On November 6, 2019, Dr. Kyle Frackman presented at a special iteration of the regular biennial Lessons & Legacies Conference in Munich. Dr. Frackman’s paper, “Unruly and Inconvenient Memory: The Political and Cultural Challenge of Postwar Socialist Homosexuality,” was on a panel on “Homosexuals during the Holocaust and its Aftermath.”
In his talk, Dr. Frackman discussed the experiences of lesbians and gay men in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as they relate to the country’s legacy and credentials as an antifascist socialist nation following the Second World War. The environment for homosexuals in the GDR was, after legal changes in 1968, superficially tolerant, but the country’s leading party, functionaries, and official policies were ambivalent about the implications of the National Socialist persecution of homosexuals and the related integration of lesbians and gay men into the country’s socialist framework.
More information about the conference can be found here: https://www.lessonslegacies.eu/.
