Kraepelin and the `urnings': male homosexuality in psychiatric discourse

Abstract

The discourse on male homosexuality — whether it deserved punishment or possible therapies for homosexuals — was significantly shaped by the physician Magnus Hirschfeld between 1900 and 1933. He fought passionately against §175 of the Penal Code (Reichsstrafgesetzbuch) , which made homosexual acts between men punishable by law. Initially, Emil Kraepelin, the doyen of German psychiatry, and his students did not join in this discourse and only gradually developed their own ideas about homosexuality.The radicalization of German physicians in World War I led to a complete break between Hirschfeld and Kraepelinian psychiatry. But instead of developing his own theoretical model, Kraepelin adopted the arguments of his rival Alfred Hoche, who regarded homosexuality as a disease contracted through `seduction'. Consequently, Kraepelin contributed to what, like the Nazis, he called 'popular sentiment', but neither he nor his followers influenced research on the aetiology and spread of homosexuality, and Kraepelin left no legacy in this field.