Der Einstein des Sex

Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) was a sexologist whose scientific investigation had an enormous impact on twentieth- century attitudes to homosexuality. Confronted with the conservatism of his era and driven by a determined humanism, in 1897 he founded the first political gay movement. Then in 1920 he founded an institute for sexology in Berlin. As a socialist homosexual of Jewish extraction, he was forced to flee his country in the thirties. During his stay in Los Angeles, Hirschfeld was called ‘The Einstein of sex’ by American journalists. He died in exile in Nice in 1935. Three years later, his colleague and friend Karl Giese comitted suicide, after a fruitless attempt to prevent the destruction of the Institute by the Nazis. Rosa von Praunheim wanted to found a monument to an important pioneer in the battle against homophobia in Der Einstein des Sex, which he considers to be his most conventional film. The film concentrates on the sensitive, tormented personality of Hirschfeld, on his emotional life and his political struggle. It also looks at the course of his love affair with Baron von Teschenberg, the happy years with Giese, his debates with the conservative anti-Semitic writer Adolf Brand and his relationship with his friend and guardian angel, the transvestite Dorchen.