In the late 1960s, he began experimenting in film and creative writing. In the mid-1960s he assumed the stage name "Rosa von Praunheim". He initially worked as a painter, but eventually opted for a career in filmmaking. He then transferred to the Berlin University of the Arts where he studied fine arts but did not graduate. After Praunheim left the pre-university high school in Frankfurt (Gymnasium), he studied at the Werkkunstschule in Offenbach. In 1953, he escaped from East Germany with his family to West Germany, first to the Rhineland, moving later to Frankfurt am Main. He received the name Holger Mitschwitzky and spent his early years in East Berlin.
He documented his quest in the film Two Mothers (2007). He discovered the fate of his biological mother in 2006 after a lengthy investigation. He only knew these facts when his adoptive mother, Gertrud Mischwitzky, told him in 2000. After his birth, he was given up for adoption. His biological mother died in 1946 at the psychiatric hospital in Berlin Wittenauer Heilstätten. Von Praunheim was born as Holger Radtke in Riga (now Latvia) Central Prison during the German occupation of Latvia in World War II. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Judith Malina, Jeff Stryker, Jayne County, Divine and a row of Warhol superstars. They have featured such personalities as Keith Haring, Larry Kramer, Diamanda Galás, William S. His films center on gay-related themes and strong female characters, are characterized by excess and employ a campy style. He was an early advocate of AIDS awareness and safer sex. A pioneer of Queer Cinema, von Praunheim has been an activist in the gay rights movement. He took the artistic female name Rosa von Praunheim to remind people of the pink triangle that homosexuals had to wear in Nazi concentration camps, as well as the Frankfurt neighborhood of Praunheim where he grew up. He began his career associated to the New German Cinema as a senior member of the Berlin school of underground filmmaking. His works influenced the development of LGBTQ+ rights movements worldwide. In over 50 years, von Praunheim has made more than 150 films (short and feature-length films). Rosa von Praunheim (born 25 November 1942) is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world.