Germany

Revolutionary War General

b. September 17, 1730
d. November 28, 1794

“You say to your soldier, 'Do this' and he does it. But I am obliged to say to the American, 'This is why you ought to do this' and then he does it.”

Baron Friedrich von Steuben was a German-born American general and a hero of the Revolutionary War. Historians believe he was openly gay—a rarity at the time, especially for a military officer.

Born in Magdeburg, Germany, the son of an engineer lieutenant in the Prussian Army, von Steuben joined the military at age 17. He served as the personal aide to Frederick the Great, a gay monarch, in the Seven Years War (1756 – 1763), a world conflict that arose from the French and Indian War in North America.

In 1763, when von Steuben was an army captain, the military abruptly discharged him. Some scholars believe he was dismissed due to his homosexuality. He then worked for the German courts. In 1771 the Prince of Hollenzollern-Hechingen named him a baron.

Struggling financially in 1775, von Steuben tried unsuccessfully to join the French, Austrian and other foreign armies. When he learned that Benjamin Franklin was in France, he traveled there to offer his service to the American army fighting the British. He impressed Franklin with his knowledge of military order and discipline.

Von Steuben was eventually assigned to George Washington’s winter quarters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Valley Forge functioned as the third of eight military encampments for the main body of the Continental Army.

With the help of translators, von Steuben taught the troops crucial military structure and tactics. Borrowing from his own strict Prussian Army training, he shaped the ragtag recruits and militiamen into organized, efficient fighters and boosted morale under the difficult conditions at Valley Forge. George Washington was so impressed, he extended von Steuben’s training to his entire command. He appointed von Steuben the first inspector general of the Army.

From January to October 1781, von Steuben served as a divisional commander under Washington in Yorktown, Virginia. The Yorktown campaign resulted in a decisive Franco-American victory and the start of peace negotiations. Many historians regard von Steuben as second only to Washington himself.

Although gay sex was a crime in the 1700s, same-sex romantic liaisons were tolerated. Von Steuben formed serious relationships with William North and Benjamin Walker. When the Revolutionary War ended, the U.S. granted von Steuben citizenship. He moved to New York, where he legally adopted both men, a practice commonplace among homosexuals, centuries before gay marriage.

When von Steuben died, North and Walker inherited his estate. The baron’s secretary, John Mulligan, with whom he was also believed to have had a relationship, inherited his library.

Von Steuben’s burial place became the Steuben Memorial, a state historic site in Steuben, New York.

Trailblazing Writer

b. August 26, 1904
d. January 4, 1986

“One should never write down or up to people, but out of yourself.”

Christopher Isherwood is an Anglo-American writer who was among the first to bring gay themes to mainstream literary audiences. Much of his work is semi-autobiographical, including “Goodbye to Berlin,” the novel that inspired the Tony Award-winning musical and Academy Award-winning film “Cabaret.”

Isherwood was born in 1904 near Manchester, England. From an early age, he formed friendships with people from all walks of life, some of whom later became his creative collaborators. In 1924, after submitting joke answers on his second-year exams, Isherwood was asked to leave Cambridge University. Embracing his newfound freedom, he took part-time jobs as the secretary of a string quartet and as a private tutor. He worked on his first novels and briefly attended medical school.

In 1929 Isherwood visited his friend, the poet W.H. Auden, in Berlin. The trip changed his life, bringing him “face to face with his tribe” and beginning his liberation as a gay man. Isherwood moved to Berlin later that year. His experiences and friendships there provided material for his novels “Mr. Norris Changes Trains” and “Goodbye to Berlin.” The latter, which depicts Germany’s pre-Nazi decadence, became Isherwood’s most famous work and cemented his legacy. The book was adapted into the play “I Am a Camera” and the musical “Cabaret,” which earned eight Tony Awards. The film version of “Cabaret,” starring Liza Minnelli, won eight Academy Awards.

In Berlin, Isherwood also began a relationship with a young German, Heinz Neddermeyer. The pair fled the Nazis, who were persecuting homosexuals, and moved across Europe until the Gestapo arrested Neddermeyer in 1937.

Isherwood returned to London, where he wrote plays and screenplays, before settling in Hollywood. He became a U.S. citizen in 1946. Seven years later, he fell in love with a college student, Don Bachardy. The couple remained together for more than 30 years, until Isherwood’s death. The relationship became a model for many gay men.

In his later years, Isherwood turned increasingly to autobiographical and gay themes. In 1964 he published the critically acclaimed novel, “A Single Man,” about a gay middle-aged English professor. A film adaptation, directed by Tom Ford and starring Colin Firth, premiered in 2009. It earned international recognition, including an Academy Award nomination for best actor.

In Isherwood’s 1976 memoir, “Christopher and His Kind,” the author renounced his reticence to admit his homosexuality in his earlier work. The memoir speaks candidly about his life in Berlin as a young gay man.

Isherwood died of prostate cancer in Santa Monica, California. He was 81.

Father of Ecology

b. September 14, 1769
d. May 6, 1859

“The most dangerous worldview is ... of those who have not viewed the world.”

Alexander von Humboldt was a renowned Prussian naturalist, explorer, and geographer, and the preeminent scientist of his time. Regarded as the father of ecology, he laid the foundations for modern biogeography and meteorology and shaped the concept of climate zones, weather forecasting and the theory of man-made climate change.

Von Humboldt was born into a wealthy Prussian family. In 1791, as a compromise between his mother’s desire for him to become a civil servant and his own interest in science and geology, he enrolled at the Mining Academy at Freiburg. As a mining inspector, he investigated the effect of light exposure on wildlife, collected thousands of botanical specimens and invented a breathing mask.

The death of his mother and his inheritance in 1796 enabled von Humboldt to fulfill his dream of traveling the world. Along with Aimé Bon­pland, a botanist, he explored Latin America for five years. He landed in modern-day Venezuela, where he traversed rainforests, crossed the Orinoco River and ascended the Andes mountains. He suffered intense cold, braved earthquakes and conducted life-threatening experiments with electrical eels. He returned with notebooks full of geological and meteorological observations and more than 60,000 plant specimens.

At Venezuela’s Lake Valencia, von Humboldt first developed the idea of human-induced climate change. He was the first to describe the fundamental impact of the forest on ecosystems and climate. On Mount Chimborazo, von Humboldt had an epiphany: he reasoned that the world was a single, interconnected organism. His view that ecosystems were intrinsically linked contrasted with previous scientific classifications of the earth and transformed the way scientists viewed nature.

Von Humboldt’s published works on nature made a far-reaching, interdisciplinary impact on major 20th and 21st century thinkers. His concepts inspired the young Charles Darwin to travel and informed his ideas on natural selection. Von Humboldt’s views prompted the revolutionary Simón Bolívar to assert that they had awakened the South American people to take pride in their continent. Von Humboldt influenced great writers such as Goethe, Whitman and Poe, and provided the scientific undergirding upon which modern environmentalists—from George Perkins Marsh to John Muir—built their ideas.

Von Humboldt’s personal life contrasted with his public celebrity. He held intense feelings for a series of male friends but struggled with loneliness. Contemporaries noted von Humboldt’s lack of love for women, and a newspaper article insinuated that he was a homosexual.

Von Humboldt died in Berlin, Germany, the city where he was born. He was 89.

Transgender Pioneer and Painter

b. December 28, 1882
d. September 13, 1931

“… The one hundred percent male and the one hundred percent female are theoretical.”

Lili Illse Elvenes, best known as Lili Elbe, was a transgender woman who received one of the first gender reassignment surgeries. Born in Denmark as Einar Magnus Andreas Wegener, Elbe worked as a successful artist before legally changing her name and living as a woman. 

When Elbe was young, she studied painting at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where she met a lesbian named Gerda Gottlieb. The two married in 1904, when Gottlieb was 18 and Elbe (still Wegener) was 22. The couple spent years traveling through Europe. Elbe was known for her landscape paintings; Gottlieb illustrated books and fashion magazines. They eventually settled in Paris, where Elbe began living openly as a woman and became a muse for Gottlieb. 

While in Paris, the couple was embraced by avant-garde social circles; the two women became the talk of the town. It shocked and fascinated the public when they found out that Elbe was a biological man. Newspaper articles were written about them all over Europe. 

In 1930 Elbe relocated to Germany, where she had her first surgery to transition into a woman. The process was still experimental, but she had a series of operations under the supervision of the famous sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. After transitioning, Elbe legally changed her name, and the Danish court invalidated the couple’s marriage. Elbe also left the art world. In an essay, she explained the transgender experience:

“Our assumption as a society is that … people come in two types, male nature and female nature. This has no scientific basis … I try to move from the language of the two sexes are similar or different to language that means we are all different.”

Elbe and Gottlieb eventually parted, and Elbe began a relationship with French art dealer Claude Lejeune. In 1931 in hopes of one day bearing children, she had her final operation—the most experimental one yet—to implant a uterus and construct a vagina. There were severe complications, and Elbe died a few months shy of her 49th birthday. 

The award-winning movie “The Danish Girl” provides a fictionalized account of Elbe’s life, based on an international best seller that has been translated into dozens of languages. The LGBT film festival MIX Copenhagen pays tribute to the transgender pioneer by presenting awards called the Lilies.

LGBT Muslim Activist

b. June 21, 1977, Frankfurt, Germany

“Our mission is to try to help Muslims to reconcile two identities.”

Born to Pakistani parents and raised in Connecticut, queer Muslim activist Faisal Alam has navigated the precarious terrain of clashing identities. From an early age, Alam felt a strong connection to his Islamic faith. He was an active member of Muslim youth groups as a way of engaging with his faith and his community; he became a model of Islam’s focus on goodwill and strong communal ties.

When Alam first recognized his queer identity, the seemingly irreconcilable disparity between being Muslim and being queer was devastating. Homosexuality is perceived as contemptuous, even criminal, in many Islamic societies. Alam said, “We really felt caught in between. The last thing you could do was call the mosque for help.”

From this inner conflict emerged Alam’s vow to help other struggling LGBT Muslims. “This level of schism in one’s life can only last for so long until it takes a toll on your body, your soul, your psyche,” he said. “The promise I made to God, to my creator, is that I would never let what happened to me ever happen again.”

At age 19, Alam created the Al-Fatiha Foundation for LGBT Muslims. Al-Fatiha—literally “the opening”—offered new possibilities for people who live at the intersection of Islam and queerness. What started as a tiny e-mail listserve blossomed into an international organization that held regular conferences and engagements for LGBT Muslims.

By striving to embrace these two identities and encouraging other to do the same, Faisal Alam challenges notions of identity and reflects the positive attributes of his communities.

Activist

b. June 29, 1892

d. December 31, 1972

“Nobody believes we can do it—reporters, opponents—except ourselves."

Henry Gerber was among the earliest gay rights activists in America. He founded the nation’s first gay organization and gay publication.

Born Joseph Henry Dittmer in Bavaria, Germany, Gerber moved to Chicago in 1913. From 1920 to 1923,  he served in the U.S. Army during the occupation of Germany. While in Germany, he was exposed to the homosexual emancipation movement. Gerber subscribed to gay publications and was inspired by Magnus Hirschfeld, founder of a German homosexual and science advocacy organization.

After returning to Chicago, Gerber founded the Society for Human Rights, which advocated for gays and lesbians. He published the organization’s newsletter, “Friends and Freedom.”

Gerber limited membership in the Society for Human Rights to gay men. Unknown to him, the vice president, Al Weininger, was married with children. In 1925, Weininger’s wife reported the organization’s activities and it was shut down for moral turpitude. The Chicago police arrested Gerber and tried him three times. Although Gerber was found not guilty, the legal fees cost him his life savings and his job.

Gerber moved to New York City and reenlisted in the Army, where he served for 18 years. He led a correspondence club called Connections, which became a national network for gay men. Under a pen name, he wrote articles for various publications, arguing the case for gay rights.

At 80, Gerber died in the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home in Washington, D.C. In 1992, he was inducted posthumously into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. In 2001, the Henry Gerber House was designated a Chicago landmark.

Actor

b. December 27,1901

d. May 6, 1992

“Glamour is what I sell, it's my stock in trade.”

Marlene Dietrich was a movie star and cabaret singer who appeared in dozens of films during Hollywood’s Golden Age. She was one of the highest paid actors of her time.

Born Marie Magdalene Dietrich in Berlin, Germany, she was the younger of two daughters in a well-to-do family. In her mid-teens, Dietrich studied acting. In the early 1920’s, she began her career in cinema and met her future husband Rudolf Sieber. Dietrich remained married to Sieber for more than 50 years. During the marriage she had a series of affairs with famous men and women.

Her breakout role was as sultry cabaret singer Lola Lola in the German film “The Blue Angel” (1930), directed by Josef von Sternberg. Dietrich and von Sternberg moved to Hollywood, where he directed her in six films. For their first collaboration, “Morocco” (1930), Dietrich earned an Oscar nomination. She played a singer dressed in a man’s tuxedo and top hat who kisses a female audience member on the lips.

Among Dietrich’s most memorable films are “Desire” (1936), co-starring Gary Copper; “Destry Rides Again” (1939), which showcased her comedic talent; “Witness for the Prosecution (1957), her top box office hit; and “Judgment at Nuremberg” (1961), her final motion picture.

Dietrich became an American citizen in 1937 and performed for Allied troops during World War II. In 1947, she was awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom, which she called her proudest accomplishment. As her film career waned, she found success for nearly 20 years as a cabaret singer. Collaborating with musical arranger Burt Bacharach, Dietrich turned her nightclub act into a theatrical one-woman show. Dietrich and Bacharach recorded four albums and several singles.

In 1967, she performed her show on Broadway and received a Special Tony Award. In 1975, after a series of on-stage falls and injuries, Dietrich retired from show business. She spent the final decade of her life in Paris, secluded and bedridden.

In 2002, Dietrich was posthumously proclaimed an honorary citizen of Berlin with a plaque describing her as “one of the few German actresses that attained international significance.”

Theologian

b. September 2, 1925
d. September 22, 2015

"Jesus opens the possibility of bringing gay relationships within the compass of healthy and holy human love." 
    
One year after John McNeill published "The Church and the Homosexual" (1976), a book offering a new theological look at homosexuality, he received a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican. Religious authorities ordered McNeill, an ordained Jesuit priest, to halt public discussion on the topic.

McNeill's book reveals original text from the New Testament detailing Jesus's ministry to homosexuals. McNeill argues that the original Greek text of Matthew 8: 5-13 narrates Jesus's healing of a man's sick gay lover. The Latin translation of this passage describes Jesus's healing of a master's servant.

In compliance with the order from the Vatican, McNeill kept a public silence while he ministered privately to gays and lesbians. The Catholic Church, in 1988, submitted a further order to McNeill to relinquish his ministry to homosexuals. When McNeill refused, the Church expelled him from the Jesuit order.

McNeill enlisted in WWII at age 17. German forces captured him while he was serving under General Patton in 1944. He spent six months as a POW before the war's end.

After graduating from Canisius College in 1948, McNeill entered the Society of Jesus. In 1959, he was ordained a Jesuit priest. Five years later, he earned a Ph.D. in philosophy with honors and distinction from Louvain University in Belgium.

McNeill began teaching in the combined Woodstock Jesuit Seminary and Union Theological Seminary in 1972. He co-founded the New York City chapter of Dignity, an organization of Catholic gays and lesbians. In addition to his teaching duties, he served as Director of the Pastoral Studies program for inner-city clergy at the Institutes of Religion and Health.

An accomplished author, McNeill's works include "Taking a Chance on God: Liberating Theology for Gays and Lesbians, Their Lovers, Friends and Families" (1988) and "Freedom, Glorious Freedom: The Spiritual Journey to the Fullness of Life for Gays, Lesbians and Everybody Else" (1995). He has also published influential articles in The New Dictionary of Spirituality and The Journal of Pastoral Care.

McNeill led the New York City Gay Rights Parade as Grand Marshall in 1987. He has received numerous awards, including the National Human Rights Award in 1984, the 1997 Dignity/USA Prophetic Service Award, and the People of Soulforce Award in 2000.

Holocaust Survivor

b. June 30, 1923

d. June 24, 2012

“Even today we are not liberated. We are just beginning.”

Gad Beck was a Holocaust survivor who helped gays and Jews escape the Nazis.

He was born in Berlin to a Jewish father and a Protestant mother who converted to Judaism. In 1943, Beck and his father were seized by the Nazis. The Gentile wives protested and convinced the Nazis to release the prisoners. Beck joined an underground movement to help Jews escape to Switzerland. He relied on non-Jewish gays to help hide the Jews. Beck was not deported because he was not considered fully Jewish. 

When the Nazis captured his lover, Manfred Lewin, Beck tried to save him by impersonating a Hitler youth. Lewin refused the opportunity to escape because he did not want to leave his family. Lewin and his family were deported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.

Beck led a Zionist group called "Chug Chaluzi" (Circle of Pioneers). The organization helped shelter, feed and transport Jews to safety. In 1945, he was betrayed by a Jewish spy for the Gestapo and sent to a holding camp in Berlin. He was freed when the Allies defeated the Nazis. 

The German government continued to repress homosexuals. Although gays were liberated from the Nazis, they were subject to incarceration because homosexuality was criminal. Beck helped gay German Jews escape prosecution by taking them to Israel. In 1979, he returned to Germany and continued his activism in the gay and Jewish communities. He was the director of the Jewish Adult Education Center in Berlin.

In 2000, Beck’s autobiography, "An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin," was published. In 2006, the film "The Story of Gad Beck" was released. Beck was featured in “Paragraph 175,” an HBO documentary about gay Holocaust survivors. 

Beck is survived by Julius Laufer, his partner of 35 years.

Social Scientist

b. May 14, 1868
d. May 14, 1935

“Soon the day will come when science will win victory over error, justice a victory over injustice, and human love a victory over human hatred and ignorance.”

Pioneering sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld devoted his life to the scientific validation and political liberation of homosexuals. He helped lay the groundwork for the modern GLBT civil rights movement.

Born in 1868 in Kolberg, Germany (now Kolbrzeg, Poland), to a highly renowned physician, Hirschfeld followed his father into medicine. Practicing in Berlin, he soon turned his efforts to the study of human sexuality.  

In 1896, Hirschfeld, under a pseudonym, distributed a pamphlet titled “Sappho and Socrates.” This became the basis for his later research, which includes the 23-volume Yearbook for the Sexual Intermediates, the first periodical dedicated to homosexual studies.

The next year, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee to enlighten the public about homosexuality and to encourage homosexuals to fight for their liberation. The Scientific Humanitarian Committee aimed to repeal Paragraph 175, the law criminalizing homosexuality.

In his tireless—and lengthy—campaign to raise awareness and repeal Paragraph 175, Hirschfeld became a well-known public figure and earned the moniker “The Einstein of Sex.” With over 5,000 signatures of prominent Germans collected, the bill eventually made progress in the Reichstag.

In 1919, Hirschfeld founded the Institute for Sexual Research, which housed a vast library on sexuality and the Museum of Sex, provided educational services and resources, and offered medical consultations. The same year, he produced the film “Different From the Others,” likely the first gay film.

In 1921, Hirschfeld organized the First Congress for Sexual Reform, during which the World League for Sexual Reform (WLSR) was formed. Touring internationally, he promoted the WLSR and its goals. At its peak, the WLSR boasted 130,000 members worldwide.

With the rise of the Nazi Party, Hirschfeld came under attack both politically and personally. On May 6, 1933, while Hirschfeld was abroad, a mob of students and storm troopers raided the Institute for Sexual Research. They burned books, journals and other materials in a bonfire to cleanse the city of “un-German” materials.

Exiled, Hirschfeld settled in Nice, France, and died two years later. He left a legacy of innovative research and advocacy.