Magnus Hirschfeld
Doctor and sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld (1868 – 1935) is today regarded as a pioneer of the sexual minority emancipation movement.
Father Hermann, who practised as a doctor and ran a family boarding house with mother Friederike, served in the Prussian medical service during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, for which he was awarded the honorary title of Sanitätsrat, or senior medical officer.
From 1888 to 1892, he successfully completed a degree in medicine in Strasbourg, Alsace (now Strasbourg, France), Munich, Heidelberg and Berlin. After earning his doctorate in 1892, he travelled to the USA, North Africa and Italy, before opening a practice for naturopathy and general medicine in Magdeburg in 1894.
Fighting against Discrimination and Desperation
In 1896, at the age of 28, the young doctor from a middle-class family moved to the then still independent city of Charlottenburg (now a district of Berlin). According to his own accounts, he was deeply affected by the trial of Irish writer Oscar Wilde, who was sentenced to prison and forced labour in 1895 because of his homosexuality.
Hirschfeld was also deeply saddened by the fate of one of his homosexual patients, who shot himself on the eve of his own wedding. The plight of this minority, of which he was also a member, was the starting point for Hirschfeld’s courageous fight against existing prejudices and discriminatory laws.
From 1896, Dr Magnus Hirschfeld continued his medical practice on Berliner Straße (now Otto-Suhr-Allee). That same year, he published his first essay on homosexuality: Sappho and Socrates: How Does One Explain the Love of Men and Women to Persons of Their Own Sex? In it, Hirschfeld expanded the traditional distinction between either man or woman to include his idea of intermediate stages.
According to this theory, every man and woman combines characteristics of both sexes to varying degrees, resulting in many individual intermediate stages. He used this framework in his fight to end the ongoing discrimination and even criminalisation of homosexual and bisexual people. Section 175 of the German Criminal Code prohibited sexual acts between men, with violators facing prison sentences.
Campaining for Sexual Reform
Under his life motto ‘justice through science,’ Hirschfeld campaigned for sexual reform that would decriminalise homosexuals. To this end, in 1897 he founded and headed the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee (Scientific-Humanitarian Committee), which campaigned for the removal of Paragraph 175 from the German Criminal Code. Around 200 people, some well-known, signed a petition to the German Reichstag calling for the elimination of this paragraph as early as 1897. From 1899 to 1923, Hirschfeld published the Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen (Yearbook for Intermediate Sexual Types), which covered a wide range of topics and research relating to homosexuality.The Lebensreform (Life Reform) movement, which campaigned for more humane living conditions in industrial society around 1900, had already ushered in more nuanced research on homosexuality, which had previously only received attention as a ‘pathological’ phenomenon or a criminal offence.
The Researcher becomes a Target
After working as a specialist in nervous and mental disorders from 1910, Hirschfeld bought a villa in the Großer Tiergarten (In den Zelten 10, now Große Querallee) in Berlin in 1918. It was there, in July 1919, that he founded the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science), a private foundation for the study of human sexuality and the first institution of its kind in the world. Courses and lectures on sexual education as well as guided tours of the archive and educational museum were part of the programme. People with sexual problems found counselling, therapy and, if necessary, refuge at this institute.
In 1919, Hirschfeld also co-wrote and appeared in Richard Oswald’s silent film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others), which was the first film to deal with the topic of homosexuality. In addition to working on the screenplay, Hirschfeld also appeared in the film as himself.
Exile and Death
In 1930/31, Hirschfeld undertook a lecture and study tour through North America, Asia and the Middle East. He later wrote a book about his experiences during these travels. However, his observations, research findings and teachings were increasingly putting him at odds with the emerging worldview of National Socialism. As a freethinker, homosexual and Jew, he was targeted three times over by the new rulers and did not return to Germany due to the threat of persecution. After an interim stay in Switzerland, he settled in France to continue his work in exile.
In 1933, he witnessed from afar the destruction of his work and the reversal of many of his achievements. While in Paris, Hirschfeld learned that his institute had been closed and destroyed on 6th May and that his books had been burnt at Berlin’s Opernplatz (now Bebelplatz) on 8th May. He responded by starting the work of setting up a new institute for sexology in the French capital.
However, he was denied the opportunity to continue his life’s work. On 14th May 1935, his 67th birthday, Magnus Hirschfeld died in Nice. It wasn’t until 1994 – almost a century after his petition to the legislative bodies of the German Reich – that the German Bundestag removed Paragraph 175 from the German Criminal Code.
Memorial
Today, a memorial stele near the former location of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft commemorates the pioneering institution, the first of its kind in the world, while another memorial stele stands in front of the former location of Hirschfeld’s Charlottenburg practice, which was destroyed in the Second World War. Since 1982, the Berlin-based Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft e. V. (Magnus Hirschfeld Society) has been preserving and researching the scientific and cultural legacy of the sex researcher and his foundation.
In the Berlin district of Moabit, a street between Luther Bridge and Moltke Bridge was named Magnus-Hirschfeld-Ufer in 2008. In 2017, a monument featuring six towering, colourful calla lilies was unveiled on Magnus-Hirschfeld-Ufer, symbolising the diversity of sexuality and gender. A street, a square and a path were also named after Magnus Hirschfeld in Oranienburg-Lehnitz, Magdeburg and Nuremberg respectively.
This text is an extended version of the article ‘Magnus Hirschfeld – Arzt anders als die Anderen’ by Anne Franzkowiak, published in 2012 in the catalogue for the Stadtmuseum Berlin exhibition ‘BERLIN macher: 775 Porträts – ein Netzwerk’ in the Museum Ephraim-Palais (publisher: Kerber Forum). We would like to thank the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft e. V. for their kind support and additional information.