Friedrich Radszuweit

Independent activity 1876–1932 ○ Natural causes

Weimar-era publisher who led the League for Human Rights and campaigned against Paragraph 175 through his gay and lesbian magazines

As president of the Bund für Menschenrecht from 1923 to 1932 he led the largest homosexual organisation of the Weimar Republic, to which Röhm also belonged.

Born in a hamlet of Insterburg district in East Prussia, he worked as a servant in Berlin and opened a women’s clothing shop in 1901. In 1923 he became president of the Bund für Menschenrecht, the gay rights league that demanded the abolition of Paragraph 175, and founded a publishing house that issued Das Freundschaftsblatt, the first lesbian magazine Die Freundin and the transvestite magazine Das 3. Geschlecht. He wrote novels such as Männer zu verkaufen and in 1927 circulated an appeal to Reichstag members for reform of Paragraph 175. Insisting on leading the movement, he clashed with Magnus Hirschfeld and Adolf Brand, and after the Nazi gains of 1930 he moved to the right and made antisemitic remarks. He died in Berlin in 1932.

Also known as: Heinrich Friedrich Radszuweit