Anna Elisabet Weirauch

Born in Galați, Romania, on August 7, 1887, Anna Elisabet Weirauch later moved to Germany and built a career both on stage and on the page. She trained as an actress in Berlin and worked in the theater before becoming known more widely as a novelist and playwright.

Today she is remembered above all for Der Skorpion, a trilogy published in the Weimar Republic that treated lesbian love more openly and sympathetically than most literature of its day. That work made her an important early voice in German-language queer literary history and helped keep her name alive long after her lifetime.

Weirauch died in West Berlin on December 21, 1970. Although much of her writing is less widely read now, Der Skorpion continues to draw attention for the way it combined personal struggle, social pressure, and a serious attempt to represent lesbian experience with unusual directness for the period.