'The Einstein Of Sex': Magnus Hirschfeld, the man who discovered sex

Today I’m interviewing Daniel Brook, the author of a new book on the pioneering sexual rights activist Magnus Hirschfeld, whose Berlin Institute of Sexual Science was a huge attraction in Weimar Berlin and was eventually destroyed by the Nazis, and whose theories are so contemporary they could be taken directly from modern debates about gender, sexuality, race and freedom.

Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a Jewish German physician, sexologist and LGBTQ+ advocate, whose German citizenship was later revoked by the Nazi government. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and World League for Sexual Reform. He based his practice in Berlin-Charlottenburg during the Weimar period and carried out "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights".

Hirschfeld is regarded as one of the most influential sexologists of the 20th century. He was targeted by early fascists and later the Nazis for being Jewish and gay. He was beaten by völkisch activists in 1920, and in 1933 his Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was looted and had its books burned by Nazis. Hirschfeld was forced into exile in France, where he died in 1935.