From criminal radicalism to gay and lesbian lobbyism: a transnational approach to the Scandinavian homophile movement, 1948–1971

ABSTRACT

This article describes and analyzes the development of the three Scandinavian national associations for homo- and bisexuals from their founding in 1948 through 1971. This is the first time these associations are analysed as a transnational network rather than nationally divided entities. Using documentary evidence from the national archives of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden as well as other archives, this article establishes the development of the Scandinavian movement based on primary evidence, and is thus able to correct, nuance, and expand upon the ‘oral traditions’ that have been the standard in Scandinavian historiography in this field. The article argues that the transnational angle on the movement brings out new perspectives and offers a new periodization of homophile or gay and lesbian activist history. It concludes that the Scandinavian movements cannot be fitted into the typical American timeline of gay and lesbian activism, and thus opens the question of how European LGBT history differs from those in the United States.

KEYWORDS:

• LGBT+
• gay and lesbian
• transnationalism
• LGBT activism
• social movements

In 1956, Axel Johannes Lundahl Madsen (1915–2011) requested notebooks from the prison staff at Western Prison in Copenhagen in order to write his memoirs. That year Copenhagen City Court had convicted him for sexual conduct with minors of the same sex under the age of eighteen (but over fifteen), indecency, commercial import and distribution of pornography, commercial speculation in eroticism, and procuring. The year after, the Eastern Court of Appeals would confirm the verdict, and Axel and his partner, Eigil Aksel Eskildsen (1922–1995), who had been convicted alongside him for the same crimes, were now known all over Scandinavia as the leading men in an international homo-mafia.¹

Lundahl Madsen was far from penitent. He was angry at the justice system, which he never trusted again, and he was hurt by and furious at former allies in the homophile struggle that he believed had betrayed him and collaborated with the police. In a letter to Eskildsen, which the latter never received because the prison staff intercepted it, Lundahl Madsen wrote: ‘The last word has not been said in this matter. … [L]ighter days will come again for us. Believe it’.²

When Lundahl Madsen and Eskildsen reunited after their imprisonment, they became engaged, despite having no legal way to ever get married, and, in defiance of the authorities who paternally had told them to break up, took the last name Axgil, a combination of their first names, as their common last name.³ Scores of gay men had been convicted for sex with underage boys in the wake of the arrests of Lundahl Madsen and Eskildsen, in what the papers had dubbed ‘The Great Pornography Affair’, and the homophile activist world had been torn apart in warring camps.

For the early homosexual’s rights movement in Scandinavia, this was a watershed event. Until the early 1970s, decisions on the highest level of activist organizations, not just in Denmark, but also in Sweden and Norway, were made according to whether they reassembled this event or not, and alliances were decided upon with regards to whether or not one’s potential allies were associated with the Axgils.

Today, there is still a myth about a 1950s ‘respectable’ and ‘assimilationist’ homophile activism and a radical and revolutionary activism of the 1970s that does not align with the evidence unveiled in this affair.⁴ Unlike the 1969 New York City Stonewall riots, there was not a before and after in Scandinavian gay and lesbian history. This article argues that we need to recognize at least three periods in the early history (1948–1971) of the gay and lesbian movement in Scandinavia: Firstly, a period of criminal radicalism, characterized by a generation of activists who developed radical sexual-political demands and often lead criminal lifestyles. Secondly, a homophile period, after the Great Pornography Affair, where respectability ruled the movement and gay and lesbian organizations cooperated with the police. Thirdly, a new activist period from the late 60s to the 1980s and beyond, characterized by gay and lesbian lobbyism, a new ‘coming out’ spirit, and competition between established associations and self-styled revolutionary movements, such as Gay Liberation Front, Homosexual Socialists, and Lesbian Movement.

In this article I use the term politics to refer to the organized effort to influence national laws, policies, and opinion. I describe these politics as radical when they fundamentally go against the more widely accepted ethics of the time, and as liberal when they have a positive attitude towards diversity and tolerance.

Historians have described the early gay and lesbian movement in Scandinavia in books, articles, and anthologies that each focus on a country rather than on Scandinavia as a whole. This Scandinavian historiography is heavily characterized by ‘methodological nationalism’, which is common in gay and lesbian history more broadly.⁵ Most of the historiography of the early Scandinavian gay and lesbian movement is also built on oral histories and activist memoirs, which are sometimes partial, selective and politically driven to suit the needs of ‘the cause’ or to vindicate the person in question.⁶ This article aims to challenge and supplement this literature in two ways. Firstly, it describes and analyzes the gay and lesbian movements in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden as part of a ‘transnational’ flow of ideas, people, and lines of communication encompassing Scandinavia as well as Europe and the United States via the International Committee for Sexual Equality (ICSE) and International Homosexual World Organization (IHWO). Secondly, it builds its narrative and analysis primarily on contemporary sources, and only occasionally uses memoirs to fill in certain gaps. This approach helps relay new information as well as correct misconceptions that have arisen in a 20^th century queer activist history dominated by autobiographies. To sum up, this article does three things: 1) it provides a narrative of the Scandinavian gay and lesbian movement from 1948–1971 based on the primary evidence, 2) it proposes a new periodization that is better suited to the Scandinavian context, and 3) it shows how transnational connections are an overlooked, but essential, component of understanding the development of the gay and lesbian movement.

My sources include the archived papers of the three national gay and lesbian organizations in Scandinavia during the 1940s through the 1970s: The Forbundet af 1948 (Association of 1948, today LGBT+ Denmark), the Riksforbundet för Sexuell Likaberättigande (RFSL) (National Association for Sexual Equality, today National Association of Gays, Lesbians, Trans-, Queer and Intersex persons) in Sweden, and the Norske Forbundet av 1948 (DNF-48) (Norwegian Association of 1948, today FRI – Foreningen for Kjønns- og Seksualitetsmangfold, Association for Gender and Sexual Diversity). Other sources include the private archives of some of the pioneers of the movement: Axel and Eigil Axgil, Rolf Løvaas, Kim Friele, and Allan Hellman. On top of association archives and private archives, I have read through the primary Scandinavian gay and lesbian magazines of the period, most notably Vennen, Pan, Eos, Forbundsnyt, Fölgeslageren, Viking, Uni, Revolt, Klubbnyt, Oss Imellom, and Oss.

A midsummer night’s dream: the founding of the Scandinavian homophile movement

Axel Johannes Lundahl Madsen was a tailor’s apprentice when he started Forbundet af 1948 on Midsummer Night’s Eve (June 24) in 1948. He was inspired by homosexual groups in Holland and Switzerland. These older groups reached back to Weimar Germany, and the homosexual liberationist ideas of Magnus Hirschfeld, and further back to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Karl Maria Kertbeny. Homosexual liberation was a continental idea that by 1948 had found its way to Denmark.

Through a mutual acquaintance, Madsen connected with Helmer Fogedgaard (1907–2002), a CEO of an agricultural firm in Rudkøbing in southern rural Denmark. Fogedgaard had plans to start a magazine for homophiles, as he preferred to call them, and when Madsen and Fogedgaard met in September 1948, they decided that Madsen should be the chief organizer of an association, and Fogedgaard the editor of a magazine.⁷

The first statutes for the association did not specify any political purpose, and did not even specify that it was an association for homophiles. They mention ‘a free association of people who feel solidarity with other people with the same attitude towards homo- and bisexual problems, and support and aid them if they are in difficulty’.⁸ In the editorial of the first issue of the association’s magazine, Vennen (The Friend), published in January 1949, Fogedgaard wrote that the purpose of Vennen was first and foremost to create solidarity and connection between homosexuals and develop a common interest, and secondarily to spread awareness about homosexual lives, particularly amongst psychologists, doctors, and other professionals.⁹

This is noteworthy since at the time, the Danish penal code discriminated against homosexual individuals, even though sex between people of the same sex was legal. However, for homosexual relations the age of consent was 18, whereas it was 15 for heterosexual relations. Furthermore, the penal code noted a higher age limit for ‘seduction’: 21 for homosexual relations, and 18 for heterosexual liaisons. The law was similar in Sweden, but Norway had a total ban on sex between men. However, the Norwegian law stated that prosecution should only happen if public interest demanded it, such as cases involving teenagers.¹⁰

The Danish Forbundet af 1948 had by the summer of 1949 collected about 200 members and about 430 subscribers to Vennen,¹¹ including quite a few people from Sweden and Norway, mostly men. This broad Scandinavian reach eventually inspired a need for local branches. At the first meeting of the Norwegian branch in Oslo on 20 May 1950, the attendants voted for advertising expert Rolf Løvaas (1923–1996) as their first chairman.¹²

In Sweden, engineer Allan Hellman (1904–1982) led the organization of a meeting on 21 October 1950 in Stockholm, where 21 men and one woman founded ‘The Swedish Section of the Danish Association of 1948’. Hellman became the representative of the central committee and accountant Tore Hultman became chairman.¹³ That same autumn, the Danish association reformulated its statutes so that the association could be re-formed into a Scandinavian organization with branches in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland (the last two as yet unrealized).¹⁴

Lundahl Madsen was present at the founding of the Swedish section, and afterwards travelled to Oslo to meet the Norwegian ‘contact person’, as the chairman was officially called, give an interview to a Norwegian newspaper, declare Norwegian law ‘hopelessly outdated’,¹⁵ and sort out association business. Lundahl Madsen encouraged Løvaas to appoint co-workers for the board and avoid elected leaders to begin with. Thus, Løvaas was by then in reality appointed by Lundahl Madsen (technically by the central committee that Lundahl Madsen controlled), and Løvaas in turn appointed ‘the interim working group’ of the Norwegian section.¹⁶ Although the association now officially consisted of equal countries, Lundahl Madsen was well on his way to being the public face of the association, as well as the one who pulled all the strings.

In Oslo, Løvaas was inspired by the Danish attitude towards change in society, even though the Forbundet af 1948 did not make any concrete plans to that effect during the first two and a half years of the organization’s founding. Løvaas was likely inspired by the rhetoric and attitude of Fogedgaard and his talk of ‘a fighting organization (Danish kamporganisation)’ that could change the attitudes of experts.¹⁷ By late 1950, the Danish branch wrote a letter of protest to the Ministry of Justice, criticizing the way in which homosexual offenders were treated. For instance, if the courts convicted a man of sex with minors (which was illegal) it was unjust for him to be ordered by the court to never have sex with adult men (which was legal) as part of his parole terms.¹⁸

The Swedish section expanded on this Danish attitude when they wrote their own version of organizational statutes in 1951. On top of the goal of gathering homosexuals and providing social, legal, and psychological aid, they added that the association should work towards ‘humanitarian and social equality (See: UN goals, article 1, section 3)’.¹⁹ By referring to the UN Charter’s article on ‘fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion’,²⁰ they had claimed status as an oppressed minority, and not as a ‘patient organization’. This was inspired by the Swedes’ participation in the European homophile activist association, International Committee for Sexual Equality (ICSE), which also made its way into the statutes of the Danish association in 1952. The Danish association spelled out how they understood the UN Charter in relation to themselves: ‘The Association of 1948 is an association of homo- and bisexuals whose purpose is a) to work for equality of right with the heterosexuals … ’²¹ This very clear formula became the guideline for all political work in the three associations for decades to come. It is noteworthy then that this change did not start with the Copenhagen leadership, but rather developed through the dynamic interplay between the three countries and within the wider European and global network that they were part of.

Conflicts among the sections

By the autumn of 1951, the board of the Norwegian section had increasingly criticized the central committee in Copenhagen for not sending membership cards, information, magazines, etc., at the agreed times, which made it difficult to run the Norwegian section smoothly.²² Also, a new contender for the position of chairman had come into play in Norway. Journalist Kai Mossin (1921–1971?) had already led a colourful and adventurous life before he encountered the Norwegian section. Before the Second World War, he had been a member of a Norwegian national-socialist party, National Samling, but left during the beginning of the war. Since then he had sailed with the free Norwegian merchant marines in the UK, and was allegedly in the US Air Force in the early 50s. He was discharged from the Air Force in the fall of 1951, and was now keen to become the leader of the homophile association. Mossin had, in a correspondence with Løvaas, criticized him for being an anonymous chairman. Mossin believed that the organization needed a chairman who was open about his homosexuality, and that the Norwegian board had to be open as well.²³

Mossin was in contact with many people all over the world. He had started a ‘Circle of Friends’ in Texas, and corresponded with both Alfred Kinsey, the well-known American sexologist, and Italian activist Bernhardino del Boca, who had told him about a mysterious Asian multinational homosexual association called the Han Temple Organization. This organization was probably fictitious, but Mossin believed it, and it became part of his plan to create a global network of homosexuals who were not afraid of showing their faces.²⁴

These plans were quickly and effectively stopped by Lundahl Madsen. He had met Mossin in Copenhagen in November 1951, and did not like the brash young man.²⁵ So when the Norwegian Section announced Mossin as a new chairman, Lundahl Madsen used all means necessary to sabotage the decision. The Swedish Section aided Lundahl Madsen after they similarly took a disliking to Mossin and his arrogant and negligent style after he visited Sweden as chairman.²⁶ The central committee, with Lundahl Madsen at the front, wrote to the Norwegian section and informed them that they had no right to choose their own chairman, who instead had to be appointed by the central committee.²⁷

Løvaas and Mossin ignored Lundahl Madsen’s protests, and instead formalized the new leadership at a general assembly of the Norwegian section in January 1952. The general assembly demanded complete equality in the Scandinavian association, and no interference in internal matters by the central committee.²⁸ Lundahl Madsen and the central committee reacted by sending a letter to all Norwegian members privately where they denounced Mossin and declared the former board, or, as they wrote, ‘the contact person and his co-workers’, disbanded, and the Norwegian section under the administration of the central committee.²⁹

Løvaas chose to follow Lundahl Madsen’s orders. He did not want to be disloyal to Lundahl Madsen, and was afraid that the conflict would tear down everything he had fought for during the last two years.³⁰ Feeling the full force of the opposition of both the Swedish and Danish Sections against him, Mossin chose to step down, and left the association.³¹

The reason Lundahl Madsen had personally sabotaged Mossin was probably not due to differences of ideas, but rather to reinforce his own ambitions to remain in charge. Instead, the much more cautious Lundahl Madsen loyalist and friend, Løvaas, continued for a while until an even more cautious chairman, Dermot Mack, was elected by the Norwegian members.

Just like in Norway, the Swedish section was rife with both internal conflicts and conflicts with the central committee in Copenhagen. Tore Hultman, the chairman in Sweden, was under heavy attacks for alleged incompetence and making work within the section insufferable.³² Hultman was overthrown as chairman, left the organization completely, and was replaced by editor Ove Ahlström (1909–1975).³³ Allan Hellman had been appointed representative of the central committee and press liaison, but the rest of the Swedish board found him much too provocative and controversial.³⁴ Throughout 1951 and in early 1952 criticism was also raised against paying half of the member’s fee to the central organization in Copenhagen, and both the Norwegian and the Swedish boards were also tired of not having any say over the content of Vennen, especially images that they found too provocative.³⁵

By the end of 1951, the Stockholm group of the Swedish section decided to act. They dissolved the board of the Swedish section, which contained too many Danish loyalists, and in a coup d’état declared the Stockholm section the new Swedish section. At the same time they cancelled Hellman’s post as representative of the central committee, believing that he was too much of a Lundahl Madsen ally.³⁶ In March 1952, the Swedish section officially cut all ties to the wider Scandinavian organization, and announced that they were now the independent RFSL (The National Association for Sexual Equality).³⁷

Therefore, while Lundahl Madsen had managed to bully the Norwegian Section into submission, the Swedish Section resisted and ultimately dissented by leaving the Danish-led organization. Soon after, the Norwegian Section also left the Scandinavian association in November 1952, and became independent under the name Det Norske Forbundet av 1948 (The Norwegian Association of 1948) (DNF-48).³⁸

Trouble in Denmark

Before the dissolution of the united Scandinavian association, Forbundet af 1948 became member of the international homophile association, ICSE. At the first congress in Amsterdam in 1951, Lundahl Madsen proposed that the next congress in 1952 should be in Copenhagen.³⁹

The chairman of the ICSE, Floris van Mechelen (1909–2007) visited Denmark to survey the possibilities of a Danish congress in 1952, and to get a feel for the Danish association. He was not pleased. He corresponded with RFSL member, Eric Thorsell (1898–1980), a Swedish metal worker and activist with intellectual interests, and clearly someone van Mechelen saw as an equal, and described Lundahl Madsen as completely incompetent and an unsuitable chairman. He wanted Thorsell to go to the Danish general assembly in February 1952 and propose a new chairman. Thorsell clearly agreed with van Mechelen’s points, and added that Lundahl Madsen’s opponents in Copenhagen were ‘notorischen Querulanten (notorious grumblers)’, equally incompetent, and the conflicts between Lundahl Madsen and his opponents were due to personal circumstances rather than ideas.⁴⁰ The ICSE decided not to go ahead with the Copenhagen congress.⁴¹

Lundahl Madsen had invested much of time and energy in this congress, and its failure contributed to the criticism that was growing against him, not just in Sweden and Norway, but also in Denmark. The primary criticism in Denmark at the time was a huge budget deficit that had accumulated by the end of 1951.

Lundahl Madsen promised that he would take care of the budget deficit, and at meetings he spoke of a secret beneficiary who would cover the costs. His opponents instead suggested that the association needed a drastic restructuring, as it was currently much too grand, especially considering that the Swedish and Norwegian sections were leaving the association. For instance, publishing Vennen and having a paid manager was something the association could not afford.⁴² At the general assembly on 11 April 1952, Lundahl Madsen was again under heavy fire. He responded by stepping down as chairman, but at the request of a majority, he was convinced to run again and was elected. However, his fighting spirit was broken. As he wrote to Fogedgaard, the editor of the magazine, less than a week after the general assembly:

I am sick and tired of it all and will step down at the first opportunity. However, I will try to fix the debt first, and give the new ones a bit of optimism, then I will go to have peace in private life, and for now use my effort to help Eigil with the business.⁴³

When the secret beneficiary decided not to cover the debt of the association, Lundahl Madsen stepped down as chairman and left the association with a huge debt and zero optimism.⁴⁴ In another letter to Løvaas, he wrote: ‘I will have to realize that my ideas and my struggle is lost [because of the ongoing conflicts and the practical problems], … the difficulties are piling up and I am tired’.⁴⁵ Rather than being defeated or ousted as chairman, the founder of the Scandinavian homophile movement left of his own volition.

ICSE and the radicalization of the Scandinavian associations

Over the first few years, despite internal conflict, the Scandinavian associations had generated a political energy between them that inspired each other to push forward with their explicit societal demands. They also drew inspiration from the ICSE. At its first congress in Amsterdam in 1951, representatives from Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland sent a telegram to the United Nations demanding equal rights for homosexual minorities.⁴⁶ Both Denmark, represented by Peter Jensen, and Sweden, represented by Thorsell, were present at the first international congress, and all three Scandinavian countries participated in various years over the next decade until the ICSE disintegrated in the early 1960s.

The Danish activists, however, did not develop a political programme until 1954, likely due to the infighting, which left little energy to cooperate on political programmes. The Swedish and Norwegian associations on the other hand quickly picked up the thread, and combined a certain Danish brashness, likely inspired by Lundahl Madsen and Fogedgaard, with a continental focus on law reform, as they learned from the ICSE. They mixed it all into a neatly packed Scandinavian law reform programme and sent it to politicians and other stakeholders.

The Swedish section wrote many letters to the national justice department, the penal code committee, and all political parties, fiercely arguing for equal laws for heterosexual and homosexual liaisons.⁴⁷ They also demanded to be heard in all matters regarding homosexuality,⁴⁸ and proposed to the Committee for Social Educational Films that an educational film on homosexuality ought to be made. The committee declined.⁴⁹

In their argumentation, the Swedish section drew heavily on liberal-minded Danish research into homosexuality, especially the Danish doctor, Jarl Wagner Smitt’s 1951 book, ‘Why Are They Like That?’,⁵⁰ which argued that homosexuality was a harmless and misunderstood natural variation. The Swedish activists upheld Denmark as a shining beacon of equal rights and liberal mindedness that Swedish authorities ought to follow. In the autumn of 1951, the entire Swedish board was present at a consultation with the Minister of Justice and the penal code committee.⁵¹ Eventually the Swedish authorities dropped their own proposals for tightening the laws regarding homosexuality, and all that was left was a minor restriction concerning homosexual prostitution that was never really enforced.⁵² Allan Hellman also drafted a proposal on homophile marriage, but this was deemed too provocative and counterproductive to be sent to the authorities.⁵³

One of the Swedish activists proposed even more radical ideas. Author Nils Hallbeck (1907–1997), who was the Swedish association’s press liaison, wrote a commentary on the law reform proposal, and insisted that an adult man’s masturbation on a child or young man was no more harmful than if the child did it himself. Eric Thorsell, however, warned the chairman against Hallbeck’s dangerous ideas.⁵⁴ In his novels, Hallbeck argued, sometimes under the pseudonym Jan Hogan, that sexual and emotional relationships between teenage boys and adult men were natural, harmonious, and harmless, and that it was society’s negative attitude that harmed the youngsters.⁵⁵ Later in life, he published a defence of paedophilia.⁵⁶

In 1951, Hallbeck anonymously wrote the first information leaflet for the Swedish Section that Hellman introduced in his own name.⁵⁷ The leaflet argued that boy prostitution was harmless, sex with minors was the equivalent of their own masturbation, and the age of consent should be lowered to 15 years of age. Later in life, Hellman too published travel letters in the Swedish magazine Revolt about his experiences with boy prostitution in Africa, including spirited defences of this practice.⁵⁸ Even though Hellman was considerably more careful in the 1950s, he and Hallbeck seem to have shared a common outlook on radical sexual politics. While both were certainly the most radical of the Swedish activists, the board did accept this leaflet for distribution and most agreed that the RFSL ought to support homosexual criminals both abroad and in Sweden, if they had not done things that were illegal for heterosexuals as well.⁵⁹

While the Swedish section had a press liaison (Hellman and Hallbeck in the early years), the Danish Section did not have an active press strategy in the 1950s and 60s. Instead, they focused on publishing first Vennen, and from 1954, another magazine called Pan. From very early on, Løvaas in Norway saw it as his mission to write articles to newspapers to promote tolerance, understanding, and modern scientific (i.e. liberal) opinions on homosexuality. He published about 40 newspaper articles from 1950–70 under many different pseudonyms.⁶⁰

The Norwegian activists also knew that a penal code reform was under way, just as in Sweden, and they wanted to influence the thinking of the bureaucrats and politicians. Beginning in 1951, they wrote letters to the penal code committee, using the same strategy as the Swedish activists: they referred to the latest scholarship harvested from Sweden and Denmark (again Wagner Smitt’s book).⁶¹ In late 1953, the Norwegian activists realized that the government had plans to tighten the laws around homosexual conduct and also to forbid homosexual associations, and started a larger campaign to circumvent this proposal. They convinced the Danish public prosecutor, Aage Lotinga, as well as two Danish doctors, Hjalmar Helweg and Jarl Wagner Smitt, to make public statements in favour of homosexuals,⁶² and convinced other Norwegian experts to defend homosexuals’ right to associate and to live under the same laws as heterosexuals.⁶³

In April 1954, the association had a major victory: the law reform had been postponed indefinitely.⁶⁴ Without the personal contacts, the introductions, and the network provided by the Scandinavian Association of 1948 and the ICSE, this would hardly have been possible. Members of the DNF-48 were able to connect with experts who would support them partially through their attendance at the ICSE congresses.⁶⁵ The propaganda material they used to influence politicians and experts were either copied from or heavily influenced by material from Denmark, Sweden, or other European contacts. For instance, a member of the Norwegian board, Finn Grodal (pseudonym for pianist and music scholar Øyvind Eckhoff, 1916–2001), would later publish a book in Norwegian based on Wagner Smitt’s research, with a foreword by Danish psychiatrist Hjalmar Helweg, entitled ‘We Who Feel Differently’ (1957).⁶⁶

By 1960, the ongoing discussion about male teenage prostitution came to a head in the Norwegian association, revealing a deep chasm between the original leadership, represented by Løvaas and Eckhoff (who was a member of the board in 1950), and the new chairman (since 1953), the jurist Dermot Mack (1914–2001).

Mack wanted a paragraph in the statutes of the association stating that DNF-48 worked against male prostitution, and explained that people who bought or sold sexual favours should not be members, unless they had repented their behaviour. A large majority voted it through.⁶⁷ Løvaas and Eckhoff were furious, and the debate that followed was divisive.⁶⁸

For Løvaas this was a personal issue. The outwardly conservative and respectable former chairman led a private life that was far less conservative. Already in October 1951, when the Norwegian section was criticizing Vennen for its provocative pictures, Løvaas had assured Lundahl Madsen that he had no personal problems with erotic pictures.⁶⁹ He was even a representative for Lundahl Madsen’s firm that sold erotic pictures until 1956, when it fell apart because of the Great Pornography Affair. Løvaas thought this closure was due to unjust laws and the ‘terrible antagonist attitude’ of the police.⁷⁰

Not only did Løvaas defend Lundahl Madsen and Eskildsen in 1956, when so many others turned their backs on them, but his lifestyle was not too far from their own. This is evident in a 1960 letter to the Danish homophile magazine, Eos, in response to an article that attacked male prostitution, signed by ‘Rolf from Norway’ – likely written by Løvaas. On all documents, meeting minutes, and articles in internal magazines, Løvaas signed with his first name ‘Rolf’. In the letter, ‘Rolf’ chastised the writer for not knowing enough about the issue he was writing about, and only seeing it ‘from the outside’. ‘Rolf’ explained that a ‘rent boy’ could get from homophile men the tenderness and care he otherwise missed, and the men could get a straight-forward and simple boy free from the ‘primadonna attitude and vanities’ that characterized so many young gays.⁷¹ Remarkably, it is only in this letter that ‘Rolf’, likely Løvaas, acknowledged that he spoke from personal experience.

In the same issue, however, ‘M’, also from Oslo, supported the attack on male prostitution.⁷² Similarly to ‘Rolf’, Mack signed all documents, meeting minutes, and articles with ‘M’. There can be no doubt that what we see in Eos is the prelude to the battle over male prostitution in the Norwegian association that Mack decisively won in 1960, especially since the opinions expressed followed precisely what we otherwise know of their points of view.⁷³

By 1954, accountant Holger Bramlev (1906–1987), chairman in Denmark, finally developed a political programme for the Danish association, which he considered a common manifesto for all homo- and bisexuals in Scandinavia. He mailed this manifesto to experts, actors, and other celebrities in an effort to rally support.

The ‘manifesto’ was a radical sexual political programme that demanded ‘equal rights for all’ and suggested an age of consent at 14 or 15 years of age (the age of puberty). Notably, the programme does not consider male prostitution a problem, arguing that since the homophiles paying for sex could tell that the rent boys enjoyed the sex, they were also bisexuals; thus the practice was neither wrong nor harmful. It further argued that prostitution kept boys that lived on the streets away from crime by providing them with a source of income. Bramlev also asserted that a boy from a ‘bad home’ could enter a relationship with a homophile man and be ‘brought up and taught’ to find a good job.⁷⁴ No one responded to this call for support.

After Vennen had become independent in 1952, it was run by Fogedgaard and Lundahl Madsen. No longer bound by more timid partners, they announced it as the ‘independent fighting organ (Danish kampskrift) for the homophiles in the Nordic region’.⁷⁵ Lundahl Madsen also made the magazine into an association with members, directorate, meetings, social events, etc., but without the usual democracy and elected boards that were associated with associations. He wanted Foreningen Vennen (The Friend Association), as he called it, to supersede the ‘dying’ Forbundet af 1948, and attempted to convince the Norwegian and Swedish associations to again join his side; in this way, he could re-emerge as the leader of Danish homophiles.⁷⁶ His new association already had 500 members in 1953. The Danish Forbundet af 1948 had about 300, and had been on a downhill slope since the enthusiastic days of 1950.⁷⁷

Lundahl Madsen attempted to make this new organization an official member of the ICSE, but was met with opposition from continental members due to the erotic pictures he insisted on publishing and selling. Bramlev and Mack were also against their membership, but the Swedish section was in doubt. At an ICSE meeting in Copenhagen in October 1954, Lundahl Madsen argued: ‘In the end we all agree on the goal, sexual equality. From our point of view, all roads that lead to this goal should be taken’. The convened associations asked him if he would consider dropping the photographs. Lundahl Madsen considered for two days, and then declined. He stated that he would rather publish a magazine that many homosexuals wanted to read than one that a few heterosexuals could tolerate.⁷⁸ Five months later he was in prison, charged with publishing pornography.

By 1954, Forbundet af 1948 in Denmark had gone from being relatively apolitical to publicizing radical ideas and demands regarding sexual politics, similar to the developments that took place in Sweden. Furthermore, Lundahl Madsen had started an even more radical ‘fighting organization’ that claimed to represent all of Scandinavia. In Norway, Mack sustained a more conservative association. However, considering that Norway was only country in Scandinavia that still criminalized sex between men, one could argue that the Norwegian activists were the most radical of them all, daring to negotiate with the authorities and meet with the Justice Department as representatives of (in principle) criminals.⁷⁹

The great pornography affair of 1955

In March 1955, both Eskildsen and Lundahl Madsen were in custody for distribution of pornography. The police initially only suspected the two of publishing pornography, but when they searched their apartment and read through their files and correspondence, the police found that Lundahl Madsen and Eskildsen had had sex with underage models. They also found information on the same activities amongst their friends. Thus, the police unravelled a network of homophile men in Denmark who in letters and diaries bragged to each other about the teenage boys they had sex with. The police went on to search more houses and interrogate rent boys and homophile men, leading to a number of arrests.

Madsen was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison. Eskildsen, however, was sentenced to a year and a half, due to a prior conviction: during the German occupation of Denmark from 1940–45, he had enrolled in the German army and acted as a guard in Denmark. He also participated in the infamous Schalburg Corp, a Danish Nazi organization, where he conducted guard duties and office work.⁸⁰ As a punishment for this, he had been convicted to 10 years of prison, but the verdict was eventually reduced to four years, and he was released on parole in March of 1948.⁸¹

Helmer Fogedgaard was named by a rent boy, but was cleared for lack of evidence, since the rent boy could not give a consistent account of their meetings. He wrote a scathing article in Vennen, ridiculing and raging against the police and ‘the nanny-state (Danish barnepigestat)’.⁸² The arrest of Fogedgaard seems to indicate, and as Fogedgaard’s version of events was certainly intended to imply, that the police acted harshly, and that the whole affair was blown completely out of proportion.

What Fogedgaard chose not to mention in the article was that in the summer of 1955, he was accused of two different sexual relations. One was a relationship with the unreliable rent boy (mentioned above), and another with a young homophile man of 17 years, who had been writing articles for Vennen. Fogedgaard was cleared of the first circumstance, but was convicted for the second as both he and the young man admitted to the affair. The young man was Knud Rame (b. 1935, †), who went on to become a homophile publicist like Fogedgaard with the magazine Eos from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.⁸³

The police files on Fogedgaard, Lundahl Madsen, Eskildsen, and related files contain scattered admissions, convincing evidence, and sometimes copies of verdicts against about 10 other prominent activists from the early Danish homophile movement.⁸⁴ Many people in the movement disappeared after 1955, either because they went to jail and afterwards kept a private life, or because they emigrated, committed suicide, or just withdrew from the public eye. The membership of Forbundet dropped to 62.⁸⁵

In Sweden, ‘homosexual affairs’ were also unfolding in the newspapers. The vicar Karl-Eric Kejne managed to turn the public’s attention to male youth prostitution in Stockholm and a so-called ‘homosexual mafia’ allegedly covering it up. He also accused the authorities of corruption, which led to several court trials. At the same time, the public became aware of restauranteur Kurt Haijby’s alleged homosexual affair with the late king Gustav V of Sweden in the 1930s, which had developed into court trials and a media scandal in the 1950s. These affairs did not directly include people from RFSL, but Eric Thorsell held a public lecture about the Kejne-Affair, after which he was taken to court for defamation. He was acquitted in 1953. Even though the Swedish association had not been publically exposed like the Danish one, the ‘Kejne Psychosis’, as Thorsell termed the affairs, left a deep impact on homophile culture in Sweden.⁸⁶

A new generation takes over after the quiet 1960s

During the latter half of the 1950s and until the late 1960s, the three Scandinavian associations did their best to not provoke the authorities: no radical demands, no manifestos for male prostitution, and no dubitable people in charge. As previously mentioned, the Norwegian association formalized its ostensible struggle against male prostitution. The Danish association also wrote into its laws that they were against the practice,⁸⁷ and so did the RFSL.⁸⁸

The Norwegian association was the most outwardly active during these years. They continued their campaign against the penal code reform, wrote informational letters to politicians and experts, and arranged public debates. They also launched a campaign to influence the attitude towards homosexuals within the Norwegian church.⁸⁹ The Norwegian association also continued its support of the ICSE, and attended the annual congresses, while Sweden and Denmark fell away.⁹⁰

In the late 60s and early 70s, new, younger leadership in all three Scandinavian associations wanted to profoundly change the homophile movement. This younger generation believed that socializing and responding to attacks in the press were not enough. They did not want more of the old, they wanted a new form of homophile activism. At the same time, the solution they came up with was at its core shaped by the two generations of homophile activists that came before them.

The university educated Karen-Christine (known as Kim) Friele (1935–2021) took over as DNF-48 chairman in Norway in 1966.⁹¹ She had joined the association in 1964, had been editor of the club magazine since 1965, and had participated in public debates as part of the association’s visibility efforts, both in community halls and on the radio. The objective of the Norwegian association’s first public campaign was the abolishment of § 213, the paragraph that criminalized sex between men in Norway.

Since the time of Løvaas, the DNF-48 had made its mission to bombard the authorities and the media with letters, information, and the latest liberal science on homosexuality. The primary task for the association was officially ‘to counter incorrect information about homosexuality which so often appears in the media’.⁹² This also became Friele’s project in her three-year tenure as chairman, and afterwards as information secretary, a position she carved out for herself because of her talent for communication. With the aid of the rest of the board, she exchanged a defensive strategy for an offensive one. Furthermore, the association under Friele started a lobbying campaign, with her as the main agent, by systematically surveying politicians about their views on homophile rights and strategically deciding who to influence, and how.⁹³

The new campaign was successful and in 1972 the paragraph criminalizing sex between men was repealed.

In 1971, Friele was employed as a full-time association secretary, in charge of all internal and external communication, including contact with politicians, partners, and the media, as well as serving as secretary of the board and maintaining responsibility for the membership lists. Friele was the public figure of the association, the one who had her finger on the pulse of all of its limbs and was in charge of daily business. The position was more fittingly renamed general secretary, and Friele kept it until 1989.⁹⁴

Norway was unique amongst the Scandinavian associations in employing a full-time general secretary and also paying their chairman and board members. This meant an early professionalization of the Norwegian association. Denmark and Sweden continued a grass root format, but both saw a dramatic change of leadership as well.

In Denmark, the contour of a crown prince was starting to form around computer specialist Per Kleis Bønnelycke (1942–2014). In 1966, he became deputy member of the board. In 1968 he became vice chairman, and his ally and boyfriend, Aage Dalgaard, became editor of Pan. They were both participants in the newly invented Action Committee, which exhibited the new activist zeal of the association.⁹⁵ Together with other members, not least journalist Line Varhede (b. 1942), librarian Ulla Simonsen, and journalist Ellen Gaarmann (b. 1944, †), three notable women of the younger generation, they designed a lobbying strategy for equal rules in the penal code (i.e. age of consent), and for marriage equality.⁹⁶ In 1970, Bønnelycke became chairman of the association.⁹⁷ Like Friele in Norway, whom he was in friendly correspondence with, Bønnelycke would sit in the front seat of homophile activism in Denmark for the next two decades.

In Sweden, a clerk in the military, Barbro Sahlin (1914–1990), became the next new chairman, the second female chairman in Scandinavian homophile history. By the time of the general assembly in February 1971, Sahlin could note that RFSL was moving forwards after years of stagnation. The association had sent out the leaflet ‘RFSL informs’, found new offices, and had participated in several public meeting and debates.⁹⁸ This was achieved partly by cooperating with the commercial City Club and the international and commercial organization IHWO (International Homosexual World Organization), which was run by Axel Axgil, and whose magazine, Viking, had become the RFSL member’s magazine. However, many members of the Swedish association did not feel that things were really taking off. The Norwegian and Danish associations had launched new political and propaganda activities, and members had heard of the Stonewall riots in the U.S. One member suggested that the RFSL should arrange a demonstration like the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in America, but Sahlin responded that the RFSL and Sweden were not ready for that.⁹⁹ New groups, however, were appearing in Sweden that did believe Sweden was ready.

Publicist Michael Holm (1933–2013), one of the editors of Viking (renamed Revolt in 1971), started Club Max in Malmö in 1971. Law student Åke Carlsson (b. unknown, d. 1992) and others had started Uppsala Association for Homosexuals. In Örebro, history student Sören Klippfjell (b. 1945) and others had started Gay Power Club No.1. Other such clubs had appeared across Sweden, and many of them drew their inspiration from the GLF in the U.S. In Axgil’s and Holm’s magazine for the members of IHWO, UNI, articles had appeared on the Stonewall riots and the GLF. One of them ended with the admonition: ‘So activate yourself and fight for a good cause. GAY IS GOOD! GAY POWER! Let these words be the guiding star for the 1970s’.¹⁰⁰

When the Uppsala branch of the association convened a conference in May 1971 to discuss a reorganization of RFSL, Sahlin was angry that the Stockholm main office was treated like a guest rather than the host.¹⁰¹ The May conference consisted of the new clubs presenting their activities, and also scholarly experts presenting the latest (liberal) science on homosexuality, not least the Dutch Speijer-report that concluded that there was no need for discrimination of homosexuals in the penal code. A work group was assembled to further discuss the reorganization of RFSL, and Sahlin along with editor and former chairman Bengt Borgstedt (1918–1998), Holm, Klippfjell, and Carlsson were appointed. Friele from Norway and Varhede from Denmark were present, and the conference culminated in a grand finale, when about 40 people marched in a Gay Power Parade. This was the second march in Sweden, as Gay Power Club No. 1 had already done one in Örebro in May 1971. In the Uppsala parade, people thanked the activists and shouted hooray along the route.¹⁰²

Over the summer, a spirited discussion was held on the future of the RFSL and its leadership. Michael Holm suggested that the association should fight for all sexual minorities, end its opposition to prostitution, and the Stockholm office should be a secretariat for the local clubs, not the centre of command.¹⁰³ Sahlin responded sharply to these ideas, refusing to let RFSL become the lackey of the local clubs, licking their stamps, and putting Revolt in envelopes, as she rhetorically put it. Sahlin, who herself had brought RFSL back from the dead by cooperating with UNI and Viking and other commercial partners, was now accusing Holm of wanting to put RFSL at the service of Revolt, and basically replacing it with, as she wrote, ‘Michael’s club’. She did not want RFSL to help sadists find victims, she polemically wrote, and ended up accusing Michael Holm of ‘Goebbelsian propaganda’.¹⁰⁴ The harsh tone meant that cooperation broke down. After the representatives of ‘old RFSL’ (Sahlin) left, the young rebels took over the cooperation committee. However, there was also an ‘unofficial member’ of the committee: Kim Friele.

Friele had been at the Uppsala conference in May, and had corresponded with both sides of the debate since. She supported Sahlin when it came to keeping a strong central office of the RFSL, and keeping the focus on homo- and bisexual individuals, rather than all minorities, but she backed the general spirit of the rebels when it came to revitalizing the association. When Sahlin came down hard on Holm, Friele reprimanded her, and thus furthered the isolation of Sahlin in the committee.¹⁰⁵

Since Sahlin was quite clearly isolated from early 1971, Friele worked hard to mould the ideas of the rebels, which were bound to take over Friele’s partner association in Sweden. She felt that the success of turning DNF-48 from total passivity and self-hatred to defeating § 213, in her self-serving short history of her takeover in Norway, had been accomplished ‘not by parades and loud yells for equality, but by objective will to factual communication’.¹⁰⁶ Friele was defending the new lobbyist model for homophile associations that had been implemented by hers and Bønnelycke’s takeovers against the anarchist (autonomous local clubs) and situationist (change through Gay Power-demonstrations) model of the young Swedish rebels. In a letter to Klippfjell, she turned up her rhetoric to get her point through: ‘What the hell do the politicians care about local clubs? What the hell do they care about a homophile called Sören Klippfjell who runs a club some goddamn place? And perhaps earns money from it. Nothing, not a damned thing. Remember that’.¹⁰⁷

A compromise was reached, in large part from Friele’s interventions on both sides of the debate. In the end, the committee accepted the strong central office that Friele had argued for, but with different functions spread across local clubs, so that Stockholm would not dominate. The annual meeting was changed into a congress where each club was proportionally represented, to avoid Stockholm and Uppsala always dominating annual meetings in Stockholm due to the travel costs for other members. In the end the rebels also accepted ‘old RFSL’s’ suggestion (which Friele had also argued for) that they should work for sexual equality rather than for ‘all sexual minorities’. They set up a strong information secretariat in the central office, also as Friele had proposed. Unsurprisingly, Friele backed the final proposal, as well as ‘old RFSL’ and the local clubs.¹⁰⁸

When the gay power revolution came to Sweden, it can be argued that the revolution changed more than Sweden did. Symbolic actions like demonstrations, which were new activities for homophile associations, were incorporated into the lobbyist format that was essentially adopted in all three Scandinavian associations. On 27 June 1971, Forbundet af 1948 in Denmark had arranged their Christopher Street Liberation Day (today known as ‘Gay Pride Parade’ or just ‘Pride Parade’), with speeches by MPs, a pastor, a young radical author, and Bønnelycke, representing Forbundet af 1948.¹⁰⁹ Where the Stonewall riots in the U.S. meant a turn to violence and civil disobedience, and the replacement of the older generation of activists in the Mattachine Society with new gay liberationist networks, the situation was different in Scandinavia. Slogans and symbolic actions were promoted by a younger generation that had already taken over in Denmark and Norway, and they were incorporated into a peaceful lobbyist logic. Whereas Sweden at a glance might have seemed to embrace a more radical agenda, the whole process of reorganization, and the powerful moderating influence of Friele and others, had placed the revolutionary rhetoric within a structure that inhibited any revolution.

Concluding discussion

Two major points emerge from this analysis of events from Midsummer Night’s Eve 1948 through the eventful year 1971. The first is that we need a new periodization to understand Scandinavian, and perhaps also European, gay and lesbian history before 1971, one that does not revolve around the Stonewall events, or falls back on dichotomies like homophile/gay, assimilationist/revolutionary, bourgeois/socialist, respectable/unapologetic, etc.

The early generation of activists in Scandinavia were radical in their demands and unapologetic in their lifestyle, even though they often presented a respectable face to the public when necessary. Furthermore, research has by now shown, at least for Denmark and Sweden, that these activists were not a separate criminal clique among the ‘respectable’ homophile masses. Living outside the law was a common experience among gay men before the 1970s, and teenage rent boys were an ‘accepted, integrated, and fetishized’ element in that culture, as I have argued elsewhere.¹¹⁰

A ‘homophile period’ surely followed the radical criminals of the early 1950s, and after the Great Pornography Affair the successfully intimidated associations focused on internal community work, rather than changing society around them. This moderate turn gave way to gay and lesbian lobbyism, which became the chosen format of all three associations, building on the budding public integrity, steady locales, and members that the homophile generation had amassed.

The 1969 New York City Stonewall riots did play a part as inspiration for the young generation of the 1970s, not least in the socialist gay organizations that developed, like the Gay Liberation Front in Copenhagen. Demonstrations, anti-establishment attitudes, and socialist ideas were all around in many forms – May Day demonstrations, International Women’s Day demonstrations, and the students’ rebellion that took place all over Western Europe.

When the revolutionary spirit settled down in the mid-70s, the Scandinavian organizations, including the GLF and associated groups, focused on lobbying politicians and creating peaceful change in the public attitude rather than on revolutionary action.

The founding of the first Danish association, the subsequent developments and twists and turns, the change towards a more ‘homophile’ style of politics, and the reorganizations in the early 70s cannot be understood using a national perspective only. The initial ideas and forms of activism came from Zürich and Amsterdam, and even more fundamentally than ideas travelling from country to country, we must acknowledge that crucial ideas developed between countries and not in one country or another. The early politization of the Scandinavian movement is one example, the reactions of the European homophile movement to The Great Pornography Affair is another, and the political and institutional reorganization in the early 1970s is a third example that I have shown in this article. Rather than just being an international movement, the gay and lesbian movement was a transnational movement that did not develop according to national logics, but across and between borders. For instance, in order to understand the Swedish rebellion, we need to understand its ties to the Danish-led association IHWO. Furthermore, we need to understand Kim Friele’s decisive influence on the Swedish association, just as we need to understand Lundahl Madsen’s decisive influence in Norway in the early 1950s (i.e. when he prevented a takeover by Kai Mossin, who would have set DNF-48 on a completely different trajectory than Løvaas).

My focus has been on the ties that bound Scandinavia together, but I have also shown how Scandinavia was part of a larger European network, as historians Pia Laskar and Raimund Wolfert have also shown in their work on the transnational connections between Sweden, Denmark, and Europe in the same period.¹¹¹ Naturally, Scandinavia was not a self-contained unit, but a knot in a larger European, and by extension, global, network.

In 1971, Axgil wisely retired from activism before he was thrown out, and left IHWO and the magazine to Holm and his partner, Geurt Staal. Axgil then set up a discreet gay bed-and-breakfast, Axelhus, outside Copenhagen. In 1974, the Danish association no longer felt he was a threat, and made him an honorary member¹¹² after he had been banned for almost 20 years. Attitudes and alliances were changing fast in the early 1970s, and Bønnelycke wisely saw that Axgil was better cast as a museum piece than as a dangerous competitor. When the Copenhagen Gay Liberation Front came by Axelhus in the early 70s, they were both inspired by his historic courage and bemused by his conservative attitude.¹¹³

‘The road is long, and the struggle is here to stay, but tomorrow we’ll be more than we were yesterday’,¹¹⁴ they wrote in the guest book as they left the founder of Scandinavian gay and lesbian activism in his sex-friendly haven. Lighter days had come.

Acknowledgements

This article is published as a part of the project ‘A Nordic Queer Revolution? Homo- and Trans Activism in Denmark, Norway and Sweden 1948-2018’, financed by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). I wish to thank my project group for invaluable discussions and support during the last four years, and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen and across the world who has engaged in discussions with me at conferences and seminars. A special thanks goes out to activists and archivists who have shared their expertise, stories, and perspectives with me. I thank you for your confidence in me.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) under grant number 2018-01800. The Torsten Amundsen Foundation generously funded archive trips to Stockholm and Oslo.

Notes on contributors

Peter Edelberg

Peter Edelberg (b. 1977) is Teaching Associate Professor at the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen. His publications include Storbyen trækker: Homoseksualitet, prostitution og pornografi i Danmark 1945-1976 (2012) and several articles on the history of gender and sexuality. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-edelberg-72606082/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peter.edelberg.5 ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Edelberg

Notes

1. Transcript of verdict against Axel Johannes Madsen and Eigil Aksel Eskildsen. Copenhagen City Court, 9. division, case no. 323/1955. Transcript of verdict against Axel Johannes Madsen and Eigil Aksel Eskildsen. Eastern Court of Appeals, 11. division, case no. 375/1955. Axel Johannes Madsen’s prison notebook. Private archive of Axel Axgil. Erindringsmanuskripter. Notesbøger med erindringsoversigter 1955–56.

2. Letter from Axel Johannes Madsen to Eigil Aksel Eskildsen, 27/8 1955, 8. Copenhagen City Court, 9. division, case no. 323/1955.

3. Lundis, Axel Axgil, 79–84. Axel Axgils liv, 8. Private archive of Axel Axgil. Erindringsmanuskripter.

4. For examples of authors who use this dichotomy, see Johansen, Skeive linjer i norsk historie, 133–7; Ambjörnsson, Vad är queer?, 15–7; Rydström and Mustola (eds.), Criminally Queer, 34; Von Rosen, “Bøssehistorie,” 86–7.

5. E.g. Chauncey, Gay New York; Houlbrook, Queer London; Beachy, Gay Berlin; Jackson, Living in Arcadia; D’Emilio, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities.

6. Andreassen (ed.), Homo i Folkhemmet; Söderström, ”Bildandet av RFSL”; Johansen, Skeive linjer i norsk historie; Henriksen and al-Arab, Bøssernes Danmarkshistorie; Nissen and Paulsen, ”Handling gi’r forvandling”; Friele, ”Med regnbuen som våpen”; Weijdegård, ”Kampen som förändrer”; Axgil and Axgil, ”Homoseksuelle milepæle”; Wolfert, Gegen Einsamkeit und ’Einsiedelei’; Von Rosen, ”Pornografiaffæren”; Söderström, ”De skandinaviska organisationernas uppkomst”.

7. Forhandlingsprotokol for Forbundet af 1948, n. p. Axel Axgil’s archive in LBL Archives. Autobiographical manuscript, 41. Private archive of Axel Axgil. Erindringsmanuskripter. NB. The archives of the Association of 1948 were handed in while the organization was called Landsforeningen for Bøsser og Lesbiske (National Association of Gays and Lesbians), shortened LBL. Therefore the archive is referred to as LBL Archive.

8. Love for Kredsen af 1948. Materiale vedr. Forbundet af 1948. Axel Axgil’s archive in LBL Archive. Forhandlingsprotokol for Forbundet af 1948, 4. Axel Axgil’s archive in LBL Archive.

9. Homophilos [Fogedgaard], ”Hvad Vennen vil.” Vennen, no. 1 (1949): 3.

10. Rydström and Mustola (eds.), Criminally Queer, 25.

11. Forhandlingsprotokol, 1/8 1949, n. p. Axel Axgil’s archive in LBL Archive.

12. Trygve Nyrud, Interview with Rolf Løvaas, 13/3 1996. Skeivt Arkiv. Kristiansen (2008) has also analysed the early development of the Norwegian Section. Our accounts differ in places, but our interpretations generally agree.

13. Protokoll, vintern 1950–51, n. p. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Protokoll från forbundsstyrelsen. Wasniowski (2007) has also described the early development of RFSL. Our accounts generally agree.

14. Love for Forbundet af 1948, Oct. 1950. Axel Axgil’s archive in LBL Archive. Materiale vedr. Forbundet af 1948.

15. ”Organisasjon for homoseksuelle har ca. 100 medlemmer i Norge.” Dagbladet, 28/10 1950. Newspaper clipping in DNF-48 Archives. Organisasjon internt. Vi løsnet et skred.

16. Letters from Lundahl Madsen to Løvaas, 15/5 1950, 13/8 1950, 28/9 1950, n.d., n.d. Letters from Løvaas to Lundahl Madsen, 20/10 1950, 28/10 1950, 20/11 1950, 22/11 1950. DNF-48 Archive. Informasjon. Korrespondanse. Korrespondanse med utlandet 1951–59.

17. Homophilos, ”Vort første landsstævne.” Vennen, no. 5 (May 1949): 67, see also 61–4.

18. Letter from Forbundet af 1948 (Lundahl Madsen) to the Ministry of Justice, November 1950. Axgil’s archive in LBL Archive. Korrespondance og Manuskripter.

19. Städgar för Förbundet av 1948, October 1951. Axgil’s archive in LBL Archive. Materiale vedr. Forbundet af 1948.

20. UN Charter.

21. Lovudkast for Forbundet af 1948, December 1952. Axgil’s archive in LBL Archive. Materiale vedr. Forbundet af 1948. Emphasis in original.

22. Letter from Norwegian section to Danish section, 19/11 1951. DNF-48 Archive. Informasjon. Korrespondanse. Korrespondanse med utlandet 1951–59.

23. Letter from Kai Mossin to Rolf Løvaas, 30/9 and 21/10 1951. DNF-48 Archive. Informasjon. Korrespondanse. Korrespondanse med medlemmer 1951–59.

24. Kai Mossin to Rolf Løvaas, 30/9 1951. DNF-48 Archive. Informasjon. Korrespondanse. Korrespondanse med medlemmer 1951–59. Letter from Kai Mossin to Bernhardino del Boca, 1/1 1951. Letter from Kai Mossin to Han Temple Organization, 1/1 1952. DNF-48 Archive. Informasjon. Korrespondanse. Korrespondanse med utlandet 1951–59. No scholar has even seen a shred of evidence that such an organization with local chapters in several Asian metropoles existed at the time.

25. Letter from Kai Mossin to Lundahl Madsen, 14/3 1963. Private archive of Axel Axgil. Korrespondance (M).

26. Letter from the Swedish to the Norwegian Section, 14/1 1952. Private archive of Kim Friele. Det Norske Forbundet av 1948. Korrespondanse (RFSL).

27. Letter from the Central Committee to the Norwegian Section, 23/1 1952. DNF-48 Archive. Informansjon. Korrespondanse. Korrespondanse med utlandet 1951–59.

28. Letter from the Norwegian Section to the Central Committee, 26/1 1952. DNF-48 Archive. Informasjon. Korrespondanse. Korrespondanse med utlandet 1951–59.

29. Letter from the Central Committee to all Norwegian members, and letter to Norwegian Section. 23/1 1952. DNF-48 Archive. Informasjon. Korrespondanse. Korrespondanse med utlandet 1951–59.

30. Letter from Løvaas to Central Committee, 30/1. DNF-48 Archive. Informasjon. Korrespondanse. Korrespondanse med utlandet 1951–59.

31. Letter from Kai Mossin to the Norwegian Section, 7/2 1952. DNF-48 Archive. Informasjon. Korrespondanse. Korrespondanse med medlemmer 1951–59.

32. Letter from Bertil Wernholm til Tore Hultman, 30/7 1951. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Inkomna handlingar. Korrespondens med aktivister. Letter from Lundahl Madsen to the Swedish Section, 1951. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Private archive of Allan Hellman. Korrespondens.

33. Letter from Swedish Section (Ahlström) to the Norwegian Section, 17/12 1951. Private archive of Kim Friele. Det Norske Forbundet av 1948. Korrespondanse (RFSL).

34. Letter from the Swedish Section to Allan Hellman, 25/4 1951. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Inkomna handlingar. Korrespondens med aktivister. Letter from Thorsell to Hellman, 16/3 1951. Private archive of Allan Hellman. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Korrespondens.

35. Minutes of board meeting, 15/12 1951. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Protokoll från forbundsstyrelsen. Letter from Løvaas to Hellman, 3/4 and 24/4 1951. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Private archive of Allan Hellman. Korrespondens. Minutes of the annual meeting of the Stockholm division, 27/2 1952. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Årsmötesprotokoll. See for example the full frontal naked picture of a young man in Vennen, no. 1 (1951): 7.

36. Letter from Ahlström to Hellman, 6/12 1951. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Inkomna handlingar. Korrespondens med aktivister. Letter from the Swedish (Ahlström) to the Norwegian Section, 17/12 1951. Private archive of Kim Friele. Det Norske Forbundet av 1948. Korrespondanse (RFSL). Letter from Eric Thorsell to Floris van Mechelen, 24/2 1952. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Inkomna handlingar. Korrespondens med utlandet.

37. Letter from RFSL (Ahlström) to the Central Committee, 27/3 1952. Private archive of Kim Friele. Det Norske Forbundet av 1948. Korrespondanse (RFSL).

38. Minutes of general assembly, 1952. Private archive of Kim Friele. Det Norske Forbundet av 1948. Generalforsamlinger.

39. Vennen (July-August 1951): 165

40. Letter from Floris van Mechelen to Eric Thorsell, 27/2 1952. Letter from Thorsell to van Mechelen, 24/2 1952. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Inkomna handlingar. Korrespondens med utlandet.

41. Letter from ICSE (van Mechelen) to Forbundet af 1948, 27/2 1952. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Inkomna handlingar. Korrespondens med utlandet.

42. Protocol of Copenhagen division, 26/3 1952. Axgil’s archive in LBL Archive. Forhandlingsprotokoller for Forbundet af 1948.

43. Letter from Lundahl Madsen to Fogedgaard, 15/4 1952. Copenhagen City Court. Case against Helmer Fogedgaard, 23/8 1956. 10. Division. Case no. 148.

44. Letter from Lundahl Madsen to H. V. Larsen, 24/5 1952. Private archive of Axel Axgil. Korrespondance (Forbundet af 1948).

45. Letter from Lundahl Madsen to Løvaas, 20/3 1952. DNF-48 Archive. Korrespondanse. Forbundet af 1948.

46. Press communication from the International Conference for Sexual Equality, 1951. DNF-48 Archive. Andre organisasjoner. International Congress for Sexual Equality. See also Vennen, no. 11 (Nov 1952): 218–20.

47. Letter from the Swedish Section/RFSL to the penal code committee, 7/2, 5/5 and 11/10 1951; to the King, 13/1 and 25/4 1951; to the Law Council 11/10 1951; to all political parties, 22/10 1951; to the public prosecutor, 27/4 and 15/5 1952. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Inkomna handlingar. Korrespondens med myndigheter.

48. Letter from the Swedish Section to the King, 25/4 1951. Ibid.

49. Letter from the Swedish Section to the Committee for Social Educational Films, 4/5 1951, and answer, 1/6 1951. Ibid.

50. Wagner Smitt, Hvorfor er de sådan? (1951).

51. Minutes of board meeting, 15/11 1951. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Protokoll från forbundstyrelsen.

52. Rydström, “Sweden 1864–1976: Beasts and Beauties,” 204–5.

53. Letter from Hellman to RFSL, 27/12 1953, and answer, 11/2 1954. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Inkomna handlingar. Korrespondens med aktivister.

54. Response to proposal, Oct 1953. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Korrespondens med myndighter. Letter from Eric Thorsell to Ove Ahlström, 15/11 1953. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Korrespondens med aktivister.

55. E.g. the autobiographical Brinnande blomma (1949) and Grabb på glid (1949). See also Vennen, no. 7 (1954): 135.

56. Hallbeck, Mannen och pojken (1980). See also “Pojke som partner,” from Revolt, no.1 (1980): 22–3, magazine clipping in Hellman’s archive (RFSL Archive – Riksarkivet), and Greger Eman, “Hallbeck, 83, författare,” KomUt!, vol. 11, no. 6 (1990).

57. The leaflet is undated, but is from 1951, and Hellman informs in his (undated, unpaginated) memoirs in his archive that Hallbeck wrote it. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Private archive of Allan Hellman.

58. Magazine clippings in Hellman’s archive: “Hanludret,” Revolt, no. 1 (1978): 56. “Gambia,” Revolt, no. 5 (1978): 56. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet).

59. Minutes of board meeting, 11/7 1953. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Protokoll från forbundsstyrelsen.

60. Axel Axgil, Index of Løvaas articles. Private archive of Rolf Løvaas (Riksarkivet).

61. Letter from Norwegian Section to Penal Code Committee, 6/12 1951. Private archive of Kim Friele. Politiske sager. § 213 i straffeloven. Korrespondanse og documenter 1950–61.

62. Letter from DNF-48 to Aage Lotinga, 12/2 1954. Letter from Lotinga to DNF-48, 5/1 1954. Letter from DNF-48 to Jarl Wagner Smitt, 23/1 1954. Letter from DNF-48 to Hjalmar Helweg, 19/2 1954. Private archive of Kim Friele. Politiske sager. § 213 i straffeloven. Korrespondanse og documenter 1950–61.

63. Notes from conversation with police doctor Irmelin Christensen, 3/10 1953. Private archive of Kim Friele. Politiske sager. § 213 i straffeloven. Korrespondanse og dokumenter 1950–61. Klubbnytt (Jun 1954): 1; (Sep 1954): 3; (Jan-Apr 1954): 1.

64. Klubbnytt (Apr 1955): 3.

65. Dermot Mack. ”Det internasjonale samarbeid i 50-årene” Mulius, no. 3 (1975): 3.

66. Grodal, Vi som føler annerledes (1957).

67. Minutes of general assembly, 26/11 1960. Private archive of Kim Friele. Det Norske Forbundet av 1948. Generalforsamlinger. Minutes of board meeting, 14/2 1961. Private archive of Kim Friele. Det Norske Forbundet av 1948. Organisasjonsmateriale 1950–93.

68. Oss Imellom (Apr-Jun 1961): 13–14.

69. Letter from Løvaas to Lundahl Madsen, 14/10 1951. DNF-48 Archive. Korrespondanse. Forbundet af 1948.

70. Letter from Lundahl Madsen to Løvaas, 30/4 1956. Letter from Løvaas to Lundahl Madsen, 9/5 1956. Private archive of Axel Axgil. Korrespondance (L).

71. Eos, no. 6 (1959): 263–4.

72. Ibid.: 266–7.

73. Trygve Nyrud, Interview with Rolf Løvaas, 13/3 1996. Skeivt Arkiv. A contemporary letter from Fogedgaard to Løvaas exists that supports the latter’s liberal views on prostitution. The letter quite transparently refers to the Eos debate, without directly mentioning it: Letter from Fogedgaard to Løvaas, 28/12 1960. Private archive of Rolf Løvaas (Skeivt Arkiv).

74. Holger Bramlev, Manifesto of 1 July 1954. Private archive of Axel Axgil. Correspondence (B).

75. Vennen, no. 5 (May 1952): front page.

76. Letter from Lundahl Madsen to DNF-48 and RFSL, 5/7 1954. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Korrespondens med utlandet (Vennen). Also in DNF-48 Archive. Korrespondanse 1951–59 (Vennen).

77. Protokoll der Arbeitssitzung des ICSE, 23.–25. Oct. 1954. DNF-48 Archive. Andre organisasjoner. International Congress for Sexual Equality.

78. Ibid.

79. Kristiansen (2008) argues that the Norwegian association kept out of trouble, not least because they actively wanted to avoid scandals like in Sweden and Denmark. That is true, but it is also important to recognize the relative radicalism (in the Norwegian context) of a figure like Løvaas, who was also a distributor of pornography and likely a prostitution customer. The Norwegian newspapers also reported on male teenage prostitution in Oslo in the 1950s, for example the so-called Blacky Gang. See newspaper clippings in DNF-48 Archive (Riksarkivet). Organisasjon internt. Vi løsnet et skred. Forarbeid.

80. Transcript of verdict against Eigil Aksel Eskildsen, 14/9 1945. Copenhagen City Court, 23. division, case no. 137/1945.

81. Criminal Record of Eigil Aksel Eskildsen, 8/11 1956. Copenhagen City Court, 9. division, case no. 323/1955.

82. Fogedgaard, ”På ferie i Vestre Fængsel: En anholdelse i badebukser,” Vennen, no. 9 (Sep 1955): 249.

83. Note on conversation with Axel Axgil, 15/10 1998. Private archive of Wilhelm von Rosen. Axel Axgil. See also Transcript of verdict on Helmer Fogedgaard, 23/8 1956. Copenhagen City Court, 10. division, case no. 148/1956.

84. Case against Helmer Fogedgaard. Copenhagen City Court, 10. division, no. 148/1956. Case against Axel Lundahl Madsen and Eigil Eskildsen. Copenhagen City Court, 9. division, no. 323/1955. See von Rosen (1999) for an account of the affair.

85. Transcript of interview with Erik Jensen, 25/2 1992. Private archive of Wilhelm von Rosen. Forbundet af 1948.

86. Söderström, Sympatiens hemlighetsfulla makt, 406–484.

87. Vedtægter for Forbundet af 1948, 1965. LBL Archive. Hovedbestyrelsen. Vedtægter.

88. Minutes of annual meeting, 1962. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Årsmötesprotokoll.

89. Oss Imellom (Dec 1958): 2–4, 6; Oss Imellom (Oct 1958): 4–6.

90. Oss Imellom (Jun 1958): 2.

91. Minutes of general assembly, 25/11 1967. Private archive of Kim Friele. Det Norske Forbundet av 1948. Generalforsamlinger. The minutes of the general assembly in 1966 are missing, but according to her own account, Friele was voted in that year: Ola Henmo, Kampene: Et portrett av Kim Friele, 27.

92. Minutes of board meeting, 3/2 1967. Private archive of Kim Friele. Det Norske Forbundet av 1948. Organisasjonsmateriale 1950–93.

93. Oversikt over noen personer som har gitt forbundet støtte … , n.d. Private archive of Kim Friele. Politiske sager. § 213 i straffeloven. Div. materiale.

94. Retningslinjer for generalsekretærstillingen. Papers of the general assembly, 1972. DNF-48 Archive. Styrende organer. Generalforsamling/Årsmøte.

95. Minutes of board meeting, 13/2 1968. LBL Archive. Hovedbestyrelsen. Hovedbestyrelsesmødereferater.

96. Minutes of board meeting, 9/4 1968, 8/10 1968, 29/10 1968. Ibid. EOS, no. 104 (1968): 131, and no. 106 (1968): 7.

97. Minutes of extraordinary general assembly, Apr 1970. LBL Archive. Hovedbestyrelsen. Generalforsamlings- og landsmødereferater.

98. Annual report, 7/2 1971. RFSL Archive (Sveavägen). Omorganiseringen 1971. Årsmøte 1971.

99. Minutes of annual meeting, 7/2 1971. Ibid.

100. Gary, “Homosexualität und die christliche kirche,” UNI, no. 11 (1970): 59–61. The article was in German, but the slogans were in English. See also Bob Martin, “A Statement of Beliefs,” UNI, no. 9 (1970): 29–30; Anonymous. “We have to fight,” UNI, no. 10 (1970): 24–5; “På marsch i USA,” Viking, no. 8 (1970): 21–22.

101. Letter from Barbro Sahlin to Michael Holm, 23/3 1971. RFSL Archive (Riksarkivet). Korrespondens med aktivister (IHWO).

102. Program, minutes, list of attendees and newspaper clippings. Uppsala Conference, 21.–23. May 1971. RFSL Archive (Sveavägen). Omorganiseringen 1971.

103. Michael Holm. ”Förslag til omorganisation av RSFL” and”Förslag till organisation m.m. av en organisation för sexuella minoriteter”. RFSL Archive (Sveavägen). Omorganiseringen 1971.

104. Letter from Barbro Sahlin to Kim Friele, 16/7 1971. Letter from Barbro Sahlin to the cooperation committee, 30/7 1971. RFSL Archive (Sveavägen). Omorganiseringen 1971.

105. Friele, ”Kommentarer til Barbro Sahlins 7 siders notat.” See also Letter from Stig-Åke Petersson to the cooperation committee, n.d., and letter from Michael Holm to RFSL, 8/8 1971. RFSL Archive (Sveavägen). Omorganiseringen 1971.

106. Friele. ”Det Norske Forbundet av 1948. En kort præsentasjon.” n.d. RFSL Archive (Sveavägen). Omorganiseringen 1971.

107. Letter from Kim Friele to Sören Klippfjell, 13/7 1971. RFSL Archive (Sveavägen). Omorganiseringen 1971.

108. The cooperation committee, “Diskussionspromemoria.” 2/8 71. Letter from Kim Friele to RFSL, 13/8 1971. Responses to the report by the local club Minutes of 4. meeting in the cooperation committee, 11/9 1971. RFSL Archive (Sveavägen). Omorganiseringen 1971.

109. Newspaper clippings, Christopher Street Day 1971. LBL Archive. Hovedbestyrelsen. Demonstrationer og receptioner.

110. Edelberg, Storbyen trækker, 293; Petersson, Bara bögfortrycket blomstrade: Samhällets åtgärder mot den s. k. kriminella homosexualiteten i Stockholm under 1950-talet. N.d. RFSL Archive (Sveavägen); Brink Pinto. “Panopticon in the Urinal,” 185; Söderström et al., Sympatiens hemlighetsfulla makt, 191–208, 522–605.

111. Wolfert, Gegen Einsamkeit und ‘Einseidelei’; Wolfert, ”Ingen venn av de små skritts politik”; Laskar, ”Marginaliseringsprocessernas moteld – om 1900-talets sexualpolitiska gemenskaper”; Laskar, ”Pink Porn Economy: Genealogies of Transnational LGBTQ Organizing”.

112. Letter from the Association of 1948 to Axel Axgil, 16/3 1974. Private archive of Axel Axgil. Korrespondance (Forbundet af 1948).

113. Omann, Virkelige hændelser fra et liv ved fronten, 105–6.

114. ”Vejen er lang og kampen er hård, men i morgen er vi flere end vi var i går. BBF”. Gæstebog, n.d. Private archive of Axel Axgil. Gæstebøger og adressebøger.