Gay activism in Modell Deutschland

Griffiths, C (2014) Gay activism in Modell Deutschland. European Review of History / Revue européenne d'histoire, 22 (1). pp. 60-76. ISSN 1469-8293

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Abstract

The SPD's 1976 election slogan, Modell Deutschland (‘the German model’) became a catch-all term for all that the New Left rejected about the Federal Republic. This article will focus on how gay activists attempted to situate cases of gay oppression as part and parcel of wider political oppression against the New Left, and how the invocation of the National Socialist past was crucial to this aim. Gay activists' efforts culminated in the gay movement's interaction with the Third International Russell Tribunal, held in West Germany in 1978 and 1979 to consider alleged human-rights abuses. Analysing gay activism around the Tribunal reveals underlying tensions in gay liberation, with activists facing competing demands, the need to address contrasting constituencies, and caught between public and counterpublic.