Adolf Brand

Adolf Brand born 14 November 1874 (d. 1945)

Adolf Brand was a German writer, anarchist and pioneer activist for the acceptance of male homosexuality.

Born in Berlin, Brand became a school teacher briefly before establishing a publishing firm and producing a German homosexual periodical, Der Eigene in 1896. This was the first ongoing homosexual publication in the world, and ran until 1931. The name was taken from writings of egoist philosopher Max Stirner, who had greatly influenced the young Brand, and refers to Stirner's concept of 'self-ownership' of the individual. Der Eigene concentrated on cultural and scholarly material, and may have had an average of around 1500 subscribers per issue during its lifetime, although the exact numbers are uncertain. Contributors included Wilhelm von Gloeden, as well as many contributions from Brand himself.

In 1899/1900 Brand published Elisar von Kupffer's (1872-1942) influential anthology of homoerotic literature, Lieblingsminne und Freundesliebe in der Welt-literature. The work was reprinted again in 1908.

In 1899 he was sentenced to a year in prison for publicly attacking a member of parliament with a dog whip.

Brand became involved in Magnus Hirschfeld's Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (the first public homosexual rights organisation), until there was a split in 1903; that same year Brand led the formation of the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen organisation with the scientist Benedict Friedlander and Wilhelm Jansen. To this new group, male-male love was viewed as a simple aspect of virile manliness available to all men; they rejected the medical theories of doctors such as Magnus Hirschfeld who found that a gay man was a certain type of person, the intermediate sex.

Brand was a proponent of outing famous gay men long before the advent of the term; when in 1907 he claimed in print that German chancellor Prince von Bülow (1849-1929) had a homosexual affair with Privy Councilor Max Scheefer, he was sued for libel and sentenced to eighteen months in prison.

Brand was sentenced to two months in prison, allegedly for allowing 'lewd writings' to be published in Der Eigene, under the notorious Paragraph 175 of the German legal code. During World War I Brand and the GdE curtailed their activities for the duration; Brand served in the German army for two years and married a nurse, Elise Behrendt. After the war the enforcement of Paragraph 175 slowly declined.

The GdE and other groups formed a united 'action committee' with Magnus Hirschfeld's group, to formulate a new law. In 1925 more groups joined and the larger Cartel for Reform of the Law against Sexual Offences was formed. Despite a new law being drafted, it was not voted on, and by 1929 there was no further chance to reform Paragraph 175.

Adolf Brand gave up homosexual activism in the early 1930s, after constant harassment from the Nazis who silenced Der Eigene, destroyed his life's work and left him in financial ruin. After the sacking and burning of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft he finally sent a public letter to his followers announcing the end of the movement. He and his wife were killed by an Allied bomb on February 2, 1945.