The «great German plague». The reception of the Eulenburg scandal in the Spanish press and the emergence of the public debate on male homosexuality

Abstract

This article aims to study the reception of the «Eulenburg scandal» in the Spanish press, from its appearance in Germany in 1907 after the denunciations of the journalist Maximilian Hardt published in Die Zukunft, to its subsequent echo in the years of the Great War. It is supported by a total of 300 journalistic pieces (chronicles, news, background articles, jokes, etc.) from 34 newspapers, weeklies and magazines. After synthetically exposing the episodes that mark the Eulenburg scandal and calibrating the way in which this episode contributed to spreading the category of «homosexuality» in Spain, the analysis of the journalistic discourse and its reception of the case is addressed from three shots of different position: the republican, the liberal and the conservative. The different modulations in the story of the events, in the representation of the protagonists and in the connotations of homosexuality in relation to the bankruptcy of masculinity and of the nation will be analyzed. In the conclusion it is highlighted how the event, despite its resonance in Spain and turning homosexuality into a matter of political significance, would not generate concern about homosexuality as a national problem, something that would only happen in the decade of 1920.