מגנוס הירשפלד

Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) Sexual reformer.

Born in Kolberg, he graduated in medicine from the University of Munich. He practiced as a general doctor in Magdeburg from 1894-96 and then in Berlin where he founded a workers health insurance which was widely imitated. His main work was sexual research, especially into homosexuality. He founded the Scientific-Humanistic Committee and got many of the outstanding intellectuals of his time to join him to petition the Reichstag to reform legislation regarding homosexual offenses. Hirschfeld founded the Journal of Sexual Science and the Yearbook for Sexual Intermediate Stages which was devoted to homosexual studies. In 1918 he established the Institute for Sexual Science which was closed by the Nazis when they came to power and its library burned. Hirschfeld spent his last years in France. He was the author of many books of sexual studies.