchens Flügeln. Männerschwarm, Hamburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-86300-073-8 ( reading sample ; PDF).

literature

  • Robert M. Beachy : The German Invention of Homosexuality . In. The other Berlin . The invention of homosexuality. A German story 1867–1933. From the English by Hans Freundl and Thomas Pfeiffer. Siedler, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-8275-0066-3 , pp. 25–78.
  • Rainer Hoffschildt
    • under the pseudonym Rudolf Schildt: "The end of a career. Removal of the office assistant Ulrichs from the civil service because of unnatural lust ". In: Capri. Journal for gay history (Berlin), No. 6, 4/1988, pp. 24–33, ISSN  1431-8024
    • Karl Heinrich Ulrichs - a pioneer of the homosexual movement . In: Olivia. The hitherto secret history of the taboo homosexuality and the persecution of homosexuals in Hanover . Association for research into the history of homosexuals in Lower Saxony, Hanover 1992, self-published, ISBN 3-9802909-0-5 , pp. 17-21
  • Hubert Kennedy :
    • The Life and Works of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Pioneer of the Modern Gay Movement
      German: Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. His life and his work
    • Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: 1825–1895 , in: The European Gay Review , No. 1, 1986, pp. 70–74 ( online ; PDF; 68 kB)
    • Karl Heinrich Ulrichs , in: Rüdiger Lautmann (Ed.): Homosexuality. Handbook of Theory and Research History , Frankfurt am Main and New York 1993, pp. 32–38.
    • Ulrichs, Karl Heinrich , in: Biographisches Lexikon für Ostfriesland , 1997 ( online )
    • First Theorist of Homosexuality , in: Vernon Rosario (Ed.): Science and Homosexualities , Routledge, New York 1997, pp. 26–45 ( online ; PDF; 163 kB)
    • Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Pioneers del moderno movimento gay. Introduction: Massimo Consoli. Translation: Roberto Cruciani. Massari Editiore. Bolsena (Italy). 2005 ISBN 88-457-0211-1
    • Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, an Early Advocate of Peace and Equality (unprinted, online )
  • Wolfram Setz (ed.): New finds and studies on Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (= library pink angle , vol. 36). MännerschwarmSkript, Hamburg, 2004, ISBN 3-935596-36-7 (articles often refer to Kennedy)
  • Wolfram Setz (Ed.): The history of homosexualities and gay identity at the turn of the millennium. A lecture series on the occasion of the 175th birthday of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (= library rosa Winkel , vol. 25), MännerschwarmSkript, Hamburg, 2000, ISBN 3-86149-106-0
  • Volkmar Sigusch : Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. The first gay in world history (= library rosa Winkel , vol. 21). Verlag Rosa Winkel (now at Männerschwarm), Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86149-105-2
  • Volkmar Sigusch: Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–1895) . In: Volkmar Sigusch, Günter Grau (Hrsg.): Personal Lexicon of Sexual Research . Campus, Frankfurt and New York 2009, ISBN 978-3-593-39049-9 , pp. 706-715
  • NN : Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. “The first gay man in world history.” In: Burgdorfer Köpfe , guide to the exhibition of the same name in the KulturWerkStadt from April 25 to June 28, 2015, publisher: Verkehrs- und Verschönerungs-Verein Burgdorf eV (VVV) with the city of Burgdorf, Burgdorf , 2015, pp. 36-40

Web links

Wikisource: Karl Heinrich Ulrichs  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Karl Heinrich Ulrichs  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Read Ulrichs

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b Hans-Martin Lohmann: History of Sexuality - Thought of Contradiction (book review: Volkmar Sigusch, History of Sexual Science, Campus, 2008), Frankfurter Rundschau Online, version of June 18, 2008 12:15
  2. ↑ Michael Hirschler: De Carolo Henrico Ulrichs qui magis fecit quam ut revivisceret lingua Latina . In: Melissa. Folia perenni Latinitati dicata . tape 192 , 2016, ZDB -ID 1252311-2 , p. 8-9 .
  3. ↑ a b c Volkmar Sigusch : Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, The first gay person in world history. Swarm of Men, 2000, ISBN 978-3861491057
  4. ^ Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume II: Artists. Winter, Heidelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-8253-6813-5 , pp. 699–701.
  5. ↑ Ernst August Gries: Progreß-Burschenschaft Hercynia Göttingen , 1845–1867 / 68, Koblenz 2014, p. 27, from: www.burschenschaftsgeschichte.de
  6. ↑ Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: "Gladius furens": the natural riddle of Urningsliebe and the error as a legislator: a provocation to the German Juristentag. sixth book on male-male love. Max Spohr, 1898
  7. ↑ Pirmin Meier : The Holy Father Francis spoke the word of the year. Central Switzerland on Sunday , July 14, 2013, p. 7 ( online (PDF; 278 kB) on the Internet portal for elections and voting in the canton of Lucerne)
  8. ↑ Ulrichs, KH (1994 [written 1862, published 1899]): Four letters from Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (Numa Numantius) to his relatives. In: Kennedy, H. (1994): Research on the riddle of male-male love. In 4 volumes. Volume 1. Verlag Rosa Winkel, Berlin.
  9. ^ Voss, H.-J. (2011): Gender: Against Naturalness. Butterfly, Stuttgart.
  10. ^ Hubert Kennedy: Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: Life and Work. Swarm of Men Script, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-935596-27-8
  11. ^ Ceremonial act for the renaming of Einestrasse to Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Strasse , press release No. 655 of the Tempelhof-Schöneberg District Office of December 18, 2013, accessed May 29, 2014
  12. ^ Berliner Zeitung: Berlin-Tiergarten: Einestrasse becomes Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Strasse. Retrieved on July 13, 2020 (German).
  13. ↑ http://www.oz-online.de/-news/artikel/125694/Ort-fuer-den-Schwulen-Vorkaempfer
  14. ^ Queer.de: Frankfurt am Main gets Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Platz
  15. ↑ Mayor Wölfle inaugurates Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Platz in the south of Stuttgart. In: stuttgart.de. City of Stuttgart, July 14, 2015, accessed on July 14, 2015 .
  16. ↑ All events, dates and information were taken from a postcard from the 'Münchner Ulrichs Comité' from 2000.
personal data
SURNAME Ulrichs, Karl Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Numantius, Numa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and LGBT human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1825
PLACE OF BIRTH Westerfeld , Aurich (Friesland)
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1895
Place of death L'Aquila , Italy