Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895)

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Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was born in Aurich in East Frisia in 1825 and grew up in the Hanover region. He studied law in Göttingen and in 1846/1847 spent a year in Berlin, whose reputation as a place for homosexuals was certainly known to him when he made his decision. He lived near the Spree at Marienstraße 23 in Mitte as a subtenant.

After completing his studies, he joined the civil service in Hanover. However, his career came to an end as early as 1854 when his employer, the Ministry of Justice, was informed that “… the court assessor Ulrichs was engaging in unnatural lust with other men.” Ulrichs had not violated any laws, as the Hanoverian penal code did not criminalize same-sex love. There was, however, a paragraph that combined unnatural lust and causing a public nuisance and made it a punishable offense. The rumors about his immoral private lifestyle were enough to force him to resign.

Ulrichs then became a journalist and wrote articles for the Allgemeine Zeitung from Augsburg from 1862. The newly built railroad lines in Germany made it possible to distribute newspapers nationwide.

He wrote a series of articles on same-sex love and the effects of the sodomy laws. He wrote newsletters, to which he received many grateful responses from other like-minded people who had previously felt alone with their thoughts and feelings. He also felt the need to explain to his family that he was born to love men. In a letter to his family, he wrote with ruthless frankness: “Men who love men represent a third sex, characterized by a feminine nature, trapped in the physical body of a man…. It is unfair to expect him to lead a life of celibacy. Sexual satisfaction is a God-given right.” It is remarkable how Ulrich’s family never explicitly disowned or rejected him, and even continued to support him, despite the revelation of his sexual preferences, which was radical and disturbing for the time.

In April 1864, he published his first pamphlet under a pseudonym. In this writing, he introduced the term “Urninge”, derived from the Greek god Uranus, who, as the sole progenitor of Aphrodite, symbolizes same-sex eroticism. He thus gave men who love men their first identity-forming name. In a later writing, Ulrichs introduced the term “Urninden” as a term for lesbians.

The core thesis of his writings is that Uranian love is innate or natural, caused neither by illness nor by deliberate perversion, and as such its practice cannot be criminalized.

It can be said that Karl Heinrich Ulrichs also invented queer identity in his writings by being the first to formulate that sexuality is an element of personhood, not just an act. He saw homosexuality as an identity. In doing so, he laid the foundations for homosexual communities to exist at all. And it is only through these communities that a demand for sexual freedom rights is possible. His publications were successful. The debate on the legal treatment of same-sex love was set in motion. Lawyers, doctors and scientists took notice.

In 1866, Prussia defeated Austria in the Second War of German Unification, indicating that Prussia could lead German unification. The prospect of an imminent German unification also prompted the German Jurists’ Conference to convene in Munich on August 29, 1867 to discuss the uniform laws needed for the country. The Jurists’ Convention was the stage for Ulrich’s public outing, out of the pseudonym to demand impunity and social acceptance.

He began his speech, but had to interrupt it due to loud protests. Ulrichs made a second attempt, but was unable to finish his speech due to the many shouts of protest. His demands were not supported by the Lawyers’ Conference. But the world’s first public outing had been accomplished, the speech was published, the seed had been sown, the word was out, the discourse had been initiated.

As Prussia led German unification, it also influenced the German Reich, founded in 1871, with its penal code. In 1868, Bismarck commissioned the preparation of a penal code, whereupon a commission was appointed to assess the sodomy laws. In March 1869, the commission presented an expert opinion in which it spoke out against sodomy laws.

However, Berlin’s public opinion in 1869 was influenced by two crimes related to homosexuality. The murder of a baker’s apprentice in Invalidenpark, who was also raped and mutilated (1867) and a terrible abuse of a young boy by a man (1869) were both often discussed in the tabloids. The public could not tell the difference between homosexuals, pedophiles, sex offenders and sadists.

The government ignored the commission’s recommendation and included the sodomy paragraph in the new penal code, citing the “people’s sense of justice”. The sodomy paragraph ended up in the code as paragraph 175 and criminalized sexual acts between men. When the German Empire was founded in January 1871, the paragraph was also incorporated into the law of the German Empire.

In 1880, Ulrichs undertook a trip to Italy and was to remain in Italy for the rest of his life, where he died in 1895 at the age of 74. He failed to achieve his major goal of preventing the sodomy laws. However, his theories inspired scientists to conduct research and helped others to understand their sexual urges. He was instrumental in creating a community of like-minded homosexual people.

In 1898, Magnus Hirschfeld published a new edition of Ulrich’s publications. In the foreword, he wrote: “When posterity will one day have included the Urnings persecutions in that sad chapter in which the other persecutions of people of other faiths and other kinds are recorded, then the name of Karl Heinrich Ulrich will stand unforgotten. As one of the first and noblest who helped truth and charity to find their rightful place in this field.”