Magnus Hirschfeld
| Magnus Hirschfeld | |
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Bust of Magnus Hirschfeld in the Schwules Museum, Berlin
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| Born |
14 May 1868 Kolberg, Prussia |
| Died | 14 May 1935 (aged 67) Nice, France |
| Residence | Germany, France |
| Known for | Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, Scientific Humanitarian Committee |
Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a Jewish German physician and sexologist educated primarily in Germany; he based his practice in Berlin-Charlottenburg. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee. Historian Dustin Goltz characterized this group as having carried out "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights".
Hirschfeld was born in Kolberg (now Kołobrzeg, Poland) in an Ashkenazi Jewish family, the son of a highly regarded physician and 'Medizinalrat' Hermann Hirschfeld. In 1887–1888 he studied philosophy and philology in Breslau, then from 1888 to 1892 medicine in Strasbourg, Munich, Heidelberg, and Berlin. In 1892 he earned his doctoral degree.
After his studies, he traveled through the United States for eight months, visiting the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and living from the proceeds of his writing for German journals. Then he started a naturopathic practice in Magdeburg; in 1896 he moved his practice to Berlin-Charlottenburg.
Magnus Hirschfeld found a balance between practicing medicine and writing about his findings. After several years as a general practitioner in Magdeburg, in 1896 he issued a pamphlet, Sappho and Socrates, on homosexual love (under the pseudonym Th. Ramien). In 1897, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee with the publisher Max Spohr, the lawyer Eduard Oberg, and the writer Franz Joseph von Bülow. The group aimed to undertake research to defend the rights of homosexuals and to repeal Paragraph 175, the section of the German penal code that since 1871 had criminalized homosexuality. They argued that the law encouraged blackmail. The motto of the Committee, "Justice through science", reflected Hirschfeld's belief that a better scientific understanding of homosexuality would eliminate social hostility toward homosexuals.
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