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Kurt Hiller

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Kurt Hiller 1903

Kurt Hiller (17 August 1885, Berlin – 1 October 1972, Hamburg) was a German essayist, lawyer, and expressionist poet.[1] He was also a political (namely pacifist) journalist.

Biography

Hiller came from a middle-class Jewish background.[2][3] A communist, he was deeply influenced by Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer, despising the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel, which made him quite unpopular with Marxists.[4]

Hiller was also an influential writer in the early German gay rights movement in the first two decades of the 20th century. Hiller was elected as vice-chairman of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee in 1929.[1] In 1929 he took over as chairman from fellow gay activist Magnus Hirschfeld.[citation needed] Like Hirschfeld, he had affairs with men but did not publicly identify himself as homosexual.[5]

He is remembered, too, for his book §175: Schmach des Jahrhunderts (Paragraph 175: Outrage of the Century) published in 1922.[1] Hiller maintained that if homosexuals wanted change, they would have to effect it themselves. Hiller was arrested by the Gestapo in March 1933 following the Nazi seizure of power and was severely beaten before his release in August 1933.[6][3] He spent nine months in prisons and in the earliest concentration camps, being transferred to Columbia-Haus, Brandenburg and Oranienburg concentration camp.[7][3] He was released in April 1934.[1]

Memorial to Kurt Hiller in Berlin

He fled to Prague immediately after his release, and met his partner Walter D. Schultz [de] (a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany) there while in exile.[1][8] He later left Prague for London in 1938. In 1955, he returned to West Germany, shortly after which he tried and failed to reestablish the Scientific Humanitarian Committee. In the 1960s, he began formulating another attempt to petition against Paragraph 175, but did not complete it. He lived and wrote in Hamburg until his death in 1972.[9][1]

Memorial plaque at Kurt Hiller Park, in Berlin-Schöneberg

As a renowned and prominent gay activist from the beginning of the century to his death he was connected with many other activists of the first homosexual movement such as Magnus Hirschfeld, Eva Siewert and many more.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Kraß, Andreas; Sluhovsky, Moshe; Yonay, Yuval (2021-12-31). Queer Jewish Lives Between Central Europe and Mandatory Palestine: Biographies and Geographies. transcript Verlag. pp. 34–36. ISBN 978-3-8394-5332-2.
  2. ^ Jewish Aspects in Avant-Garde: Between Rebellion and Revelation edited by Mark H. Gelber, Sami Sjöberg
  3. ^ a b c Marhoefer, Laurie (2015-01-01). Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis. University of Toronto Press. pp. 6, 200. ISBN 978-1-4426-2657-7.
  4. ^ Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity by Robert Beachy
  5. ^ Marhoefer, Laurie (2015). Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis. University of Toronto Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-4426-1957-9.
  6. ^ "Kurt Hiller, Victim of Nazi 'gestapo', in Serious Condition, Paper Reveals". www.jta.org. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1933-10-16. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  7. ^ Before Auschwitz By Kim Wünschmann, p.114
  8. ^ Schildt, Axel (2020-10-05). Medien-Intellektuelle in der Bundesrepublik (in German). Wallstein Verlag. pp. 115–116. ISBN 978-3-8353-4524-9.
  9. ^ Ritchie, J.M. (April 1998). "Kurt Hiller - A 'Stankerer' in Exile 1934-1955". German Life and Letters. 51 (2): 266–286. doi:10.1111/1468-0483.00098. ISSN 0016-8777.

Further reading

  • Münzner, Daniel (2015). Kurt Hiller: Der Intellektuelle als Außenseiter (in German). Wallstein Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8353-2884-6.
  • Wurgaft, Lewis D. (1977). The Activists: Kurt Hiller and the Politics of Action on the German Left, 1914-1933. American Philosophical Society. ISBN 978-0-87169-678-6.
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