Memorial to the First Homosexual Emancipation Movement in the context of "Scientific-Humanitarian Committee"

The first homosexual movement thrived in Germany from the late nineteenth century until 1933. The movement began in Germany because of a confluence of factors, including the criminalization of sex between men (Paragraph 175) and the country's relatively lax censorship. German writers in the mid-nineteenth century coined the word homosexual and criticized its criminalization. In 1897, Magnus Hirschfeld founded the world's first homosexual organization, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, whose aim was to use science to improve public tolerance of homosexuality and repeal Paragraph 175. During the German Empire, the movement was restricted to the wealthy elite, but it greatly expanded in the aftermath of World War I and the German Revolution.

Reduced censorship and the growth of homosexual subcultures in German cities helped the movement to flourish during the Weimar Republic. The first publicly sold, mass-market periodicals intended for a gay, lesbian, or transvestite readership appeared after 1919, although they faced censorship lawsuits and bans on public sale after the 1926 Trash and Smut Law [de]. The first mass organizations for homosexuals, the German Friendship Society and the League for Human Rights, were founded in the aftermath of the war. These organizations emphasized human rights and respectability politics, and they excluded prostitutes and effeminate homosexual men, who were considered harmful to the movement's public image. The homosexual movement had limited success with the general public, in part because many Germans believed that homosexuality could be spread as a communicable disease.