Der Kreis

Der Kreis (The Circle) was a Swiss periodical published from 1932-1967 and distributed internationally. After several changes of the name "Der Kreis" was used from 1943. This is the only queer periodical that was published in Europe during the second world war. The magazine had content in several languages; besides German, both French and English.

The story of the periodical is told in the book The Ideal Gay Man- The Story of Der Kreis by Hubert Kennedy, published in 1999. In 2014, the Swiss docudrama, The Circle, was released. It portrays both the periodical particularly, and the gay community in Zürich in 40- and 50s in general. Der Kreis was also being read in Norway, and the September Issue in 1954 was fully devoted to Scandinavian conditions.

Der Kreis is now digitalized in its entirety and an electronic version is available in Oria: https://www.uib.no/ub.  

Skeivt Arkiv has the 1950 volume of Der Kreis in their collection. We welcome donations of more copies from this periodical.