The first Institute for Sexual Science (1919-1933)

[icymist]

In 1919, Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935), sexologist and sexual-reformer, saw a long-cherished dream come true: on July 6, he opened the “Institute for Sexual Science” in Berlin-Tiergarten – the first of its kind in the world. Politically, the Institute’s emergence is to be viewed within the context of the progressive reform movements during the Weimar period; scientificially, the bio-medical explanations of human sexuality at the time formed the framework. The Institute’s foundation was the first attempt at establishing sexual science.

The Institute soon became a sought-after address for local and foreign scientists, academics and politicians. For Berlin residents, it became known as an institution providing counselling and treatment for “physical and psychological sexual disorders” as well as, in particular, for “sexual transitions”, Hirschfeld’s term for homosexuals, transvestites and hermaphrodites. Many a writer paid the Institute a visit – Christopher Isherwood and Alfred Döblin, for example, incorporated their impressions into their literary works.

More than 40 people worked at the Institute in many different fields: research, sexual counselling, treatment of venereal diseases and public sex education. The Institute housed the main offices of both the Scientific Humanitarian Committee – the first homosexual organisation – and the World League for Sexual Reform.

From the outset, the Institute was defamed and denounced as “Jewish”, “Social-Democratic” and “offensive for public morals”. It was plundered and shut down by the Nazis in 1933. In exile, Magnus Hirschfeld witnessed in a Parisian cinema the burning of his works on Berlin’s Opera Square by Fascist students. Following an unsuccessful attempt to set up an institute for sexual science in Paris, Hirschfeld died in Nice, France, on May 14, 1935, his birthday. The Institute’s buildings in Berlin were destroyed by bombing in 1943. Since then, the site has been overgrown with gras.

https://magnus-hirschfeld.de/ausstellungen/institute/

[Behind the Aegis]

1. MAGNUS HIRSCHFELD

Magnus Hirschfeld was born into a large Jewish family in 1868 in the German city of Kolberg (the present-day Polish city of Kołobrzeg). He studied medicine and became a doctor in 1892. Hirschfeld’s early work as a physician focused on natural remedies and preventive medicine. However, he soon devoted himself to his lifelong study of sexuality and gender. Hirschfeld never made his own sexuality or his personal life part of his public profile. However, his years-long romantic partnership with Karl Giese would become an open secret later in his life.

Hirschfeld’s ideas about sex, gender, and sexuality were groundbreaking and radical in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His work represented an emerging trend in Germany as sexual matters began to be discussed and studied more openly. During the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), Hirschfeld became especially prominent. The Nazi Party rejected these new ideas about gender and sexuality. The Nazis frequently attacked Hirschfeld’s work and destroyed many of his files and collections. Hirschfeld’s work is thus a prime example of the science and culture lost to Nazi violence.

Hirschfeld’s Theories of Sexuality and Gender
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the nature of human sexuality became an important area of scientific investigation and debate. Germany was at the forefront of this development. Hirschfeld himself became one of the most influential thinkers on the topic. In the late nineteenth century, he began producing pamphlets, books, and journals on sexuality and gender. He wrote these materials in a style meant to reach the general public as well as scholars and medical professionals.

Theories of Sexuality
Hirschfeld pioneered and promoted new theories of sexuality. He was especially interested in the study of same-sex love and desire. Hirschfeld challenged the common idea at the time that same-sex attraction was a pathological perversion and a vice. Instead, he argued that it was innate or inborn (angeboren). Hirschfeld insisted that a person’s sexuality did not determine their character or personality any more than being born left-handed or right-handed did.

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