Rudolf Klimmer
Rudolf Klimmer | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 17, 1905 |
| Died | July 26, 1977 (aged 72) |
| Nationality | German |
| Alma mater | University of Leipzig |
| Occupation(s) | Psychologist, sexologist |
| Political party | KPD (1926-45) SED (1946-77) |
Rudolf Klimmer (1905-1977) was a German psychologist and sexologist who was an early gay activist, most notable for his work in the German Democratic Republic.
Klimmer was the son of renowned veterinary professor Martin Klimmer, and attended medical school at the University of Leipzig. In 1926, he joined the Communist Party of Germany while continuing his studies, and he earned his doctorate in 1930. His career was cut temporarily short when the Nazis rose to power in the early 1930s, and he worked for a time as a ship's doctor for the Hamburg America Line in the Americas and Asia. He returned to Germany in 1934 and became the senior physician at the Bethel Institution in Bielefeld. Due to his political affiliations, however, he was jailed twice by the Nazi regime in 1938 and 1941, for sentences of five months and a year, respectively, and was banned from medical practice. Nonetheless, he continued to perform medical research for Schering AG throughout the duration of the war.[1]
After the war, Klimmer opened up a psychiatric practice in Leipzig, and joined the Socialist Unity Party, the ruling party of the newly formed East Germany. Using his political ties, he attempted multiple times to repeal Paragraph 175 from the criminal code, which prohibited homosexuality. In 1954 Klimmer personally asked Walter Ulbricht, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, to decriminalize homosexuality and repeal Paragraph 175, to no avail. In the 1960s he wrote pro-gay works, but had to publish them in Hamburg due to publishing restrictions in the East. His efforts, along with those of Kurt Freund, pushed the GDR to decriminalize homosexuality in 1968, a year before West Germany.[2]
Klimmer died in Wuppertal in 1977, while visiting relatives in the West.
References
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
