Barnet P. Hartston - The trial of Gustav Graef art, sex, and scandal in late nineteenth-century Germany

Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb 60115
2017 by Northern Illinois University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5
978-0-87580-767-6 (cloth)
978-1-60909-226-9 (e-book)
Book and cover design by Yuni Dorr

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hartston, Barnet P. (Barnet Peretz), 1969 author.

Title: The trial of Gustav Graef : art, sex, and scandal in late nineteenth-century Germany / Barnet Hartston.

Description: DeKalb, IL : Northern Illinois University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017034856 (print) | LCCN 2017035546 (ebook) | ISBN 9781609092269 (ebook) | ISBN 9780875807676 (hardback)

Subjects: LCSH: Graef, Gustav, 18211895Trials, litigation, etc. | Trials (Perjury)GermanyBerlin19th century. | Artists modelsGermanyBerlin19th century. | ArtistsGermanyBerlin19th century. | Nudes in art19th century. | BISAC: HISTORY / Europe / Germany. | ART / Art & Politics. | HISTORY / Modern / 19th Century.

Classification: LCC KK69.G73 (ebook) | LCC KK69.G73 H37 2017 (print) | DDC 345.43/0234dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034856

There is nothing better than a good story. I first stumbled upon the Graef trial while engaging in research for my dissertation in 1996. Although I was captivated by the richness and strangeness of the case, it did not fit into my existing research agenda, and I decided to shelve itat least temporarily. Unfortunately, it took me more than a decade and a half to return to the case; the wait, however, was well worthwhile. I have enjoyed this project as much as any I have ever engaged in. I can only hope that a fraction of the joy I found in the research and writing of this book will be found in the reading of it as well.

My journey toward this book first began with a rambling and unfocused presentation at a 2012 DAAD Workshop on Weimar Legal Culture at Vanderbilts Max Kade Center for German and European Studies, hosted by Henning Grunwald and Helmut Walser Smith. I am grateful to those who attended not only for their extraordinary patience, but also for their encouragement at such an early stage of my research. I should also mention the essential role of a 2010 DAAD Faculty Summer Seminar on Violence and the Law in German Cultures of Modernity at Cornell University, which was hosted by Isabel Hull. Those who attended this six-week seminar will clearly recognize the influence of our common readings and discussions on the law in German history in my approach to this research project. I am deeply indebted to them, and also to the DAAD for their generous support of such work. The substantial research required for this project would not have been possible without the Lloyd W. Chapin Faculty Research Fellowship, which provided generous support for my long research stays in Berlin. I therefore owe a special debt of gratitude to Eckerd College, Lloyd Chapin, and particularly to Helmar Nielsen, who is responsible for this wonderful endowment.

Sace Elder was generous with her time and refreshingly blunt with her feedback, and the detailed reviews of Ann Goldberg and Sarah Leonard (as well as their own wonderful record of scholarship) helped make this a better book. Many others, including Benjamin Hett, Richard Wetzell, Theresa Smith, Lee Irby, and David Pinto also provided both welcome advice and encouragement along the way. A number of archivists were instrumental in pointing me to sources that I otherwise may have missedespecially Julian Schulenburg of the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, whose extensive research advice proved particularly fruitful. Thanks are also due to the staff at the Landesarchiv Berlin, the Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach.

The staff at Northern Illinois University Press have been wonderful to work with, especially Amy Farranto and Nathan Holmes, whose patience and good advice made the process of getting this manuscript into print a very positive one. I would also like to express my gratitude to Elizabeth Dale, editor of the journal Law and History Review, for allowing me to use portions of my forthcoming article Closing the Courtroom: Press Restrictions and Criminal Trials in Late Nineteenth-Century Germany in this book.

Finally, I would also like to thank my daughters McKenzie, Tess, and Sofia Augusta, and my son Daniel Hartston, each of whom make every day both a joy and an adventure. Heidi, Paul, and Ruby Epstein; Amos, Thuy, Spencer, and Ryan Hartston; and Eve, David, Zoe, Elliot, and Ian Fleck have all contributed to my workeven if they never read a word. My heartfelt appreciation also goes to the two people without whom this book would never have happened: Gloria Leifer-Hartston, who has provided a lifetime of love, encouragement, and ample inspiration through her example as a scholar and teacher, and Michelle Hartston, whose rapt attention to the details of my daily journeys to nineteenth-century Berlin may occasionally have been feigned, but whose love and support were always genuine. This book is dedicated to them.

An Arresting Story

There are no surviving descriptions of the scene, but one can easily imagine the chaos. First, the sudden, sharp knock at the front door as police officers demanded entry into the apartment. Then, a frenzied search of the residence as the elderly professor, his wife, and his two adult children looked on in disbelief. Perhaps an awkward fumbling for keys as the police ordered the professor to open the locked drawers in his office desk, and pleas from the family left unanswered as the men stuffed confiscated papers into their satchels. Finally, the biggest shock of all: the police officers announced that the sixty-three-year-old Gustav Graef was now under arrest and would be taken to police headquarters at the Molkenmarkt in Central Berlin. In just a few minutes, a mans hard-earned reputation was ruined and a familys long struggle for prosperity was imperiled. For the prisoner, Gustav Graef, was no ordinary man. He was a respected professor, a member of the Royal Academy of Arts, and one of the most famous painters in Berlin.

Despite his own protestations of innocence and appeals by his family, Gustav Graef was not allowed to post bail. This was in part due to the serious nature of the crimes with which he had been charged: perjury, subornation of perjury, and two counts of inappropriate relations with female models under the age of fourteen. Because of the ongoing investigation, a backlog of cases in the court system, the sickness of key witnesses, as well as the traditional summer recess for Berlin criminal courts, Gustav Graef would spend the next six months in pretrial custody. Although the arrest itself in March 1885 generated only minimal press attention, the trial of Gustav Graef the following September would result in one of the most sensational