Franz Vollrath Carl Wilhelm Joseph von Bülow (11 September 1861 – 18 October 1915) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

author, soldier and

homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exc ...

activist Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...

Life

Franz Vollrath Carl Wilhelm Joseph von Bülow was born on 11 September 1861 in the

Free City of Frankfurt Frankfurt was a major city of the Holy Roman Empire, being the seat of imperial elections since 885 and the city for Coronation of the Holy Roman emperor, imperial coronations from 1562 (previously in Free Imperial City of Aachen) until 1792. F ...

. Bülow's father was Bernhard Vollrath von Bülow, chamberlain of

Mecklenburg-Schwerin The Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin () was a duchy in northern Germany created in 1701, when Frederick William, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Frederick William and Adolphus Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Adolphus Frederick II divided ...

and envoy to the

German Confederation The German Confederation ( ) was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved ...

's ''Bundesversammlung'' in Frankfurt am Main, while his mother was Paula, née von Linden. Bülow attended high schools in

Schwerin Schwerin (; Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch dialect, Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch Low German: ''Swerin''; Polabian language, Polabian: ''Zwierzyn''; Latin: ''Suerina'', ''Suerinum'') is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Germ ...

and Waren for his studies. Following that, he completed cadet schools at

Plön Plön (; ) is the district seat of the Plön district in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and has about 8,700 inhabitants. It lies right on the shores of Schleswig-Holstein's biggest lake, the Great Plön Lake, as well as on several smaller lakes, ...

and Gross-Lichterfelde. Bülow had advanced to the rank of lieutenant by 1890. In the same year, he left the service and joined the South West Africa Company in the German colonial

South West Africa South West Africa was a territory under Union of South Africa, South African administration from 1915 to 1990. Renamed ''Namibia'' by the United Nations in 1968, Independence of Namibia, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990. ...

. In the years that followed, he authored a book on his experiences in German South West Africa and

Cecil Rhodes Cecil John Rhodes ( ; 5 July 185326 March 1902) was an English-South African mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded th ...

' politics, as well as the

Herero and Namaqua genocide Herero may refer to: * Herero people, a people belonging to the Bantu group, with about 240,000 members alive today * Herero language, a language of the Bantu family (Niger-Congo group) * Herero and Nama genocide * Herero chat, a species of bi ...

. Bülow was blinded by a gunshot wound and therefore returned to Germany. He married divorced Countess Konstanze Beust, née von Goldacker, in 1898, but they divorced a year later. According to

Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician, Sexology, sexologist and LGBTQ advocate, whose German citizenship was later revoked by the Nazi government.David A. Gerstner, ''Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer ...

, Bülow was one of the co-founders of the

Scientific-Humanitarian Committee The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (, WhK) was founded by Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin in May 1897, to campaign for social recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and against their legal persecution. It was the first L ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, together with

, Eduard Oberg, and Max Spohr. Bülow moved to

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

in 1900, where homosexuality was legal, unlike in Germany. He lived near San Polo on the Grand Canal at the Palazzo Tiepolo. Bülow left Venice with the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and returned to Germany, where he died on 18 October 1915, in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

Reception

Sociologist George Steinmetz describes Bülow's ethnographic writings as

genocidal Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" b ...

. He counts his books, together with the writings of Kurd Schwabe, among the most important eyewitness accounts of the relations between German colonial power and the Herero in the 1890s. Historians have used von Bülow's detailed recounting of the brutal approach of the

Schutztruppe (, Protection Force) was the official name of the colonial troops in the African territories of the German colonial empire from the late 19th century to 1918. Similar to other colonial armies, the consisted of volunteer European commissioned a ...

in South West Africa as sources for reconstructing the prehistory of the Herero and Nama genocide.

Life

Reception

References

Further reading