Institut für Sexualwissenschaft 1365603 225457091 2008-07-13T20:10:06Z Philip Cross 124152 no need for "infamous" The '''Institut für Sexualwissenschaft''' was an early private [[sexology]] research institute in [[Germany]] from 1919 to 1933. The name is variously translated as ''Institute of Sex Research'', ''Institute for Sexology'' or ''Institute for the Science of Sexuality''. The [[Nazi book burnings]] in [[Berlin]] included the archives of the Institute. The Institute was a non-profit foundation situated in Berlin's [[Tiergarten]]. It was headed by [[Magnus Hirschfeld]], a doctor of Jewish ancestry. Since 1897 he had run the [[Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee]] ("Scientific-Humanitarian Committee"), which campaigned on conservative and rational grounds for [[gay rights]] and tolerance. The Committee published the long-running journal ''Jahrbuch fur sexuelle Zwischenstufen''. Hirschfeld was also a researcher; he collected questionnaires from 10,000 people, informing his book ''Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes'' ("The Homosexuality of Man and Woman", 1914). He built a unique library on same-sex love and eroticism.<ref> Harry Oosterhuis. (Ed.) ''Homosexuality and Male Bonding in Pre-Nazi Germany: The Youth Movement, the Gay Movement, and Male Bonding Before Hitler's Rise: Original Transcripts from Der Eigene, the First Gay Journal in the World''. (1991).</ref> After the [[Nazi]]s gained control of Germany in the 1930s, the institute and its libraries were destroyed as part of a government censorship program. ==Origins and purpose== The ''Institute of Sex Research'' was opened in 1919 by Hirschfeld and his collaborator [[Arthur Kronfeld]],<ref> [http://www.sgipt.org/gesch/kronf/kronf_e.htm ''In Memory of Arthur Kronfeld'' (]) - [http://wikipedia.qwika.com/de2en/Arthur_Kronfeld see also here] or [[:de:Arthur Kronfeld|the entry about Arthur Kronfeld]] in the german Wikipedia. </ref> a once famous psychotherapist and later professor at the [[Charité]]. As well as being a research library and housing a large archive, the Institute also included medical, psychological, and ethnological divisions, and a marriage and sex counseling office. The Institute was visited by around 20,000 people each year, and conducted around 1,800 consultations. Poorer visitors were treated for free. In addition, the institute advocated [[sex education]], [[contraception]], the treatment of [[sexually transmitted diseases]], and [[feminism|women's emancipation]], and was a pioneer worldwide in the call for civil rights and social acceptance for homosexual and [[transgender]] people. [[Image:Hedwig.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Hedwig W. (left) was a transgendered friend of Magnus Hirshfeld, and lived for two years in Berlin under the name Herbert. This photo is from Hirschfeld's ''Sexual Intermediates'' (1922).]] ==Transgender pioneers== Magnus Hirschfeld coined the term [[transsexualism]],<ref> Ekins R., King D. (2001) ''Pioneers of Transgendering: The Popular Sexology of David O. Cauldwell.'' IJT 5,2 ([http://www.symposion.com/ijt/cauldwell/cauldwell_01.htm text online])</ref> identifying the clinical category which his colleague [[Harry Benjamin]] would later develop in the United States. Transgender people were on the staff of the Institute, as well as being among the clients there. Various endocrinologic and surgical services were offered, including the first modern "sex-change" operations in the 1930s. Hirschfeld also worked with Berlin's police department to curtail the arrest of cross-dressed individuals on suspicion of prostitution, until the rise of Nazism forced him to flee Germany. ==Nazi era== [[Image:Bucherverbrennung-book-burning-Nazi-1933-Institute.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Students of the Deutsche Studentenschaft, organized by the Nazi party, parade in front of the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin on May 6, 1933. They later attacked it, looting the archives, and setting afire much of the material.]] [[Image:1933-may-10-berlin-book-burning.JPG|right|250px|thumb|On May 10, 1933, Nazis in Berlin burned works of Jewish authors, and the library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, and other works considered "un-German".]] In late February 1933, as the moderating influence of [[Ernst Röhm]] weakened, the Nazi Party launched its purge of homosexual (gay, lesbian, and bisexual; then known as "[[homophile]]") clubs in Berlin, outlawed sex publications, and banned organised [[gay]] groups. As a consequence, many fled Germany (including, for instance, [[Erika Mann]]). In March 1933 the Institute's main administrator, [[Kurt Hiller]], was sent to a [[concentration camp]]. On 6th May 1933, while Hirschfeld was on a lecture-tour of the [[U.S.]], the [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Studentenschaft Deutsche Studentenschaft] made an organised attack on the Institute of Sex Research. A few days later the Institute's library and archives were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of the [[Opernplatz]]. Around 20,000 books and journals, and 5,000 images, were destroyed. Also seized were the Institute's extensive lists of names and addresses. In the midst of the burning [[Joseph Goebbels]] gave a political speech to a crowd of around 40,000 people. The leaders of the Deutsche Studentenschaft also proclaimed their own ''Feuersprüche'', "fire decrees (against the un-German spirit)". Books by Jewish writers, or those of an anti-war bent (such as those of [[Erich Maria Remarque]]), were removed from local public libraries and the [[Humboldt University]], and were burned. There were many other small book-burnings organised around Germany on the same night, including at [[Munich]]'s Konigplatz. By 22 May, book-burnings had occurred in [[Heidelberg]], [[Frankfurt]], [[Göttingen]], [[Cologne]], [[Hamburg]], [[Dortmund]], [[Halle, Saxony-Anhalt|Halle]], [[Nuremberg]], [[Würzburg]], [[Hannover]], [[Münster]], [[Königsberg]], [[Koblenz]], and [[Salzburg]]. The [[Gestapo]] was also confiscating public and private libraries to be destroyed in [[paper mill]]s.<ref> Leonidas Hill (2001). "The Nazi Attack on 'Un-German' Literature, 1933-1945" IN: ''The Holocaust and the Book: Destruction and Preservation''. </ref> The buildings were later taken over by the Nazis for their own purposes. They were a bombed-out ruin by 1944, and were demolished sometime in the mid 1950s. Hirschfeld tried, in vain, to re-establish his Institute in Paris, but he died in France in 1935. While many fled into exile, the radical activist [[Adolf Brand]] made a brave stand in Germany for five months after the book burnings. Finally the persecution became too much, and in November 1933 he was forced to announce the formal end of the organised homosexual emancipation movement in Germany. On [[June 28]] [[1934]] [[Hitler]] conducted a [[Night of the Long Knives|murderous purge]] of gay men in the ranks of the [[Sturmabteilung|S.A.]] wing of the Nazis, and this was followed by stricter laws on homosexuality and the round-up of homosexuals. The address lists seized from the Institute are believed to have aided Hitler in these actions. Many tens of thousands of arrestees found themselves, ultimately, in slave-labour or death camps. Others, such as [[John Henry Mackay]], committed suicide. Among the books burned at [[Bebelplatz]] was [[Heinrich Heine]]'s ''Almansor'', in which he suggests, "Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people." ==After WWII== The charter of the institute had specified that in the event of dissolution, any assets of the Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation (which had sponsored the Institute since 1924) are to be donated to the [[Humboldt University of Berlin]]. Hirschfeld also wrote a personal will while in exile in Paris, leaving any remaining assets to his students and heirs [[Karl Giese]] and [[Li Shiu Tong]] (Tao Li) for the continuation of his work. However, neither stipulation was carried out. The West German courts found that the foundation's dissolution and the seizure of property by the Nazis in 1934 was legal. The West German legislature also retained the Nazi amendments to [[Anti-homosexualism|anti-homosexual]] law [[Paragraph 175|§175a]], making it impossible for surviving homosexuals to claim restitution for the destroyed cultural center. <ref> James D. Steakley. ''The Early Homosexual Emancipation Movement in Germany''. (1975). </ref> Karl Giese committed suicide in 1938 when the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia and his heir, lawyer Karl Fein, was murdered in 1942 during deportation. Li Shiu Tong lived in Switzerland and the United States until 1956, but as far as is known, he did not attempt to continue Hirschfeld's work. Some remaining fragments of data from the library were later collected by [[W. Dorr Legg]] and [[ONE, Inc.]] in the U.S. in the 1950s. == Later developments == In 1996 a new ''Institut für Sexualwissenschaft'' was opened at the [[Humboldt University of Berlin]]. ==Notes== [[Image:Berlin hirschfeld gedenktafel.jpg|180px|right|thumb|Memorial to [[Magnus Hirschfeld]] and his Institute for Sex Research, Berlin [[Tiergarten]], 2005]] <references/> ==See also== *[[History of gays in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust]] ==Further reading== * John Lauritsen and [[David Thorstad]]. ''The Early Homosexual Rights Movement, 1864-1935''. (Second Edition revised) * Günter Grau (ed.). ''Hidden [[Holocaust]]? Gay and lesbian persecution in Germany 1933-45''. (1995). * Charlotte Wolff. ''Magnus Hirschfeld: A Portrait of a Pioneer in Sexology''. (1986). * James D. Steakley. "Anniversary of a Book Burning". ''The Advocate'' (Los Angeles), 9 June 1983. Pages 18-19, 57. * Mark Blasius & Shane Phelan. (Eds.) ''We Are Everywhere: A Historical Source Book of Gay and Lesbian Politics'' (See the chapter: "The Emergence of a Gay and Lesbian Political Culture in Germany" by James D. Steakley). ==Documentaries== * [[Rosa von Praunheim]] (Dir.) ''The Einstein of Sex'' (Germany, 2001). (About [[Magnus Hirschfeld]] - English subtitled version available). ==External links== * [http://www.hirschfeld.in-berlin.de/institut/en/index1024_ie.html Online exhibition of the Magnus Hirschfeld Society] - warning, complex [[JavaScript]] and pop-up windows. *[http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/MHINS.HTM Documentation in the ''Archive for Sexology'', Berlin] * [http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/gallery/01622.htm Photo, likely to be taken during the burning of the Institute's archives and library] * [http://www.library.arizona.edu/images/burnedbooks/ When Books Burn] - University of Arizona multimedia exhibit. 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