Karl Giese (18 October 1898 – March 1938) was a German archivist, museum curator, and the life partner of

Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician and sexologist. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Com ...

Biography

Early years

Giese was the youngest of six children of a working-class family and had three brothers and two sisters. His family lived in Schulstraße 17, not far from today's subway station Leopoldplatz.

Institut für Sexualwissenschaft

When Giese was a student he met

after a lecture in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

around 1918. Later he became an employee in the

Institut für Sexualwissenschaft The was an early private sexology research institute in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The name is variously translated as ''Institute of Sex Research'', ''Institute of Sexology'', ''Institute for Sexology'' or ''Institute for the Science of Sexua ...

and finally Hirschfeld's life partner. He took over the management of the archive of the Institute. Hirschfeld described their relationship as a "physical-mental connection". Giese also gave lectures, curated exhibitions and wrote articles. During this time, Giese met the British archaeologist

Francis Turville-Petre Francis Adrian Joseph Turville-Petre (4 March 1901 – 16 August 1942) was a British archaeologist, famous for the discovery of the ''Homo heidelbergensis'' fossil Galilee Man in 1926, and for his work at Mount Carmel, in what was then the Briti ...

and the French author and later Nobel Prize laureate

André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the Symbolism (arts), symbolist movement, to the advent o ...

. British-American writer

Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...

, who lived for some months in the neighboring building, wrote about himself and Karl Giese: Ellen Bækgaard, a dentist from

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

and

World League for Sexual Reform The World League for Sexual Reform was a League for coordinating policy reforms related to greater openness around sex. The initial groundwork for the organisation, including a congress in Berlin which was later counted as the organisation's first, ...

committee member, describes Giese in her memoirs as "woman of the house". According to Bækgaard, Giese enjoyed decorating the place and doing needlework, as well as looking after Hirschfeld's wardrobe. Karl Giese was interested in theater and acting. He was part of a theater group ''Theater der Eigenen''. Giese also had a role as the young violinist Paul Körner in

Richard Oswald Richard Oswald (5 November 1880 – 11 September 1963) was an Austrian film director, producer, screenwriter, and father of German-American film director Gerd Oswald. Early career Richard Oswald, born in Vienna as Richard W. Ornstein, began h ...

's film ''

Different from the Others ''Different from the Others'' (german: Anders als die Andern) is a silent German melodramatic film produced during the Weimar Republic. It was first released in 1919 and stars Conrad Veidt and Reinhold Schünzel. The story was co-written by Richa ...

''. When

traveled on world tour in 1930-31, he entrusted Giese to run the affairs of the Institute.

Exile in Paris

Hirschfeld did not return to Germany from his world journey in 1932, and Giese went to meet him in Paris. Hirschfeld was by then living with another partner, a 23-year-old Chinese medical student named Li Shiu Tong. Despite some initial jealousy, they all lived together in Paris in a . After the in Berlin fell victim to the Nazi regime, with books from its library burned, Giese spent several months in Brno in 1933 trying to purchase surviving literature from the Institute's archives. He also made contact with the magazine (''New Voice: Journal of Sexual Reform''), arranging the publication of some articles by both Hirschfeld and himself.

Later years

In 1934 Karl Giese traveled to Paris to join Hirschfeld but was soon apprehended in a public bathhouse, arrested on charges of "public indecency", and sentenced to three months in prison. Following his imprisonment, Giese's French visa was terminated, and he was expelled from France in October 1934. Returning to Nazi Germany was out of the question, so he relocated to Vienna and lived there for one year, preparing for university admission exams. Hirschfeld and other benefactors (Bækgaard and

Norman Haire Norman Haire, born Norman Zions (21 January 1892, Sydney – 11 September 1952, London) was an Australian medical practitioner and sexologist. He has been called "the most prominent sexologist in Britain" between the wars. Life When Norman was b ...

) covered his living expenses and expected him to take up the study of medicine in London after completing exams in Vienna. After Hirschfeld's death in 1935, Giese was allowed to enter France to attend Hirschfeld's funeral in

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

. Two months before his death, Hirschfeld had designated Li Shiu Tong and Karl Giese as his principal heirs, stipulating in his will that both men should use their inheritances to advance sexual science, not for personal expenses. Karl Giese was heir of the library and the few objects that had been saved from the Institute. Ultimately he was not able to use his inheritance.

privately provided Giese with financial help in the hope that he would relocate to Britain as per Hirschfeld's wishes. However, Giese moved to

Brno Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...

in 1936 and lived with the Jewish lawyer Karl Fein for several months before moving into his own flat. At the time of the Nazi

annexation of Austria The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the Nazi Germany, German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "Ger ...

and shortly before the Nazi takeover of the Czech Sudetenland, Giese committed suicide in Brno in March 1938. His heir, Karl Fein, was deported to

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...

by the Nazi regime in August 1942, and died in February 1943. Giese's possessions, including his inheritance from Hirschfeld, were lost in the Holocaust.

Other information

A memorial plaque was placed in front of Giese's residence in Berlin-Tiergarten, at John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, on February 9, 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Giese, Karl 1898 births 1938 deaths 1938 suicides Magnus Hirschfeld German emigrants to France German LGBT rights activists Sex educators German curators German LGBT people Suicides in Czechoslovakia