Friedrich Heinrich Alexander
baron von Humboldt
(1769 - 1859) Germany
Naturalist, explorer, and geographer
Born in Berlin, he explored the regions of the Orinoco and the Amazon, 1800-04, and gathered 60,000 plant specimens. One of the first popularizers of science, his published works include Cosmos (1854-62), an account of the physical sciences.
Though he spent only a short time in the United States, many geographic features have been named for Humboldt here. Of towns (which is one-third of the total of 24 place names), nearly all are in the Midwest -- in the states of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Tennessee. (The other is in Saskatchewan, Canada.)
Alexander von Humboldt has been called the father of modern geography and geology among other things. Some refer to him as simply a "natural scientist." Von Humboldt explored South American back lands and had an amazing respect for the cultures he encountered. He foresaw the eventual independence of those travelled lands, and was an opponent of slavery. All kinds of landmarks are named for von Humboldt in both North and South America.
 That von Humboldt favored same-sex relationships is pretty well beyond question, but that hasn't deterred certain authors from attempting to deny and explain it all away. The usual rendition, as is commonly done, is to maintain that 18th century Romanticists used a sort of "flowery" belles letters language which merely indicated a deep friendship, going lengths in attempts to erase any trace of 'homosexuality'.
Why such a strenuous effort?, one must wonder. A salient example of this is Adolf Meyer-Abich's book, Alexander von Humboldt: 1769/1969. He interrupts discussion of Humboldt's life to make a few points:
Before we follow the course of Humboldt's life further, we must pause to consider his character and in particular his attitude to friendship and love. The immediate reason for this is his almost passionate friendship with Lieutenant Reinhard von Haeften, four years his junior and garrisoned in Bayreuth...
This friendship did indeed differ from his other friendships with Wegener in Frankfurt [an der Oder] and Freiesleben in Freiberg, both of long standing, in that this was not founded on common scientific interests, but was simply the result of a strong personal affection which also included von Haeften's fiancée Christiane von Cramon, so that after von Haeften's death on January 20th 1803 Alexander must have considered marrying has widow.
Helmut de Terra, one of Humboldt's biographers, felt justified in drawing the conclusion from Humboldt's letters to von Haeften that Humboldt had homosexual tendencies. This is to say the least a misguided supposition, firstly, because then Humboldt would hardly have had such a friendly relationship with von Haeften's fiancée, but mainly because friendship at that time was expressed very differently from what is customary today...
Letters which were then quite usual between friends would today only be written by lovers to each other. The age of Romanticism saw these things very differently and we find Jean Paul, for instance, valuing friendship higher than love. Such enthusiastic friendship is found in Humboldt's youthful letters too, perhaps a little more sentimental in the letters to von Haeften than in those to Wegener and Freiesleben. (op. cit. p. 30)
Meyer-Abich goes on with this line of argument for another paragraph; he mentions the "opinion" of another of Humboldt's biographers, Hanno Beck, who claims that von Humboldt wrote a "real love letter" to one Henrietta Herz at the same time he knew von Haeften, which, Meyer-Abich asserts, "...thus refutes de Terra's absurd theory of Humboldt's supposed homosexual tendencies." Such expositories show that authors of this sort are groping for straws, and they reveal more about the wishes of those authors than reality.
Mayer-Abich, for instance, does not offer what loves (as opposed to friends) of the late eighteenth century would write to one another. Instead, he says, love and friendship were for eighteenth century Romanticists "synonyms of one and the same human relationship." While co-mingling and blurring any distinction between love and friendship (though he had already distinguished the two when it suited himself), Meyer-Abich maintains that "...love and what we today call sex were nothing like the same thing."
So what does he mean? Made clear by his shifting definitions and lack of substantive bases for such, this author seeks blatantly to deny Humboldt's "homosexual tendencies" in any way that he can. The argument of Helmut de Terra, incidentally, was that this was Alexander von Humboldt's nature, not a set of tendencies.
The findings of Helmut de Terra in his book, Humboldt: The life and times of Alexander von Humboldt, 1769-1859, are convincing and his line of argument is well reasoned. De Terra provides excerpts of letters written by Humboldt and others to back up his assertions, rather than to rely upon generalizations of the eighteenth century mind. For example, one such letter comes from Humboldt's sister-in-law, Caroline, who presents a frank and unclouded view of his leanings:
"...Alexander will never be inspired by anything that does not come through men." (op. cit. p. 48)
One of Alexander von Humboldt's first known companions was Wilhelm Gabriel Wegener, whom he had met at school in Frankfurt an der Oder. In one of his may letters to Wegener, circa 1787 he wrote:
when I measure the longing with which I wait for news from you, I am certain that no friend could love one another more than I love you. When I recall all the signs of your friendship, I feel tormented in the thought that I don't love you as such as your sweet impressionable soul, your attachment for me, deserve. (op. cit. p. 27)
The relationship spoken of was short-lived. After a season in Frankfurt/Oder, the Humboldt brothers were brought back to Berlin. In 1789 Alexander joined his brother Wilhelm at the university in Göttingen, where young Alexander kept close to Georg Forster, with whom he shared mutual academic interests. But in 1791 Alexander was enrolled in a commercial school in Hamburg.
The next year found him at the Mining Academy in Freiberg, where he met Karl Freiesleben, a survey instructor who was a couple of years older than Humboldt. Freiesleben filled the role in Alexander's life that had previously been the place of Wegener. Karl Freiesleben was in turn displaced (at least in the short term) by Reinhard von Haeften.
The way Meyer-Abich portrayed Humboldt's relationship to von Haeften and his fiancée would leave one with the impression that Alexander adored Christiane, forming some sort of "Vee-type" triangle. Actually, though, it appears that both Alexander and Christiane were fond of Reinhard. If Alexander were interested in triangulation, he had a different arrangement in mind. To Karl Freiesleben he wrote:
One of my heartfelt wishes is to take you with me, not only to Switzerland, but to Sweden. I shall relieve you of all expenses in either journey, as I have a thousand thalers at my disposal. I depend absolutely on you to accompany me. Your wishes shall be to me as commands, and you shall not repent going. You must, if you please, consent to make one in a trio with me and a friend of mine.... (op. cit. p. 62)
The friend he was referring to was Reinhard von Haeften. Part of the original letter was apparently torn off. Using the missing piece to speculate, another of Humboldt's biographers, Karl Bruhn, concocted the story that Humboldt was (probably) attracted to Reinhard's sister. Helmut de Terra rebuffs Bruhn as follows:
Bruhn's remark appears to be a deliberate misinterpretation of Humboldt's nature and motives, an unnecessary romanticization of an important personality, and an untruthful one. To cover up Humboldt's homosexual nature by fictionalizing will not do in the light of such information as even Humboldt himself was unable to erase from his records. (op. cit. p. 63)
Indeed, there is nothing to wonder about in regard to whom Humboldt was attracted to, as a letter he wrote to von Haeften in December of 1794 illustrates:
Goethe insisted on my returning with him to Weimar... Much as I like to be with Goethe (he really is my favorite here), I would have lost the holidays. It would have meant seeing you six days later, and such a loss cannot be made up by anything in the whole world. Other people may have no understanding of this. I know that I live only through you, my good precious Reinhard, and that I can only be happy in your presence. (op. cit. pp. 63-5)
The young Lieutenant, though, had other plans for his own life and was married the following year. Yet Alexander remained close by for nearly a year. Napoleon's campaigns, however, changed the context of life in Europe. By 1799, after much preparation, Humboldt set out on his journey to South America. Von Haeften died while Humboldt was exploring the Americas with the Frenchman, Aimé Bondplan, and Don Carlos Montüfar, a young Ecuadorian they met in the New World.
Humboldt returned to Europe in 1804. Though the opportunity was open, there is no mention of Humboldt going back to try to sweep up Christiane von Haeften. Instead he formed relationships with other companions and continued to correspond with Karl Freiesleben for many years -- notably while in France where he lived (on and off) after returning from the Americas. It was in Paris that he published most of his books.
As Humboldt grew older, he became more and more devoted to his studies and publishing his work. He lived to ninety years of age, having outlived all his shining contemporaries - Goethe, Schiller, Jefferson, Madison, Napoleon, as well as his brother, his sister-in-law, all his boyfriends - everyone.
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