The First Known Gay Spy!

Dah-Dah-Dahhhh!

Okay, I'm really into "firsts" and Today's Bitchin' Queer Quote is about the first known gay spy...

Raymond Lecomte (1857-1921). As the first secretary of the French legation in Berlin, Lecomte infiltrated the homosexual clique surrounding the German Prince Philipp von Eulenburg.

It was called the "Round Table!"

His [Lecomte's] discovery that Germany was bluffing in the Morocco crisis of 1906 led to a French diplomatic victory at the Algeciras Conference. This in turn led to Eulenburg's exposure as a homosexual and his subsequent ruin. Lecomte's activities are the first known instance of a homosexual's using his sexual contacts for espionage.

Dah-Dah-Dahhhh!!

Now that's a BITCHIN' Queer Quote! It's from pg. 21 of "The First Gay Pope and other records" by Lynne Yamaguchi Fletcher.

You can also check out the New York Times article reprint from June 14, 1907 here.
In it there are some additional juicy details about who was part of the German's Prince's "Round Table," including a General and two highly placed Cavalry Officers!

Dah-Dah-Dahhhh!!!

For more fascinating history swirling around this Gay scandal, check out the wikipedia article on the Harden-Eulenburg Affair. It includes tidbits like this one, about

the night Kaiser Wilhelm II was vacationing at an aristocrat's estate in the Black Forest when, after dinner, his chief of the Military Secretariat, Dietrich Graf von Hulsen-Haseler, was performing a dance in a tutu when his heart failed.

I swear I'm not making this stuff up!

okay, one last one for the Secretary of the German Military dying in a tutu...

Dah-Dah-Dahhhh!!!!