Gerda Wegener and Lili Elbe

What Actually Happened to “The Danish Girl” and Her Wife

Lili Elbe, a Danish-born transgender woman, famously transitioned in the early twentieth century. What did her spouse, Gerda Wegener, think about it?
A cover of Frauen Liebe, 1928

Publishing Queer Berlin

Weimar Germany was an improbably safe space for newspapers and magazines by and for lesbians.
Jack Parsons

Sex-Cult Rocket Man

Jack Parsons, one of the “suicide squad” trio of young rocket-boy founders of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, had an improbable extracurricular life.
Bobby Seale at John Sinclair Freedom Rally, 1971

African-American GIs and German Radicals: An Unexpected Alliance

In December 1969, radical German students reached out to the increasingly politicized black GIs. Together, they organized a series of rallies and teach-ins at German universities.
The Eldorado Nightclub

Gender Identity in Weimar Germany

Remembering an early academic effort to define sexual orientation and gender identity as variable natural phenomena, rather than moral matters.
Otto Weininger

The Man behind the “New Man”

Otto Weininger's only book, Sex & Character, is a misogynist, anti-Semitic screed masquerading as philosophy. Yet it was enormously influential in fin-de-siècle Vienna.
nazi german radio

An Affordable Radio Brought Nazi Propaganda Home

In the 1930s, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels led the charge to create a radio cheap enough that even workers could own one.
aristotle and phyllis

That Time a Woman Rode Aristotle Around Like a Horse

In the Middle Ages, the legend of Aristotle and Phyllis exemplified the “Power of Women” trope.
Anne Frank house bookcase

How the Netherlands Used Literature to Defy the Nazis

A new theory sheds light not only on the fate of the Franks, but on the extent of Dutch resistance to the Nazis.
Hanna Reitsch

The Role of Female Pilots in Nazi Germany

German female pilots played an active role during World War II—acting as perpetrators and collaborators even as they broke barriers for women in flight.