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Der Liebe und dem Leid: Das Institut für Sexualwissenschaft 1919-1933
Als Magnus Hirschfeld 1919 sein Institut im Berliner Tiergarten eröffnete, schien der jungen Disziplin der Sexualwissenschaft die Zukunft zu gehören. Die umfangreiche Bibliothek, die vielfältigen Sammlungen, Beratungs- und Therapieangebote lockten Patienten und Besucherinnen aus der ganzen Welt an. Menschen aller Schichten konnten sich vor Ort über Empfängnisverhütung oder den Schutz vor Geschlechtskrankheiten informieren. Doch das Institut sollte lange die einzige Einrichtung mit dem Ziel bleiben, das Thema Sexualität in seiner ganzen Breite zu behandeln. Hirschfeld und seine Mitarbeiter waren dabei stets Anfeindungen durch politische und wissenschaftliche Gegner ausgesetzt, die 1933 in der Plünderung des Instituts durch die Nationalsozialisten und seiner Schließung mündeten.
In Der Liebe und dem Leid erzählt Rainer Herrn erstmals die wechselvolle Geschichte dieser berühmten Institution. Er stellt die Protagonisten vor, die sie prägten, schildert die Kämpfe um die Abschaffung des »Homosexuellenparagraphen« 175, folgt den Schicksalen der Menschen, die im Institut Hilfe suchten, und lässt, wie nebenbei, den Geist der Weimarer Republik lebendig werden.
In Der Liebe und dem Leid erzählt Rainer Herrn erstmals die wechselvolle Geschichte dieser berühmten Institution. Er stellt die Protagonisten vor, die sie prägten, schildert die Kämpfe um die Abschaffung des »Homosexuellenparagraphen« 175, folgt den Schicksalen der Menschen, die im Institut Hilfe suchten, und lässt, wie nebenbei, den Geist der Weimarer Republik lebendig werden.
- GenresNonfictionLGBTHistory
681 pages, Hardcover
Published June 19, 2022
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October 29, 2023
The Institute for Sexual Science, founded in 1919 by Magnus Hirschfeld, is known around the world today as the first sexology research center. This exhaustive study by medical historian Rainer Herrn was published last year, and is clearly the result of decades of work by the Magnus Hirschfeld Society.
Being completely ignorant of medicine, I had trouble following the debates among early sexologists in the 1920s about why some people are gay. Hirschfeld was convinced that sexuality was determined by glands and hormones — a biological explanation was important to him, because if people were "naturally" gay, that would undermine the case for all laws against homosexuality. More than a century ago, Hirschfeld showed that sex and gender are not simple binaries — in his research he found thousands of "intermediaries" (Zwischenstufen) between male and female.
Despite its medical focus, this book also has lots of information about the institute's political activism, archival collections, and public museum. There are portraits of the doctors and also of numerous patients, offering an intimate look at queer life in Berlin in the 1920s. One thing that I was missing, though: the links to communism. Two Central Committee member of the KPD, Willi Münzenberg and Heinz Neumann, lived in an apartment inside the institute, along with the Indian revolutionary leader M.N. Roy. Hirschfeld's deputy Richard Linsert was a communist. In a book of 600 pages, I would have expected more than a few offhanded references to the fact that Hirschfeld's pamphlets were printed and distributed by the communist Münzenberg.
I was happiest to learn that in the early 1930s, Hirschfeld pioneered a format that has since been perfected by Dan Savage: people could come to a public meeting and submit anonymous questions about sexual problems, which Hirschfeld would answer from the stage. He did this every week for years and reached many thousands of people. (I wrote about the Institute in Exberliner magazine: "The Institute for Sexual Science: Berlin’s forgotten centre for trans activism.")
Being completely ignorant of medicine, I had trouble following the debates among early sexologists in the 1920s about why some people are gay. Hirschfeld was convinced that sexuality was determined by glands and hormones — a biological explanation was important to him, because if people were "naturally" gay, that would undermine the case for all laws against homosexuality. More than a century ago, Hirschfeld showed that sex and gender are not simple binaries — in his research he found thousands of "intermediaries" (Zwischenstufen) between male and female.
Despite its medical focus, this book also has lots of information about the institute's political activism, archival collections, and public museum. There are portraits of the doctors and also of numerous patients, offering an intimate look at queer life in Berlin in the 1920s. One thing that I was missing, though: the links to communism. Two Central Committee member of the KPD, Willi Münzenberg and Heinz Neumann, lived in an apartment inside the institute, along with the Indian revolutionary leader M.N. Roy. Hirschfeld's deputy Richard Linsert was a communist. In a book of 600 pages, I would have expected more than a few offhanded references to the fact that Hirschfeld's pamphlets were printed and distributed by the communist Münzenberg.
I was happiest to learn that in the early 1930s, Hirschfeld pioneered a format that has since been perfected by Dan Savage: people could come to a public meeting and submit anonymous questions about sexual problems, which Hirschfeld would answer from the stage. He did this every week for years and reached many thousands of people. (I wrote about the Institute in Exberliner magazine: "The Institute for Sexual Science: Berlin’s forgotten centre for trans activism.")
Displaying 1 of 1 review