The Männerbünde
This section explores male bonding as it was perceived by German Nationalists prior to World War II. As Adolf Hitler and the Nazi sized power, specific forms of male bonding were promoted as a matter of patriotism. Their beliefs about the nature of masculinity are presented here.
[Fraternities] try to prevent cliques from occurring or, at least, kind of mix people around so that they don’t clique as much, because it is evident that cliques are dangerous. (Jack B. Dalton)
You want to solve the problems of fraternities; bring women into it. That way the guys can’t carry on trying to beat themselves up, because that part of them is not possible or appreciated. (The World is Mine)
The third model of male bonding has a more disturbing past. The männerbünde was a social movement that developed in Germany at the turn of the 20th century. This movement, probably, provides the worst case scenario of male bonding. The männerbünde ideal developed out of the German nationalist movement, and its grounding arose from Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, Plato, and earlier German literature. Harry Oosterhuis (1991) outlines the männerbünde social movement and underlying theory in more detail.
Each quote in this section derives from his research, beginning with his observations of an earlier ethnological study by Heinrich Schurtz. Schurtz expounded his theory of the dual primal impulses in man, the sexual and social drive. Women, according to him, were governed completely by the urge to procreate and provide for, inherent in her sexual impulse. From that he concluded that her capacities were restricted to what he considered to be the most primitive social unit, the family. Schurtz emphasized that the social impulse, the drive to create communities and political institutions, was reserved only to the male. The “instinctive sympathy” between men was the precondition for social life (121).
According to Oosterhuis, the German nationalist ideal of the männerbünde was, “an elite of men, firmly united among themselves, [who] formed the core of state” (254). For the Nazi, the männerbünde became the “model for the National Socialist ideals of manliness, of male solidarity and superiority over foreigners, and of a strict hierarchy of men among themselves” (253).
By embracing a theory that stressed a dichotomy in gender roles, and the ideal of a male state, the männerbünde movement developed a strategy for social change. It was believed that “man’s idealism and creative drive were suffocated by exclusive emotional ties to women and by the material obligations entailed by marriage and family. Since they thwarted male bonding, women, being materialistic and superstitious, were held responsible for cultural decline” (186).
Therefore, it was advocated that the function of the family “should be restricted to female activities like housekeeping and the raising of children. As soon as males had outgrown the state of childhood, for them, a männerbünde should take place of the family” (244). It was then encouraged that male youths be educated by adult males, because these male bonds were part of the men’s social drive to create a foundation for culture and state. In fact, some advocates believed that “the rise of culture was only possible when männerbünde broke through the torpor of matriarchal rule” (187).
The historical background behind the männerbünde movement is worthy of mention here. Germany, revealing a tendency toward nationalists, “disparaged the results of the Enlightenment as being mere Western…meaning a utilitarian civilization ruled by economic and political interest” (242). German considered countries such as France and England as feminine because they embraced Enlightenment.
German identity was defined in contrast to countries in opposition. German nationalists, who considered themselves heirs to Greece, also established a psychological continuity to “primordial Germanic male bonding…of which the Nazis were supposedly heirs” (254). Although German youth movements did support some principles of Enlightenment, such as reform of personal lifestyle and individual consciousness, they too became nationalistic in the spirit of the times.
The männerbünde movement had a strong connection with the military. After the anti-Napoleonic Wars of Liberation, German nationalists celebrated male friendships as the most tangible form of patriotism. The männerbünde was later revitalized at the beginning of the 20th century, in part, due to the trench-warfare comradeship of the First World War. Nationalist virtues were associated with “communal sense, charismatic leadership, militarism, and self-sacrifice” (243). As they rose to power, the Nazi found the männerbünde increasingly useful and, as we know, millions of lives were lost in World War Two because of it.
Oosterhuis does not explain how rituals affected the German männerbünde, however he does address a specific conflict in the männerbünde: the issue of homosexualtiy. To elaborate, the Third Reich believed that sexuality “served above all propagation, population expansion, and the purity of the so-called Aryan race” (248). However, their standards about women and the family at times conflicted with their goal. The männerbünde made a sharp division between social and sexual spheres, and its glorification of masculinity and male-to-male relationships could potentially translate into homoerotism. The Nazi began to propagandize that homosexuality was a contagious social disease and homosexuals were dangerous, “not only because they seduced heterosexual men, but also because they created cliques and thereby undermined the hierarchical relationships and the unity of the movement” (250).
As a consequence, Hitler employed the charge of homosexual conspiracy to “eliminate political opponents, both inside his party and out. One notorious example is the liquidation in 1934 of Ernst Rohm, the head of the powerful SA (Sturmabtwilung)”(248). It is estimated that, “between 5,000 and 15,000 primarily male homosexuals died” in concentration camps during World War Two (248).
Thus far, the academic theories mentioned in this chapter leave many questions unanswered. For example, Paglia write that society can inhibit individual males from regressing to a barbaric nature, however, the männerbünde was, in its nature, a brutal force. How can this contradiction be explained? In some contexts I agree with Paglia, but it is unclear how society can both prevent and promote brutal nature. The next two sections look more closely at why male bonding can be different among male groups.
* The issue of homosexuality poses a problem to many theories about male bonding. Homosexuality, like heterosexuality, involves a type of male bonding. Yet, it is not always clear how theorists distinguish between the two. For example, would Tiger consider homosexuality as part of men’s past as hunters, or does Brownmiller believe that homosexual bonding is a cause of gang rape? My impression is that male bonding is usually discussed using two separate spheres: homosocial and homosexual. When men organize in groups it is homosocial act which often includes tacit rules about what forms of physical affection can be shared among members of that group. As a result, heterosexual bonds are often presented as the norm, while the variable of homosexual activity is considered as something opposite to the homosocial bond. As in the case of the männerbünde, such dichotomous views of the social/sexual spheres can render homosexuals the targets for other men to bond against. I do not dwell on this inter-male conflict that much in this thesis, but it does deserve attention in future research.
Tags: Hitler, homosexuality, Male Bonding, military, Nazis, Oosterhuis