Benedict Friedlaender
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Jewish sexologist, sociologist, economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, volcanologist
Volcanologist
A volcanologist is a person who studies the formation of volcanoes, and their current and historic eruptions. Volcanologists frequently visit volcanoes, especially active ones, to observe volcanic eruptions, collect eruptive products including tephra , rock and lava samples...
, and physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
.
Friedlaender was born in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
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.
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
Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician and sexologist. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."-Early life:Hirschfeld was born in Kolberg in a...
's Scientific-Humanitarian Committee
Scientific-Humanitarian Committee
The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee was founded in Berlin on the 14th or 15 May, 1897, to campaign for social recognition of homosexual, bisexual and transgender men and women, and against their legal persecution...
(Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, or WhK) in Berlin. The primary goal of the WhK was to work against Paragraph 175
Paragraph 175
Paragraph 175 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 also criminalized bestiality. All in all, around 140,000 men were convicted under the law.The statute was amended several...
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.
With Adolf Brand
Adolf Brand
Adolf Brand was a German writer, individualist anarchist and pioneering campaigner for the acceptance of male bisexuality and homosexuality.-Biography:...
and ten others, Friedlaender founded the homosexual organization called Gemeinschaft der Eigenen (GdE), usually translated as Community of the Special, in 1903. The word Eigenen can mean both "peculiar, distinctive, odd" (as in Oddfellows
Oddfellows
The name Oddfellows refers to a number of friendly societies and fraternal organisations operating in the United Kingdom. It also refers to a number of Lodges with histories dating back to the 18th century. These various organisations were set up to protect and care for their members and...
) and "owned, possessed", and the GdE's name was inspired in part by Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
's libertarian philosophy of "self-ownership" or autonomy. The GdE repudiated Hirschfeld's understanding of homosexuality in a transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
spectrum and instead emphasized the masculinity of male-male sexuality. 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, adopting instead a diffusely anarchist outlook inspired by Stirner's individualism and the sweeping cultural criticism of Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
. 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 June 21, 1908, in Berlin.
Friedlaender wrote several books on different themes. His work Die Renaissance des Eros Uranios, which called for the revival of "Greek love
Greek love
In the history of sexuality, Greek love is a concept of homoeroticism within the classical tradition. It is one of the "classically inspired erotic imaginings" by means of which later cultures have articulated their own discourse about homosexuality...
", had an important influence on Hans Blüher. Absolute or Relative Motion?, written with his brother Immanuel in 1896, contributed to the development of Mach's Principle
Mach's principle
In theoretical physics, particularly in discussions of gravitation theories, Mach's principle is the name given by Einstein to an imprecise hypothesis often credited to the physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach....
, which in turn played an important historical role in inspiring Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
's theory of general relativity
General relativity
General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...
.
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 DühringEugen DühringEugen Karl Dühring was a German philosopher and economist, a socialist who was a strong critic of Marxism.-Life and works:...
's. Berlin: Freie Verlagsanstalt, 1892. - Absolute oder relative Bewegung?, with Immanuel Friedlaender. Berlin: Leonhard Simion, 1896.
- Der Vulkan KilaueaKilaueaKīlauea is a volcano in the Hawaiian Islands, and one of five shield volcanoes that together form the island of Hawaii. Kīlauea means "spewing" or "much spreading" in the Hawaiian language, referring to its frequent outpouring of lava. The Puu Ōō cone has been continuously erupting in the eastern...
auf Hawaii. Berlin: H. Paetel, 1896. - Die vier Hauptrichtungen der modernen socialen Bewegung: Marxistische Socialdemokratie, Anarchismus, Eugen Dührings socialitäres System und Henry GeorgeHenry GeorgeHenry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...
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.
External links
- Benedict Friedlaender in the German National LibraryGerman National LibraryThe German National Library is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany...
- Thieme-connect