FREUNDSCHAFT, Die
Die Freundschaft. Jahrgang 12 Nrs. 1-12, 1930. (Complete volume in original wrappers).
Berlin, Phoebus-Verlag Kurt Eitelbuss, 1930. 24 x 17 cm. 12 issues, all in their original wrappers of stiff decorated paper. 192 p. in total. 1st edition. Very fine. Very rare occurence: a complete year of this very rare German gay magazine in excellent condition. Every issue contains a number of stories and poems, that may seem kitschy now, but probably expressed the deepest feelings of those who lived - most of them anxiously in secret - as male or female homosexuals during the Weimar Republic. In each number, the cover is used for organisation aspects: subscription, how to advertise (again, scrupulously secretive from 'normal people'), and where to go ‘out’. In each issue's last pages publisher Kurt Eitelbuss offers a list of books to read for homosexuals, where we find Herman Bang's novel Michael, two books by Louis Couperus - Heliogabal and Die Komödianten - Georges Eekhoud's Escal Vigor, Der Tod in Venedig, Dorian Gray, Verwirrung der Gefühle and some lesser known but not less impressive gay novels like those by Pernauhm and Sagitta. Apart from the short stories and poems, the magazine contains serious articles about (for instance) sex education, blackmailers and politics. In addition, important writers and artists were the subject of short leads: Stefan George, Thomas Mann, Leonardo da Vinci. This 1930 volume concludes with the Christmas issue, always something special, but in this case it contains memories of Georg Plock (1865-1930), who was a central figure in German gay emancipation: Magnus Hirschfeld's competent secretary around 1908 during the Eulenburg storms, during the War and its grisly aftermath, and then the organizing force of the Deutsche Freundschafts Verband, the German Friendship Union that associated gay men and women in the 1920s. Plock was mourned by a.o. Magnus Hirschfeld, Karl Besser and Kurt Eitelbuss under the light of a tipped-in portrait photo.
Boeknummer: 282099
€ 1600.00