Details about the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft's book holdings?

May 10, 2022 11:29 AM

How much detail do we know about the books burned at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft? We know there were many thousands of books, including ones about [what we'd now call] gay and trans issues, but I've never heard specifics about a single title. Can we ever say "we know he had a book by this specific description"? Or even "we think several dozen were autobiographies" or whatever? Are there cases where a book from his collection survived in another copy elsewhere? What research has been done on this?
posted by nebulawindphone to Society & Culture (3 answers total)

I found out about Magnus Hirschfeld originally at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. If nothing else, they may be able to point your research toward whoever is working on this question.
posted by latkes at 2:55 PM on May 10, 2022

Best answer: This report by Ralf Dose, of the Magnus Hirschfeld Gesellschaft, Berlin, might be of help in answering some of your questions: Thirty Years of Collecting Our History - Or: How to Find Treasure Troves
posted by 15L06 at 3:00 PM on May 10, 2022

Response by poster: Thank you, 15L06! From those links, I also found this newer page, with a few specific examples of books that survived and were recovered.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:31 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]