Acceptable Homosexual Heterosexuality: Hanns Heinz Ewers's Fundvogel and National Socialist Ideology

Abstract

Beginning with a description of the two chief wings of the German homosexual emancipation movement in the early twentieth century, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and the Community of the Self-Owners, the article shows how Hanns Heinz Ewers's novel, Fundvogel, is a unique combination of seemingly antithetical ideologies. The novel's rather fantastic plot centers on a sex change operation and the question of transforming heterosexual and homosexual desire. The analysis demonstrates how Ewers attempts to fuse together his earlier social attitudes toward homosexuality with his newer political beliefs as a member of the Nazi party. It is found that heterosexuality triumphs, but homosexuality is not completely eradicated; instead, masking makes it acceptable.