Benedict Friedlaender (8 July 1866 – 21 June 1908; first name occasionally spelled Benedikt) was a German Jewish

sexologist Sexology is the scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behaviors, and functions. The term ''sexology'' does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sexuality, such as social criticism. Sexologists app ...

, sociologist,

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

volcanologist A volcanologist, or volcano scientist, is a geologist who focuses on understanding the formation and eruptive activity of volcanoes. Volcanologists frequently visit volcanoes, sometimes active ones, to observe and monitor volcanic eruptions, col ...

, and

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. Friedlaender was born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

as the son of Carl Friedlaender (1817–1876), a professor of economics. His grandfather was Nathan Friedlaender (died 1830), a Berlin physician and university lecturer. Among his siblings was Immanuel Friedlaender (1871–1948), a distinguished volcanologist. He studied mathematics, physics, botany, and physiology in Berlin, earning a Ph.D. in zoology in 1888. Friedlaender Benedikt (1866-1908)

As a well-to-do donor, he supported the anarchist journal ''Kampf'' and published in the journal ''Der Sozialist''. He gave substantial financial support to

Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician and sexologist. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Com ...

Scientific-Humanitarian Committee The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (, WhK) was founded by Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin in May 1897, to campaign for social recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and against their legal Violence against LGBT people, pers ...

(Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, or WhK) in Berlin. The primary goal of the WhK was to work against

Paragraph 175 Paragraph 175 (known formally a§175 StGB also known as Section 175 in English) was a provision of the German Criminal Code from 15 May 1871 to 10 March 1994. It made homosexual acts between males a crime, and in early revisions the provision ...

of the Imperial Penal Code, which criminalized "unnatural vice" between males. The WhK assisted defendants in criminal trials, conducted public lectures, and gathered signatures on a petition for the repeal of the law. It found some parliamentary support for its law reform efforts in the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

. With

Adolf Brand Gustav Adolf Franz Brand (14 November 1874 – 2 February 1945) was a German writer, egoist anarchist, and pioneering campaigner for the acceptance of male bisexuality and homosexuality. Early life Adolf Brand was born on 14 November 1874 in Be ...

and ten others, Friedlaender founded the homosexual organization called

Gemeinschaft der Eigenen The german: label=none, Gemeinschaft der Eigenen ("Community of Free Spirits") was a German homosexual advocacy group led by anarchist Adolf Brand. The group opposed the country's preeminent advocacy group, Magnus Hirschfeld's Scientific-Humanita ...

(GdE), usually translated as Community of the Special, in 1903. The wor
Eigenen
can mean both "peculiar, distinctive, odd" (as in Oddfellows) and "owned, possessed", and the GdE's name was inspired in part by

Max Stirner Johann Kaspar Schmidt (25 October 1806 – 26 June 1856), known professionally as Max Stirner, was a German post-Hegelian philosopher, dealing mainly with the Hegelian notion of social alienation and self-consciousness. Stirner is often seen a ...

's libertarian philosophy of "self-ownership" or autonomy. The GdE repudiated Hirschfeld's understanding of homosexuality in a

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

spectrum and instead emphasized the masculinity of male-male sexuality, as did

André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the Symbolism (arts), symbolist movement, to the advent o ...

in 1924 in his Corydon. Some members of the GdE advocated the classical Greek practice of having a relationship with a younger man while being married. The GdE also spurned Hirschfeld's efforts at law reform and coalition-building with the Social Democrats and the

feminist movement The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for Radical politics, radical and Liberalism, liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality b ...

, adopting instead a diffusely anarchist outlook inspired by Stirner's individualism and the sweeping cultural criticism of

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...

. Friedlaender nonetheless maintained his membership in the WhK until 1906, when he broke with Hirschfeld and founded a third gay organization named "Secession from the WhK". Later renamed "League for Manly Culture", this organization folded shortly after Friedlaender's death by suicide on 21 June 1908 in Berlin. Friedlaender wrote several books on different themes. He wrote ''Die Renaissance des Eros Uranios'', which called for the revival of "

Greek love ''Greek love'' is a term originally used by classicists to describe the primarily homoerotic customs, practices, and attitudes of the ancient Greeks. It was frequently used as a euphemism for homosexuality and pederasty. The phrase is a produc ...

Works

* ''Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Centralnervensystems von Lumbricus''. Berlin: Dissertation, 1888. * ''Der freiheitliche Sozialismus im Gegensatz zum Staatsknechtsthum der Marxisten. Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Werke und Schicksale

Eugen Dühring Eugen Karl Dühring (12 January 1833, Berlin21 September 1921, Nowawes in modern-day Potsdam-Babelsberg) was a German philosopher, positivist, economist, and socialist who was a strong critic of Marxism. Life and works Dühring was born in Berl ...

's''. Berlin: Freie Verlagsanstalt, 1892. * ''Absolute oder relative Bewegung?'', with Immanuel Friedlaender. Berlin: Leonhard Simion, 1896. * ''Der Vulkan Kilauea auf Hawaii''. Berlin: H. Paetel, 1896. * ''Die vier Hauptrichtungen der modernen socialen Bewegung: Marxistische Socialdemokratie, Anarchismus, Eugen Dührings socialitäres System und

Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era. He inspired the eco ...

s Neophysiokratie, kritisch und vergleichend dargestellt''. Berlin: Calvary, 1901. * ''Marxismus und Anarchismus''. Berlin: Calvary, 1901. * ''Die Renaissance des Eros Uranios. Die physiologische Freundschaft, ein normaler Grundtrieb des Menschen und eine Frage der männlichen Gesellungsfreiheit. In naturwissenschaftlicher, naturrechtlicher, culturgeschichtlicher und sittenkritischer Beleuchtung''. Berlin-Treptow: Bernhard Zack, 1904. * ''Entwurf zu einer reizphysiologische Analyse der erotischen Anziehung unter Zugrundlegung vorwiegend homosexuellen Materials.'' Leipzig: Spohr, 1905. * ''Männliche und weibliche Kultur. Eine kausalhistorische Betrachtung''. Leipzig: "Deutscher Kampf" Verlag, 1906. * ''Die Liebe Platons im Lichte der modernen Biologie''. Berlin-Treptow: Bernhard Zack, 1909.

Notes

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Friedlaender, Benedict 1866 births 1908 suicides 19th-century LGBT people German anarchists 19th-century German Jews German libertarians German male writers 19th-century German physicists German sexologists German sociologists German volcanologists Individualist anarchists Jewish anarchists Jewish physicists Jewish sociologists LGBT Jews LGBT rights activists from Germany LGBT writers from Germany Masculists Suicides in Germany Writers from Berlin 20th-century LGBT people