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Although largely forgotten now, the 1885 trial of German artist Gustav Graef was a seminal event for those who observed it. Graef, a celebrated sixty-four-year-old portraitist, was accused of perjury and sexual impropriety with underage models. On trial alongside him was one of his former models, the twenty-one-year-old Bertha Rother, who quickly became a central figure in the affair. As the case was being heard, images of Rother, including photographic reproductions of Graef's nude paintings of her, began to flood the art shops and bookstores of Berlin and spread across Europe. Spurred by this trade in images and by sensational coverage in the press, this former prostitute was transformed into an international sex symbol and a target of both public lust and scorn. Passionate discussions of the case echoed in the press for months, and the episode lasted in public memory for far longer. The Graef trial, however, was much more than a salacious story that served as public entertainment. The case inspired fierce political debates long after a verdict was delivered, including disputes about obscenity laws, the moral degeneracy of modern art and artists, the alleged pernicious effects of Jewish influence, legal restrictions on prostitution, the causes of urban criminality, the impact of sensationalized press coverage, and the requirements of bourgeois masculine honor. Above all, the case unleashed withering public criticism of a criminal justice system that many Germans agreed had become entirely dysfunctional. The story of the Graef trial offers a unique perspective on a German Empire that was at the height of its power, yet riven with deep political, social, and cultural divisions. This compelling study will appeal to historians and students of modern German and European history, as well as those interested in obscenity law and class and gender relations in nineteenth-century Europe.
Although largely forgotten now, the 1885 trial of German artist Gustav Graef was a seminal event for those who observed it. Graef, a celebrated sixty-four-year-old portraitist, was accused of perjury and sexual impropriety with underage models. On trial alongside him was one of his former models, the twenty-one-year-old Bertha Rother, who quickly became a central figure in the affair. As the case was being heard, images of Rother, including photographic reproductions of Graef's nude paintings of her, began to flood the art shops and bookstores of Berlin and spread across Europe. Spurred by this trade in images and by sensational coverage in the press, this former prostitute was transformed into an international sex symbol and a target of both public lust and scorn. Passionate discussions of the case echoed in the press for months, and the episode lasted in public memory for far longer. The Graef trial, however, was much more than a salacious story that served as public entertainment. The case inspired fierce political debates long after a verdict was delivered, including disputes about obscenity laws, the moral degeneracy of modern art and artists, the alleged pernicious effects of Jewish influence, legal restrictions on prostitution, the causes of urban criminality, the impact of sensationalized press coverage, and the requirements of bourgeois masculine honor. Above all, the case unleashed withering public criticism of a criminal justice system that many Germans agreed had become entirely dysfunctional. The story of the Graef trial offers a unique perspective on a German Empire that was at the height of its power, yet riven with deep political, social, and cultural divisions. This compelling study will appeal to historians and students of modern German and European history, as well as those interested in obscenity law and class and gender relations in nineteenth-century Europe.
From Alexanderplatz, the bustling Berlin square ringed by bleak slums, to Moabit, site of the city's most feared prison, Death in the Tiergarten illuminates the culture of criminal justice in late imperial Germany. In vivid prose, Benjamin Hett examines daily movement through the Berlin criminal courts and the lawyers, judges, jurors, thieves, pimps, and murderers who inhabited this world. Drawing on previously untapped sources, including court records, pamphlet literature, and pulp novels, Hett examines how the law reflected the broader urban culture and politics of a rapidly changing city. In this book, German criminal law looks very different from conventional narratives of a rigid, static system with authoritarian continuities traceable from Bismarck to Hitler. From the murder trial of Anna and Hermann Heinze in 1891 to the surprising treatment of the notorious Captain of Koepenick in 1906, Hett illuminates a transformation in the criminal justice system that unleashed a culture war fought over issues of permissiveness versus discipline, the boundaries of public discussion of crime and sexuality, and the role of gender in the courts. Trained in both the law and history, Hett offers a uniquely valuable perspective on the dynamic intersections of law and society, and presents an impressive new view of early twentieth-century German history.
In many American cities, individual athletes, professional teams, and university sports are integral to the cities’ sporting identities. Berlin, in contrast, features no single hallmark sport, team, or annual event. Five political regimes, wartime destruction, and four decades of division instead fostered ever-changing teams, allegiances, and venues. Yet, the desire to play and watch sport continued unabated across these political watersheds. Berlin Sports: Spectacle, Recreation, and Media in Germany’s Metropolis explores the history of sport in Berlin from the late nineteenth- to the early twenty-first centuries against the backdrop of the city’s sharp political shifts, diverse populations, and status as a major metropolis with both regional and global resonance. This book begins with a long-distance equestrian race in the 1890s and continues with the role of media in spectacle, celebrity, urban life, and gender from the 1890s to the 1920s.It then turns to grassroots sport participation and spectatorship as well as sport diplomacy at the elite international level during the postwar period and the years of German division. Next, it explores recreational sport associations within the context of immigration and youth counterculture. It concludes with the 2015 European Maccabi Games, an international Jewish sports festival through which Berlin sought to grapple with the infamous 1936 Olympics and showcase Berlin as a cosmopolitan and multicultural city. Taken together, the book’s scholarly essays on all of these sporting endeavors reveal the rich and varied sporting culture in Berlin and yield fresh insights into spectacle, recreation, and media in the city.
This book examines a number of sensational trials involving anti-Semitism in early Imperial Germany. Press coverage of these court cases helped to spur public debates about the nature of Judaism and the role and influence of Jews in German society.
Includes decisions of the Supreme Court and various intermediate and lower courts of record; May/Aug. 1888-Sept../Dec. 1895, Superior Court of New York City; Mar./Apr. 1926-Dec. 1937/Jan. 1938, Court of Appeals.