Manuela Bauer / Hannes Sulzenbacher
"Mein Name ist Erich Lifka. In Moskau kennt man mich."
Manuela Bauer / Hannes Sulzenbacher
"My name is Erich Lifka. They know me in Moscow."
An invented biography between adventure, resistance, espionage and pornography
English abstract
This article contrasts the life of the Austrian author, journalist, interpreter and activist as it is known from the published biographies with hitherto unknown documents from his personal papers/nachlass held in the QWIEN archives. For the first time, Lifka’s biography is re–examined by using extensive research in archives and libraries and the analysis of most of Lifka’s personal papers. This puts the previously published evidence on his life, which mainly built on Lifka’s own reminiscences and accounts, into perspective. Thus, the image of the courageous man resisting National Socialism in Vienna as well as at the Eastern Front has to be revised. The same holds true for the image of the acclaimed writer, translator and "friend of great men”. The article discusses in how far gay historiography is inadequately entangled in the political goals of emancipatory movements when it adopts subjective heroic recollections by individuals uncritically. The example here is claiming gay resistance against National Socialism when in fact there was none.