Karl-Günther Heimsoth

Independent activity Marxism–Leninism 1899–1934

Berlin physician and astrologer who introduced the term “homophily” to sexology and corresponded with Ernst Röhm

In 1928–1929 he received the letters in which Röhm discussed his homosexuality; seized at his home in 1931, they became the basis of the 1932 Röhm scandal.

Born in Charlottenburg, he served as an artillery lieutenant at the end of the First World War and fought with a Freikorps in 1920–1921 while studying medicine. His 1924 dissertation introduced the term “homophily” to sexology; rejecting Hirschfeld’s “third sex” theory, he championed an antisemitic cult of the virile male hero. In 1928 he published Charakter-Konstellation, an astrological account of homosexuality, and began corresponding with Ernst Röhm. He joined Otto Strasser’s Nazi splinter group in 1930, left it in 1931 for Beppo Römer’s nationalist faction of the Communist Party and informed for the KPD intelligence service. Police seized Röhm’s letters at his home in 1931. Formally joining the Nazi Party in 1933, he disappeared after his release from protective custody in March 1934; one account says Edmund Heines had him shot in Breslau.

Also known as: Karl-Guenter Heimsoth