Heinrich Hössli
(1784 - 1864) Switzerland
Writer
Hössli was a milliner, interior decorator and homosexual apologist and emancipationist. The first son of 14 children, Hössli was born in Glarus, where he grew up without formal schooling. In 1799, because of food shortage, he was sent to berne, there learning the trade of hat-making which he practiced in his home town.
 In 1811 he married Elisabeth Grebel from Zürich; unusually she remained in Zürich, he at once returned to Glarus , and they lived apart for the rest of their lives. In the first two years of their marriage, they did see each other at last occasionally, and had two sons. He retired from business in 1851 and wandered restlessly for the rest of his life.
In 1817 Hössli was profoundly shocked by the cruel execution in Berne of a 32-year-old legal adviser, Dr Franz Desgouttes, for the murder of his scribe, 22-year-old Daniel Hemmler, with whom it emerged he was in love.
Hössli declared that it was as if "the scales had fallen from his eyes"; he "could not be silent and remain a human being". He felt it his terrible but pressing duty to inform the world of the true nature of love between men. He published books on this theme in 1836 and 1838, and immediately ran into trouble with church authorities. Anyway his work had few readers and almost no influence.
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