It’s Sunday afternoon I am alone alone, I read once more your letters, which are immensely dear to me. Keywords: surveillance / homosexuality / Fascist Italy / ambiguity / totalitarianism / ideology Just as spy novels become open-ended trajectories of several stages of suspicion, these layers of ambiguity are multiplied in the spies’ surveillance reports, where the distrust of the foreign alien is combined with the rejection of homosexuality to designate an extremely ambiguous “other” that the Fascists both reject and exploit. As in fiction, where characters play a deceitful role, the archival documents analyzed in this essay replicate that deception in three layers of ambiguity. Spies live in a gray zone of blurred agencies and conflicting incentives. This article aims at illustrating this relationship, by focusing on these two cases and ultimately proving that the Fascist surveillance-like any other-is doomed to fail, because these double agents are “imperfect” tools. The Fascist regime cultivated a dual relationship with homosexuals: it exploited them for their contacts, but persecuted them as “enemies of the new man” who undermined the Fascist understanding of morality. This article delves into the stories of two foreign queer spies in Fascist Italy, the Swiss Roberto Hodel and the German Gerhard Dobbert. Just as spy novels become open-ended trajectories of several stages of suspicion, these layers of ambiguity are multiplied in the spies’ surveillance reports, where the distrust of the foreign alien is combined with the rejection of homosexuality to designate an extremely ambiguous “other” that the Fascists both reject and take advantage of. Like in fiction, where characters play a deceitful role, the archival documents analyzed in this essay replicate that deception in three layers of ambiguity. Benedetta Carnaghi 2017 Janine Utell Benedetta Carnaghi This article delves into the stories of two foreign queer spies in Fascist Italy, the Swiss Roberto Hodel and the German Gerhard Dobbert.
#Masculine gay men spy archive
The Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914-1945 Main Menu The Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914–1945 Volume 17 | 2021 | General Issue Labor in the Space Between | 2022 Conference Preview Archive Submission Guidelines Reviews and Review Essays Editors | Editorial Board | Advisory Committee CFP: 2023 General Issue The Space Between Society Three Layers of Ambiguity: Homosexual Spies and International Intrigue in Fascist Italy 1 media/image001.jpg media/image001.jpg media/hut6girls_big.jpg T10:44:52-08:00 Jennifer Poulos Nesbitt 62bc3cb599d3c15be3205b879d3578d58552b092 5401 7 image_header T12:47:24-08:00 surveillance homosexuality Fascist Italy ambiguity totalitarianism ideology English This article delves into the stories of two foreign queer spies in Fascist Italy, the Swiss Roberto Hodel and the German Gerhard Dobbert.
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