The Persecution of Homosexuals in Ljubljana in 1913

SLOVENIA, February 1 - In ancient times (except in Judaism), homosexuality was socially accepted and not sanctioned. It was only with the advent of Christianity and the prevalence of the so-called Judeo-Christian values and morals that the condemnations in the Old Testament (which defined homosexuality as an act against God) and in the New Testament (where St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans described homosexuality as God's punishment for man's arrogance) began to acquire the punitive nature. The first to order punishment for the »unnatural« anal intercourse was the Roman Emperor Constrantin I. (306-337), and the forms of punishment soon became more severe, eventually leading to convicted men being burnt at the stake (occasionally with prior beheading as an act of mercy). This remained the standard form of punishment in Europe’s various judicial systems up until the late 18^th century. Thousands of people, whose only sin was attraction to their own sex, died under sword or in flames. It was widely believed that homosexual acts provoked God’s wrath, which was then poured over the righteous and the sinners alike in the form of earthquakes, plague, and famine, strengthening the conviction that to take revenge on homosexuals was in the general interest of the public. In the next centuries, the list of God’s punishments supposedly provoked by homosexual debauchery, only grew longer. Charlemagne, for example, believed the reason for the invasion of the Saracens was the sin of men fornicating with other men. In 1652, the Protestant scholar and jurist Carpzovius blamed homosexuals for six hardships: earthquakes, plague, epidemics, invasions of the Saracens, fat mice (which destroy the crops), and floods. In the 16^th century, the penal code of Charles V (Constitutio Criminalis Carolina) stipulated in its paragraph 116 that sexual intercourse between a man or a woman and an animal, between two men, or between two women was punishable by burning at the stake. In addition to homosexual acts, the same penal provisions often also included sexual relations with animals and human corpses, and, in some instances, sexual relations between Christians and Jews (for example the 1328 legal code Schwabenspiegel – “mirror of the Swabians”). In general, up until the 18^th century (in Austria even into the 20^th century), the criminal act of sodomy (named after the biblical city of Sodom) and unnatural fornication included both homosexual relations and human-animal intercourse.  

The first European ruler to abolish death penalty for homosexuals and replace it with imprisonment was Emperor Joseph II in 1787. This, however, can most likely be attributed to the general abolition of death penalty at that time. In 1801, Napoleon abolished all punishments for any such sexual activities. In 1861, England was the last to replace death penalty with life imprisonment and hard labour for such “offence”. By late 19^th century and early 20^th century, homosexuality was treated differently in different parts of Europe. While homosexuals in England faced the threat of lifelong imprisonment, those in Austria received one to five years of hard labour, whereas in the imperial Germany such offences were punishable by a fine or imprisonment lasting from one day to several weeks. In practice, homosexuals in Weimar Germany were not consistently sanctioned, and their subculture there, especially in Berlin, flourished. A number of countries did not criminally prosecute homosexuals at all before the World War I; individuals in Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Italy (since 1889), Norway, Montenegro, Romania, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Japan, Mexico, and in most of the states in Latin America, were free to enjoy their sexual life without any fear of being punished for it.

The persecution of homosexuals intensified in the 20^th century with the rise of the totalitarian regimes. In the post-revolutionary Russia, homosexuality was legal until Stalin criminalized it in 1937. In Nazi Germany, homosexuals were widely persecuted and put into concentration camps. In Austria, homosexuality was only decriminalized in 1971, and in Slovenia in 1978. World Health Organization (WHO) only deleted homosexuality from its list of mental disorders on May 17, 1990, removing the labels of disease, disorder, or perversion.

The early 20^th century Austria took extreme views on homosexuality. Although the Austrian Minister of Justice Emanuel Heinrich Komers unsuccessfully proposed decriminalization of homosexuality as early as 1867, and a psychologist Magnus Hirschfeld argued that homosexuality was not a perversion but a completely natural sexual drive that could be found even among the oldest of peoples, a psychiatrist Ernst Bischoff proposed in 1912 that “the world needs to be rid of these abominations by means of their castration or internment into lunatic asylums”. Austria was undoubtedly hypocritical on this issue. In England, for instance, a renowned poet Oscar Wilde was imprisoned on account of his homosexuality, and in Germany, Prince Philip Eulenburg, the Emperor’s friend and German ambassador in Vienna, was placed behind bars because of it. In Austria, however, this “sin” was being prosecuted only among the lower classes. Although widely spread, homosexuality among officers was mostly silently tolerated. The Emperor’s own brother, Archduke Ludwig Viktor, a notoriously homosexual man nicknamed “Lutziwutzi”, was never punished for hosting orgies at his castle Kleßheim, harassing young officers, and showering his lovers with promotions and privileges.

A typical example of such persecution of lower-class homosexuals happened in Ljubljana at the start of 1913. After receiving a complaint from a guest of the pub Beti Orehek in Kolodvorska Street, who reported a suspicious behaviour of two young men – Anton Kittler and Miloš Stejskal - the police took them both into custody, and the Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation. Based on the interrogations, the following was put forward: Kittler was a 29-year-old vagrant, born in Karlovy Vary, with no permanent place of residence. Having finished a couple of years of grammar school, he trained as a hairdresser, but was never interested in regular employment. He wandered around the monarchy, falsely identifying himself as an engineer or technician and using a false surname of Kitele. He mostly went begging from house to house. In 1910, the Provincial Court in Ljubljana convicted him of abusing a boy under 14 years of age (under article 128 of the penal code) and banished him from Carniola. After staying in Zagreb, where he was also investigated for various offences, he returned (despite being banished) to Ljubljana and on February 13, 1913, took up lodgings at Beti Orehek inn on Kolodvorska Street. There he met Miloš Stejskal, a 20-year-old apprentice from Brno, who had been looking for a job in Trieste since November but was unable to find one because he couldn’t speak the language. Having only received 120 krone from his father, he found himself without any money and in debt, so he decided to walk back home, but stopped in Ljubljana on his way there. The investigation revealed that the two men had been intimate. In the evenings they were slightly drunk, with Kittler evidently taking care of the younger Stejskal, paying all the expenses, and always making sure that Stejskal had enough to eat and even more to drink. Stejskal admitted that he and Kittler slept in the same room and that one night Kittler came to his bed because it was cold. Once there, he began persuading Stejskal to engage in pederasty (fellatio) and touched his genitals, but Stejskal claimed he had managed to ward off his advances. Kittler denied all claims made by Stejskal. Taking into account his previous offences, the Prosecutor’s Office did not believe him, but neither did they believe Stejskal’s claim that he had not succumbed to Kittler’s passion. They concluded that Kittler and Stejskal engaged in multiple homosexual relations between February 16 and 19. On this basis, charges were filed.

For his offences under article 320e (false identification), article 323 (violation of his banishment from Carniola) and article 129b (indecency with a person of the same sex), Anton Kittler was sentenced to 14 months of imprisonment with additional punishment of one day of fasting and one day of hard bed a month. His sentence became effective immediately – he was sent to Gradiška prison, his time spent in detention between February 20 and March 14 was included in the time of serving his sentence. Charges against Miloš Stejskal were dropped under article 259 of the criminal procedure law (circumstances that annul criminality of an act and are recognized as such by the court).

If the two young men socialized in the manner just described in the neighbouring Italy, for example, or in many other countries, they would have never even been investigated by the police. However, if they were to do any such thing in England, they could have faced a sentence of life in prison and hard labour.  

Dragan Matić