Franz Vollrath Carl Wilhelm Joseph von Bülow was born on 11 September 1861 in the
Free City of Frankfurt. Bülow's father was Bernhard Vollrath von Bülow, chamberlain of
Mecklenburg-Schwerin and envoy to the
German Confederation's
Bundesversammlung in Frankfurt am Main, while his mother was Paula, née von Linden. Bülow attended high schools in
Schwerin and
Waren for his studies. Following that, he completed cadet schools at
Plön and
Gross-Lichterfelde. Bülow had advanced to the rank of lieutenant by 1890. In the same year, he left the service and joined the
South West Africa Company in the
German colonial South West Africa. In the years that followed, he authored a book on his experiences in German South West Africa and
Cecil Rhodes' politics, as well as the
Herero and Namaqua genocide. Bülow was blinded by a gunshot wound and therefore returned to Germany. He married divorced Countess Konstanze Beust, née von Goldacker, in 1898, but they divorced a year later. According to
Magnus Hirschfeld, Bülow was one of the co-founders of the
Scientific-Humanitarian Committee in Berlin, together with
Magnus Hirschfeld, Eduard Oberg, and
Max Spohr. Bülow moved to Venice in 1900, where homosexuality was legal, unlike in Germany. He lived near
San Polo on the
Grand Canal at the
Palazzo Tiepolo. Bülow left Venice with the outbreak of World War I and returned to Germany, where he died on 18 October 1915, in
Dresden. == Reception ==