1866–1908
✕ Suicide
German zoologist and sexologist whose Renaissance of Eros Uranios paved the way for the Männerbund theory
In 1906 he broke with Hirschfeld’s Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and founded its Secession, presenting homosexuality not as femininity but as a “physiological friendship” between men.
Zoologist and sexologist, a Dühringian libertarian socialist who funded anarchist journals. In The Renaissance of Eros Uranios (1904) he presented “physiological friendship” between men as a normal basic drive, and in 1906 broke with the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee to found its Secession. His ideas fed into Blüher’s Männerbund theory.
Also known as: Benedikt Friedlaender · Benedict Friedländer
Activities and affiliations
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1888–1908
Science and technology
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–1906
Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (WhK)
Science and technology -
1906–1908
Social movements and organizing
Related historical events
“Physiological friendship” and the Secession
Born in Berlin, the son of a professor of political economy, he studied mathematics, physics, botany and physiology and took a doctorate in zoology in 1888. A theorist of Eugen Dühring’s “libertarian socialism”, he wrote books against Marxism, and as a wealthy patron supported the anarchist journal Kampf and wrote for Der Sozialist. He was a member and major donor of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, but in The Renaissance of Eros Uranios (1904) he presented “physiological friendship” between men as a normal basic human drive and a question of men’s freedom of association, and in 1906 he broke away to found the Secession of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, later the League for Male Culture. His rejection of Hirschfeld’s “third sex” strongly influenced the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen and Hans Blüher’s Männerbund theory. Of Jewish origin but without religion at his death, he shot himself in a clinic in Berlin-Schöneberg in 1908, worn down by a chronic illness.