What can we learn, indeed what must we learn from the complicated bequest of the sexual rights activists Magnus Hirschfeld and Johanna Elberskirchen?
What aspects of the teachings of the Jewish, left-wing and feminist sexual reformers of the Weimar era did the National Socialists appropriate? Which ideas did they refuse to acknowledge, or aggressively reject? How did homophobia change during the course of the Third Reich and what was passed on to the post-war era? Dagmar Herzog investigates the paradoxes of sexual liberation in the 20th century and analyses the entanglements and ambivalences which continue to trouble us in the present day.
The new series of lectures and publications »Hirschfeld Lectures« considers itself a driving force behind the portrayal of historical contexts and contemporary questions surrounding the persecution, discrimination and daily life of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual and intersexual people (LGBT).
The Editor of the Series
Since 2011, the Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation has supported interdisciplinary research and the promotion of education in the spirit of its namesake.
The Authoress
Dagmar Herzog, born in 1961, distinguished professor of history at the City University of New York. Publications include: Sex after Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany. Princeton 2005.
