Partner Karl Giese, Li Shiu Tong
Queer Places:
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Berlin
Gloria Mansion, 63 Prom. des Anglais, 06000 Nice, France
Cimetière du Château, Allée François Aragon, 06300 Nice, Francia
Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German Jewish physician
and sexologist educated primarily in Germany; he based his practice in
Berlin-Charlottenburg. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld
founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee. Historian Dustin Goltz
characterized this group as having carried out "the first advocacy for
homosexual and transgender rights".[1]
Early in 1919, he acquired the mansion at In den Zelten 10, Berlin, which became the world’s first Institute for Sexual Science. Above the door he raised the inscription – in Latin, of course – ‘Sacred to Love and Sorrow’.
When Magnus Hirschfeld traveled on world tour in 1930, he entrusted Karl Giese to run the affairs of the institute.[5] Hirschfeld did not return to Germany from his world journey in 1932, and Giese went to meet him in Paris. He found Hirschfeld living with another partner, 23 year old Chinese medical student Li Shiu Tong. Despite some initial jealousy, they all lived together in Paris in a menage a trois.
On his 67th birthday, 14 May 1935, Hirschfeld died of a heart attack in his apartment at the Gloria Mansions I building at 63 Promenade des Anglais in Nice.[75] His body was cremated, and the ashes interred in a simple tomb in the Caucade Cemetery in Nice.[73] The upright headstone in gray granite is inset with a bronze bas-relief portrait of Hirschfeld in profile by German sculptor and decorative artist Arnold Zadikow (1884–1943), who like Hirschfeld was a native of the town of Kolberg. The slab covering the tomb is engraved with Hirschfeld's Latin motto, "Per Scientiam ad Justitiam" ("through science to justice").[43][80] (The Caucade Cemetery is likewise the location of the grave of surgeon and sexual-rejuvenation proponent Serge Voronoff — whose work Hirschfeld had discussed in his own publications.)
On 14 May 2010, to mark the 75th anniversary of Hirschfeld's death, a French national organization, the Mémorial de la Déportation Homosexuelle (MDH), in partnership with the new LGBT Community Center of Nice (Centre LGBT Côte d'Azur), organized a formal delegation to the cemetery. Speakers recalled Hirschfeld's life and work and laid a large bouquet of pink flowers on his tomb; the ribbon on the bouquet was inscribed "Au pionnier de nos causes. Le MDH et le Centre LGBT" ("To the pioneer of our causes. The MDH and the LGBT Center").[81]
Magnus Hirschfeld, second from right, holding hands with his beloved Karl
Giese, while celebrating Christmas 1905 among queer friends
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