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Magnus Hirschfeld's Guestbook from His French Exile

The texts of the exhibit in English (working translation)

PANEL 1 – Magnus Hirschfeld in exile

In November 1930 Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) left Berlin and embarked on a world tour that took him to the USA, Japan, China, Indonesia, Singapore, India, Egypt and Palestine. Originally he wanted to return to Berlin in the spring of 1932. But already during his trip, friends and co-workers in letters urged him not to return. In view of the political developments in Germany, for the increasing terror of the NSDAP they feared for their lives. After all, Hirschfeld, a Jew, a homosexual, a sex researcher and a social democrat, had been subjected to massive attacks by the National Socialists and other right-wing extremist groups for many years. He was personally threatened several times and physically assaulted. So he decided, as he noted in his travelogues, ‘for the time being to avoid Germany, which had fallen into Hitler’s delusion,’ and asked himself: ‘Poor, German fatherland! Beautiful, beloved home, will I see you again? ‘
A reunion with his homeland was not granted to him. Since returning to Europe in March 1932, he had to live in exile. The circumstances were depressing. In May 1932 he wrote: ‘I have a tremendous amount of mental suffering, not being able to go where I am rooted, where I felt completely down to earth with my thinking, and what I long for: Berlin, Kolberg, the Institute, the Tiergarten, my staff. ‘
Hirschfeld changed his whereabouts in exile several times. Vienna, Carlsbad, Salzburg, Zurich and Ascona were initially his stations. In May 1933 he settled in Paris. Here the news reached him that his institute had been looted and closed in Berlin. His attempt to found a new Institute for Sexual Science in Paris failed. At the beginning of 1935, Magnus Hirschfeld moved to Nice for health reasons. Here he died on the day of his 67th birthday on 14 May 1935.

Captions

Magnus Hirschfeld on his 67th birthday on 14 May 1935 in the circle of well-wishers. To his left, his great-nephew Ernst Maass, the other people could not yet be identified. (Magnus Hirschfeld Society)

The library at the Institute for Sexology in Berlin after the ransacking, mid-May 1935. (Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft / Photo: Georg Heidrich)

Imprint

An exhibition of the Magnus Hirschfeld Society e.V., Mohrenstr. 63, 10117 Berlin
Editors: Hans Bergemann, Ralf Dose
Graphic Design: Michael Roggemann (mr-typo.ikdfr.com)

With special thanks to Marita Keilson-Lauritz, Beat Frischknecht and Hans Soetaert, as well as to Jean-Bart Broers, Jens Dobler, Kevin Dubout, Ursula Ferdinand, Samuel Gottfarstein, Rainer Herrn, Thomas Husemann-Laserstein, Gerd Meyer, Helga Neumann, Mirko Nottscheid, Andreas Pretzel, Felix Schertel, Morten Thing, Raimund Wolfert

Thanks to the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach for their support.

* * * * *

PANEL 2 – Magnus Hirschfeld’s guestbook 1933-1935

Magnus Hirschfeld kept his guest book in exile in France from the late autumn of 1933 until shortly before his death on May 14, 1935 in Nice. It gathers entries of many of its friends and casual acquaintances, celebrity names stand next to names of persons who are completely unknown to us.
The first exactly dated entry is from November 28, 1933 and authored by the American anarchist and women’s rights activist Emma Goldman (1869-1940), the last entry is of 12 May 1935 by a guest from Brittany, who could not yet be identified.
Between these two dates more than 260 persons have entered something, partly with signature only, partly with shorter or longer comments, quotes and words of thanks. The circle of contributors is diverse. In addition to many Germans, most of whom had to flee from the National Socialists, numerous people from Hirschfeld’s exile in France, but also guests from Holland, England, Sweden, Romania, Russia, the USA, India, China and other countries can be found. Accordingly, the range of languages ​​represented in the guestbook is correspondingly large: apart from German, above all French, but also English, Italian, Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, Chinese, Esperanto and a few more.
Hirschfeld apparently also used the guestbook as a photo album: it contains more than 70 photos of guests, friends and acquaintances, Hirschfeld himself can be seen on almost 40 of the photos.
The fate of the guest book after Hirschfeld’s death can not yet be completely reconstructed. Most likely, Karl Giese, one of Hirschfeld’s companions, took it to Vienna and then to Brno, where he took his own life in March 1938. According to a handwritten entry at the end of the guest book, it was found in 1924 in the junkyard of Mrs. Jindřiška Ružičková (1905-?) among waste paper. A stranger later handed it over to the doctor Stanislav Kaděrka (1906-1986), who gave it to Milena Baumgarten (* 1946). She took the book on her departure from Czechoslovakia to the Federal Republic of Germany and sold it in 1985 to the German Literature Archive in Marbach.
The guest book is a notebook bound in half linen, slightly smaller than the DIN A5 format. It consists of 78 sheets whose front and back sides are written on, are filled with drawings or covered with photos, newspaper articles, invitation cards and other materials. Added to these are six photos, a drawing and a business card.
For the first time the guestbook was shown publicly in 1990 in an exhibition at the Literaturhaus Berlin. In 1994, the Magnus Hirschfeld Society presented it at the Berlin Gay Museum.
Parallel to the Magnus Hirschfeld Society, the literary scholar Marita Keilson-Lauritz dealt intensively with the guest book. In years of research, she transcribed a large number of entries and identified many of the authors. Her research results were presented in several publications and exhibitions. This exhibition is also based on her work.

Captions

The poem ‘Where?’ By Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) is prefixed to the guestbook on the flyleaf. An aquaintance of Hirschfeld from Switzerland, L. Juillerat, who could not yet be identified, wrote down the poem ‘on the evening of 13 March 1934 after a dear visit’. Later it was cut out and glued on the flyleaf. (DLA Marbach)

Cover of the guest book
(DLA Marbach)

* * * * *

PANEL 3 – Claire and Yvan Goll

Transcription of the entry

And above you can hear the angels singing wirelessly
Claire Goll

To Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld
at the foot of the Eiffel Tower
Ivan Goll
15 IV 34

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

The drawing of the Eiffel Tower presumably comes from Yvan Goll, who also liked drawing. It will have been drawn in Hirschfeld’s apartment on Avenue Charles Floquet 24, which was at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

Short biographies

Yvan Goll (29.3.1891 Saint-Dié (Vosges) – 27.2.1950 Neuilly-sur-Seine), writer.
‘By destiny Jew, born by chance in France, designated by a stamp paper as German.’ (Y. Goll)
Yvan Goll, a representative of Expressionism and Surrealism, emerged from 1912 with literary works, later also worked as a translator and publisher. In 1914 he went to neutral Switzerland, was involved in the peace movement and frequented the circle of Dadaists. In February 1917 he met his future wife Claire. In October 1919 the couple moved to Paris, where they frequented the artistic and intellectual scene. In 1933, Goll’s books were burned and banned in Germany, and his German citizenship was revoked. In April 1934 he and his wife met Hirschfeld in Paris. At the end of August 1939, Yvan and Claire Goll fled to New York, where he continued to work as a writer. In 1945 he fell ill with leukemia and in 1947 he returned with his wife to Paris. He died in 1950 in Neuilly near Paris.

Claire Goll, b. Aischmann (29.10.1890 Nuremberg – 30.5.1977 Paris), writer. Claire Goll, who came from a Jewish family, moved in 1917 after a failed marriage as a war opponent to Switzerland. There she studied medicine, was active in the peace movement and met her future husband Yvan Goll in the same year. She published journalistic works, translations, poems and prose. In October 1919 she moved with Yvan Goll to Paris. After 1933, her books were banned in Germany. In 1939 she fled to New York with her husband. There she wrote fashion, film, and theater reviews, novels and poetry. In 1947 she returned to Paris with Yvan Goll. After his death in 1950 she devoted herself to the work of her husband and was still active as a writer. She died in 1977 in Paris.

Caption

Claire and Yvan Goll, 1924 (Ullstein Bild)

* * * * *

PANEL 4 – View of the Eiffel Tower / Friedrich-Wilhelm Wagner

Transcription of the entry

Our wonderful view

To the persecuted in deepest
worship,
In Exile July 1934 F.W. Wagner
Ludwigshafen a. Rh.
now Strasbourg – Robertsau
16 rue Kempf

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

Magnus Hirschfeld lived from late summer 1933 until the end of 1934 at Avenue Charles Floquet No. 24 in the 7th arrondissement, in the immediate vicinity of the Champ de Mars overlooking the Eiffel Tower. Who made the photograph is not known. In the background is the Palais du Trocadéro, built for the 1878 World’s Fair. The main building of the Palais with the towers was demolished for the 1937 Paris World’s Fair.

Short biography

Friedrich Wilhelm Wagner (28.2.1894 Ludwigshafen – 17.3.1971 ibid), lawyer, SPD politician and judge. Friedrich-Wilhelm Wagner, who came from a social democratic family, worked from 1920 onwards in numerous party functions, e.g. 1930-1933 as Reichstag deputy. From 1922 he also led a law firm in Ludwigshafen and acted as a defender in many political processes. After his arrest in March 1933, he escaped from the ‘protective custody’ and fled to France. Wagner was involved in exile resistance and refugee aid. In October 1937 he and his wife were expatriated by the German Reich. In 1941 they fled to New York and returned to Europe in 1946. Wagner again assumed political responsibility, e.g. as a member of the Parliamentary Council (1948-1949) and as SPD Bundestag MP (1949-1961). From 1961 to 1967 he was President of the Second Senate and Vice President of the Federal Constitutional Court. Wagner died in 1971 in his hometown Ludwigshafen.

Captions

The Avenue Charles Floquet No. 24 (photographed by 2012 / Hans Soetaert)

Friedrich-Wilhelm Wagner, 1928 (City Archive Ludwigshafen, estate honorary citizen Wagner N 25)

* * * * *

PANEL 5 – Heinz Cohn / Manfred and Käte Mayer-Zachart

Transcription of the entry

Schearjaschuw

A remainder will be left over.
Isaiah.

December 24, 1933.

Heinz Cohn

Paris est la seule ville, où on puisse
vivre, quand on est malheureux
(O. Wilde)
Dr. Manfred Mayer-Zachart.

Ubi bene ibi patria!
K. Mayer-Zachart.
April 6, 1934.

(formerly Berlin, then Chemnitz, from 1.IV.33
to 10.IV.34 in Paris, in the future in U.S.A.)

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

To the Hebrew quote: In the Hebrew Bible, both a proper name (Isaiah 7: 1-17: ‘She’ar Yashuv’, the son of the prophet Isaiah) and a verbal sentence (10, 20-22: ‘becomes a [small] remainder return ‘or’ a [small] remnant will turn to YHWH [ie convert] ‘).
Heinz Cohn gives a free, not quite correct, translation of the verb form: ‘to remain’ instead of ‘to return’ or ‘to convert’.
(With thanks to Isi Kaminer, Frankfurt / M., Silke Schaeper, Hamburg and Hanna Liss, Heidelberg)

Translation of quote from Oscar Wilde: Paris is the only city in which one can live if one is unhappy. (A reference to the citation has not yet been proven.)

Translation of the Latin quote: Where I am well, there is my home.
(after Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes 5, 108.3: Patria est, ubicumque est bene)

Short biographies

Heinz Cohn (23.12.1903 Dessau – 1.3.1994 Muralto, Switzerland), lawyer. Heinz Cohn, who came from a Jewish family, settled in 1930 as a lawyer in Dessau. As a supporter of the leftist socialist SAPD, he was banned from working in April 1933 and fled to Switzerland. From there he went to Paris with his wife Lore, who earned a living as a secretary and translator, and also worked for Magnus Hirschfeld. In 1937 the Cohns moved to Nice, then to Cagnes. With the beginning of the Second World War Heinz Cohn was internedas a German from September 1939 to autumn 1940. In 1940, the couple were expatriated by the German Reich. In 1942 they fled, threatened by deportation, to Switzerland, where Heinz Cohn was interned again. After his release in 1944, he and his wife worked in Jewish refugee aid. From 1956 he worked as a clerk in Lausanne. From 1980 Heinz Cohn lived in Locarno and died in March 1994 in neighboring Muralto.

Manfred Mayer-Zachart (October 1, 1895 Berlin – February 14, 1942 New York City), doctor. Manfred Mayer, who also bore the maiden name of his mother from 1921, participated as a war volunteer in the First World War. From 1924 to 1928 he worked at the Charité in Berlin. In 1928 he settled down as a doctor in Berlin-Wedding. In 1932/33 he was a full-time medical examiner at the AOK in Chemnitz. As a Jew and left-wing liberal he emigrated with his wife Käte in April 1933 to Paris, where he represented the refugee German doctors at the League for Human Rights, until the couple went to New York in April 1934. In New York, he passed the exam for US doctors, worked at hospitals and finally as a private doctor in Dunkirk on Lake Erie. In 1940 he was granted US citizenship. His marriage was divorced. He died in New York in February 1942.

Käte Mayer-Zachart, b. Hirsch; later: Kate Cohen (24.11.1906 Chemnitz – 7.1.1999 New York). Little is known about her life. In October 1932 she married Manfred Mayer-Zachart. In 1934, the couple emigrated via Paris to New York, where she worked as a secretary. In 1938 the couple moved to Dunkirk on Lake Erie. From October 1939 Käthe Mayer-Zachart lived apart from her husband in Atlanta, where she received US citizenship in 1941. Her marriage was divorced. In 1944 she married Richard Cohen. She died in 1999 in New York.

Caption

Manfred and Käte Mayer-Zachart, c. 1935 (Courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute)

* * * * *

PANEL 6 – Ernst Schertel / Hermann Skalde

Transcription of the entry

Rupture and
Annihilation – sadism
- and perpetuation and
Worship – Masochism
- two incompatible
Pole still united
yield the paradox
the love.

Dr. Ernst Schertel
Paris, April 16, 34
XIII 28 rue Bobillot
Hotel Royat
Gobelins 1033

‘Wisdom lives in the light.’
In worship! Dr. Herman Skalde
5.VI.1934 P.A. Prof. Hoessler [Roessler?]
17 villa Scheffer, Paris (XVIe)

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

Entry of Hermann Skalde: The quote can be found in a lecture by Rudolf Steiner on August 22, 1922 in Oxford.

Short biographies

Ernst Schertel (20.6.1884 Munich – 30.1.1958 Hof / Saale), writer. Ernst Schertel, who had developed his own dance form with his ‘dream stage for hypnotic dance’, emerged from the mid-1920s with numerous publications on the topics of occultism, nude culture, eroticism and sadomasochism. In terms of sexual policy, he fought against paragraphs 175, 184 and 218 and against the ‘dirt and shame law’. His major work ‘Flagellantism as a literary motif’ was banned in parts. Magnus Hirschfeld demanded the release of the work as a reviewer. In 1933 Schertel fled to Paris, where he met Hirschfeld several times. Despite the ban of his writings Schertel returned to Germany in 1934 and had to serve a prison sentence for ‘spreading lewd writings’. In 1937, the University of Jena withdrew his doctorate. Schertel survived the Nazi regime withdrawn from the public. After 1945, he worked again as a writer and could publish a new edition of his main work. He died in 1958 in Hof an der Saale.

Hermann Skalde (1900-19 ??), writer. Hermann Skalde, an anthroposophist, published poems in the gay journal ‘Der Eigene’ in the 1920s, the drama ‘Gralsucher’ and a study on Asian-European relations. He published a protest against paragraph 175. In the youth movement Skalde was active as a youth leader. He also edited the magazine ‘Werde-Zeit’ of the Association of Young Scouts, which appeared in 1927 only a short time. He was also a lecturer at the Women’s College in Berlin. In 1934 he went to Paris, where he met Hirschfeld. Nothing is known about his future life.

Caption

Ernst Schertel, 1924 (private collection)

* * * * *

PANEL 7 – Grete Markstein

Transcription of the entry

Paris 20th September 1934

Home is where our 21 dearest friends are
- for my so much revered friend Sanitätsrat
Hirschfeld – in the old love of his
G. Maria Markstein

Short biography

Grete Markstein (1894 Vienna – 1943 Wirral District, Cheshire, England), actress and lecturer. Grete Markstein works from about 1918 as an actress in Vienna and came to Berlin in 1920. There she was under contract at the Staatliches Schauspielhaus until the end of 1924, and then worked mainly as a lecturer. After being attacked as a Jew in her apartment by SA men, she fled to Paris in 1933 with her son. Here she met Magnus Hirschfeld at least twice, whom she already knew from Berlin. In the summer of 1935 she went to London, where she married the chemist Zygmunt Herschdörfer. As of November 1935, Markstein claimed among fellow academics and friends of Albert Einstein in Oxford and London to be Albert Einsteins illegitimate daughter. Her motives are unclear because she did not demand money or other benefits. Einstein, informed of the incident, denied, but still had to investigate in Vienna. Nothing is known about Markstein’s life after this episode. She died in 1943 in the Wirral District near Liverpool.

* * * * *

PANEL 8 – Group photo / Georg Reisner

Transcription of the entry

Mühlestein. E .E. Kisch. Alf. Kerr. Alf. Kantorowicz.

One of the innumerable young
people who love the
books by Prof. Hirschfeld
and owe him very much
Paris 14.8.34 Georg Reisner

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

The group photo shows from left to right:
Hans Mühlestein, Egon Erwin Kisch, Magnus Hirschfeld, Alfred Kerr, an unknown woman, Alfred Kantorowicz
The exact date of the photograph is unknown. It presumably originated in the context of the founding of the German Liberty Library in May 1934 in Paris, when Kisch, Kerr and Hirschfeld delivered speeches.

Short biographies

Hans Mühlestein (15.3.1887 Biel, Switzerland – 25.5.1969 Zurich), art and cultural historian and writer. Hans Mühlestein became a pacifist in the First World War and in 1918 participated in the November Revolution in Berlin. After his expulsion from Prussia in 1919, he first lived in Switzerland. In 1929 he became a lecturer in Etruscology at the University of Frankfurt / Main. In 1932 he protested against violent acts of the National Socialists at the university and returned to Switzerland. Here he supported aid organizations for German emigrants, was involved with republican Spain and in workers’ education. In 1938 he became a member of the Communist Party. He was unable to follow a call to the University of Leipzig in 1948 because he was refused entry to the Soviet occupation zone. He died in 1969 in Zurich.

Egon Erwin Kisch (29.4.1885 Prague – 31. 3. 1948 ibid), journalist and writer. Egon Erwin Kisch worked from 1906 as a journalist in Prague. In 1918 he participated in the revolutionary fighting in Vienna and joined the Communist Party. From 1921 he lived in Berlin and made a name for himself as a ‘raging reporter’ with socially critical reports, especially of his many travels. In 1933 he was arrested after the Reichstag fire and deported to Prague. Kisch settled in Paris in the same year and participated in the fight against National Socialist Germany and for the Spanish Republic. In 1939 he fled to Mexico. In 1946 he returned to Prague, where he died in 1948.

Alfred Kerr (25.12.1867 Breslau – suicide 12.10.1948 Hamburg), journalist, writer and theater critic. Alfred Kerr fled to Paris in 1933 as a Jew and and a Nazi opponent. His books were burned and banned in Germany in May 1933. In August 1933, the German Reich deprived him of citizenship. Kerr was a member of various exile journals and supported the exile resistance against the Nazi regime. In 1936 he went to London, where he co-founded the Free German Cultural Association in 1938 and from 1941 to 1946 he was president of the P.E.N. Club London. During a lecture tour through Germany, he took his life after a stroke in 1948.

Alfred Kantorowicz (12.8.1899 Berlin – 27.3.1979 Hamburg), journalist and writer. Alfred Kantorowicz fled to Paris in March 1933 as a Jew and a Communist. There he worked on the ‘Brown Book on the Reichstag fire and Hitler terror’ and on many exile magazines. In 1934 he participated in the founding of the German Liberty Library. In the same year he was expatriated by the German Reich. From 1936 to 1938 he fought at the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. After internment at the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 and again in May 1940, he succeeded to flee to New York with his wife in 1941. In 1946 he returned to Germany and settled in East Berlin, where from 1950 he held a chair for Modern German Literature at the Humboldt University. In 1957 he fled via West Berlin to the FRG and worked again as a writer and publicist. He died in 1979 in Hamburg.

Georg Reisner (9.12.1911 Breslau – suicide December 1940 in the camp Les Milles), photographer. Georg Reisner studied medicine, then law and joined a left-wing student group. In 1933 he emigrated to Paris. There he attended photography classes and started working as a photographer together with Hans Namuth (who also entered the guestbook). Both lived as photographers in Mallorca in the summer of 1935 and 1936. There they were caught by the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936. As a photojournalist, they documented the Republican fight against the Franco putschists. Because they were threatened by Stalinist forces as left socialists in Spain, they returned to Paris in March 1937. Reisner opened a photo studio. In September 1939 and again from May 1940 he was interned as a German, most recently in the camp Les Milles near Aix-en-Provence. There he took his own life in December 1940.

Caption

Georg Reisner, about 1935
(from: Hans Namuth / Georg Reisner, Spanish Diary 1936. Berlin 1986)

* * * * *

PANEL 9 German Liberty Library / Salomo Friedländer

Transcription of the entry

Address in the freedom library

‘The one who
Makes a bow,
turns his butt to the other one.’
Abbé Galiani
Certified by
Friedlander
Mynona

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

Magnus Hirschfeld (left) during his short speech at the opening of the German Liberty Library in Paris, 10.5.1934.

The German Liberty Library was opened in Paris on May 10, 1934, the first anniversary of the book burning. It was a collection point for the books burned and forbidden in Germany and of classical German literature, in order to preserve the humanistic traditions. Likewise, materials on the situation in Nazi Germany were archived. Over the years, the library is said to have contained around 20,000 volumes and tens of thousands of newspaper clippings, pamphlets, brochures and other documents. At the opening, Hirschfeld was joined by French writers Edmond Fleg (1874-1963) and Henri-René Lenormand (1882-1951), Alfred Kerr, and keynote speaker Egon Erwin Kisch.

On the quote

Ferdinando Galiani, called Abbé Galiani (1728-1797), Italian diplomat, economist, diplomat and writer. The quote comes from his correspondence with the French writer Louise d’Epinay (1726-1783), from the letter of January 12, 1774.

Short biography

Salomo Friedländer (4.5.1871 Gollantsch / Gołańcz near Poznan / Poznań – 9.9.1946 Paris), philosopher and writer. After studying and graduating, Salomo Friedländer lived in Berlin from 1902 as a freelance writer and frequented the circles of bohemians. He has published poetry, fiction, popular science and philosophical studies and was best known for his grotesques. From 1909 he used also the pseudonym Mynona as a reversal of ‘Anonym’. In October 1933 he emigrated as a Jew to Paris, where he worked for various exile magazines. In July 1934, together with Magnus Hirschfeld and others, he founded the self-help organization ‘Emergency Community of German Science and Art Abroad’. In 1935 he was able to publish the book ‘Laughing Job and Other Grotesques’ with an exile publisher. He survived the German occupation 1940-1944 in Paris, where he died in 1946.

Caption

Salomo Friedländer, about 1930 (Academy of Arts, Berlin, Solomon Friedländer / Mynona Archive, No. 380)

* * * * *

PANEL 10 – Iwar von Lücken

Transcription of the entry

Autumn

When the wind blows around the tree,
u kisses the leaf,
and finally reaches me
ailing person,
So he gives me peace.

But I go to the tree
And stroke the bark.
It is autumn, a delicate earthquake.
It is very quiet
And it’s just palpable
what I want.

Iwar v. Lücken

Paris
d. June 21, 34

Short biography

Iwar von Lücken (19.1.1874 Wiesbaden – Winter 1939/40 Paris), poet and bohemian. Iwar von Lücken came from a rich German-Russian family and was initially not dependent on own income. As a result of the First World War, expropriation after the October Revolution and inflation, the family lost their fortune. From 1918 to 1923/24 he lived as a private teacher and translator in Dresden-Hellerau. Then he went to Berlin and was a frequent guest at the Romanisches Café and other artists’ bars part of the bohemian. Iwar von Lücken published only a few literary works and 1928 a poetry book. In 1933 he emigrated to Paris, where he participated at the founding meeting of the self-help organization ‘Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft und Kunst im Ausland’ in Hirschfeld’s Parisian flat in July 1934. In the program of the Notgemeinschaft Lücken was also announced for an author’s reading. He died in Paris in the winter of 1939/40.

Caption

Oskar Kokoschka: Iwar von Lücken (about 1918) (VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn / UB of the HU zu Berlin, Historical Collections)

‘A bohemian, homeless by the circumstances of the war, he sometimes appeared in tattered clothes, took a warm meal, and left a poem. He had learned the art of living from nothing and to remain a nobleman.’ (Oskar Kokoschka)

* * * * *

PANEL 11 – Fritz Heymann / Lila Lied / Walter Trepte

Transcription of the entry

‘We are different from the
other ones, who love only in lockstep of
morale – ‘

This the refrain to the
- Lila Lied -
inspired by me in 1922
with words by Kurt Schwabach
[music by] Mischa Spoliansky

I became popular because of this soon
become the song from the bandage
German music publisher excluded.
I dedicated the Lila Lied to Prof.
M. Hirschfeld.

Today, the 12.VIII.34, the
beginning of the song is authorized again—though with a different meaning:
‘We are not like the others – hence in
Paris XVI.”
Fritz Heymann.
29 r de La Faisanderie

With W. Trepte in Vichy
In the Allier River

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

On the ‘Lila Lied’
The ‘Lila Lied’ was composed in 1919/20 by Mischa Spoliansky (1898-1985) who used the pseudonym Arno Billing on a text by Kurt Schwabach (1890-1966). It was dedicated to ‘the tireless researcher and friend Herrn Sanitätsrat Dr. med. Magnus Hirschfeld’ and became a widespread anthem of the gay and lesbian movement in the Weimar Republic. Whether Heymann actually gave the suggestion for this song and the dedication and why he was excluded from the Association of Music Publishers, is still unclear.
The line from the refrain of the ‘Lila Lied’ refers to the 1919 film ‘Other than the Others’, which was directed against the criminalization of male homosexuality. Hirschfeld was involved in the film as a scientific advisor and in a minor supporting role. In the situation of exile, the line gets another meaning: Hirschfeld and Heymann were Jews and therefore also in Parisian exile.

Short biographies

Fritz Heymann (12.9.1897 Berlin – 6.4.1966 ibid), composer and music publisher. Fritz Heymann founded in 1919 together with the composer Mischa Spoliansky the music publisher’s Heiki. The publisher’s also held the rights to the ‘Lila Lied’, which was dedicated to Magnus Hirschfeld. As a result of inflation, the publishing house had to be sold in 1923. Heymann worked as an advertising salesman and advertisement representative and composed dance and entertainment music. From 1930/31 he was advertising manager at the UFA sound publishing company. In March 1933, he was dismissed as a Jew without notice and emigrated to Paris, where he worked as a publishing agent for German publishers and 1937 founded a service company. From autumn 1939 he was interned as a German in French camps, from March 1942 in Nébouzat at Clermont-Ferrand. He escaped the deportations and returned to Paris in the spring of 1945 and returned to Berlin in 1951. Here he worked again as a representative, publisher and journalist. He died in 1966 in West Berlin.

Walter Trepte (27.4.1890 Dresden – 13.11.1968 Nice), machinist. Walter Trepte emgrated to the US in 1923 and received citizenship in 1929. In the summer of 1934 he met Hirschfeld and spent with him ‘sunny days in Vichy,’ as he wrote in the guest book. In the fall of 1934 he returned to New York. He probably spent his last years in southern France, where he died in 1968 in Nice.

Captions

Title page of the music sheet of the ‘Lila Lied’, 1920

Fritz Heymann, passport photo from his passport after his release from the internment camp, 1945 (Entschädigungsbehörde Berlin)

* * * * *

PANEL 12 – Joseph Gottfarstein / Paris Riddle / Karl Giese

Transcription of the entry

16 / 5-34 [Yiddish] Pariz
[Yiddish]
[A well-groomed and the iker a groschen menth is profesor Magnus Hirshfeld. A great glik far vos ikh I have the zekhiyeh with profesor Hirshfeld tsu shmusen on the groise noyt fun unzer tsayt.]
[A great scholar and above all a great person is Professor Magnus Hirschfeld. Lucky for me, that I had the honor to speak with Professor Hirschfeld about the great need of our time.]
Joseph Godfarstein
4, rue Laplace Paris 5

(Thanks to Silke Schaeper for transcription and translation)

A riddle:
If you make from five letters seven,
It will still be what it is.

Solution:
Paris
Par-ad-is

Paris, 7 July 34 MH.

But one from which one can be expelled.
Paris, Aug. 11, 34. Karl Giese

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

On the puzzle
The puzzle was most likely entered Magnus Hirschfeld himself into the guestbook. However, the script could not yet be assigned beyond doubt.

Short biographies

Joseph Gottfarstein (1903 Prenen near Kaunas, Lithuania – 1980 Paris), Yiddish writer, journalist and translator. Joseph Gottfarstein received a devout religious education as a teenager and later approached anarchist thought. He studied at the Yiddish Teacher Seminar and at the Conservatory in Kaunas. In 1923 he went to study in Berlin. From 1926 he lived in Paris, where he emerged as a poet, journalist, translator and author of Judaistic studies. After the occupation of France by the German Wehrmacht, he fled to Geneva with his wife and his son. After the liberation of France, he returned to Paris, where he worked as a publicist and a lecturer, especially on the dissemination of the Yiddish language and culture. Most recently, he worked on a translation of the Kabbalistic Bahir, which was published posthumously. He died in 1980 in Paris.

Karl Giese (18.10.1898 Berlin – suicide 1.3.1938 Brno / Brno, Czech Republic). Karl Giese, who came from a Berlin working-class family, met Hirschfeld at the latest in 1918 during the filming of ‘Anders als die Anderen’. He lived with Hirschfeld in the Institute of Sexology, where he was responsible for the archive and the library. In 1933 he followed Hirschfeld into exile in Switzerland and France. Giese was to organize and make usable those stocks of the institute that had been saved to France. However, he was imprisoned for allegedly having had sex with a man in a bathhouse and was expelled from France in October 1934. Giese then lived alternately in Brno and Vienna. He succeeded in traveling to Nice in May 1935 for the funeral service for Hirschfeld, where he gave a commemorative speech. Together with Hirschfeld’s Chinese partner Li Shiu Tong, Giese became Hirschfeld’s heir. Karl Giese took his own life in 1938. The exile guestbook is probably from his estate.

Captions

Joseph Gottfarstein, about 1950 (private collection)

Karl Giese, about 1930 (Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft)

* * * * *

PANEL 13 – Botho Laserstein / departure of Karl Giese

Transcription of the entry

To Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, the solver of so many
scientific riddles, the man who broke a path for a
materialistic worldview in medicine,
in worship and friendship
Paris, 23/10/34 Botho Laserstein

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

Picture taken on 21 or 22 October 1934, the day of departure of Karl Giese from Paris. Giese was expelled from France because he is said to have had sex with a man in a bathhouse. The photo was taken by Max Reiss (1909-2000), a student and friend of Hirschfeld. From him come more pictures in the guestbook. From left to right: Karl Giese, Karl Nohr (1905-1973), an unknown woman, Genia Nohr (1905-1985), Magnus Hirschfeld, Li Shiu Tong.

Magnus Hirschfeld at a bookstall in Paris, ca. 1934

Short biography

Botho Laserstein (31.7.1901 Chemnitz – suicide 9.3.1955 Dusseldorf), lawyer and publicist. Botho Laserstein settled 1928 as a lawyer in Berlin. In addition to practicing law, he published political essays, ia. for the ‘world stage’, and film reviews. In 1933 he received a professional ban as a Jew and emigrated to Czechoslovakia. A year later he went to Paris. In 1936 he was expatriated by the German Reich. From 1936 to 1940 he worked as a translator in the French Post Ministry. After the invasion of the German Wehrmacht he hid in a monastery and then worked as a teacher at Catholic high schools. His wife and daughter were deported from France in 1943 and murdered. In 1951, Laserstein returned to Germany and worked as a prosecutor in Dusseldorf. At the same time he was again a journalist and published u.a. Papers against the rearmament, the death penalty, and the prosecution of homosexuals by paragraph 175. This involvement, which included criticism of the judiciary, brought him massive hostility. In 1953 he was convicted and dismissed in 1955 from the judicial service. Laserstein threatened financial ruin, also because his compensation process did not progress. On March 9, 1955, he took his own life in Dusseldorf.

Caption

Botho Laserstein, 1953 (private collection)

* * * * *

PANEL 14 – Leo Rosenthal / Maurice Heine / Florence Henri

Transcription of the entry

Meeting again after four years!
Moabit in Berlin just a
distant memory. Will probably be like that for a long time!
Leo Rosenthal
Paris XVI
6, Rue Faustin-Hélie 19 / XI 34

Avec l’expression de ma plus
sincère admiration et en souvenir
de la conférence si humainement
utile de ce soir. 22 november 1934
Maurice Heine
67 rue de Mantes
Vernouillet (S. et O.) [since 1968: Yvelines]

Florence Henri (Photo)
8, rue de Varenne
Paris 7e tél: Littré: 50-57

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

On the entry of Leo Rosenthal
This refers to the Criminal Court Moabit in the Turmstraße in Berlin-Tiergarten. Leo Rosenthal was a court reporter for the Social Democratic ‘Vorwärts’, Magnus Hirschfeld repeatedly appeared as an expert witness.

Translation of the entry of Maurice Heine
With the expression of my sincere admiration and in memory of the humanly useful talk that evening. November 22, 1934.

On the lecture announcement
On November 22, 1934 Hirschfeld gave a lecture in the Sorbonne on ‘La situation actuelle de la pathologie sexualuelle’. The invitation card is part of the guestbook. (DLA Marbach)

Short biographies

Leo Rosenthal (25.8.1884 Riga – 28.10.1969 New York), lawyer, journalist, picture reporter. Leo Rosenthal worked from 1911 to 1919 as a lawyer and defense lawyer in Moscow. In 1920 he came to Berlin. Here he was active until 1933 as a court reporter for the SPD central organ ‘Vorwärts’. About 1925 he began his photojournalistic work. His secret recordings caused a sensation during the court hearings. In court sessions, he met Hirschfeld who often performed there as an expert witness. In March 1933, Rosenthal was arrested and went on an intervention of the Latvian ambassador via Riga to Paris. There he was a correspondent for foreign newspapers. In 1940 he fled to the unoccupied south of France and in 1942 to New York. From 1945 he worked as a photographer at the United Nations. He died in 1969 in New York.

Maurice Heine (15.3.1884 Paris – 26.5.1940 Vernouillet), writer and journalist. Maurice Heine studied medicine and practiced several years as a doctor in Paris, before he worked as a journalist in Algeria and from 1916 back in Paris. He was a contributor to literary and scientific journals and belonged to the circle of Surrealists. Significantly he was involved in the rediscovery of the Marquis de Sade, whose writings he reissued. In 1933 he corresponded with Hirschfeld, above all on his translation of the Psychobiologische questionnaire, which should appear in the book ‘L’âme et l’amour’ with excerpts from Hirschfeld’s ‘sexology’. In 1934 he visited Hirschfeld’s lecture in the Sorbonne. In 1936, Heine published a book on theories on sexual psychopathology. He died in 1940 near Paris.

Florence Henri (28.06.1893 New York – 24. 7.1982 Compiègne), photographer. After training as a pianist Florence Henri attended art academies in Berlin and Paris from 1924. In 1927 she stayed as a visiting student at the Bauhaus in Dessau, where she took photography lessons. Back in Paris, she opened a photo studio and worked as a commercial, fashion, and portrait photographer. She also did experimental photography studies. Her portraits of women and her photographs of artists are well known. From 1929 she was represented at international photography exhibitions as a representative of Neue Fotografie. In 1934 she visited Hirschfeld’s lecture in the Sorbonne. During the Second World War she lived in Paris. After 1945, she devoted herself increasingly to painting. Her photographic work was rediscovered in the 1970s. She died in 1982 in the northern French Compiègne.

Captions

Leo Rosenthal, Selfportrait, about 1932 (Landesarchiv Berlin)

Man Ray: Maurice Heine, 1935 (Man Ray Trust, Paris / VG Bild Kunst, Bonn)

Florence Henri, Self-portrait, 1938 (Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation / Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich)

* * * * *

PANEL 15 – Page 101 Walter and Edith Hasenclever

Transcription of the entry

Who ever in Prussia or
Bavaria would have
Dreamed of a tree with
Candlelight,
In front of which we once in Nice
Celebrate Christmas?
We should be thankful to our Führer!

To Magnus Hirschfeld as a
reminder of the 24th of December
1934, when he sat with us under a
Christmas tree and sang ‘Silent Night’
Walter Hasenclever
Edith Schaefer

Short biographies

Walter Hasenclever (8.9.1890 Aachen – suicide 22.6.1940 in the camp Les Milles), writer, playwright. Walter Hasenclever published from 1909 on dramas and poems. He was one of the leading representatives of Expressionism and received in 1917 the Kleistpreis. From 1924 to 1928 he lived as a newspaper correspondent in Paris. From 1929 to 1932 he lived in Berlin, but made numerous trips through Europe and North Africa. In 1933 his books were burned and banned. Hasenclever emigrated to Nice, where he met Edith Schäfer in 1934 and later married her. In Nice he also met Hirschfeld, whom he knew from Berlin. From 1935 he lived in Yugoslavia, England and Italy. In 1938 he was expatriated by the German Reich and temporarily arrested on the occasion of Hitler’s state visit to Italy. He returned to France, where he was interned in 1939 and 1940. At the approach of the German Wehrmacht he took his life on 22 June 1940 in the camp Les Milles in Aix-en-Provence.

Edith Hasenclever, b. Schäfer (18.10.1910 Ronsdorf at Elberfeld / Wuppertal – 16.6.1998 Tourettes sur Loup). Edith Hasenclever, who came from a wealthy family, lived in southern France since 1932 and met her husband Walter Hasenclever in 1934. In 1940 she was temporarily interned as a German in the camp Gurs. During the Second World War and after 1945, she continued to live in France and looked after the estate of her husband. She died in 1998 in Tourettes sur Loup near Nice.

Captions

Walter Hasenclever, 1933 (DLA Marbach)

Edith Hasenclever, about 1935 (DLA Marbach)

* * * * *

Plate 16 – Peter Henschel

Transcription of the entry

When once over rubble and ruins
A flag rises,
The flag of freedom that seemed dead
and still lived.

When over the bodies of the murderers
Once a new call is roaring:
The call of freedom that seemed dead
and yet always created new families.

When under waving flags
A free youth stands,
A youth of freedom that seemed dead
And yet always sow their seed ‘,

Then we remember the men,
The, banished from home
With unbroken courage of youth
Were paving the way to freedom!

Peter Henschel
in reverent veneration
the pioneer of humanity!

Grenoble – La Tronche
d. February 16, 1935

Short biography

Peter Henschel (March 21, 1917 Hanover – July 8, 1937 at Brunete, Spain). Peter Henschel joined the communist youth association as a student. In 1934, his family, who was threatened with persecution as Jews and political Nazi opponents, emigrated to Grenoble. Peter Henschel went to Italy with a Zionist youth group to prepare for the emigration as chaluz (pioneer) to Palestine. In early 1935, he returned to Grenoble, where he met Hirschfeld with his parents, and then continued to prepare for emigration in Denmark. In his Chaluz group, he campaigned for communism, initiated a discussion group on sexual issues, and had a relationship with a 16-year-old girl. Her parents and the leadership of the Danish Chaluz movement then worked for his expulsion. At the end of 1936 he had to leave Denmark and joined the International Brigades in Spain as a paramedic. There he was killed in action on July 8, 1937 at Brunete, near Madrid.

Caption

Peter Henschel 1937 at the International Brigades (private collection)

* * * * *

PANEL 17 – Leopold Hönig / Richard Mann

Transcription of the entry

It will never be as bad as
you are afraid of and you
should always be an optimist
otherwise the whole life is
crap.
Dr. Hönig

Herr Dr Hönig says it
never gets as bad as you can
fear, but unfortunately it gets never
as good as you hope. In
bad farewell mood
but hoping to meet again soon.
Humbly
Richard Mann

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

The photo was taken on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. The exact date of recording is not known, but should be in the spring of 1935. In addition to Magnus Hirschfeld and Li Shiu Tong (right in the six-row series), four (still) unknown gentlemen can be seen.

Short biographies

Franz Richard Mann (3.9.1914 London – 1.12.1980 Nairobi). Richard Mann was a grandnephew of Magnus Hirschfeld – grandson of the sister Franziska Mann. His father, Franziska’s son Walter Mann, had married in London in 1911 and worked there as a dentist. After his divorce he returned to Berlin around 1929 and emigrated to Prague in 1935; In 1942 he took his own life in the Mauthausen concentration camp. His son Richard Mann was married three times and had numerous descendants. In 1935 he lived in London, the occasion for visiting his great-uncle is not known, not even his former profession. He is said to have been in financial trouble then. In the early 1950s he lived in Tanga, Tanganyika, as one of the three directors of The Mechanical Clearing Co. Ltd. Richard Mann made several claims for restitution after his great-uncle, but could give no details regarding the claimed objects, so that these procedures all remained fruitless.

Leopold Hönig (26.4.1887 Kirchenbirk / Bohemia – 8.3.1956 Vienna), doctor. Leopold Hönig had a doctor’s office in Carlsbad in a prime location. Hirschfeld probably consulted him during his spa stays in Karlovy Vary and gave him a legacy in his will. Hönig was unmarried throughout his life. He stayed in Nice in 1934/35. In 1940 he arrived in Brazil and from there at the end of 1943 he went to the USA, where family members had already emigrated in the 19th century. In 1949, he was naturalized in the state of Rhode Island. In the summer of 1954 he left the USA for an ‘indefinite period’ and died in Vienna not long afterwards.

Caption

Leopold Hönig, without date (ADAM, Nice, Cote 1292W 0018)

* * * * *

PANEL 18 – Arnold Zadikov

Transcription of the entry

As a friendly reminder
of the reunion
with the compatriot from the
city of Nettelbeck and Gneisenau
To the brave pioneer of
a natural doctrine
Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld,
in friendship
and worship

Paris in common exile

11.VIII.34 Arnold Zadikov

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

On the text of the entry
Hirschfeld and Zadikow both came from Kolberg. Joachim Nettelbeck (1734-1824), also born in Kolberg, and August Neidhard von Gneisenau (1760-1831) played an important role in 1807 in the successful defense of the fortress city against the Napoleonic army.

Short biography

Arnold Zadikow (27.3.1884 Kolberg / Kołobrzeg, Pomerania / Poland) – 8.3.1943 concentration camp Theresienstadt), sculptor and medalist. Arnold Zadikow, son of the Chasan (cantor) in Kołobrzeg, first became a bricklayer apprentice and worked as a construction manager before he was able to attend art schools in Berlin and Munich through a scholarship. From 1909 he emerged with his own works and received the Rome Prize of the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1912. In the First World War Zadikov fought as a soldier and was badly wounded. In the 1920s he lived in Munich and Rome. In 1933, Zadikov emigrated to Paris, where he met Hirschfeld and in 1934 or 1935 created a bust of Hirschfeld’s friend Li Shiu Tong (Tao Li). In 1936 Zadikow went to Carlsbad/Karlovy Vary. There he was the artistic director in a glass factory. In 1938 he moved to Prague. In May 1942, Arnold Zadikow and his wife, the graphic designer Hilda Zadikova (1890-1974), and daughter Marianka (1923- ) were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. There Arnold Zadikow was killed on March 8, 1943. His wife and daughter survived the concentration camp imprisonment, returned to Prague in 1945 and went to the United States in 1948.

Captions

‘Zadikow models Tao’s bust’ (photo and caption from the guestbook / DLA Marbach).
The picture was taken in 1934 or 1935. The bust is lost.

Front of the medal by Arnold Zadikow for the Kolberg rabbi Salomon Goldschmidt on his 50th anniversary. Goldschmidt was probably Hirschfeld’s and Zadikov’s religious teacher. (Photo from the guestbook / DLA Marbach)

* * * * *

PANEL 19 – Li Shiu Tong / Edmond Zammert

Transcription of the entry

Li Shiu Tong [in today’s Pinyin transliteration Li Zaotang]
Xu Shi-pei [Magnus Hirschfeld]

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

The characters probably come from Li Shiu Tong.
(For the transcription with thanks to Ina Dettmann-Busch)

Short biographies

Li Shiu Tong (today’s Pinyin transliteration: Li Zhaotang), called Tao Li (1.9.1907 Hong Kong – 5.10.1993 Vancouver, Canada). Li Shiu Tong came from a rich Chinese family in Hong Kong. His father had 22 children with four wives, Shiu was the second son. He met Hirschfeld during a lecture in Shanghai and traveled with him as an interpreter throughout China. With the intention to study medicine in Europe, he accompanied Hirschfeld on the last leg of the world tour and became his life companion until Hirschfeld’s death. Li studied medicine in Vienna, from 1935 in Zurich. Neither completed this study nor a later study of economics. During the Second World War, he studied for some time at Harvard in the US, but returned to Switzerland after the war.
Due to his financial circumstances, Li Shiu Tong was not forced to practice a profession. In early 1960 he moved from Zurich to Hong Kong and in 1974 to Vancouver in Canada, where members of the large family lived. Li kept the heritage of Hirschfeld all his life, but did not go public with it. His remainder is now owned by the Magnus Hirschfeld Society.

Edmond Zammert (13.10.1861 Paris – 10.4.1937 Wiesbaden), doctor. Edmond Zammert was a study friend of Hirschfeld’s older brother Immanuel from his time in Strasbourg. Between 1893 and 1897 he lived like Immanuel Hirschfeld in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he also met Magnus Hirschfeld. Zammert was a freemason and belonged to the lodge Le Grand Orient de France. He may have met Hirschfeld again in Paris in this connection. He had already given up his practice for health reasons, but reopened it to give Hirschfeld, who could not practice independently in France, a job opportunity. The close connection between Hirschfeld and Zammert also included Hirschfeld’s friends Karl Giese and Li Shiu Tong.
From Zammerts daughter Jeanne the Magnus Hirschfeld society could acquire several items from the former institute’s collections, among them the often shown Japanese dildo box.

Captions

Reproduction of the dedication
A copy of the above photo is owned by the Magnus-Hirschfeld Gesellschaft. On the back is a personal dedication by Hirschfeld for his old friend Edmond Zammert:
To his dear friend Dr. Zammert
for the 13.X.34.
Let’s hope for many years we fight together
for the good, the beautiful, the truth!
Dr. M. Hirschfeld

Li Shiu Tong, Magnus Hirschfeld and Edmond Zammert (from left to right) in Monte Carlo, December 1933 (photo from the guestbook / DLA Marbach)

* * * * *

PANEL 20 – Jolanda Sachs / Leo Klauber

Transcription of the entry

È venuta quando
meno l’aspettavo:
sorprese come queste
allietano la vita.
Ora che l’ho conosciuta, profes-
sore l’aspetto
e lei tomerà
la mamma di
quest ómino

Jolanda Sachs

Translation
It came when I least expected it: surprises like these cheer up life. Now that I’ve met you (?), I’m expecting you Professor (?) And they will (will?) Return. The mom of this little man. Jolanda Sachs
(With thanks for transcription and translation to Fabio Ricci and Ludwig Danzer)

Dear colleague Hirschfeld!
Together we fought some tough fights
against the ghosts of reaction and
of ignorance that are now – temporarily! – again
stood up in flesh and blood.
Nous continuons à lutter, quand même!
Nice, le 22 février 1935 L. Klauber

Translation of the French sentence: We are still fighting!

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

The photo shows the child of Jolanda Sachs, whose first name is not yet known. In her entry Sachs writes that she is the mother of this ‘little man’. This designation could also be meant ironic because of the suit-like clothing and the depicted child is a girl.

Short biographies

Jolanda Sachs
It is allegedly Jolanda Sachs geb. Lichti (18.6.1906 Milan – July 1993 Freiburg), teacher for Ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French and German. Jolanda Sachs was married to Arno Julius Sachs (1906-1989), who also entered the guest book. They had a daughter.

Leo Klauber (8.4.1890 Forbach, Lorraine – 16.9.1935 Nice), doctor. Leo Klauber worked in the 1920s as a doctor in Berlin. From 1925 to 1933 he was a member of the board of the Association of Socialist Doctors, in which Hirschfeld and other doctors of the Institute of Sexual Science were active as well. From 1927 to 1933 he was a member of the Berlin Medical Association and until his expulsion from the KPD in 1928 doctor of the Soviet Embassy. Among his many social policy activities was the fight against paragraph 218. Immediately after the Reichstag fire, he was arrested and so badly mistreated that he had to undergo surgery twice. After his release from the hospital Klauber emigrated to France.
In Paris, he considered founding a joint practice with Magnus Hirschfeld. Why this cooperation was not realized is unclear. Perhaps Klauber was lacking (like Hirschfeld) the French admission as a doctor, who was bound to high school and study in France. Klauber took part in the funeral service for Hirschfeld in Nice. He died a little later from the consequences of the maltreatment by the Nazis.

Caption

Magnus Hirschfeld, allegedly Leo Klauber and an unknown man (left to right) on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. (Photo from the guestbook / DLA Marbach)

* * * * *

PANEL 21 – Ernst Maass / Robert Kirchberger

Transcription of the entries

When reading the birthday mail with
E. Maas u. R. Kirchberger on 14.V.35
10 o’clock in the morning.

On the balcony Prom. D. Anglais 63
Nice on 14.V.35 with R. Kirchberger
10 o’clock in the morning.

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

The two photos were taken on 14.5.1935, Hirschfeld’s 67th birthday, around 10 o’clock. Only a short time later, Hirschfeld surprisingly died of a heart attack.
Since Karl Giese was expelled from France at the end of 1934 and Li Shiu Tong was studying in Zurich, both were not available for the care and nursing of Hirschfeld in the spring of 1935. With Robert Kirchberger and a not known chef he had hired new assistants. His grandnephew Ernst Maass had come for a birthday visit from Milan.

Short biographies

Ernst Maass (29.5.1914 Szczecin / Szczecin – 24.1.1975 Jamaica, New York). Ernst Maass, a great-nephew of Magnus Hirschfeld, began studying medicine in Heidelberg in 1932, which he continued in Bern and Perugia after the National Socialists took power in 1933. Because of financial problems, he dropped out of college and began working at the publishing house Bompiani in Milan. In 1936 he emigrated to Palestine with his mother, who had become a widow shortly after his birth, and moved on to the United States in 1938. There he trained as a librarian and later worked in the Dag Hammarskjöld United Nations Library in New York City. He had two sons with his wife Ann Blum.
Ernst Maass was close to his great-uncle, taking care of the memorial service and later of the grave in Nice. He tried (in vain) to make Hirschfeld’s work known in the US. His extensive genealogical records on the Hirschfeld family are now with the Magnus Hirschfeld Society, donated by his son Robert Maass.

Robert Kirchberger (30.7.1904 Bad Ems – 29.11.1981 Paris). Robert Kirchberger came from a family of entrepreneurs who owned a bank, a publishing house with a bookstore and a wine shop in Bad Ems. After the death of his father in 1921, he took over publishing and bookstore. In the summer of 1933 he was arrested by the Nazis for a short time and went to Paris in November 1933. In 1935 he worked in Nice as a secretary for Magnus Hirschfeld and lived during the last weeks of Hirschfeld’s life in his apartment. Robert Kirchberger witnessed the opening of the will on May 20, 1935. In mid-1939 he enlisted in the Foreign Legion and in 1944 joined the Forces Françaises de l’intérieur (FFI), the military coalition of resistance groups in France. After 1945 he worked in Paris as an art dealer, in a second-hand bookshop, in a press-cutting office and as an office worker. He died in 1981 in Paris.

Caption

Magnus Hirschfeld with his grandnephew Ernst Maass in Szczecin / Szczecin, around 1925 (Magnus-Hirschfeld-Gesellschaft)

* * * * *

PANEL 22 – Hirschfeld’s tomb in Nice

On the reproduction of the guestbook page

The tomb of Hirschfeld at the Cimetière de Caucade in Nice. Here the urn was buried with his ashes, because Hirschfeld rejected an earth burial as freethinker. The two-meter high tomb was built in 1936 from Belgian granite. The bas-relief of copper with Hirschfeld’s head was designed by Hirschfeld’s testamentary wish of the sculptor and medalist Arnold Zadikow (1884-1943). The lying grave slab carries one of Hirschfeld’s maxims: Per scietiam ad justitiam – Through science to justice.

Captions

The grave plate of Hirschfeld’s grave (taken in July 2013 / Ralf Dose)

Bas-relief with Hirschfeld’s portrait on the grave stele (taken in July 2013 / Ralf Dose)

The mourning card for Magnus Hirschfeld, signed by his grandnephew Ernst Maass. The card is stuck in the guest book. (DLA Marbach)