Hi, and welcome to Behind the paddle podcast with me, Porcelain Victoria. Today I'm very excited. So again, I hyperfocused just a little bit, as you should with like any topics, especially when you want to talk about them on a podcast. I hyperfocused and I did a little research. So today we're gonna talk about the night the Nazis burned knowledge, the destruction of the Institute of Sexology. So we start with Berlin, nineteen thirty three, a city alive of ideas, culture, and radical progress. The streets hum with energy cabarets, intellectual salons, universities teeming with young minds, but lurking beneath this vibrance is something dark, something growing. That night, as researchers worked late at the Institute of Sexology, they heard the first sounds of destruction glass shattering, bookshelves collapsing. Within minutes the world's most comprehensive collection of knowledge on human sexuality, gender identity and LGBTQ plus rights was in flames. Today we're gonna talk about the horrific things that happened by the hands of the Nazis in 1933 with what they did with some of the institutes, but the main one, the Institute of Sexology. And we're gonna start with some lovely questions as usual. Why did the Nazis fear this institute so much? And what were the consequences of its destruction? Well, in this episode we're gonna find out. This might be a two-parter, because there is a lot of research that has gone into this. And I also want to give a bit of a backstory and also I want you guys to know what happened to some of the people involved. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, born in 1868, Hirschfeld studied medicine and psychology. By the late 19th century, he became one of the first researchers to argue that homosexuality and gender diversity were natural, biological phenomena rather than moral failings. He coined the term the third sex and fought to repeat paragraph 175, the German law criminalizing male homosexuality. Oh it's just it's every now and again I'll pop in with some words from myself. It's it's just let people be people. That's why I think. So the Institute of Sexology, their mission, well, it was a haven for the LGBTQ plus people. Founded in 1919, the Institute of Sexology became the world's first center for sexual research, provided medical, psychological, and legal aid to LGBTQ plus individuals, housed thousands of case studies proving that homosexuality was not a mental illness, offered gender-affirming care, one of the first places in the world to perform early gender confirmation surgeries. Wow, that's that's that's just amazing to hear. It really is. I'm really bad with like time zones and things, so I want to say that I mean, oh my gosh, it was only a hundred years ago. Yeah. Wow. That really puts it into perspective that like I feel like we really haven't accepted and understood the LGBTQ plus people for that long at all. Wow. And all they should have been provided even before it and like researched and but we'll we'll get to a lot of things, I'm sure, in the podcast in future episodes where it just wasn't possible and there was so much in the way of doing the research, and a lot of people stopping it sadly. But yeah, the institute promoted sex education, contraception, and women's rights, as well as many, many other things, as you've just heard. So, why did conservatives hate it? I mean, they hate quite a lot of things when it comes to freedom. Uh that's my own view. But right wing groups saw the institute as a threat to traditional gender roles and quote German purity. Cause remember, we're talking about the Nazis here, we're gonna get to it. I added in my notes. Yes, because we love that German purity. Hirschfeld was attacked multiple times, branded the most dangerous Jew in Germany. Of course he's a Jew. Of course. What why wouldn't he be? Um the Nazis rising to power in the early 1930s saw his work as a direct threat to their ideology. Because you know you have like their perfect race would have been full German and blonde hair, blue eyes, right? And that's it. No nothing between the ears, just blonde hair, blue eyes. So the rise of the Nazis, the attack on generacy. Degeneracy. Degeneracy. So the rise of the Nazis, the attack on degeneracy. The Nazis, as we know, used moor moral purity as a weapon. Hitler and the Nazis linked homosexuality, sexual freedom, all that good stuff, and Jewish intellectualism as enemies of the state. What I did a little bit of digging in was paragraph 175, because like I'd never really I I was like, is this a law? Is this a rule? Like what is this? Like why is it called paragraph? So what is paragraph 175? Paragraph 175 of German criminal code law, which had existed since 1871. Like what? Can we just let people be people? But was heavily expanded and weaponized by the Nazis. Originally enacted in 1871, paragraph 175, criminalized male homosexual acts in Germany. Under the Weimar Republic in 1919 to 1933, enforcement was inconsistent and LGBTQ plus activism, led by figures like Magnus Hirschfeld, sought to repeal it. After the Nazis took power in 1933, they radically expanded paragraph 175 in 1935 to criminalize even non-sexual quote suggestive behavior end quote between men. So even if like you winked at your buddy, let no let me think about what a straight man would do. What would a straight man do? Do like a handshake. Boom. That's it. Or like no, did they do fit yeah, I would assume they do fist bumps or something. Oh no, what is really straight? I'm panned, so like and I uh I I identify as female, so it's just like hmm. Uh when they like when bros knock into each other, may maybe that could be suggestive behaviour. Gosh, I I hate to think that in those times and sadly even now that people have to pretend who they are. I was watching something recently. They made a comment about the people who came before us paved the way with LGBTQ ⁇ . And man, that is such a true sentence. It really is. It it's sad. It really is that there's still people to this day who have to fake who they are, and yeah, my heart really goes out to them because I wish I could help, but sadly not that much can be done. Apart from protest. We love a protest, especially in the UK. So back to this before I get really emotional. The estimate is approximately about a hundred thousand that were arrested under paragraph 175 between 1933 and 1945. This is based on historical records and research from Holocaust scholars. Fuck me, that's a lot of fucking people. But no, that's a lot of men. Jeez. And I'm sure there was bloody way more than that. And this is just what was recorded. I mean, there's quite a bit, if you look into it, a lot of statistics which haven't been recorded. But we'll go into that. Evidence for the hundred thousand arrests, German police and court records from the Nazi period confirmed that about a hundred thousand men were arrested for violating paragraph 175, between 1933 and 1945. Of those arrested, around 50,000 were officially convicted and sentenced to prison or hard labor. Between ten thousand and fifteen thousand of those convicted were sent to concentration camps where they were forced to wear pink triangles. Many died due to brutal conditions, medical experiments, and executions. Yeah. I mean there's nothing else really to say about the horrific things that went on in the Holocaust. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Magnus Hirschfield. I'm gonna say that wrong again, aren't I? See am I dyslexic? Or or is the ADHD just incredibly forgetful? Which one is it? It sounds different in every language, so we're gonna go with Hirschfeld. Magnus Hirschfeld Society and major Holocaust scholars such as Richard Plant and Klaus Müller support these figures based on Nazi era documentation. Many records were destroyed by the Nazis towards the end of World War II, so exact numbers remain estimates based on surviving police, legal and SS reports. Some LGBTQ plus survivors of Nazi persecution were not recognized as Holocaust victims for decades and continue to be criminalized under post-World War II West German law, making it difficult for them to document their experiences. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that this was a horrific event and thousands and thousands of people were included. There was so many, so so so so many. The fact that we can't document all of them and we don't know all of their names and we don't know their stories. This is gonna be a very sad episode. And I laugh because I have a really dark like when I'm uncomfortable I laugh. Um trust me, I've got a lot of trauma, but not not not the Holocaust trauma, so maybe I'll edit that part out. The Nazis turned the law into a powerful legal tool for prosecuting LGBTQ plus people, dramatically increasing its scope and enforcement. The LGBTQ plus people portray were portrayed as corrupting German youth. The Nazi concept of quote people's community meant eliminating those who didn't conform. So yeah, as as you should know with the history of World War II, if the Nazis didn't like you, you were basically kaput. So targeting the institute. Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 in January, a turning point for the Nazis. The Nazis immediately began shutting down progressive institutes. The Institute of Sexology was a primary target. The Nazis shut down, raided, or destroyed numerous institutes, organizations, and intellectual centers that they saw as threats to their ideology. Their targets included institutes focused upon LGBTQ plus rights, Jewish scholarship, socialist slash communist movements, modern art, and independent scientific research. So a few of those I've only picked a few to go on rants about the Frat First School Institute for Social Research 1933. Key figures were Max Horkheimer, Theodore Adorno, and Herbert Marcusa. This can I pick a subject for myself for the podcast where I can actually just go through it without using Google Translate because I don't know how to speak. Even with just normal words and not like people's names, I'm just like, how do I say this? And I really do not want to mispronounce it. But I try. I try. Um the focus on the institute was critical theory, philosophy, sociology, and anti-fascism. So yeah, that was shut down by the Nazis in 1933 as well. Thankfully, its Jewish and Marxist affiliated scholars fled to the US. The Fratfirst School promoted left wing and anti-fascist thought, making it a direct ideological threat. So Bohous School in 1933. The founder was Walter Gropius, and its focus was modern art, architecture and design. It was forced to close in April 1933. Many of its artists and archaeologists architects, not archaeologists, oh my god. I'm reading off a paper as well, and it's like, how do I do this? So architects fled Germany. The Nazis viewed modernistic art and modernist. The Nazis viewed modernist art as degenerate and sought to promote traditional German aesthetic. So the Prussian Academy of Sciences, purged in 1933 to 1934. Their focus was science, humanities, philosophy, physics, included Albert Einstein before he fled. So Jewish and leftist scholars expelled, research aligned with Nazi ideology. The Nazis sought to control scientific and intellectual work, pushing propaganda-driven Aryan science. So yeah, they weren't all like banned and closed. Some carried on and they were just like, yeah, as long as you promote, you know, the Aryan race, and that will be fine. So there's a Jewish there was another one, the last one on my list, I promise. The Jewish Cultural and Educational Institutes, 1933 to 1939. I mean it says it how it is. It was a Jewish school, yeshivas, cultural centres and publishing houses. Gradually closed down, books burned, Jewish intellectuals expelled. Oh, that says exiled, not expelled. Or murdered. Yeah, okay. The Nazis aimed to erase Jewish influence from the German culture, as we all know. The Nazis didn't just ban books and ideas, they phys physically destroyed institutions that represented the modern outlook, diversity, and intellectual freedom. So, you know, as it is with political people these days as well, they don't want us to have the right freedom of speech, and the Nazis, their campaign targeted not only LGBTQ plus research, leftist thoughts and modern art, but also scientific inquiry and Jewish culture, cultural life. So that that included the three that we've just spoken about. One, two, three. The Knight of the Raid. It was raided by S.A. Who we're gonna talk about those a little. So basically just Nazi hit Hitler's minions. They all are, but like this was just a little sector. So a little bit of explanation of who their SA stormtroopers are. SA refers to members of the Sturmati Blink, which also means in so that's so this is weird me using Google Translate, because when I put that through Google Translate, it also means storm detachment. Huh. But yeah, the SA were also known as the Brown Shirts. I wonder what shirts they wore. They were a parliamentary wing of the Nazi Party that played a key role in Hitler's rise to power. I'm pretty sure if you watch any documentary, they will talk about S.A. and the brown like the brown shirts. So what was the SA? Founded in 1920, the SA was the original parliamentary force of the Nazi Party, nicknamed Stormtroopers or Brown Shirts because of their uniforms. Their main roles guess what they were Ah Just street violence, intimidating, beating, and killing political opponents, especially communists and socialists. Classic suppress suppressing the opposition. They also, of course, attacked Jews, trade unions, and anybody against the Nazi ideology, ultimately helping Hitler rise to power. They staged violent rallies, disrupted elections, and attacked critics. So real real good guys, yeah? Real good guys. The Brown Shirts and the Hitler Youth's roles in the destruction of the Institute of Sexology May sixth, nineteen thirty-three. Storm troopers raided the Institute of Sexology in Berlin. They looted books, manuscripts, medical files, violently shutting down the world's first LDBTQ plus research center. They stole books that were later burned in the infamous Nazi book burning on May 10th, 1933. At Bible Platz. They looted thousands of books, research files, medical records, tore down photographs of early transgender patients who had undergone medical transformations. Eyewitness accounts describe researchers being dragged out, manuscripts torn apart, over 20,000 books and 5,000 photograph photographs seized. The amount of danger that so many people were in by just going to the institute, and then whatever else happened after that, if they had documents, if they had pictures, oh my god. It it well the Holocaust speaks for itself with what happened and what happened with the LGBTQ fluster community. It's absolutely unthinkable that has sadly happened. The hate that people have for something that isn't their own design or how they want the world is so scary. And it's still like I'll come back to this, but it is still happening to this day where politicians want to build the world how they see it. So I wanted to go just a little bit, just just gonna talk about it for like two minutes. It's not an ADHD rant. About the book burning at Bibiplatz. It sounds like a cute name, it really does. Bibi Bibi Platz. Four days later, Nazi students and stormtroopers gathered in Bibleplatz. They burned the Institute's library along with the works by Jewish communist and progressive authors, Joseph Goebel delivered a speech declaring an end to quote un-German ideas. So Hirschfeld, we're gonna talk about what happened with him really, because I was like, where'd he go? Did did he go to the camps? Like what happened? So he actually left Germany for a world lecture tour, travelling through the US, Japan, and China to speak about his research on sexuality and LGBTQ plus rights. In March 1932, while still abroad, he visited the Soviet Union, where he praised their at the time, more progressive stance on homosexuality. By early 1933, he was in France planning his next steps. And so while he was in France, he saw with the news that all the books and everything were getting burned. So that's that's how he learned about what was going on while he was in France. And I mean nobody really at that point could do that much without dying or getting, you know, hurt. He was effectively exiled. He saw what was happening in Germany and decided it was too dangerous to return. Fair, fair. On May 10th, 1933, he was in Nice, France, where he saw news reels of the Nazis Ben and his books in Berlin. He reportedly broke down in tears watching his life's work go up in flames. He remained in France living in exile and Paris, continuing to write and advocate for the LGBTQ plus rights. Damn man. I know it was tough for when. So I used to own a dungeon, but then I had to shut it down because UK right now with sex work, they just no, they don't really like it. And any safe space needs to be shut down basically. And I know that even though I had my dungeon for such a short time, um about a year, uh I I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it. And it brought a smile to so many faces, and I can but can't imagine at the same time because obviously I haven't went through it. My life's work going up. I mean just closing down my own establishment that was heartbreaking enough so for everything he's worked for to just poof go up in flames. Nobody deserves that, no So his final years and death. He tried to establish a new institute in France but lacked funding and political support. He sadly died of a heart attack May 14th, 1935. On his 67th birthday, he never lived to see the end of the Nazi reign or the revival of the LGBTQ plus rights movements after World War II. So, we're going back to paragraph 175. After World War II, gay concentration camp survivors were not recognized as victims. Some were rearrested and forced to serve out their Nazi era sentences. Paragraph 175 was not fully repealed until 1994. What the fuck, guys? What the fuck? What the fuck? That's that's not that long ago at all. I was born in ninety nine, like what the hell? In the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, LGBTQ plus activists rediscovered Hirschfeld's legacy. Today, the Magnus Hirschfeld Society in Berlin works to preserve his research. LGBTQ plus rights movements globally owe much to his pioneering work. So why does this history matter today? The destruction of the Institute of Sexology was not just about burning books, it was about erasing knowledge, silencing identities, and rewriting history to fit an ideology of control. The Nazis understood that controlling the narrative meant controlling society, and they saw sexology, LGBTQ plus rights and progressive thought as threats to their vision of radical and moral purity. But ideas cannot be truly destroyed. Even as flames consumed the research of many, many people, their work inspired future generations of activists, scientists and LGBTQ plus advocates. The world eventually rediscovered many of the lost concepts. The Nazis tried to erase gender-affirming care, the understanding of sexual orientation as natural, and the fight for equal rights. Yet the fight is far from over. Today we see the troubling parallels. Book bans and censorship targeting LGBTQ plus, literature and history. Even down to this, if you look, if you research just a little bit about one of the books banned recently in the US, it was a girl who had freckles. And it was about how she was accepting her freckles, finally, in the book. And that was banned. See you can't even have fre like what you it was a book about being comfortable with having frickin' freckles. It wasn't the stereotypical oh they're trying to make a boy wear a dress or whatnot. Frickin' freckles, guys. Frickin' freckles. Ridiculous. But yeah. Little rant there. Attacks on trans healthcare and education echoing the suppression of early medical research, rising authoritarianism that seeks to control personal identities and limit freedoms. Yep. We are definitely seeing that today. The lessons of the past must not be forgotten. The destruction of the institute was not just an attack on a building. It was an attack on the truth, diversity, and the right to exist. Remembering this history is an act of resistance, a way to ensure a way to ensure that the mistakes of the past are never repeated. So a little bit about my little rant just a wee bit ago. One of them about the freckles. The fight is far from over. Today we see disturbing parallels between 1933 and now book bans and censorship rising across the United States with LGBTQ, literature, black history, and discussions of gender identity being pulled from schools and libraries. Attacks on trans rights mirror the early suppression of Hirschfeld's research. Laws restricting healthcare, bathroom access, and even discussions of gender in classrooms. The rise of authoritarianism shows how governments can use fear, nationalism, and misinformation to justify erasing marginalized groups. In Florida, Texas, and other states, laws banning LGBTQ plus education resembles Nazi crackdowns and so-called degeneracy. In 2023 alone, over 3,000 books were challenged or banned in the US, many dealing with race, gender, and LGBTQ plus identity. In some places, teachers are being fired for acknowledging LGBTQ plus students exist. Just as the Nazis tried to erase queer identities from history, the destruction of the institute was not just a Nazi era event. It was just a warning, it was just a start of what is capable and what can happen. If we allow knowledge to be erased, if we stay silent while rights are stripped away, history will repeat itself. The books were burnt, but the ideas survived. Now it's up to us to protect the truth, defend the LGBTQ plus rights and fight against the forces of repression in our own time. We need to stick together. This has been Behind the Pad Podcast. Thank you for listening. And yeah, I promise I won't do that many depressing episodes. I know that I've just done knockout pills, which is about the 1970s, where they would advertise knockout pills uh in the papers, and it would be primarily towards um towards men to use on women. And yeah, I know that it's a bit depressing, but it needs to be said, especially in this day and age, and it all needs to be remembered of what can happen and has happened, and honouring the survivors and honouring the dead as well. So, yeah, this has been behind the pad podcast. I am Paulson Victoria. Thank you for watching. If you would like to watch this podcast, you can go on DarkFans or ManyVids. If you would like to listen, you can listen on Apple, Spotify, and all sorts. There's many links below. And yeah, you can catch us on Twitter, Instagram, and yeah, if you want to tip us, that would be great. Every little helps. Thank you for listening. Bye.