Hans-Georg Stümke (16 September 1941 in

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named ...

– 29 September 2002 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 ...

) was a German gay activist,

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

, and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

. The son of an

army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

officer, Stümke grew up in

Celle Celle () is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the river Aller, a tributary of the Weser, and has a population of about 71,000. Celle is the southern gateway to the Lü ...

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

, and worked first as a meteorologist for the German army. He returned to school to complete his secondary education and enrolled at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

to study history. In the early 1960s, he

came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

as a gay man, and he was an

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

activist in the 1970s. Stümke was among the first to report in West Germany about the

Stonewall riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, which helped spark the founding of the nationwide gay rights movement. In the following years he was active in the

LSVD Lesben- und Schwulenverband in Deutschland (LSVD), German for the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany, is the largest non-governmental LGBT rights organisation in Germany. It was founded in 1990 and is part of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bis ...

and authored pioneering books about German gay history and gay seniors. His humorous travel guide to

Playa del Ingles Playa (plural playas) may refer to: Landforms * Endorheic basin, also known as a sink, alkali flat or sabkha, a desert basin with no outlet which periodically fills with water to form a temporary lake * Dry lake, often called a ''playa'' in the s ...

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa which is part of Spain. the island had a population of that co ...

, went through numerous printings in German and was translated into English. He died of cancer in 2002 and is buried in the

Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof (Alter Sankt-Matthäus-Kirchhof or Old St. Matthew's Churchyard) is a cemetery in Schöneberg, Berlin, Germany. It was established in 1856 by the Protestant parish of St. Matthew. It is known for its interment of the ...

cemetery in Berlin.

Works by Stümke

* ''Älter werden wir umsonst. Schwules Leben jenseits der Dreißig. Erfahrungen.'' Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel, 1998. (Interviews and essays by

Michael Bochow Michael Bochow (born 26 March 1948) is a German sociologist who has authored a number of empirical studies of German gay men with a particular focus on the impact of HIV/AIDS. After completing his schooling in Lower Saxony, Bochow moved to Berli ...

, Rainer Hoffmann,

Rüdiger Lautmann Rüdiger Lautmann (born 22 December 1935) is a German professor of sociology and one of the most prominent LGBT scholars in Germany. Biography Born in Koblenz, Lautmann lived during his childhood in Düsseldorf, where he went to school. He fi ...

, and Michael Schmidt.) * ''Homosexuelle in Deutschland. Eine politische Geschichte''. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1989. * ''Rosa Winkel, rosa Listen. Homosexuelle und "gesundes Volksempfinden" von Auschwitz bis heute.'' Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1981. (Coauthored with Rudi Finkler.) * Elvira Klöppelschuh (pseudonym), ''Elvira auf Gran Canaria. Urlaub, Schwule, Strand und Tand.'' Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel, 1994. **English translation: Elvira Totterheels (pseudonym), ''Elvira in Gran Canaria: Sea, Sun, Sand and a New Pair of Shoes.'' Transl. by Ashley Lancaster. Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel, 2002.

External links

Titles by Stümke
in the

German National Library The German National Library (DNB; german: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its task is to colle ...

Persönlichkeiten von schwulem Interesse:Hans-Georg Stümke (German)

taz:'Unerbittlich im Kampf für schwule Rechte (German)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stumke, Hans-Georg 1941 births 2002 deaths German LGBT rights activists German gay writers 20th-century German LGBT people 21st-century German LGBT people Historians of LGBT topics LGBT historians Historians of Germany Historians of Nazism Historians of the Holocaust