Die Freundin (, "The Girlfriend") was a popular Weimar-era German lesbian magazine published from 1924 to 1933. Founded in 1924, it was the world's first lesbian magazine, closely followed by Frauenliebe and Die BIF (both 1926). The magazine was published from Berlin by the (BfM), run by gay activist and publisher Friedrich Radszuweit. The Bund was an organization for homosexuals which had a membership of 48,000 in the 1920s.
Die Freundin and other lesbian magazines of that era such as Frauenliebe (Love of Women) represented a part-educational and part-political perspective, and they were assimilated with the local culture. Die Freundin published short stories and novellas. Renowned contributors were pioneers of the lesbian movement like Selli Engler or Lotte Hahm. The magazine also published advertisements of lesbian nightspots, and women could place their personal advertisements for meeting other lesbians. Women's groups related to the Bund für Menschenrecht and Die Freundin offered a culture of readings, performances, and discussions, which was an alternative to the culture of bars. This magazine was usually critical of women for what they viewed as "attending only to pleasure", with a 1929 article urging women: "Don't go to your entertainments while thousands of our sisters mourn their lives in gloomy despair."
Die Freundin, along with other gay and lesbian periodicals, was shut down by the Nazis after they came to power in 1933. But even before the rise of the Nazis, the magazine faced legal troubles during the Weimar Republic. From 1928 to 1929, the magazine was shut down by the government under a law that was supposed to protect youth from "trashy and obscene" literature. During these years, the magazine operated under the title Ledige Frauen (Single Women).
Publication dates Die Freundin appeared from 1924 to 1933 in Berlin, distributed by BfM. It was a joint federation of the BfM and Bundes für Ideale Frauenfreundschaft (translated to "Covenant for Women's Friendships"). It was initially located in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Strasse 1 in Berlin-Pankow in 1925. As early as 1927, it had a branch office in the Neue Jakobstraße 9 in Berlin-Mitte, which according to the data of 1932 was staffed between 9am-6pm.
Die Freundin was available in major retailers across all of Germany and Austria. Additionally, street vendors and magazine dealers in Berlin sold the publication at a price of 30 Pfennig in 1924–1925; then the price rose to 20 Pfennig. Certain issues aimed to highlight the political importance of lesbian culture by printing phrases on the cover, such as "this magazine may be publicized everywhere!" In addition to sales revenues and those from the advertising business, editorial staff and subscribers also asked for donations.
Though the exact circulation of Die Freundin is unknown, it is assumed that it was the most widely spread lesbian magazine of the Weimar Republic, with circulation well above that of every other lesbian magazine in the German-speaking world until the 1980s. Thus, its circulation was likely much more than 10,000 copies, the print run of similar publication Frauenliebe in 1930.
History of editions After the first two editions of Die Freundin were published as inserts in Blätter für Menschenrechte (on 8 August 1924 and 12 September 1924), the following editions were published as separate publications, each between 8 and 12 pages. Die Freundin was thereafter the "first new independent magazine of the Radszuweit publishing house". In 1925 it was suggested that Die Freundin should increase its page count (up to 20 pages) as well as its price point to 50 Pfennig, but the attempt failed and the old format remained. Already the first issue contained an insert titled Der Transvestit, which kept on reappearing in future editions. Until 1926, Die Freundin was also an insert inside of the memorandum of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee about Magnus Hirschfeld.
The publication rhythm changed: in the first year it came out as a monthly magazine; from 1925 it appeared every two weeks and later even weekly. The editions of 1928 were published on Mondays, then later covers from 1932 show that it was published on Wednesdays.
In 1926, there was no independent edition of Die Freundin; instead it appeared only as an insert inside the publication Freundschaftblatt. The reason for this irregularity is unknown. Between June 1928 and July 1929, publication halted. After enactment of the law on the protection of young people from sabotage and trafficking, retailers were no longer allowed to sell lesbian magazines. The publisher opted for the temporary cessation of the magazine and instead started a new publication called Ledige Frauen, which made it to a total of 26 issues. The publisher explicitly deemed this a substitute to Die Freundin and saw the editions of 1929 as a continuation, giving it the subtitle Freundin as a reference. From July 1929, Die Freundin resumed its production. In March 1931, Die Freundin was once again a victim of the "Schund-und-Schmutz" ("plague and filth") law, this time without a replacement.
On 8 March 1933, the last issue of Die Freundin was published as the 10th edition of the 9th year. Like all gay and lesbian periodicals, it was banned as "degenerate" and legally had to cease production.
Target groups Die Freundin focused mainly on lesbian women, but also included inserts and editorial contributions on trans issues. The advertisements were also targeted at gay men and heterosexuals.
Through its regular reports, advertisements and events related to the lesbian subculture of Berlin, it functioned similarly to a local newspaper. Readers of Die Freundin were, above all, professional modern women who lived independently.
Editors and authors It is nearly impossible today to trace back who exactly performed which editorial roles. In the beginning Aenne Weber was the chief editor, who was also the first chairwoman of the women's chapter of BfM from 1924 to 1925. In 1926, when the magazine was an insert within Freundschaftsblatt, the job went to Irene von Behlau. In 1927, Elisabeth Killmer became chief editor, and from 1928 to 1930 it was Bruno Balz. He was followed by Martin Radszuweit as the chief editor from 1930 onward.
At this point, editorial teams were shared between the publications Blättern für Menschenrecht and Freundschaftsblatt, which is why certain articles were reprinted several times over the years, some deliberately abridged. These editorial articles were mostly written by men, usually by Friedrich Radszuweit, Paul Weber or Bruno Balz. Even articles on the activity of the association or about current political developments were, almost without exception, written by men. How this overwhelming presence of male voices in a magazine for lesbian women was seen by these women, whether editors or authors, was not spoken about.
Die Freundin was aimed mainly at gay women, but was not written exclusively by them. There was a relatively high fluctuation among the authors. Probably the most famous regular author was Ruth Margarete Roellig, who joined in 1927. She was not only an author of the well-known book of Berlins lesbische Frauen (1928), a contemporary guide through the lesbian subculture of Berlin, but had also been trained as an editor in 1911 and was thus one of the few professional writers. Other prominent authors were activists such as Selli Engler and Lotte Hahm.
The writing of Die Freundin was specifically not reserved for any fixed writer. Already in 1925, the editorial staff solicited readers to submit their own writing. In 1927, the editors changed the structure of the magazine to motivate the readers to participate actively. In sections such as "Letters for Die Freundin" or "Our readers have the word", readers were able to share their lesbian self-image and experiences. Today, these reports are valuable documents on the life of lesbian women in German-speaking countries at this time. In a 1932 advertisement, the editors explained in this sense that every "reader can send us manuscripts, we are glad when our readers participate in the magazine since it is published for them".
Structure of the magazine The layout of the magazine was simple and remained almost the same throughout the entire print run: the cover page came first, followed by the editorial section which didn't have any particular order. At the back of the magazine appeared one or two pages of the classifieds section.
Cover Apart from the very first editions, which began directly with editorial writing, photographs of women (sometimes nude) were often found on the cover page - sometimes at the request of the readership. The magazine's contents or poems were also frequently included on the cover.
Editorial structure The two-column editorial section consisted equally of short stories, news, op-eds, poems, press reviews, and letters to the editor. Small advertisements were scattered throughout the magazine, but there is no record of any illustrations being included.
Non-fiction: content and politics In each issue, Die Freundin offered several articles on a variety of subject matters, including but not limited to historical issues relating to the history of lesbians; everyday problems of lesbian women in Germany; and cultural, scientific, or medical articles related to homosexuality. There were also contributions to literary themes and the Berlin social life in general.
At times the magazine included an insert of Der Transvestit, but occasionally this part was simply integrated into the magazine under the subject area of trans issues.
Homosexuality As one of the first and most popular media of the early gay and lesbian movement, Die Freundin offered a space for discussing basic questions of lesbian identity. An important point of reference were articles and opinions oriented to the sexual-scientific authority of the time, Magnus Hirschfeld, and to his scientific-humanitarian committee "Wissenschaftlich-humanitären Komitee" or WhK. Their publications were often cited and praised, and in the first two years, the WhK's memos were featured in Die Freundin.
A 1929 text called "The Love of The Third Sex" by Johanna Elberskirchen was shortened and featured in Die Freundin under the title "What Is Homosexuality?" It featured the idea that homosexuality is an innate, natural predisposition and that gay people formed a "third sex". This indicates that the philosophy of Die Freundin was in tandem with the current sexual-scientific theories of the time. This recognition of the "naturalness" of homosexuality led to the conclusion that gay people, including lesbian women, were entitled to full social recognition.
By 1930, the magazine was repeatedly in disagreement with Magnus Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld was criticized for frequently condemning homosexuality as inferior or abnormal, or misrepresenting gay people in court proceedings, and thus contributing to their stigmatization.
Lesbian identity In spite of the participation of men and the broad array of themes, Die Freundin was a medium in which lesbian women found the necessary space to debate and define their sense of self, their roles in society, and their goals.