Die Freundin () 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, the capital of Germany, by the Bund für Menschenrecht (translated variously as League for Human Rights or Federation for Human Rights and abbreviated as 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 fur 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 August 8, 1924 and September 12, 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.