¹ Pioneering were Reinders, Robert, “Racialism on the Left: E. D. Morel and the ‘Black Horror on the Rhine,’” International Review of Social History 13 (1968): 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Nelson, Keith, “The ‘Black Horror on the Rhine’: Race as a Factor in Post-World War I Diplomacy,” Journal of Modern History 42, no. 4 (December 1970): 606–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other early studies include Pommerin, Reiner, “Sterilisierung der Rheinlandbastarde.” Das Schicksal der farbigen deutschen Minderheit, 1918–1937 (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1979), 7–33Google Scholar; Marks, Sally, “Black Watch on the Rhine: A Study in Propaganda, Prejudice, and Prurience,” European Studies Review 13, no. 3 (July 1983): 297–333CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lebzelter, Gisela, “Die ‘Schwarze Schmach.’ Vorurteile—Propaganda—Mythos,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 11, no. 1 (1985): 37–58Google Scholar. Among the recent literature, most comprehensive are Le Naour, Jean-Ives, La honte noire: L'Allemagne et les troupes coloniales françaises, 1914–1945 (Saint-Amand-Montrond: Hachette, 2003)Google Scholar; and Koller, Christian, “Von Wilden aller Rassen niedergemetzelt.” Die Diskussion um die Verwendung von Kolonialtruppen in Europa zwischen Rassismus, Kolonial- und Militärpolitik, 1914–1930 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2001), 201–341Google Scholar. Also very helpful (if more limited in scope) are Martin, Peter, “Die Kampagne gegen die ‘schwarze Schmach’ als Ausdruck konservativer Visionen vom Untergang des Abendlandes,” in Fremde Erfahrungen. Asiaten und Afrikaner in Deutschland, Österreich und in der Schweiz bis 1945, ed. Höpp, Gerhard (Berlin: Das Arabische Buch, 1996), 211–25Google Scholar; Martin, Peter and Alonzo, Christine, eds., Zwischen Charleston und Stechschritt. Schwarze im Nationalsozialismus (Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz, 2004), esp. 104–69Google Scholar; Lüsebrink, Hans-Jürgen, “‘Tirailleurs Sénégalais’ und ‘schwarze Schande’—Verlaufsformen und Konsequenzen einer deutsch-französischen Auseinandersetzung, 1910–1926,” in “Tirailleurs Sénégalais.” Zur bildlichen und literarischen Darstellung afrikanischer Soldaten im Dienste Frankreichs—Présentations littéraires et figuratives de soldats africains au service de la France, ed. Riesz, János and Schultz, Joachim (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1989), 57–73Google Scholar; and Joachim Schultz, “Die ‘Utschebebbes’ am Rhein. Zur Darstellung schwarzer Soldaten während der französischen Rheinlandbesatzung, 1918–1930,” in ibid., 75–100. On the continuities between the 1920s black horror campaign and Nazi crimes against African French soldiers during World War II, see Scheck, Raffael, Hitler's African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), esp. chap. 2Google Scholar.

² Interpellation of May 19, 1920, Document No. 2995 in Verhandlungen der verfassungsgebenden Deutschen Nationalversammlung. Stenographische Berichte, Session 1919/20, vol. 343, 3407.

³ Schüler, Anja, The “Horror on the Rhine”: Rape, Racism, and the International Women's Movement, John F. Kennedy-Institut für Nordamerikastudien Working Paper no. 86 (Berlin, 1996)Google Scholar; Maß, Sandra, “Das Trauma des weißen Mannes. Afrikanische Kolonialsoldaten in propagandistischen Texten, 1914–1923,” L'Homme. Zeitschrift für feministische Geschichtswissenschaft 12, no. 1 (2001): 11–33Google Scholar; Maß, Sandra, Weiße Helden, schwarze Krieger. Zur Geschichte kolonialer Männlichkeit in Deutschland 1918–1964 (Cologne: Böhlau, 2006), esp. chap. 3Google Scholar; Wigger, Iris, “‘Gegen die Kultur und Zivilisation aller Weißen.’ Die internationale rassistische Kampagne gegen die ‘schwarze Schmach,’” in Grenzenlose Vorurteile. Antisemitismus, Nationalismus und ethnische Konflikte in verschiedenen Kulturen, ed. Fritz Bauer Institut (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2002), 101–28Google Scholar; Wigger, Iris, “‘Against the Laws of Civilization’: Race, Gender, and Nation in the International Racist Campaign Against the ‘Black Shame,’” Berkeley Journal of Sociology 46 (2002): 113–31Google Scholar; Wigger, Iris, Die “Schwarze Schmach am Rhein.” Rassistische Diskriminierung zwischen Geschlecht, Klasse, Nation und Rasse (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2007)Google Scholar; Koller, Christian, “Enemy Images: Race and Gender Stereotypes in the Discussion on Colonial Troops. A Franco-German Comparison, 1914–1923,” in Home/Front: The Military, War, and Gender in Twentieth-Century Germany, ed. Hagemann, Karen and Schüler-Springorum, Stefanie (Oxford: Berg, 2002), 139–57Google Scholar; and Campt, Tina, Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2004), 31–62Google Scholar.

⁴ Sandra Maß stresses the need to expand conventional definitions of propaganda beyond notions of the latter's “hostility toward democracy, ideological nature, and mass orientation. A successful propaganda derives its effectiveness not solely from its power to persuade (Überzeugungskraft) and accepted myths, but it also needs … a ‘receptive cultural terrain.’ Wartime and postwar German society … represented such a ‘receptive cultural terrain.’ Inherent in the propagandistic and nationalistic texts, I believe, is a productive and subjective level not explicable merely with reference to a top-down model.” Maß advocates reading Weimar-era propaganda about French colonial soldiers “from the dual perspective of the history of gender and the history of mentalité (Mentalitätsgeschichte), which takes the authors seriously and does not consider propagandistic texts solely as a form of political action.” See Maß, “Trauma,” 13–14.

⁵ For a broader discussion of the connections between anti-feminism, extreme right-wing politics, and the crisis of masculinity in Weimar Germany, see Planert, Ute, Antifeminismus im Kaiserreich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), chap. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the links between “black horror” propaganda and male gender anxieties, see also the brief yet perceptive comments in Sneeringer, Julia, Winning Women's Votes: Propaganda and Politics in Weimar Germany (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2002), esp. 46–47; 67–68Google Scholar.

⁶ Maß, “Trauma,” 15.

⁷ Schüler, “Horror,” 6; and Koller, “Enemy Images,” esp. 151.

⁸ Schüler, “Horror,” 6. On feminists' contributions to and conflicts over black shame propaganda, see Le Naour, Honte noire, esp. 66–68; 94–98. Nationalist women's participation in black horror agitation is discussed in Scheck, Raffael, Mothers of the Nation: Right-Wing Women in Weimar Germany (Oxford: Berg, 2004), 121–22Google Scholar. On women's involvement in colonialist activism during the Weimar Republic, see Wildenthal, Lora, German Women for Empire, 1884–1945 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), chap. 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ Historians generally pay little attention to the important battle over the brothels for France's African soldiers. Exceptions are Marks, “Black Watch,” 303–05; and Le Naour, Honte noire, esp. 90–99.

¹⁰ For Weimar-era debates about “immorality,” see Bessel, Richard, Germany after the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), chap. 8Google Scholar; Geyer, Martin H., Verkehrte Welt. Revolution, Inflation und Moderne: München, 1914–1924 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), esp. 265–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grossmann, Atina, “Abortion and Economic Crisis: The 1931 Campaign against Paragraph 218,” in When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany, ed. Bridenthal, Renate, Grossmann, Atina, and Kaplan, Marion (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984), 66–86Google Scholar; Grossmann, Atina, Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920–1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), esp. chap. 4Google Scholar; Usborne, Cornelie, The Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany: Women's Reproductive Rights and Duties (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1992), chap. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Weitz, Eric, Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 323–30Google Scholar. Cf. also Scheck, Mothers of the Nation, chap. 5.

¹¹ The black horror campaign reached its high points in the very early 1920s and declined rather quickly after 1923. On chronology, see especially Nelson, “Black Horror”; Reinders, “Racialism”; Koller, “Von Wilden aller Rassen,” 207–20; and Le Naour, Honte noire, chap. 3.

¹² German foreign office, “Richtlinien für die deutschen Friedensunterhändler” (“Instructions given to the German Plenipotentiaries for Peace”), April 1919. Translated by Alma Luckau and reprinted in Luckau, Alma, The German Peace Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941), 199–209, esp. 202Google Scholar. Cf. Nelson, “Black Horror,” 608–09; and Koller, “Von Wilden aller Rassen,” 188–90.

¹³ Nelson, “Black Horror,” 614. My own essay focuses on domestic aspects of the black shame campaign. For a good survey of the movement's international dimensions, see Le Naour, Honte noire, chap. 6.

¹⁴ On Morel, see Reinders, “Racialism”; Cline, Catherine Ann, E. D. Morel, 1873–1924: The Strategies of Protest (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1980), 126–29Google Scholar; and Le Naour, Honte noire, esp. 62–63. E. D. Morel was one of the most prominent critics of Belgium's brutal colonial regime in the Congo. During World War I, he was briefly imprisoned for his outspoken opposition to Britain's entering the war. Morel was a cofounder of the Union for Democratic Control, an organization advocating greater parliamentary control over foreign policy and a non-punitive peace settlement. He joined the Labor Party in the early 1920s and played a major role in shaping this party's revisionist stance on the Versailles Treaty. In 1922, he ran as a Labor candidate against Winston Churchill and won one of the Dundee seats in the House of Commons. Le Naour, p. 63, succinctly captures the irony of Morel's support for the black shame campaign: “Ainsi, c'est un socialiste anticolonialiste et internationaliste qui va se faire le propagandiste de la haine raciale nationaliste allemande.” On Morel's highly ambivalent views on alleged racial differences between Europeans and Africans, see Reinders, “Racialism,” 27–28.

¹⁵ Reinders, “Racialism,” 5.

¹⁶ Morel, E. D., The Horror on the Rhine, 8th ed., April 1921, Union of Democratic Control pamphlet no. 44a (London: St. Clements Press, 1921), 8Google Scholar.

¹⁷ The French Left shared similar concerns about the possibility that colonial troops and workers brought to France during World War I might be used to undermine European proletarians' political leverage. See Le Naour, Honte noire, 64; and Stovall, Tyler, “The Color Line behind the Lines: Racial Violence in France during the Great War,” American Historical Review 103, no. 3 (June 1998): 737–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am grateful to Rebecca Spang for recommending Stovall's essay. A detailed discussion of the French military's rationale for its relatively extensive use of colonial troops during World War I transcends the scope of this article. On this matter, see Koller, “Von Wilden aller Rassen,” 64–74, 135–51; and Lunn, Joe, “‘Les Races Guerrières’: Racial Preconceptions in the French Military about West African Soldiers during the First World War,” Journal of Contemporary History 34, no. 4 (October 1999): 517–36Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Morel, Horror, 10. For a comparative perspective on casualty rates among French colonial troops during World War I, see Lunn, “Races Guerrières.”

¹⁹ Morel, Horror, 9–10.

²⁰ Ibid., 10 (emphasis in the original).

²¹ As Jean-Ives Le Naour has pointed out, the movement of black horror propaganda was strikingly circular. Thus, for instance, E. D. Morel's articles in the British Daily Herald were reprinted widely in German newspapers, where they were presented as the independent views of a foreign observer. Yet, at least since the early summer of 1920 Morel collaborated closely with the German foreign office and various German groups, furnishing much of the evidence used in his lectures and publications on the black shame. See Le Naour, Honte noire, 57.

²² On government subsidies for black horror propaganda, see Nelson, “Black Horror,” footnote 60, 618–19; and Pommerin, “Sterilisierung,” 17.

²³ For a broader discussion of the German government's involvement in national and international propaganda against the Versailles Treaty, see Heinemann, Ulrich, Die verdrängte Niederlage. Politische Öffentlichkeit und Kriegsschuldfrage in der Weimarer Republik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Heinemann, Ulrich, “Die Last der Vergangenheit. Zur politischen Bedeutung der Kriegsschuld- und Dolchstoßdiskussion,” in Die Weimarer Republik, 1918–1933. Politik—Wirtschaft—Gesellschaft, ed. Bracher, Karl-Dietrich et al. (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1987), 371–86Google Scholar.

²⁴ Thus, an internal memo written by an employee of the foreign office in February 1921 stressed the importance of German women's associations in the spread of “black horror” propaganda abroad. See Document No. 176, “Aufzeichnungen des Regierungsrats Delbrueck, 28.2.1921” in Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik, 1918–1945, ed. Jacques Bariéty et al., Series A: 1918–1925, vol. 4 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 374–76. Cited in Koller, “Von Wilden aller Rassen,” footnote 47, 220–21.

²⁵ Maß, “Trauma,” 24, footnote 60.

²⁶ Gärtner, Margarete, Botschafterin des guten Willens. Aussenpolitische Arbeit, 1914–1950 (Bonn: Athenäum, 1955), 62Google Scholar. On Gärtner, cf. also Schüler, “Horror,” 7.

²⁷ On the history of the Cologne Stadtverband, see Frauengeschichtsverein, Kölner, ed., “Zehn Uhr pünktlich Gürzenich.” Hundert Jahre bewegte Frauen in Köln—Zur Geschichte der Organisationen und Vereine (Münster: Agenda, 1995)Google Scholar. In 1926, the Stadtverband counted thirty-six affiliated women's clubs with a total of 14,000 members (actual membership was somewhat lower, since many women belonged simultaneously to several affiliated organizations).

²⁸ See Gärtner, Botschafterin, 64–65.

²⁹ Frauenliga, Rheinische, ed., Farbige Franzosen am Rhein. Ein Notschrei deutscher Frauen, 2nd ed. (Berlin: W. Büxenstein, 1920)Google Scholar.

³⁰ Schüler, “Horror,” 7.

³¹ Rheinische Frauenliga, ed., Farbige Franzosen, 5–6.

³² The Bremen-based Volksbund was a member of the Working Committee of German Asssociations (Arbeitsauschuß Deutscher Verbände, or ADV). The ADV was a front organization in the government-sponsored German campaign against the war guilt clauses of the Versailles Treaty and counted between 1,700 and 2,000 affiliated member associations. On the ADV, see Heinemann, “Die Last der Vergangenheit,” 375–77.

³³ Deutscher Volksbund “Rettet die Ehre,” “An den Völkerbund in Genf,” 1, in Archiv des Deutsch-Evangelischen Frauenbundes Hannover (ADEF), V. 34: Schwarze Schmach. On the petition, see also Pommerin, “Sterilisierung,” 18.

³⁴ Deutscher Volksbund “Rettet die Ehre,” “An den Völkerbund in Genf,” 5.

³⁵ Cf. Sneeringer, Winning Women's Votes.

³⁶ At least eleven organizations supporting the petition represented Austrian, Dutch, and Swedish women's groups, respectively. On international support for the “black shame” campaign, see esp. Reinders, “Racialism”; and Le Naour, Honte noire, chap. 6. For American feminists' reactions, see the documents reprinted in Sklar, Kathryn Kish, Schüler, Anja, and Strasser, Susan, eds., Social Justice Feminism in the United States and Germany: A Dialogue in Documents, 1885–1933 (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1998), 275–86Google Scholar.

³⁷ Presumably, the Neulandbibelkreis formed part of Guida Diehl's New Land Movement (Neulandbewegung), which had close ties to the Nazis. On Diehl, see Lange, Silvia, Protestantische Frauen auf dem Weg in den Nationalsozialismus. Guida Diehls Neulandbewegung 1916–1935 (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1998)Google Scholar; and Koonz, Claudia, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family, and Nazi Politics (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), 80–84Google Scholar.

³⁸ The listing of the League for the Protection of Mothers among the petitioners is somewhat curious, since Helene Stöcker, one of the League's cofounders and most prominent representatives, vocally opposed the “black horror” movement. Stöcker's views on the “black shame” campaign are discussed in more detail below.

³⁹ Christian Koller has found evidence showing that in Worms and the administrative district of Wiesbaden, white French soldiers committed the lion's share of crimes against German civilians. The mayor of Worms defended Senegalese occupation troops stationed there against accusations of violence and ill discipline. See Koller, “Von Wilden aller Rassen,” 253–56. Cf. also Le Naour, Honte noire, 128.

⁴⁰ See the report by the Reich commissar for the occupied Rhenish territories (Reichskommissar für die besetzten rheinischen Gebiete) of January 28, 1922, in Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen/Hauptstaatsarchiv Düsseldorf (hereafter cited as HStADü) Regierung Düsseldorf/15148, 90–110.

⁴¹ Ibid., 91. Briefly, as many as 208,000 French soldiers had been stationed in the Rhineland during this period.

⁴² In May 1920, the French military claimed that 23,440 African soldiers were stationed in Germany; of these, more than two thirds came from Northern Africa. In April 1921, Paul Tirard, the French delegate to the Inter-Allied High Commission, spoke of “vingt mille à trente mille hommes” comprising France's colonial occupation troops since the Armistice. According to General Henry T. Allen, the commander of the American Army of the Rhine, France's colonial occupation troops averaged a little more than 25,000 men between January 1919 and June 1920. France moved its Senegalese troops out of Germany in June 1920; in November 1921, all Malagasies left the Rhineland. After the departure of France's Moroccan troops in spring 1925, only about 2,500 non-European French soldiers remained stationed on the Rhine. See Le Naour, Honte noire, 73 and 201; and Marks, “Black Watch,” 298–99. Because the issue was so highly politicized and due to considerable fluctuation (for instance, African contingents were moved to southern France during the winter months), sources diverge considerably on the number of African soldiers serving in the French Army of the Rhine. Allied estimates were consistently lower than German numbers. Historians differ somewhat on this issue. Le Naour relies largely on the official French figures cited above. Christian Koller claims that during the summer months of 1920 and 1921, between 30,000 and 40,000 African troops were garrisoned in the Rhineland. According to Keith Nelson, between spring 1920 and spring 1921, the African contingent of French occupation troops grew from 42,000 to 45,000. Gisela Lebzelter contrasts German numbers of between 30,000 and 40,000 African soldiers for the summer of 1920, with Allied figures of between 14,000 and 25,000. See Koller, “Von Wilden aller Rassen,” 202; Nelson, “Black Horror,” 610–11; and Lebzelter, “Schwarze Schmach,” 37. Cf. also Pommerin, “Sterilisierung,” 11–12.

⁴³ For a detailed discussion of the French military's attitude toward investigating and punishing crimes (allegedly) committed by colonial occupation soldiers, see Le Naour, Honte noire, chap. 8.

⁴⁴ See the report by the Reich commissar for the occupied Rhenish territories of January 28, 1922, in HStADü Regierung Düsseldorf/15148, 105.

⁴⁵ Ibid., 109.

⁴⁶ See the affidavit by Margarethe and Therese L. of April 11, 1921, in ibid., 106–07. For a similar example, see the French report about the investigation of the rape of Gertrud S. dated January 21, 1922, in HStADü Regierung Düsseldorf/15148, 329–31.

⁴⁷ Wigger, “Against the Laws,” 121–22.

⁴⁸ On wartime campaigns against soldiers' wives' alleged “immorality,” see Davis, Belinda J., Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics, and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), esp. 38–39Google Scholar; Daniel, Ute, The War from Within: German Working-Class Women in the First World War, trans. Ries, Margaret (Oxford: Berg, 1997), 138–47Google Scholar; and Kundrus, Birthe, Kriegerfrauen. Familienpolitik und Geschlechterverhältnisse im Ersten und Zweiten Weltkrieg (Hamburg: Hans Christians Verlag, 1995), 200–06Google Scholar. Cf. also Planert, Antifeminismus.

⁴⁹ See the letter by Aachen's police commissioner dated January 20, 1920, in HStADü Regierungspräsident Aachen/23059, 78.

⁵⁰ Der Tag, April 27, 1921. Reprinted in excerpts in Fidel, Camille, La Réfutation de la campagne d'accusations contre les troupes françaises de couleur en territoires Rhénans occupés, ed. Comité d'Assistance aux Troupes Noires (Paris: Ernest Dessaint, 1922), 40Google Scholar. For additional examples from the German press, see ibid., 39–45.

⁵¹ Alexander, Hans, Die schwarze Pest in Deutschland! (Leipzig: Orla-Verlag, circa 1921)Google Scholar. Misogynist resentments such as the ones expressed by Alexander may also have been a response to dramatic shifts in established patriarchal gender relations during World War I. Cf. Domansky, Elisabeth, “Militarization and Reproduction in World War I Germany,” in Society, Culture, and the State in Germany, 1870–1930, ed. Eley, Geoff (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 427–63Google Scholar; and Maß, “Trauma.”

⁵² Alexander, Schwarze Pest, 9–11. For a critical discussion of the exaggerated and frequently manufactured nature of “evidence” such as Alexander's, see Lebzelter, “Schwarze Schmach,” 45–47.

⁵³ Alexander, Schwarze Pest, 29.

⁵⁴ On the vilification of “loose” German women in French counterpropaganda, see Le Naour, Honte noire, 174–76; and Koller, “Von Wilden aller Rassen,” 277. Cf. also Fidel, La Réfutation, 39–45. German propaganda during World War I similarly attacked French women for their alleged promiscuous relationships with colonial French soldiers. See Koller, “Enemy Images,” 146.

⁵⁵ “Die schwarze Schmach,” Echo du Rhin, March 17, 1922, in HStADü Regierungspräsident Düsseldorf/15148, 177.

⁵⁶ On voluntary romantic relationships between German women and French colonial soldiers, see Schultz, “Utschebebbes.”

⁵⁷ For a reproduction of the cartoon, see Pommerin, “Sterilisierung,” 15; cf. also the discussion in Wigger, “Against the Laws,” 125.

⁵⁸ Rheinische Frauenliga, ed., Farbige Franzosen, 5.

⁵⁹ Scheven, Katharina, “Die schwarze Schmach,” Der Abolitionist. Organ für die Bestrebungen der Internationalen Föderation zur Bekämpfung der staatlich reglementierten Prostitution/Organ des Deutschen Verbandes zur Förderung der Sittlichkeit 20, no. 3 (July 1, 1921): 21–26Google Scholar. Scheven was the president of Dresden's branch of the International Abolitionist Federation and a prominent liberal feminist.

⁶⁰ Ibid., 24–25.

⁶¹ As Ute Planert has shown, during the war right-wing nationalists had already propagated “a gendered (geschlechterpolitische) stab-in-the-back myth: the undermining of the fighting morale through the ‘immorality’ prevailing at the female home front.” See Planert, Antifeminismus, 218. During the Weimar Republic, this misogynist discourse focused especially on the alleged “materialism” and “frivolity” of the female consumer. See Geyer, Verkehrte Welt, 390.

⁶² In an interpellation to the German government on January 8, 1920, Schirmacher protested against the decision of French authorities to fine a German youth who had threatened to cut the braids of women romantically involved with French soldiers. See Document No. 1898 in Verhandlungen der verfassungsgebenden Deutschen Nationalversammlung. Stenographische Berichte, Session 1919/20, vol. 341, 2042. On French intervention against physical attacks on and public shaming of German women accused of “fraternizing with the enemy,” see Fraenkel, Ernst, Military Occupation and the Rule of Law: Occupation Government in the Rhineland, 1918–1923 (London: Oxford University Press, 1944), 143–44Google Scholar. For similar attacks on women accused of sexual relations with Nazi occupiers in France and Czechoslovakia, see Vinen, Richard, The Unfree French: Life under the Occupation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), chap. 5Google Scholar; and Frommer, Benjamin, “Denouncers and Fraternizers: Gender, Collaboration, and Retribution in Bohemia and Moravia during World War II and After,” in Gender and War in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe, ed. Wingfield, Nancy M. and Bucur, Maria (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003): 111–32Google Scholar.

⁶³ “Die schwarze Schmach,” Bergisch-Märkische Zeitung Nr. 126 (March 2, 1922) in HStADü Regierung Düsseldorf/15624, 33 e. The Notbund was founded in Munich in fall 1920. Its founder, Heinrich Diestler, joined the Nazi movement in 1922. The foreign office considered the extreme racism characteristic of the Notbund's variant of black horror propaganda counterproductive and withdrew all official financial support. See Martin and Alonzo, eds., Zwischen Charleston und Stechschritt, 133; and Pommerin, “Sterilisierung,” 18–19. Even if the Notbund was controversial, it articulated many racialist concerns shared by other political groups, as well. On debates about the compulsory sterilization of Afro-Germans during the Weimar Republic and the enforcement of such policies under the Nazis, see Pommerin, “Sterilisierung”; and Campt, Other Germans.

⁶⁴ See the reference to Rosenberger's speech in a letter by the Reich commissar for the occupied territories to Cologne's police president of July 10, 1921, in HStADü Polizeipräsident Köln 307.

⁶⁵ See the hand-written report to the Cologne police commissioner of July 16, 1921, in HStADü Polizeipräsident Köln 307.

⁶⁶ See Professor Zinsser's note to the police commissioner of July 21, 1921, in HStADü Polizeipräsident Köln 307.

⁶⁷ On Weimar-era debates about sexually transmitted diseases, see Bessel, Germany, 235–39; Usborne, Politics of the Body, esp. 109–12; Weindling, Paul, Health, Race, and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 357–59Google Scholar; and Sauerteig, Lutz, Krankheit, Sexualität, Gesellschaft. Geschlechtskrankheiten und Gesundheitspolitik in Deutschland im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1999)Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ On state-regulated prostitution during the Second Empire, see Evans, Richard J., “Prostitution, State, and Society in Imperial Germany,” Past & Present no. 70 (1976): 106–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schulte, Regina, Sperrbezirke. Tugendhaftigkeit und Prostitution in der bürgerlichen Welt (Frankfurt am Main: Syndikat, 1979; reprint Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1994)Google Scholar; Abrams, Lynn, “Prostitutes in Imperial Germany: Working Girls or Social Outcasts?,” in The German Underworld: Deviants and Outcasts in German History, ed. Evans, Richard (London: Routledge, 1988), 189–209Google Scholar; Hilpert-Fröhlich, Christiana, “Auf zum Kampfe wider die Unzucht.” Prostitution und Sittlichkeitsbewegung in Essen, 1890–1914 (Bochum: SWI-Verlag, 1991)Google Scholar; Jenders, Andrea and Müller, Andreas, “Nur die Dummen sind eingeschrieben. …” Dortmunder Dirnen- und Sittengeschichte zwischen 1870 und 1927 (Dortmund: Geschichtswerkstatt Dortmund, 1993)Google Scholar; Krafft, Sybille, Zucht und Unzucht. Prostitution und Sittenpolizei im München der Jahrhundertwende (Munich: Hugendubel, 1996)Google Scholar; and Freund-Widder, Michaela, Frauen unter Kontrolle. Prostitution und ihre Staatliche Bekämpfung in Hamburg vom Ende des Kaiserreichs bis zu den Anfängen der Bundesrepublik (Münster: Lit-Verlag, 2003)Google Scholar. For a contemporary study that includes detailed discussions of German regulationist policies, see Flexner, Abraham, Prostitution in Europe (New York: The Century Co., 1914)Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Pappritz, Anna, “Die abolitionistische Föderation,” in Einführung in das Studium der Prostitutionsfrage, ed. Pappritz, A. (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1919), 220–60, 225Google Scholar. On the history of German abolitionism, see especially Evans, “Prostitution, State, and Society”; Evans, Richard J., The Feminist Movement in Germany, 1894–1933 (London: SAGE Publications, 1976)Google Scholar; Kaplan, Marion A., The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany: The Campaigns of the Jüdischer Frauenbund, 1904–1938 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Meyer-Renschhausen, Elisabeth, “Die weibliche Ehre. Ein Kapitel aus dem Kampf von Frauen gegen Polizei und Ärzte,” in Frauenkörper—Medizin—Sexualität. Auf dem Wege zu einer neuen Sexualmoral, ed. Geyer-Kordesch, Johanna and Kuhn, Annette (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1986), 80–101Google Scholar; Meyer-Renschhausen, Elisabeth, Weibliche Kultur und soziale Arbeit. Eine Geschichte der Frauenbewegung am Beispiel Bremens (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 1989)Google Scholar; Schmackpfeffer, Petra, Frauenbewegung und Prostitution. Über das Verhältnis der alten und neuen deutschen Frauenbewegung zur Prostitution (Oldenburg: Bibliotheks- und Informationssystem der Universität Oldenburg, 1989)Google Scholar; Gerhard, Ute, Unerhört. Die Geschichte der deutschen Frauenbewegung (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1990)Google Scholar; Allen, Ann Taylor, “Feminism, Venereal Diseases, and the State in Germany, 1890–1918,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 4, no. 1 (July 1993): 27–50Google Scholar; and Klausmann, Christina, Politik und Kultur der Frauenbewegung im Kaiserreich. Das Beispiel Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1997)Google Scholar; and Julie R. Stubbs, “Rescuing ‘Endangered Girls’: Bourgeois Feminism, Social Welfare, and the Debate about Prostitution in the Weimar Republic” (Ph. D. diss., University of Michigan, 2001).

⁷⁰ Pappritz, “Abolitionistische Föderation,” 225.

⁷¹ See Breuer, Gisela, Frauenbewegung im Katholizismus. Der Katholische Frauenbund, 1903–1918 (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1998), 111–12, 118–27Google Scholar; see also Wollasch, Andreas, Der Katholische Fürsorgeverein für Mädchen, Frauen und Kinder, 1899–1945. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Jugend- und Gefährdetenfürsorge in Deutschland (Freiburg im Breisgau: Lambertus Verlag, 1991)Google Scholar.

⁷² Neuhaus made this statement during an executive meeting of the Catholic Women's League of Germany (Katholischer Frauenbund Deutschlands) on January 8, 1908. Quoted in Breuer, Frauenbewegung im Katholizismus, 125.

⁷³ On the DEF's position on prostitution, see Reagin, Nancy R., “‘A True Woman Can Take Care of Herself’: The Debate over Prostitution in Hanover, 1906,” Central European History 24, no. 4 (1991): 347–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Reagin, Nancy R., A German Women's Movement: Class and Gender in Hanover, 1880–1933 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1995)Google Scholar; and Kaufmann, Doris, Frauen zwischen Aufbruch und Reaktion. Protestantische Frauenbewegung in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Piper, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ Catholic women's opposition to these wartime policies is discussed in Breuer, Frauenbewegung im Katholizismus, 132–33. On the non-denominational women's movement, see Pappritz, “Abolitionistische Föderation,” 245–47; and Dorothee von Velsen, “Report on [sic] Moral Standard. Germany 1914–20,” undated manuscript in Landesarchiv Berlin (LAB) Helene-Lange Archiv—Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine (B Rep. 235–01) MF-Nr. 3400.

⁷⁵ Cf. the literature listed in note 48 above.

⁷⁶ Velsen, “Moral Standard,” 4.

⁷⁷ Daniel, War, 147.

⁷⁸ See the KFB's petition to the Reichstag of August 1918 in Archiv des Deutschen Caritasverbandes Freiburg im Breisgau (ADCV), Sozialdienst katholischer Frauen (SKF) 319.4 F01/01f, Fasz. 1.

⁷⁹ Toward the end of the 1920s, Neuhaus reverted to her earlier pro-regulationist viewpoint and started campaigning against abolitionist prostitution reforms she herself had helped to bring about. See Wollasch, Der Katholische Fürsorgeverein; and Roos, Julia, “Backlash against Prostitutes' Rights: Origins and Dynamics of Nazi Prostitution Policies,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 11, nos. 1/2 (January/April 2002): 67–94, esp. 74–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁰ Müller, Paula, “Die soziale Ursache der Prostitution,” in Die Bedeutung der Sittlichkeitsfrage für die deutsche Zukunft. Vorträge gehalten auf der Frauenkonferenz zum Studium der Sittlichkeitsfrage (Berlin: Edwin Runge, circa 1917), 43–61Google Scholar, esp. 43.

⁸¹ See the DEF's petition to the Prussian minister of welfare of October 27, 1920, in Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde (BArch) R 15.01 (Reichsministerium des Innern)/11891, 107–08.

⁸² For a copy of the petition to the National Assembly of October 22, 1919, see LAB B-Rep. 235–01 MF Nr. 3397.

⁸³ On the decisions of the Prussian state assembly, see Velsen, “Moral Standard,” 3.

⁸⁴ For conservative opposition against liberal prostitution reforms during the Weimar Republic, see Usborne, Politics of the Body, 83–84; and Roos, “Backlash.”

⁸⁵ “Vorläufiger Bericht über die von der Rheinischen Frauenliga eingeleiteten Protestaktionen gegen die Errichtung öffentlicher Häuser im besetzten Gebiet seitens der französischen Besatzungsbehörde,” LAB-B Rep. 235–01 MF Nr. 3396.

⁸⁶ See footnote 2 above.

⁸⁷ Morel, Horror, 11.

⁸⁸ Ibid., 12.

⁸⁹ See the memoranda “on the costs of the Rhineland occupation” of May 1, 1922, and April 1, 1924, in Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden (hereafter cited as HStAW) 405 (Regierungspräsident Wiesbaden)/5674, esp. 30–31, 74–75.

⁹⁰ Memorandum of May 1, 1922, in HStAW 405/5674, 31.

⁹¹ For a copy of Ordinance 83, see HStAW 405/3068, 90.

⁹² The decentralized nature of the German system of state-regulated prostitution left it to local administrations to decide upon the specific measures adopted for the control of prostitution. While many cities and towns did have a morals police, this was not true of all communities.

⁹³ Report by Landrat Scheuern of August 6, 1926, in HStAW 405/5669, 111. For a copy of the French regulations for the brothel in Diez, see HStAW 405/5729, 92.

⁹⁴ See Landrat Scheuern's comments at a meeting with administrative, police, and health officials in Wiesbaden in November 1921 in HStAW 405/5729, 8.

⁹⁵ See the Landrat's report to the Wiesbaden Regierungspräsident in HStAW 405/5669, 111–12.

⁹⁶ Letter by the Landrat in Düren to the Regierungspräsident in Aachen of May 3, 1924, in Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen/Hauptstaatsarchiv Düsseldorf (HStADü) Regierungspräsident Aachen/8553, no pagination.

⁹⁷ Letter by Dechant Hirsch of January 18, 1925, in HStADü Regierungspräsident Aachen/8553.

⁹⁸ Report by the Landrat in Düren of December 1, 1926, in HStADü Regierungspräsident Aachen/8553.

⁹⁹ Landrat Zimmermann's report of January 27, 1926, in HStAW 405/5669, 84–85.

¹⁰⁰ Report by Landrat Zimmermann of December 27, 1922, in HStAW 405/5669, 20.

¹⁰¹ Zimmermann's report of January 27, 1926, in HStAW 405/5669, 84–85. Zimmermann's statement suggests that it is possible that male German civilians also had access to the Hoechst brothel. Regulations for the different brothels for French troops varied on this matter. Le Naour found evidence that German men used the Wiesbaden brothel in significant numbers. See Le Naour, Honte noire, 93.

¹⁰² Report by the Landrat for Biebrich of December 16, 1921, in HStAW 405/5729, 189–90. Biebrich did not have any brothels.

¹⁰³ See the Landrat's report to the Regierungspräsident in Wiesbaden of December 20, 1922, in HStAW 405/5669, 14.

¹⁰⁴ This was a comment by Kreisamtmann Falck of the Mainz Provinzialdirektion at a meeting of administrative, police, and health officials in Wiesbaden on November 7, 1921, in HStAW 405/5729, 7.

¹⁰⁵ On the number of brothels in postwar Mainz, see the report by Kreisamtmann Falck, HStAW 405/5729, 6; on Mainz's prewar brothels, see Müller, Hugo, “Verbreitung der Geschlechtskrankheiten in Rheinhessen und Bordellfrage in Mainz,” Münchener medizinische Wochenschrift, no. 31 (1921): 973–74Google Scholar; also in HStAW 405/5729, 185–87.

¹⁰⁶ H. Müller, “Verbreitung,” in HStAW 405/5729, 186.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid., 186–87.

¹⁰⁹ See “Ausführungsbestimmung zur Überwachung und Unterdrückung der Prostitution in der von französischen Truppen besetzten Zone” of May 31, 1921, in HStAW 405/5669, 3. French authorities initially opened a number of brothels for colonial troops staffed exclusively with women from Northern Africa (cafés maures). The cafés maures were closed in March 1921 because the recruitment of non-European prostitutes proved more difficult than anticipated and because their rates were not competitive with those charged by German streetwalkers. See Le Naour, Honte noire, 44–48.

¹¹⁰ Rheinische Frauenliga, “Vorläufiger Bericht,” 3, in LAB-B Rep. 235–1 MF Nr. 3396.

¹¹¹ Report by a member of the German embassy in London of October 19, 1922, in HStAW 405/5669, 7–9.

¹¹² Ibid., 7–8.

¹¹³ Ibid., 7.

¹¹⁴ Ibid., 8.

¹¹⁵ HStAW 405/5669, 26–27.

¹¹⁶ Regulations for the control of prostitution in the Belgian zone of occupation of January 31, 1919, in HStADü Regierungspräsident Aachen/23059, 40.

¹¹⁷ For a copy of the identity card, see ibid., 62–70.

¹¹⁸ The German National Committee published Jung's speech in December 1924. For a copy, see “Betrifft: Standpunkt des Deutschen Nationalkomitees zur zwangsweisen Einrichtung von Bordellen in dem von Frankreich besetzten Gebiet,” in LAB-B Rep. 235–01 MF Nr. 3399.

¹¹⁹ In November 1925, German abolitionists were still bitter about the lack of international support for their campaign against the “French” brothels. See Pappritz, Anna, “Der Kampf gegen die Bordelle im besetzten Gebiet,” Der Abolitionist 24, no. 6 (November 1925): 5–8Google Scholar.

¹²⁰ Lüders, Marie-Elisabeth, Fürchte Dich nicht. Persönliches und Politisches aus mehr als 80 Jahren, 1878–1962 (Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1963)Google Scholar.

¹²¹ Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags, 1. Wahlperiode 1920/24, vol. 347, 2137–2138.

¹²² Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags, 1. Wahlperiode 1920/24, vol. 348, 2645.

¹²³ On bourgeois feminists' role in the regulation of the female labor force during World War I, see Daniel, War, esp. 73–78; and Davis, Home Fires, 172–73. On Lüders's activities in occupied Brussels, see Lüders, Fürchte Dich nicht, 62–65. Cf. also Velsen, “Moral Standard”; and Stubbs, “Rescuing ‘Endangered Girls.’ ”

¹²⁴ Lüders, Fürchte Dich nicht, 62.

¹²⁵ Ibid., 63.

¹²⁶ Velsen, “Moral Standard.”

¹²⁷ Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags, 1. Wahlperiode 1920/24, vol. 357, 9280.

¹²⁸ Ibid., 9291.

¹²⁹ Ibid., 9281.

¹³⁰ Stöcker, Helene, “Bordelle—und ‘Kultur,’” Neue Generation no. 3 (1922): 117–18Google Scholar. During a Reichstag debate of May 20, 1920, Louise Zietz raised similar criticisms of black shame propaganda. See Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags, 1. Wahlperiode 1920/24, vol. 333, 5694–5696. On German opposition to black horror propaganda, see also Le Naour, Honte noire, 139–45.

¹³¹ Stöcker, “Bordelle,” 118.

¹³² See the literature on Weimar-era debates about “immorality” listed in note 10 above.

¹³³ See Sneeringer, Winning Women's Votes, esp. 46–47. Cf. also Planert, Antifeminismus.

¹³⁴ Raffael Scheck makes a similar point about the need to rethink the relationship between right-wing women's endorsement of nationalist (and often racist) ideals of a German “people's community” (Volksgemeinschaft) and their commitment to women's rights. See Scheck, Mothers of the Nation, esp. 5; 183–84.

¹³⁵ More research is needed relating shifts in the Weimar-era “moral” agenda to larger changes in the religious Right's attitude toward the Weimar welfare state. On conflicts over welfare policy during the Weimar Republic, see esp. Dickinson, Edward Ross, The Politics of German Child Welfare from the Empire to the Federal Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Crew, David, Germans on Welfare: From Weimar to Hitler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hong, Young-Sun, Welfare, Modernity, and the Weimar State, 1919–1933 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

¹³⁶ Martin Geyer has argued that the focus on Germany's “enslavement” through the Versailles Treaty provided post-World War I German nationalism with “a new foundation” distinct from prewar nationalist ideology. See Geyer, Verkehrte Welt, 397–98. On the links between nationalism and middle-class ideals of sexual morality, see Mosse, George L., Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe (New York: Howard Fertig, 1985)Google Scholar.

¹³⁷ Cf. Dickinson, Edward Ross, “The Men's Christian Morality Movement in Germany, 1880–1914: Some Reflections on Politics, Sex, and Sexual Politics,” The Journal of Modern History 75 (2003): 59–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.