The law was named after the Berlin pimp Hermann Heinze, who was convicted of “causing bodily harm resulting in death” in 1887.
The "art and shop window paragraph" was intended to prevent the distribution of pictures and writings "... which, without being lewd, grossly offend the sense of modesty...".
In addition to him, the Munich theater entrepreneur Otto Falckenberg appeared with a pamphlet against the proposed law: The book of Lex Heinze, a cultural document from the beginning of the twentieth century (Staackmann, Leipzig 1900), which contained numerous statements by well-known personalities from art, literature and science.
With the support of the Social Democrats in the Reichstag, these protests achieved some changes that led to a compromise version in the third reading on 22 May, in which both the “art” or “shop window” and the "theater paragraph" were deleted without replacement.
"The Lex Heinze can be seen as a forerunner of the criminal offenses of public nuisance, distribution of pornographic writings, promotion of sexual acts by minors and pimping in today's German penal code.