5fish
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2019
- Messages
- 20,397
- Reaction score
- 6,024
You know within days of Hitler's power on May 6, 1933, the Nazis found their first victims the LGBTQ community. On May 6, 1933, the German Student Union a Nazi affiliate group attacked the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute of Sexology) in Berlin. Over the next 4 days, all the books inside the institution were hauled out stacked in a pile, and set afire. The first book burning was of LGBTQ writings...
www.lgbtqnation.com
On May 6, 1933, just weeks after Adolf Hitler came to power, the Nazi-dominated German Student League marched to the Institute and sacked it while a brass band played. Hirschfeld was in Switzerland at the time and later watched newsreel footage in Paris of his beloved Institut destroyed.
What volumes the Nazi youth — and later that afternoon, the SA, the Nazi paramilitary wing — didn’t destroy were hauled out of the building four nights later and thrown atop the enormous bonfire of books at Opernplatz, the most iconic of the Nazi book burnings of the 1930s. A bronze bust of Hirschfeld from his Institut was set atop the pyre.
action.everylibrary.org
But you would be forgiven if you had not heard of him or his Institute. In 1933, within a month of Hitler being appointed Chancellor of Germany, Berlin’s gay clubs were purged, and organized “homophile” groups were outlawed. Numerous members of the queer community, who saw the writing on the wall, fled to other friendlier countries. The Institute quickly became a target of the new regime. And in May 1933, in a move to purge Germany of all elements seen as “un-German,” unproductive to the character of German Volk and to the continued strength of the German state, the book burnings began.
The Institute was the start. On May 6, 1933, members of the German Student Union — by then a Hitler Youth organization — raided the institute. Some 20,000 books that consisted of all the research we had on the LGBT community in the Western World, were hauled a few blocks over to Opernplatz, where they were burned in a multiple-day bonfire of destruction. The Nazis approached their work with religious fervor, comparing the need to “cleanse” Germany with Martin Luther’s symbolic burning of the papal bull, even going so far as to declare 12 Theses that declared a need for a pure German language and culture.
First they came for the LGBTQ+ books: How the Nazis started burning books 90 years ago this month - LGBTQ Nation
LGBTQ Nation spoke with PEN America about the parallels between what happened then and what's happening now.
www.lgbtqnation.com
On May 6, 1933, just weeks after Adolf Hitler came to power, the Nazi-dominated German Student League marched to the Institute and sacked it while a brass band played. Hirschfeld was in Switzerland at the time and later watched newsreel footage in Paris of his beloved Institut destroyed.
What volumes the Nazi youth — and later that afternoon, the SA, the Nazi paramilitary wing — didn’t destroy were hauled out of the building four nights later and thrown atop the enormous bonfire of books at Opernplatz, the most iconic of the Nazi book burnings of the 1930s. A bronze bust of Hirschfeld from his Institut was set atop the pyre.
Bigotry and Nationalism Launched Nazi Book Burning
The first attack on books by Nazis started with LGBT and “un-German” books.
action.everylibrary.org
But you would be forgiven if you had not heard of him or his Institute. In 1933, within a month of Hitler being appointed Chancellor of Germany, Berlin’s gay clubs were purged, and organized “homophile” groups were outlawed. Numerous members of the queer community, who saw the writing on the wall, fled to other friendlier countries. The Institute quickly became a target of the new regime. And in May 1933, in a move to purge Germany of all elements seen as “un-German,” unproductive to the character of German Volk and to the continued strength of the German state, the book burnings began.
The Institute was the start. On May 6, 1933, members of the German Student Union — by then a Hitler Youth organization — raided the institute. Some 20,000 books that consisted of all the research we had on the LGBT community in the Western World, were hauled a few blocks over to Opernplatz, where they were burned in a multiple-day bonfire of destruction. The Nazis approached their work with religious fervor, comparing the need to “cleanse” Germany with Martin Luther’s symbolic burning of the papal bull, even going so far as to declare 12 Theses that declared a need for a pure German language and culture.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-1137515411-7facfbfb0e6c45d2a8cc695ab6925e7d.jpg)
