Sexual treason
Subtitle: state surveillance of immorality and infidelity in World War I Germany.
Published: 2005
Language: eng
Number of pages: 286
Description: This dissertation explores the state regulation of sexuality and "immorality" in World War I Germany. The separation of married couples in World War I Germany unleashed a discourse of national crisis. Many Germans believed that birth rates dropped, venereal diseases spread, and extramarital affairs multiplied. Because a stable home front was deemed a military necessity in this first "total war" and sexual disorder signaled social disorder, private concerns of the bedchamber became public issues of health and security. Nowhere was this more evident than in the state surveillance of sexuality on both the front lines and the home front. The hypersensitivity around these issues was indicative of a larger uncertainty about the effects of modern warfare on German society. The societal upheavals of the war years added fuel to the fire for conservatives who believed that new sexual freedoms epitomized the degenerative nature of modernity. The language of national self-identity and moral "good citizenship" was used to make sense of this upheaval in moral and gendered norms.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-10, Section: A, page: 3775.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

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