"Soon the day will come when science will win victory over error, justice a victory over injustice, and human love a victory over human hatred and ignorance." — Magnus Hirschfeld
Born in 1868 in Kolberg, Prussia (present-day Kołobrzeg, Poland), Magnus Hirschfeld is often regarded as one of the first people to achieve significant progress in the area of sexual reform. In particular, Hirschfeld lobbied against Paragraph 175, the anti-sodomy law established in 1871 which made sexual acts between two males illegal, lumping it together with criminalizing bestiality, forms of prostitution and underage sexual abuse. Hirschfeld was strongly against the conception that sexual behavior served a sole procreative purpose, citing Nietzsche's views that "reproduction often is an occasional, incidental result of a kind of gratification of the sex-drive; not its intention, not its necessary effect."
As a physician and sexologist, Hirschfeld opened the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sex Research) in 1919. His scientific research sought to "explode the outdated dichotomy of male and female and liberate the homosexual from the stigma of pathology" (Mancini, 86). The institute was a non-profit organization which housed a large research library and archive, as well as medical, psychological, ethnological and counseling divisions. The institute operated until 1933 with the election of the Nazis into government. Much of the archives and work done by the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were destroyed in the Nazi book burnings. Besides his scientific research, Hirschfeld was very active politically during the beginning of the Twentieth Century. In 1909, he fought avidly,along with feminists like Helen Stöcker and Hedwig Dohm, against Paragraph 175 being extended to female same-sex couples on the basis that women were not even capable of anal penetration (Mancini, 25). In 1912, the German Parliamentary Commission refused to pass the amendment due to the arguments Hirschfeld and Stöcker presented. In 1897, Hirschfeld founded Die Wissenschafte Humanitäre Kommittee (The Scientific Humanitarian Committee) with a group of like-minded Social Democrats. The same year, they received around 900 signatures of support against Paragraph 175 and presented it to the Parliament. Despite defense by Social Democrat leader August Bebel, it was firmly rejected. In 1929, Hirschfeld and the SHC came close to repealing Paragraph 175 when it was mitigated. However, it was never reformed and a year later, the SHC was dismantled due to internal discord. Despite his failures to concretely change the situation of homosexuals in pre-Nazi Germany, Hirschfeld was a pioneer for gay rights in the country. His political engagements and scientific research were important not only for gay rights in Germany, but across the world. |
Further ReadingsHirschfeld, Magnus. Berlins Drittes Geschlecht, Seemann, Berlin, 1905. (German)
Hirschfeld, Magnus. The Sexual History of the World War, Falstaff Press, New York, 1937. Hirschfeld, Magnus, and Jerome Gibbs. Sexual Pathology: A Study of Derangements of the Sexual Instinct, Emerson Books, Inc, New York, 1940. Mancini, Elena. Magnus Hirschfeld and the Quest for Sexual Freedom: A History of the First International Sexual Freedom Movement, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2010. Wolff, Charlotte. Magnus Hirschfeld: A Portrait of a Pioneer in Sexology, Quartet, London, 1986. LinksInstitute for Sexual Research (1919-1933) www.hirschfeld.in-berlin.de/institut/en/ifsframe.html
Magnus Hirschfeld www.magnus-hirschfeld.de (German) Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_für_Sexualwissenschaft |