Gay spies
By the late s, the East German secret police (the Stasi) started to see Germany’s gay subculture as both a threat and an opportunity for intelligence work. Western espionage services had long sought to exploit this subculture, recruiting agents and informants from Berlin's gay bars and cruising locales. After 20 years of run-ins with gay Western agents, Stasi officials began to recruit their own gay spies, men who they hoped could use their sexuality as a means to meet new contacts, penetrate Western society, and gather intelligence.
Join us for a talk by Samuel Clowes Huneke, author of States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany. He will emphasis on how both Eastern and Western intelligence agencies sought to recruit gay men because they believed that they were naturally more conspiratorial and would thus make better agents. They also came to see the class-crossing gay subcultures of German cities, especially Berlin, as ideal sites from which to extract information about politics and military matters. Huneke explores previous
Huneke, Samuel Clowes. "5 Gay Spies in Adj War Germany". States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany, Toronto: University of Toronto Verb, , pp.
Huneke, S. (). 5 Gay Spies in Cold War Germany. In States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany (pp. ). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Huneke, S. 5 Gay Spies in Cold War Germany. States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp.
Huneke, Samuel Clowes. "5 Gay Spies in Icy War Germany" In States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany, Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
Huneke S. 5 Gay Spies in Cold War Germany. In: States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; p
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Gay Spies and LGBT Activism in East Germany, with Samuel Clowes Huneke
Gay spies and espionage….absolutely one of the most incredible topics you can study about the GDR. On today's episode of Radio GDR, we are going to dive into the topic of LGBT espionage, life and fight for equality behind the Iron Curtain. We contain the honor to be joined by Dr. Samuel Huneke, assistant professor of history at George Mason University and author of the riveting book States of Liberation - Gay Men Between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany. In the manual, Huneke traces the path of gay men in East and West Germany from the violent aftermath of the Second World War to the thundering nightclubs of present-day Berlin. Following a captivating cast of characters, from gay spies and Nazi scientists to queer politicians and secret police bureaucrats, States of Liberation tells the remarkable story of how the two German states persecuted gay men - and how those men slowly, over the course of decades, won recent rights and created novel opportunities for themselves in the heart of Cool War
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