The Prelude
In Bielefeld, on November 30, 1972, the “Initiativgruppe Homosexualität Bielefeld” (IHB) was founded, with the aim of educating the public about homosexuality among other goals. One of its founders was the gay activist Detlef Stoffel, who today is also known to a broad audience through the documentary “Detlef – 60 Years of Being Gay” (2012). A few years ago I interviewed Detlef Stoffel and, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the group’s founding on November 30, 2022, I published an article here on TheColu.mn. In that piece I already touched on how Detlef Stoffel looks back on this action with the high school newspaper.
In September 1974 the IHB approached the editors of several student newspapers to inform readers about homosexuality through their own contributions, and they were met with mixed responses. Thus, in the Bochum student newspaper “Kaktus” in February 1975 and in the Bielefeld student newspaper “Alternative” in February or March 1975, there appeared fairly similar and open-minded articles about the IHB’s work. Also in the Bielefeld student newspaper “ff” (circulation: 2,000 copies), in issue 9 (October 1975), an emancipatory article appeared, which, however, led to a wide scandal, something the IHB later documented well. The piece consisted of two parts: an information text and an accompanying comic.
The Text “Sex Is Fun”
In the article “Sex Is Fun — Or How Free Are We, Really?” four pages described the social situation in Germany and asked, among other things: “To what extent does more sex contribute to the liberalization of sexuality?” Gay people “want to leave their ghetto of gay bars and parks and, like others, be able to show their feelings naturally, without being laughed at, driven away, or beaten.” The IHB championed this demand, arguing that homosexuality is “not a disease, but another form of health.” The article ends with the assertion that every person should engage with sexuality. “There are many possibilities for active protest.” It also pointed readers to the IHB meetings.
The text was written by Joachim Bartholomae, who in 1975 was a student and district student representative in Bielefeld. He knew Detlef Stoffel, among others, through the university Film Club Detlef ran. Moreover, Joachim was friends with a girl who lived in a shared apartment where the IHB regularly hung out. It would be more than three years before Joachim would come out. Many years later, he would found the Hamburg bookstore and the publishing house “Männerschwarm” with others.
The Science-Fiction Comic about the Year 2000
Bartholomae’s text was complemented by a two-page science-fiction comic, “Gay Liberation,” which tells a story set in the year 2000: The world is overpopulated. All heterosexuals are persecuted and must hide in “dark corners, restrooms, or parks to be able to have sex.” But the oppressed heterosexuals will not stand for this, and they bravely fight for their rights. They demonstrate publicly with banners such as “I am happy and heterosexual.” It is emphasized: “Heterosexuality could also be part of sexuality.” And finally, “love triumphed over the law.”
Detlef Stoffel had previously brought Len Richmond’s book “The Gay Liberation Book” (1973, a portion of which is online here) from the United States and translated the included comic into German, which he believed, due to its irony and reversal of reality, was suitable to illuminate the current situation of gay people in Germany as well. For him, the ensuing scandal was “a prime example of how, from a conservative perspective, a discussion should be suppressed and how one can respond to it. It is interesting how long and how extensively it was publicly reported.”
The Reactions of the “Neue Westfälische”
The IHB collected and documented many newspaper articles that spoke out against the comic’s content and that apparently did not grasp the irony. I will here focus on the Bielefeld-based daily “Neue Westfälische” (NW), whose coverage stood out for its particularly negative tone.
First appeared an article with the headline “Comics about Homosexuality ‘an outright filth’ ” (October 13, 1975). A few weeks later the paper followed up: under the headline “Against the Abuse of Youth: ‘Poor Devils Deserve Sympathy'” (November 7, 1975) the editor invited Emanuel Bernart (retired head of Bielefeld’s Pestalozzischule) to share his views. He referred to biology and the protection of marriage and family. Bernart called “the homos,” as they called themselves, sick and “poor devils” who deserve sympathy rather than contempt. It is a hate-filled piece described in the editorial as a “noteworthy contribution to the discussion.”
Unlike the other Bielefeld daily, the conservative “Westfalenblatt,” the IHB did not receive a counterstatement in the NW; however, the article “Even Every Homo Is a Terribly Normal Person” (November 14, 1975) a week later can be read as a mild editorial retreat. Three scientists named in the piece now stated that Bernart’s contribution was only likely to fuel prejudices and hatred. The scientists urged for understanding and tolerance and stressed that they were not homosexual themselves. Today the article reads as noteworthy for its emphasis on the obvious: “Homosexuals are neither sick nor in need of treatment,” they are not being led into homosexuality, and one should not blame them for being childless. The comic was not a revolutionary announcement of a reversal of society, but an irony, a literary device also found in Franz Kafka.
Prominent Supporters: Rüdiger Lautmann and Hartmut von Hentig
A number of prominent scholars participated in the public discussion about the student newspaper contributions. The jurist, sociologist, and criminologist Rüdiger Lautmann (born 1935), a professor at the University of Bremen since 1971, was the first professor at a German university to study the discrimination of homosexuals. A not-published letter from him dated November 9, 1975 to the “Neue Westfälische” is known, in which he clearly stated his position in support of the IHB and referenced Bernart’s remarks. At the end of November 1975 a resolution was published, signed by about 350 people, including Rüdiger Lautmann (Uni Bremen), Gunter Schmidt (Institute for Sexual Research, Hamburg University), Volkmar Sigusch and Reimut Reiche (both in the Department of Sexual Science, Frankfurt University), which likewise reinforced the IHB’s position. The same holds for a detailed statement by the Society for the Advancement of Social-Scientific Sexual Research.
Hartmut von Hentig (born 1925) is an education scientist and publicist who had a major influence on German reform pedagogy. At the University of Bielefeld he served as a professor of pedagogy from 1968 to 1987. In an open letter dated November 25, 1975, he gave a detailed account of why he would not sign the resolution, but why he nonetheless stood on the side of the IHB. He advocated for open sex education, arguing that children should have the courage to trust their own feelings. (I do not see a direct connection here with other statements or publications by Rüdiger Lautmann and Hartmut von Hentig about sexual relationships between adults and children, which are now viewed critically.)
The Consequences for the “ff” Editorial Team and the IHB
In a letter dated October 28, 1975, the school board (to the Regierungspräsident in Münster) listed the errors of the “ff” editorial team: on one hand, there were dangerous editorial mistakes, such as the failure to name a responsible editor and naming a former student as the person responsible for the issue, though he was no longer active. On the other hand, there was the issue of homosexuality: it was stated that “regarding younger students” this issue endangered the responsibilities of teaching and education, and it was asserted that the comic seriously compromised the moral development of younger students (the quotes refer to the provisions of the State Press Act and the student newspaper decree in effect at the time). The “ff” was subsequently stripped of its status as a student newspaper and forbidden from being sold on school grounds. According to the IHB, the end of the “ff” led to the student newspaper “Silentium Ex,” which bore content close to the Junge Union and thus benefited from advertisements that the “ff” no longer received. “Silentium Ex” not only engaged with the “ff” but also suggested that the “ff” had “system-overturning goals in mind” (February 1976).
Through the student-newspaper campaign, Gerald Baars, a WDR editor, became aware of the IHB, which eventually led to the television documentary “Schauplatz Gerichtsstraße. Schwulengruppe Bielefeld,” broadcast on WDR on January 30, 1979. In this extended 45-minute program, for the first time on public television, a gay group was presented in depth.
Joachim Bartholomae Remembers
O my God — in 1975 I was a senior at a boys’ school; all the high schools in Bielefeld were either girls’ or boys’ schools, except for the coeducational Brackwede Gymnasium, where my girlfriend Gudrun attended, but that was on the other side of the Teutoburg Forest. I was the student body president at the Max-Planck-Gymnasium and soon after the district student representative, and the district student council of Bielefeld published a student newspaper for twenty high schools. My predecessor as editor-in-chief was a member of the Young Union, with whom I had the most interesting political debates of my life, even if or because he fundamentally disagreed with me on nearly every issue. When the IHB asked us if we would report on sexual “deviations,” this colleague was somehow pissed off, probably because he assumed we would insinuate something about him. I already had a girlfriend at the time and had sex with her, and I felt incredibly tolerant by giving “the gay guy” a forum in our newspaper. I still think today: anyone who isn’t willing to risk their life for a just cause at 19 is a victim.
What happened next was pretty much the same as what I experienced at the Brokdorf demonstrations: The state did not reward democratic engagement; it sprayed tear gas, in this case deployed by a narrow-minded school administrator whom the Bielefeld public perceived as an idiot. The district student council, made up of me, the student speaker from the old-language council high school, and the student speaker from Ursuline High School (a genuine left-leaning socialist), did not accept the administrators’ narrow-mindedness. We were “accused” of granting access to a gay group to the protected educational realm, and we felt we had the right to do so, which was not legally correct but sounded good. The IHB stood at the margins of those clashes; the guilty party was the newspaper’s editorial staff, but of course the gays were always ready to step in when needed. The ultimate punchline of this story was that three years later I, a shy kid, would have my coming-out with the IHB, and, as was customary back then, be initiated by Detlef Stoffel.
Of course Hartmut von Hentig was asked for his opinion, but at that time he was seen by many in Bielefeld as a near-demiurge due to two spectacular school projects at the university, and he did not want to get involved in such a side skirmish. Rüdiger Lautmann, who as a young professor in Bremen always supported gay projects, was helpful on our side, and I must say that since then I have never met an academic who acted with such selflessness and solidarity.
Detlef Stoffel Remembers
In 1975 I was 25, studying sociology at Bielefeld University and was THE activist in the IHB; my calendars from that time are stuffed with appointments, not just for the student-newspaper campaign. I was deeply involved in the documentary work “Rosa Winkel? That’s Been Over for a Long Time…” which premiered at the University of Bielefeld in late 1976. The student-newspaper campaign certainly carried an “educational idea,” but it was always also about — today you would call it — “visibility.” That goal was achieved, for example, with a 20-minute segment on the then-popular and progressive WDR radio program “Radiothek” in early 1975.
Not at all thrilled about our activity was the owner of “Muttis Bierstube” (the first and still-existing gay bar in Bielefeld), who had given us a back room for our group meetings. With the argument “we don’t want to deal with people who do things with kids,” we were kicked out — and in the following years found refuge one evening a week at a women’s center (yes, such things happened in 1970s Bielefeld).
I also have a vivid memory of an uninvited visit to the head of the local edition of the “Neue Westfälische” (a strait-laced SPD newspaper) to demand why they did not publish our statements, and the editor, with a broad grin, said that as long as he was in charge, it wouldn’t happen. He didn’t hold out for long. I kept a good dozen entries in my calendars about taking part in editorial meetings with the “ff” staff. Joachim I saw as a handsome, engaged ally; in my bed he would eventually end up much later (and happily); we seldom go out to eat, but we do occasionally. I was deeply in love with another editor, Wolfgang, about whom I never learned what he was or what he did — he remained resolutely silent. Rüdiger Lautmann hosted at least one seminar when he taught in Bielefeld, and he was especially helpful (with an interview) for the “Rosa Winkel” film. I knew Hartmut von Hentig more as a friendly “hello” in a university-building network; as the creator of the now-famous school models Laborschule and Oberstufenkolleg, his views carried a lot of weight.
The comic that was included with the student newspaper still appeals to me; the irony of the inverted world depicted there remains striking. Today we must be glad that the line “I am happy and heterosexual” has not been co-opted by the wrong people. And as for the irony, it does not age easily in today’s queer debates either. In any case, on the back cover of the 1973 “Gay Liberation Book,” under the heading “Beyond Gay Liberation,” it reads: “the day when all people in our society can be truly gentle, non-competitive and freely sensual.” Visions are allowed, even under Helmut Schmidt.
The queer community needs a strong journalistic voice — especially now! Do your part to support the work of TheColu.mn.
Resumé
The scandal surrounding the text and, especially, the comic in the student newspaper “ff” is largely representative and exemplary of its era. It exemplifies contemporary heterosexual attitudes toward homosexuality. The opposing voices tried to straddle two positions: on the one hand they claimed not to want to discriminate against gays; the legalization of male homosexuality in 1969 was not criticized and was sometimes defended. On the other hand, there was a diffuse fear of the “corruption” of children and youths, paired with a demand that children be protected in school and be “safe.” To this was added the rhetorical maneuver of accusing the two pieces in “ff” of one-sidedness.
The absurd idea was that equality and homophobia, like a pro and con, should appear as two legitimate viewpoints. The articles show a nearly uniform focus on gay men, and the fear, anger, and discomfort were directed at male homosexuality; lesbians were treated differently and often taken less seriously, though the stereotype of the woman who seduces men and hates men did exist for lesbians as well. It is also noteworthy that female homosexuality in the Federal Republic of Germany was never criminalized, which shaped the early gay emancipation movement more by gay men.
What’s remarkable is that the public discussion of this scandal persisted for quite a long period—from October 1975 to March 1976. This was driven not only by the emotionally charged taboo topic of homosexuality but also by the persistence of gay activists, who succeeded in drawing in prominent scientists to join the public debate and support the IHB. It is unusual that actions like this were so thoroughly documented. The IHB assembled several documentary binders totaling around 100 pages with statements, articles, and letters to the editor, and commented on them. I would like to thank especially the Centrum Schwule Geschichte in Cologne and the two activists and witnesses Detlef Stoffel and Joachim Bartholomae for their support in producing this piece.
I am not certain whether the homosexual movement in Bielefeld won the public debate over the comic; perhaps the IHB merely documented divergent, irreconcilable positions. But that is not the point alone. The IHB at the very least stimulated public discussion and contributed to de-stigmatization. For me, this remains a prime example of how a small action can draw significant attention to lesbian and gay visibility. The form in which the IHB conducted the debate about school education from 1974 to 1976 illustrates a culture of debate within the gay community that I fear is too often missing in today’s debates and letters to the editor. Parallels can be drawn to today’s right-wing campaigns against school-based education about homosexuality, which in recent years have faced opposition in Germany and other Western countries.
