Queer German Roots of the Alt-Right: Ulrichs, Weininger, Blüher—and Evola

Abstract

Julius Evola, the Italian fascist philosopher who has become a touchstone for far-right thinking throughout the world, has surprising connections to figures in the early German homosexual emancipation movement. From Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, he draws on the idea that men can have female souls and women can have male souls. From Otto Weininger, he adapts the idea of taking this kind of gender inversion and applying it to race. From Hans Blu¨her, he draws on the glorification of the Ma¨nnerbund, an erotically bonded group of men, as the basic building block of society. The unexpected queer roots of alt-right thinking help to explain the presence of gay men and women on the far right, outlining a reactionary queer genealogy that contrasts with liberal progressive LGBTQ+ histories. (RDT).