Reflections of Germany's Weimar 'Lustmord' - Violence against women increasing.

 

(Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Der Lustmörder (The Ripper), 1917)

(Otto Dix "Lustmord")

Italy Rages Against Murder of Fabiana Luzzi (from http://www.thedailybeast.com)

Fabiana, who would have turned 16 on June 13, is the youngest known victim of femicide in Italy, a moribund crime category also referred to as intimate partner or intimate personal violence that has reached epidemic proportions in recent years. In 2012, 127 women were murdered by men they loved—by husbands, boyfriends and sons. Chillingly, 47 women escaped death last year but were so brutally beaten, their cases are tagged as attempted femicides by the authorities that tally such gruesome statistics. The women who lived are scarred for life, both physically and psychologically. Many have suffered disfiguring facial fractures, broken ribs and even acid burns. Some of those who died last year were thrown off balconies, strangled with appliance power cords, and stabbed with their own stiletto heels.

(The above horrifying situation of women in Italy, is one of many articles, reports from the Middle East through to the West and Asia depicting the increased ferocity of violence against women.)

When a society becomes bankrupt, both from an economic, moral and sociological perspectives - women are always the scapegoat of male violence, aggression and destruction of the feminine.  Our societies globally are collapsing, you have to look at this sensibly, away from hysteria or conspiracy theories or anything connected to the idea that one should feel temperamental about relaying that thought - of a world breaking down.  Because it is true.  The reality of economic collapse from 2008, environmental turmoil, global warming, disasters, quagmire 'forever' wars by pillaging Western countries, self destructive religious mania in the Middle East, internal strife etc.  Yes, this has happened in history before, more so modern history will always reflect the same cycles, which is usually the collapse of economies, social foundations, then leading onto war.  Although what is historic at this point cyclically, is that we are seeing global upheaval interconnected.  America became post empire at the beginning of the 21st Century, with it's fatal blow occurring after 2008 with the financial crisis (whitewashed by goverment spending and central bank money printing) - in which every other country has emulated that same problem with a cover of illusion.

But the alarming increases of violence against women is testament to our society revealing that bankrupted social sentiment.  Very similar to the period in Germany after World War One, when the Weimar Republic,  reverted into a decayed vacuum of human values towards women.  Punished by the Allies after WW1 (reparation payments and occupied by France), inflation, structural demise of cities from economic, business, welfare.  The period, which was a post modern artistic and expressionist time, was documented by some of the most prolific artists of the 20th Century like Max Beckmann, Otto Blix,  George Grosz, Heinrich Maria Davringhausen - later called 'degenerate' artists after the Nazi's rose to power (thus tried to re-write and whitewash parts of German history, including it's Weimar past).  It is the study of the era, more so the Lustmord (Sexual Murder) that, in my opinion, is a reflection of what is occurring now in the 21st Century.

The only book that I know of which analyses that period regarding sexual crimes against women in Weimar Germany after World War One is Lustmord: Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany written by Maria Tatar (1997).   
However, Tatar's opinion of 'Lustmord art (modernism)' as an extension of male aggression (blaming WW1, after losing a war against fellow men, they declared war on women through society/art), does not explore the voyeuristic reflection of a societies deconstruction of it's self.  Post modern art is a perfect example of inward and outward reflection of our culture - in it's construction and deconstruction.  In other words, art can have meaning, or be meaningless.  Tatar had tried to draw the parallels of 'the war on women', at the same time blaming the artists for their visual representation of that 'war' -  in her opinion.  The book unfortunately reverts to aspects of reactionary feminism in that sense.  (*Noted from Synopsis.)

(Excerpt from the Synopsis for Lustmord: Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany (1997):

Tatar first analyzes actual cases of sexual murder that aroused wide public interest in Weimar Germany. She then considers how *the representation of murdered women in visual and literary works functions as a strategy for managing social and sexual anxieties, and shows how violence against women can be linked to the war trauma, to urban pathologies, and to the politics of cultural production and biological reproduction.
In exploring the complex relationship between victim and agent in cases of sexual murder, *Tatar explains how the roles came to be destabilized and reversed, turning the perpetrator of criminal deeds into a defenseless victim of seductive evil. Throughout the West today, the creation of similar ideological constructions still occurs in societies that have only recently begun to validate the voices of its victims. Maria Tatar's book opens up an important discussion for readers seeking to understand the forces behind sexual violence and its portrayal in the cultural media throughout this century.

I think the topic of 20th Century historic atrocities against women and the mounting evidence of a 21st Century epidemic of female violence will be looked at, whether the Weimar 'Lustmord' period will be used in that historic context remains to be seen.