Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld

Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Jewish physician, sexologist, LGBTQ and womens rights activist
Per Scienctiam ad Justitiam
I have chosen to memorialize the life and humanitarian works of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld on this site as a stark reminder to us all that the past is not left in the past. We carry it with us every day. The same forces that ransacked Hirschfeld's institute in 1933 and burned research materials are active today, censoring and ransacking invaluable US government resources even tertiarily related to securing human rights for marginalized communities. They are sending ICE to schools to capture parents picking up their children. They are systematically targeting our nations educational foundations and stripping our reproductive rights.
We must not give in. We must not accept the xenophobia, the psuedoscience, and the absurdities of fascism.
We are othered. We are villified. We will not be erased.
- 1868 - Born in Kolberg, Prussia
- 1888 to 1892 - Studies medicine in Straßburg, Munich, Heidelberg, and Berlin
- 1892 - Earns his medical degree
- 1896 - A gay patient of Hirshfeld, suffering from depression, takes his own life. He leaves behind a suicide note that Hirshfeld later cites as the reason for his activism. He makes note of how many of his gay patients had scars from suicide attempts.
- 1897 - Founds the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee with Max Spohr, Franz Josef von Bülow, and Eduard Oberg to campaign for the rights and recognition of LGBTQ individuals.The world's first organization of its kind. Their goal was to protect LGBTQ rights through scientific research and public education. The committee's motto "Per scientiam ad justitiam" ("Through science to Justice") reflects the belief that better understanding of human sexuality and gender would end the prejudice and hostility faced by the queer community.
- 1897 to 1898 The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee gathers over 6000 signatures from prominent germans on a petition to overturn Paragraph 175 (A provision of the german criminal code making male homosexuality a crime). Signatories include Albert Einstein, Hermann Hesse, Käthe Kollwitz, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, August Bebel, Max Brod, Karl Kautsky, Stefan Zweig, Gerhart Hauptmann, Martin Buber, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, and Eduard Bernstein
- 1898 - Efforts to repeal Paragraph 175 falter from lack of support by the Social Democratic Party of Germany, including some prominent, secretly closeted lawmakers who remained silent on the issue.
- 1905 - Hirschfeld joins the Bund für Mutterschutz ('League for the Protection of Mothers', founded by Helene Stöcker), campaining for abortion rights. Hirshfeld and Stöcker believed that LGBTQ rights and womens rights were connected.
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1907 - Hirschfeld takes part in the in the
Harden–Eulenburg affair, a publicized sex scandal where General Kuno von
Moltke sued journalist Maximilian Harden for running an article accusing
him of homosexual relations with Prince Philipp von Eulenburg. Hirschfeld
testified in the libel trial that Moltke was in fact gay and that there
was nothing wrong with this, stating
"homosexuality is part of the plan of nature and creation just like
normal love."
Hirschfeld is slandered by The Vossische Zeitung newspaper as "a
freak who acted for freaks in the name of pseudoscience".
Moltke's former wife Lilly von Elbe testifies that she threatened her husband with a frying pan because he would not have sex with her. She is condemned as "mentally ill" for acknowledging her own sexuality as a woman. Hirschfeld again testifies that feminine sexuality is natural, and Elbe was not mentally ill in the slightest for acknowledging it. In the second trial Hirschfeld walks back his stance in response to public outrage and threats from the Prussian government to revoke his medical liscense and potentially face prosecution under Paragraph 175. The völkisch movement uses the scandal as propoganda, portraying Eulenburg as the "Aryan" heterosexual, wrongfully framed by false allegations of homosexuality by the Jewish homosexuals. Contrary to Hirschfeld's hopes that the scandal would ultimately advance the cause of acceptance and understanding of the homosexual community, the trials result in homophobic and anti-semitic backlash. - 1908 Hirschfeld begins issueing "transvestite passes" to cross-dressing, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals in an attempt to protect them from legal harrassment by law enforcement.
- 1909 to 1912 - Stöcker, Hirschfeld, Hedwig Dohm, and others successfully campaign against an extension to Paragraph 175 which would have criminalised female homosexuality.
- 1915 - Hirschfeld makes an attempt to appeal to German Nationalists in his 1915 pamphlet, Warum Hassen uns die Völker? ('Why do other nations hate us?'), reasoning that he could break down prejudices by showing that German Jews and homosexuals could also be good, patriotic citizens who love their country. By 1916 he would instead be writing pacifist pamphlets, emphasizing the horrors of war and lack of responsibility taken, stating "it is not enough that the war ends with peace; it must end with reconciliation".
- 1919 - Hirschfeld co-writes and acts in the 1919 film Anders als die Andern ('Different From the Others'). The film starred Conrad Veidt depicting one of the first homosexual characters in cinema. Made specifically with homosexual rights reform in mind, he plays himself in the film, speaking the lines "The persecution of homosexuals belongs to the same sad chapter of history in which the persecutions of witches and heretics is inscribed... Only with the French Revolution did a complete change come about. Everywhere where the Code Napoléon was introduced, the laws against homosexuals were repealed, for they were considered a violation of the rights of the individual... In Germany, however, despite more than fifty years of scientific research, legal discrimination against homosexuals continues unabated... May justice soon prevail over injustice in this area, science conquer superstition, love achieve victory over hatred!". The film received significant hate from conservative Germans.
- 1919- In the wake of the November Revolution, Hirschfeld purchases a villa in Berlin to found the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft ('Institute of Sexual Research'). Otto Braun orders the Prussian police not to enforce Paragraph 175 and Prussia becomes a safe haven for LGBT individuals across Germany.
- 1920 - Hirschfeld is assaulted and nearly killed by a group of völkisch on the street.
- 1929 - The Müller government comes close to repealing Paragraph 175, but chancellor Hermann Müller is overthrown. Chancellor Heinrich Brüning and his successor, Franz von Papen push the state to become far more hostile toward Hirschfeld and his activism.
- 1930 - Hirschfeld predicts that he and those like him would have no future in Germany and he flees across the ocean to New York City. Hirschfeld's sister Recha Tobias does not leave Germany and would die in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on the 28th of September 1942.
- 1932 - Chancellor Franz von Papen carries out a coup that deposes the Braun government, ending the era of Prussia being a safe-haven. He orders the Prussian police to resume enforcing Paragraph 175 with prejudice. The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft briefly remains open under police harrassment.
- 1933 - Less than four months after the Nazi's take power, the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft is stormed by students of the National Socialist German Students' League, attacking staff and destroying property. Later that day the Sturmabteilung (Nazi Storm Troopers) raid the archives for a book burning, destroying decades of research.
- 1933 - With the rise of the Nazi regime, Hirschfeld chooses to move to Paris, France where he continues his writing, research, and works to build a successor to the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.
- 1935 - Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld would die of a heart attack on his birthday on May 14th, 1935. He ends his days in his apartment in Gloria Mansions, Nice. He is cremated and buried in the Caucade Cemetary. His tomb is inscribed with the motto he lived by, "Per scientiam ad justitiam"
Unlike many who saw the rise of Nazi regime and ideology as an abberation or
exception, Hirschfeld believed it was deeply rooted in modern society. He
saw Nazi ideology as merely an extreme application of prejudices, racism,
and psuedoscience already found across the Western world. The only
difference he said, was one of degree.
"In search of sanctuary, I have found my way to that country, the
nobility of whose traditions, and whose ever-present charm, have already
been as balm to my soul. I shall be glad and grateful if I can spend some
few years of peace and repose in France and Paris, and still more grateful
to be enabled to repay the hospitality accorded to me, by making available
those abundant stores of knowledge acquired throughout my career." -
Magnus Hirschfeld - L'Âme et l'amour, psychologie sexologique
(The Human Spirit and Love: Sexological Psychology, published April
1935)
In spite of Nazi attempts to erase all trace of him and his works,
Hirschfeld's legacy would live on and inspire the formation of many more
activist organizations dedicated to the liberation and protection of
oppressed minorities.
If you would like to learn more about Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, please consider visiting the following links.