Militär, Medizin und Moral: Sexualität im Ersten Weltkrieg

Abstract

During World War I, the separation of married couples became a phenomenon affecting the masses on a previously unknown scale. As a result, extramarital sexuality evolved into a problem of new dimensions requiring a reaction on the part of both the governments and the military of the warring countries. Using a variety of strategies, they attempted to keep the threats that extramarital sexual contacts posed to the morality as well as to the health of society under control. These strategies ranged from the surveillance of the moral conduct of the soldiers’ wives to the establishment of brothels behind the front. These brothels were under the medical control of military physicians, some even being under military management. On the home front, there was a policy aimed at restricting and avoiding extramarital sexual contacts. Meanwhile, the military, faced with the imminent spread of venereal disease and ultimately the threat to its effectiveness in military combat, attempted to minimise the health risks of extramarital sexual contacts for the soldiers on the front by providing prophylactics and medical examinations of prostitutes. As a result of this discourse on issues of sexual behaviour, medical doctors increasingly came to be put in the role of experts on questions of sexuality.

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