German writer August Graf von Platen-Hallermünde was BOTD in 1796. Born in Bavaria to an impoverished aristocratic family, he had a series of unrequited crushes on male friends in his teens. In 1814, he joined the Bavarian life guards, participating in the military campaign to defeat Napoleon. He left military service to study philosophy at the University of Würzburg, developing unrequited crushes on his male colleagues. He published his first poems in 1821, earning the admiration of celebrity poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He moved away from Romanticism towards a more naturalistic style, moving to Italy in 1826 where he attempted unsuccessfully to become a playwright. His diaries, published in unexpurgated form in the early 20th century, recounted his numerous infatuations with straight men, and his relationships with Justus von Liebig, Karl Teodor German, and an Erlangen student nicknamed “Cardenio”. In 1829, he became involved in a well-publicised feud with writer Heinrich Heine, making anti-Semitic insults against Heine in his comic play Der romantische Oedipus (The Romantic Oedipus). In response, Heine published a travelogue Die Bäder von Lucca (The Baths of Lucca), taking aim at Platen’s closeted homosexuality. The battle nearly destroyed Heine’s reputation in Germany, while Platen withdrew from public life, settling in Sicily. He died of cholera in 1835, aged 39.