The Erasure Few People Learn About
Most students learn that the Nazis burned books, but almost no one is told what those books were—or why they were targeted. The event is usually presented as a vague act of censorship, detached from the specific communities whose knowledge was destroyed. Yet one of the very first Nazi book burnings targeted the world’s most advanced research on transgender healthcare and LGBTQ+ rights. This destruction didn’t just symbolize intolerance; it actively rewrote the history of gender, sexuality, and medical science. Understanding what was lost reveals how deliberate erasure can shape public memory for generations.
The Institute for Sexual Science: A Century Ahead of Its Time
In 1919, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish physician and pioneering sexologist, founded the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) in Berlin. At a time when much of the world still criminalized queer identity and pathologized gender diversity, the Institute stood as a radically progressive center of learning and compassion. Hirschfeld and his colleagues gathered one of the largest collections of data on human sexuality ever assembled, including detailed case studies, medical records, interviews, and photographs documenting the lived experiences of transgender, intersex, gay, and bisexual individuals. The Institute also offered counseling, legal advocacy, public education, and medical care, making it one of the earliest known clinics to provide gender-affirming hormone treatments and surgical interventions. Patients and researchers traveled from across Europe to participate in a community where their identities were studied not as illnesses but as legitimate human variations deserving of understanding and support.
Early Transgender Medicine: Pioneering Work Long Before Its Time
Hirschfeld’s team conducted research that modern medicine would not publicly revisit for decades. They performed some of the first gender-affirming surgeries, including vaginoplasty and other procedures now considered foundational to transgender healthcare. The Institute employed transgender staff and provided a safe space for individuals to try on clothing, experiment with gender expression, and live authentically within a supportive environment. Their work included early hormone therapy at a time when endocrinology was still in its infancy. These treatments were informed by both compassionate patient care and rigorous scientific methodology. Far from being fringe or experimental by the standards of their era, the Institute’s work represented the cutting edge of European medical science and was respected internationally among progressive researchers.
Why the Institute Threatened the Nazi Worldview
To the Nazi Party, the Institute’s mission and its founder represented everything they wanted to eliminate. Hirschfeld was Jewish, openly gay, socialist-leaning, and an internationally recognized advocate for sexual minorities. His work challenged the fascist worldview on several fronts. First, it directly contradicted Nazi racial ideology, which relied on rigid ideas of gender roles, heterosexuality, and reproductive duty. Second, it celebrated diversity and personal autonomy in a way that was antithetical to fascist authoritarianism. Third, it publicly supported communities the Nazis sought to erase. As the Nazi movement gained power, Hirschfeld became a favorite target of far-right propaganda. Cartoonists depicted him as a corrupting force who “perverted” German youth. The Institute was denounced as a threat to the Aryan nation. When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, it was only a matter of time before the Institute came under attack.
The Raid of May 6, 1933
On May 6, 1933, Nazi students—supported by SA paramilitaries—stormed the Institute for Sexual Science. They broke down doors, destroyed furniture, beat staff members, and seized thousands of documents. Photographs of the raid show laughing young men carrying crates filled with patient records, research papers, and irreplaceable scientific materials. Many personal files contained the names and identities of transgender and queer people who had sought help at the Institute, creating a devastating breach of privacy that later contributed to arrests, persecution, and imprisonment. For many victims, this was the moment their future safety became impossible.
The Book Burning at Opernplatz
Four days after the raid, on May 10, 1933, the stolen materials were publicly burned in the famous book burning at Berlin’s Opernplatz (now Bebelplatz). This event, often depicted in history textbooks, was orchestrated by Nazi student groups with full support from government officials. When people imagine the iconic footage of Nazis throwing books into bonfires, they are often unknowingly watching the destruction of Hirschfeld’s life’s work and the largest archive of transgender medical research ever assembled. Entire shelves of scientific literature on gender and sexuality were consumed in the flames, along with personal diaries, photographs, letters, surgical notes, and medical documentation that could never be replaced.
The Consequences: A Half-Century Setback in Trans Healthcare
The destruction of the Institute was more than symbolic. It had a lasting material impact on the lives of transgender and queer people around the world. The Nazis obliterated the most advanced research on gender identity, effectively freezing progress for decades. Scholars estimate that transgender healthcare was set back at least fifty years. Many of Hirschfeld’s techniques and findings would not be rediscovered or replicated until the late 20th century. As fascism spread, LGBTQ+ people were forced back into the shadows, stripped of legal rights, and subjected to imprisonment, forced labor, and murder. Some of the Institute’s transgender patients were arrested under Paragraph 175, the German law criminalizing homosexuality, or targeted under broader policies aimed at “undesirables.” The destruction of their medical records made it impossible for many to prove their prior medical treatment, access support networks, or receive consistent care. What the Nazis destroyed in a bonfire, the world would spend generations trying to rebuild.
Why This History Is Rarely Taught
Despite its importance, this event is often omitted from mainstream education. In many countries, especially the United States, the narrative of Nazi book burnings is taught in abstract terms, stripped of the specific identities of the people whose knowledge was targeted. Schools frequently describe the burnings as attacks on “free thought” or “political dissent,” avoiding the uncomfortable truth that LGBTQ+ people were among the earliest and most targeted victims of fascist cultural cleansing. As a result, modern audiences often believe that transgender medicine is a new or untested phenomenon, failing to realize that it has over a century of documented history—and would have had even more if not for deliberate erasure.
Erasure as a Political Tool
The story of the Institute’s destruction serves as a powerful reminder that authoritarian regimes do not simply oppress people; they also destroy the evidence that those people ever existed or were worthy of care. Fascism relies on rewriting the past to legitimize its ideology, and the burning of the Institute’s archives was an intentional act of historical manipulation. By eliminating the world’s leading research on transgender identities, the Nazis attempted to force society back into a rigid and biologically deterministic view of gender, one that aligned with their racial and reproductive goals. The consequences of this academic and cultural genocide linger well into the present day, shaping contemporary debates about gender and sexuality.
Reclaiming What Was Lost
Recovering the history of Magnus Hirschfeld and the Institute for Sexual Science is essential not just for LGBTQ+ communities but for anyone who values truth, scientific progress, and human rights. By understanding what was destroyed, we gain clearer insight into how fragile progress can be—and how easily it can be undone by hatred and authoritarianism. The Nazi book burnings were not random acts of literary destruction; they were strategic attacks on knowledge, identity, and the right to exist. Restoring this history is a step toward undoing the damage and honoring the people whose lives and work were consumed by the flames.
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