Publications

Here you will find monographs and anthologies, sorted chronologically, that the Magnus Hirschfeld Federal Foundation has published or significantly supported. Regular publications of the BMH can be found at the end of this page.

With the repeal of §175 of the Criminal Code in 1994, a 123-year era of legal discrimination against homosexual men in Germany came to an end. In “A Disgrace Disappears,” historian Michael Schwartz examines the long and arduous journey towards the abolition of this homophobic special penal law, which has shaped and harmed generations of men.

Published by the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld, the book also illustrates how this struggle contributed to emancipation and a greater societal awareness.

“A Disgrace Disappears: The Long Road to the Abolition of Special Penal Laws for Homosexuals in Germany 1968/69 to 1989/94” by Michael Schwartz has now been published by B+S Siebenhaar Verlag.

The book is available online as Open Access. You can browse the entire work here or download it as a PDF file.

Expert knowledge for diversity: The anthology “Queer diversity in football” (2023)

Ten years “Football for diversity – football against homophobia”: what is the current state of research? The anthology issued by the publisher Barbara Budrich in 2023 “Queer diversity in football” provides insights and collects expert knowledge at the end of the project in about 250 pages related to the subject “Football for diversity” with academic contributions from different disciplines, dealing with the diversity of sexual orientations and gender identities in football. These include political science and law, cultural studies, history, pedagogy and sociology. The publisher is the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld.

Take a look at the anthology now or download it as a whole (open access).

You can find everything and more about the anthology “Queer diversity in football”, published by the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld, on our pages about the project “Football for diversity”.

In his new book, “Der Liebe und dem Leid”, Rainer Herrn relates the varying fates of the Institute for Sexual Science (1919-1933), founded by Magnus Hirschfeld. Based on the life stories of the people who put their stamp on the Institute, the author Rainer Herrn describes the struggles for the abolition of the so-called “homosexual paragraph” 175, provides insights into the advice and therapy offered and embeds their varied work in the historical context of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism. In “Der Liebe and dem Leid”, Rainer Herrn has provided the first comprehensive study on the famous institute, which was destroyed by the Nazis in 1933

The book can be bought from Suhrkamp.

The Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld sponsored the book’s publication financially.

In May 2021, we published the detailed results of the survey study we commissioned “LSBTIQ* community structures in the Corona pandemic”. The national survey of LSBTIQ* organisations and initiatives came about as part of the project “Effects of the Corona pandemic on LSBTIQ*”. A total of 255 initiatives from every federal state took part in the survey. An overview of more information can be found here.
You can download the entire research report of the survey study directly here. (pdf not barrier-free)

The pandemic confronts lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, inter-gender, queer and asexual persons (LSBTIQA+) with special challenges and hardships. The new joint brochure of the BMH, the Bundesverband Trans*, Intergeschlechtliche Menschen e.V. and the Lesben- und Schwulendverband makes this clear.

We devoted a special edition of the Hirschfeld Lectures to the eponym of our Foundation, which has now been published by Wallstein Verlag. Together with the critical appreciation of Hirschfeld by Prof Dr Dagmar Herzog, you can find other central speeches and talks from the Hirschfeld memorial years 2018/2019. You can find out more here about the 132-page book, which includes numerous colour photographs. You can find out more about the 132-page volume with numerous color photos here.

Lesbian women experience multiple forms of discrimination in professional life due to their gender and sexual identity. The brochure presents a study of the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, which investigates the specific situation of lesbian women in professional life. You can find more information and download the brochure here.

The three-year study commissioned by the State of Rhineland Palatinate was published on 14 January 2021 under the title “…in constant fear…” A historical study of the legal consequences of a divorce for lesbian mothers and their children in West Germany with particular consideration of Rhineland Palatinate (1946 to 2000).

You can find more information and download the study here.

On 3 September 2020, the Advisory Board of the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld together with the Managing Director published an urgent appeal to government and society on the situation of marginalised groups, such as the LSBTIQ* community, during the Corona pandemic. The BMH wished to express its concern and contribute to solutions by these means. In the course of this appeal, the BMH together with the LSVD Bundesverband, Intergeschlechtliche Menschen e.V. and the Bundesverband Trans* launched a research project and published its results in a brochure.
Read the full appeal here.

At the end of August 2019, we handed over the final report on the project “Academic overview of the factual and legal aspects of options for taking action, including international experience, regarding the planned ‘Prohibition of so-called conversion therapies’” in Germany to protect homosexual men, women, adolescents and young adults from being pathologised and discriminated, to the Federal Ministry of Health and then published it.

Here you can download the final report and find all information about the project.

As part of our model project, “Refugees & Queers”, which was sponsored between 2016 and 2019 by the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the academic anthology “Refugees & Queers. Research and education at the interface of LSBTTIQ, flight migration and emancipation politics” was published. The publishers were Carolin Küppers and the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld.

Following the specialist conference in 2017, the conference volume “Family of tomorrow. New values for the family (policy)” was published in 2019. Published by Carolin Küppers and Eva Harasta.

The documentation volume of the Magnus Hirschfeld Federal Foundation (2014, ISBN: 978-3-8376-2702-2) provides a comprehensive insight into current LGBTI* research. The 19 contributions by renowned scholars make the lives of LGBTI* people in the past and present tangible. The 312-page documentation volume is based on the 1st LGBTI* Science Congress “Gleich-Geschlechtliche Erfahrungswelten”, which took place in Berlin in November 2013 and was fully funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (funding code: 01FP1301).

The anthology (ed. Michael Schwartz, 2014, DeGruyter Oldenburg, ISBN: 978-3-486-85750-4) presents the current state of research and desiderata on the topic of “Homosexuality under National Socialism” and was produced as part of the cooperation between the Magnus Hirschfeld Federal Foundation and the Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin.

Since 2012, the Magnus Hirschfeld Federal Foundation has been organizing the “Hirschfeld Lectures” series of lectures and publications. The series sees itself as a source of inspiration for the presentation of historical contexts and current issues in the field of education and research with regard to the persecution, discrimination and everyday life of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans* and intersex people as well as queer people (LGBTIQ*). The respective publications appear as a series in the Wallstein Verlag.

Here you can find the annual activity reports of the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld since 2011. In it, we report on the events, topics and projects that have shaped the work of the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld in the respective calendar year. Since 2020, the activity reports have been published exclusively online.