Albrecht Muth

Bad Gays

Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller

History

4.6 • 842 Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For today’s episode, I we take you into the murky world of the Washington foreign policy elites, and one of its murkiest characters, a man named Albrecht Muth. Who is Albrecht Muth? Well, that’s another question entirely. He claimed to be a dashing German aristocrat and married into Washington's foreign policy elite. The shocking truth became one of official Washington's biggest mysteries... Subscribe to Extra Bad Gays for monthly episodes, our advice segments, and to support our work. Check out our new merch, including hats, shirts, and socks. ----more---- SOURCES: Alexander, Keith L. “Albrecht Muth, 49, Convicted of Murder in Death of Socialite Wife Viola Drath, 91.” Washington Post, January 16, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/muth-found-guilty-of-murder-in-death-of-socialite-wife/2014/01/16/5a942d9e-7ecd-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html. Foer, Franklin. “The Worst Marriage in Georgetown.” The New York Times, July 6, 2012, sec. Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/magazine/albrecht-muth-and-viola-drath-georgetowns-worst-marriage.html. Meredith Somers. “Drath Murder Case Exposes Bizarre Lifestyle of Georgetown Couple.” The Washington Times. Accessed January 13, 2025. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/apr/24/drath-murder-case-exposes-bizarre-lifestyle-of-geo/ Martin, Adam. “The Odd Behavior of a Husband Arrested for a D.C. Socialite’s Murder.” The Atlantic (blog), August 17, 2011. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/unfortunate-behavior-husband-arrested-dc-socialites-murder/354256/. The Daily Beast. “Inside D.C.’s Socialite Murder,” September 8, 2011. https://www.thedailybeast.com/socialite-murder-viola-drath-and-albrecht-muths-tumultuous-marriage/. “Upon Reflection: Albrecht Muth and Viola Drath - Washingtonian,” February 27, 2012. https://www.washingtonian.com/2012/02/27/upon-reflection-albrecht-muth-and-viola-drath/. Washington City Paper. “Viola Drath’s Cultural Legacy: A Look at the Works of a Murdered D.C. Writer,” August 25, 2011. http://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/423666/viola-draths-cultural-legacy-a-look-at-the-works-of-a-murdered-d-c-writer/. Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Batgays, a podcast about evil and complicated queer people in history.
0:20.0	My name is Ben Miller. I'm a writer and historian currently working, a podcast about evil and complicated queer people in history.
0:25.1	My name is Ben Miller. I'm a writer and historian currently working on a book about the fashion designer, Rudy Gerrhic. And my name's Heulemi. I'm a writer and author.
0:28.7	Last week, we talked about Elisar von Kupfer, a mercifully inimitable artist whose
0:33.3	depictions of androgynous twinks, disporting in in the altogether hid more of a fascist political agenda.
0:39.8	Who are we talking about this week, Hugh?
0:41.9	Before we start today's episode, I just want to give a content warning because there's some discussion of domestic violence in this episode.
0:48.2	So today, I want to take you into the murky world of the Washington foreign policy elites.
0:56.0	Maybe the only world that is more psychosexual normal than British public schools.
1:00.8	And one of its merkiest characters, a man named Albrecht Muth.
1:06.6	So who is Albrecht Muth? That really is a big question.
1:11.4	Most of what we do know about him is down to the journalist Franklin Furr, who wrote an extended
1:15.5	piece about Murth and his shadowy lie for the New York Times magazine in 2012.
1:21.7	And it's from this article and Furr's research and a couple of other journalists research
1:26.0	who I'll talk about the end.
1:30.6	And I've drawn much of the story that's been used in today's episode because it's a very recent story.
1:32.7	So Albrecht Murth was a figure on the foreign policy stage.
1:37.5	We know this much.
1:38.3	In the 90s and 90s, he was the founder of an organization called the Eminent Persons Project.
1:45.0	The Eminent Persons Project.
1:46.9	That sounds totally normal.
1:48.3	Nothing to see here, folks.
	...

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