The Scattered Library

The National Socialists May 1933 Berlin book burning and, to a growing extent, their looting of Magnus Hirschfelds Institute of Sexual Science (Institut fr Sexualwissenschaft) are part and parcel of memorial culture in Germany and around the world. Thanks to the ongoing rehabilitation of Magnus Hirschfeld (18681935), and the revival of interest in his work, more people are now aware that this pioneering Jewish sexologist and LGBT-rights activist died in exile in Nice, France, profoundly traumatized by the destruction of his lifes work. This is the very first book to offer a meticulously detailed report of the three years leading up to Hirschfelds death in 1935 and, especially, the seven years following. This book is also the first biography of Karl Giese (18981938) and Karl Fein (18941942), the main players in the afterlife of Magnus Hirschfeld in France and Czechoslovakia, focusing on their dealings with the surviving materials of Hirschfelds Institute, and the consequences of the decisions they made or may have made as Nazi terror deepened. Numerous, hitherto untapped archival sources are used to reveal vital new facts. On their basis, this book puts forward original explanations touching on the various fates of the remnants of Hirschfelds Institute. It also offers the first account of the miraculous rescue of Hirschfelds guestbook (Magnus Hirschfelds Exil-Gstebuch 19331935) from an old paper container in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1942. This seminal, generously illustrated book picks up the thread where Rainer Herrns Der Liebe und dem Leid: Das Institut fr Sexualwissenschaft (2022), a history of Hirschfeld and his Institute from 1919 to 1933, left off. Its thorough documentation provides essential context for the facsimile edition of Hirschfelds guestbook, published in 2019 by Hans Bergemann, Ralf Dose, Marita Keilson-Lauritz and Kevin Dubout.