States of Liberation

States of Liberation examines gay persecution and liberation in both East and West Germany during the Cold War.

Samuel Clowes Huneke is an assistant professor of history at George Mason University.

Javier Samper Vendrell, University of Pennsylvania:
“A much-needed corrective to the commonly held beliefs that gay liberation was – and is – only possible in Western consumer-capitalist nations … Huneke has written the first history of the gay movement in the two German states from the 1950s until reunification.”

Craig Griffiths, Manchester Metropolitan University:
“States of Liberation makes a major historiographic intervention in the history of sexual citizenship, and deserves a wide readership not only among historians of sexuality but anyone interested in better understanding Cold War Germany.”

George de Stefano:
“Huneke’s dialectical approach to this history is attuned to complexity and contradiction, delineating the main developments, interrelations, and transformations that occurred in the social processes of liberation.”

Alexandria N. Ruble, Spring Hill College:
“Through intricately detailed stories and rich sources – many of which were oral interviews conducted by Huneke himself – it illuminates the complexities of gay life and activism in both Germanys. Huneke’s work on the GDR is an especially welcome addition to a canon that often focuses on West Germany or overlooks entanglements between the two states.”

Jason Johnson, History, Trinity University:

"States of Liberation is a pioneering, field-shaping masterpiece. This exceptional book will be a staple of the study of post-war Germany."

Cristopher Ewing :

"Samuel Clowes Huneke’s comparative look at gay life in postwar Germany, divided between a liberal capitalist West and a state socialist East, offers a unique opportunity to think through this history in more complicated ways that will resonate in many national contexts. Huneke is elegantly able to ‘weave together and to compare the trajectories of male homosexuality in the two German states across the span of forty years’ – an ambitious project which constitutes his primary intervention."

Dan Healey, Professor of Modern Russian History, University of Oxford:
“Samuel Clowes Huneke brilliantly excavates the half-forgotten story of gay activism on both sides of the Iron Curtain, with startling results for those who assume only capitalist democracy can cradle our futures.”

Monica Black, Professor of History, University of Tennessee, Knoxville:
“Samuel Clowes Huneke’s highly anticipated and superb book disturbs complacent Cold War-era assumptions about liberal democracy’s ‘natural’ inclination toward expanding rights and state socialism’s alleged failures.”

James J. Sheehan, Dickason Professor of Humanities Emeritus, Stanford University:
“By carefully examining the lives of gay men in the postwar era, Samuel Clowes Huneke’s gracefully written and deeply researched book provides new insights into the differences – and similarities – in West and East German states and society.”