Talk:Heinz Rutha

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Editors of Wikipedia may be interested to copy the following improved, clarified version of this Wikipedia article that appears on OutHistory.org. It is yours to use. I am the founder and co-director of OutHistory.org.

Heinz Rutha (born Heinrich Rutha; April 20, 1897 Liberec - November 4, 1937 Česká Lípa) was a Sudeten German interior designer and politician for the Sudeten German Party. He committed suicide in prison after having been publicly accused of homosexual activity and the "corruption of youth."[1] When these accusations were reprinted in the U.S. press, this bit of German homosexual history became part of U.S. homosexual history.

Active in the Wandervogel (literally, "migratory bird", often translated as "Rovers"), an early German-nationalist youth movement, Rutha came to envision his own ideas of a "Männerbund" (all-male association), influenced in part by the rise of national self-awareness of the Sudeten Germans after the collapse of Austria-Hungary.

In 1921, inspired by the "male bonding" work of the gay German poet Stefan George, he created the Jungenschaft (Youth Corps), his own section within the Wandervogel.

In 1926, Rutha and his group left the Wandervogel and joined the Sudeten Turnverbund (Gymnasts League), where Konrad Henlein was one of his disciples.

Rutha was also active in the elitist and covert Kameradschaftsbund (Comradeship League) organization. Later he joined the Sudeten German Party (SdP), as did many other members of the Kameradschaftsbund.

In 1937, stories were published in the Czechoslovak media charging Rutha with homosexual behavior, based on police interrogations of youths employed in Rutha's furniture manufacturing plant. Rutha would never come to trial. He hanged himself in a Česká Lípa prison, on November 4, 1937.

Many other investigations into the youth movement were started (most notably into the activities of Walter Brand). The direct political aftermath was that Konrad Henlein, as leader of the SdP, had to start making political concessions to the National Socialist wing of the party. In the following years, the National Socialists invoked the charges against Rutha as a handy tool to ostracize and expel many Sudeten separatists from the SdP. This shifted the balance of power in favor of those who favored Anschluss (annexation) with Germany.

In the United States, Rutha's death, and the charges against him, were reported in the newspapers. See for example, the New York Times reports of 1937.[2]

[edit]Notes

↑ Adapted from Wikipedia September 25, 2012. Thanks to James Steakley for the translations from the German.

↑ (1) HENLEIN AIDE SUICIDE IN CZECHOSLOVAK JAIL; Heinz Rutha, 'Foreign Envoy' of Sudeten Germans, Was....[PDF] Heinz Rutha, right-hand man of Konrad Henlein, leader of the Sudeten German [Nazi] party, hanged himself last night in his cell at Boehmisch-Leipa jail, where he was detained on charges of immorality.... Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES (NYT) - Article. November 06, 1937, Saturday. (2) Nazis Attend Rutha Funeral [PDF] funeral attended by Nazis... - Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES (NYT) - Article. November 11, 1937, Thursday. (3) 12 CZECH NAZIS ON TRIAL; Members of Youth Organization Face Homosexual Charges [PDF] Twelve members of Konrad Henlein's Sudeten German party's youth organization appeared in court today to answer charges of homosexuality which were chiefly directed against the absent thirteenth codefendant--the "Foreign Minister" of the Sudeten German party... - Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES (NYT) - Article. December 03, 1937, Friday. [edit]Bibliography

Cornwall, Mark. The Devil's Wall: The Nationalist Youth Mission of Heinz Rutha (Harvard UP, 2012). Cornwall to History of Sex discussion list 25 September 2012 12:53: This is a largely biographical work that seeks to use one man's short life to analyse questions of sexuality and nationalism in a Czech-German context in the early 20th century.

Apart from being a dramatic case study of an unknown homosexual scandal (one of the biggest in fact in interwar Europe), the book tries to explore how male homosexuality could be interpreted in central Europe in the period 1914-1940: by the Czech police, by the general public, but particularly in the context of a vibrant homosocial youth movement used for political ends.

I have particularly asssessed how Heinz Rutha's own commitment to 'Eros' was grounded in an interpretation of Greek Love and how it formed a key theoretical framework for his German youth crusade in Czechoslovakia. The book is therefore very much a discussion of male youth and sexuality in a new context (outside the usual context of Germany or western Europe). Hopefully it will not only be useful as a case study for teaching purposes (history and gender studies), but will encourage more research on the neglected history of (homo)sexuality in East-Central Europe. Lastly, the book stands alongside a recent growing interest by Czech historians in homosexuality: I would mention particularly Martin Putna et al (eds), Homosexualita v dejinach ceske kultury (Prague, 2011) [a study of homosexuality in Czech culture and literature]; and Jan Seidl et al, Od zalare k oltari: Emancipace homosexuality v ceskych zemich od roku 1867 do soucastnosti (Prague, 2012) [a study of the Czech movement towards decriminalisation]. Another volume of essays edited by Pavl Himl and Jan Seidl concerns homosexuality in modern Czech history and will be published next year [2013].Jnkatz1 (talk) 02:37, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cornwall, Mark (2002). "Heinrich Rutha and the Unraveling of a Homosexual Scandal in 1930s Czechoslovakia". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 8 (3): 319–347. doi:10.1215/10642684-8-3-319. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jnkatz1 (talk • contribs) 02:36, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrite

Honestly, I feel like this article could use a rewrite? Now, I'm all for preserving historical details, but some of the text presented here goes in great detail for what essentially amounts to pedophilia on Rutha's part. Why do we need to have specific details of that? It was frankly very disturbing to read. Such details should be reserved to specific books or something. --Dynamo128 (talk) 10:09, 26 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]