States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany

by Samuel Clowes Huneke

States of Liberation traces the paths of gay men in East and West Germany from the violent aftermath of World War II to the thundering nightclubs of present-day Berlin. In this groundbreaking account of male homosexuality in Cold War Germany, Samuel Clowes Huneke uncovers how the history of gay persecution and liberation continues to shape life in reunified Germany today.

Following a captivating cast of characters, from gay spies and Nazi scientists to queer politicians and secret police bureaucrats, States of Liberation tells the remarkable story of how the two German states persecuted gay men – and how those men slowly, over the course of decades, won new rights and created new opportunities for themselves in the heart of Cold War Europe. Relying on untapped archives in Germany and the United States as well as oral histories with witnesses and survivors, Huneke reveals that communist East Germany was in many ways far more progressive on queer issues than democratic West Germany.

States of Liberation fundamentally argues for a more nuanced understanding of gay liberation and its relationship to democracy and dictatorship in the modern world.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT, Germany, Gay

352 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2022

About the author

Samuel Clowes Huneke is a historian of modern Europe, with a focus on the social and political history of twentieth-century Germany. He is broadly interested in how everyday life intersects with and shapes the relationships between citizens and states. His research foci include the history of gender and sexuality, legal history, and the history of dictatorship and democracy. Dr. Huneke received a B.A. summa cum laude in German and Mathematics from Amherst College, an M.Sc. with Distinction in Applicable Mathematics from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in History from Stanford University. He is current an assistant professor of history at George Mason University.

Reviews

[Clayton Whisnant]

Huneke's States of Liberation presents material on East Germany that is entirely new and fascinating, and the author’s labor at intertwining the histories of gay liberation in East and West Germany is thought-provoking and informative. I am thoroughly impressed with the historian’s archival research and the impressive number of interviews that he was able to collect. The book is also path-breaking insofar as it covers the 1970s and 1980s, two decades that are only now being researched by a new generation of gay historians.

[Alexandra]

This is the most balanced treatment of queer liberation I have read, it made historical contingency feel fresh again