Still Here: Helmut Metzner reflects on memory, politics and LGBTQ+ rights
Scene’s podcast Still Here continues with a new episode featuring Helmut Metzner, Chair of the Magnus Hirschfeld Federal Foundation in Berlin.
Following our launch episode with Craig Jones, this latest instalment takes the conversation to Germany. Recorded in German, the interview explores Metzner’s long political career, his life as an openly gay man in public office, and the work of the federal foundation named after Magnus Hirschfeld.
Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935) was a German physician, sexologist and one of the world’s earliest advocates for LGBTQ+ rights. He founded the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin in 1919, which became a pioneering centre for research, education and support on sexual and gender diversity. A vocal opponent of the criminalisation of homosexuality under Paragraph 175, Hirschfeld argued that sexual orientation and gender identity were natural variations of human experience. His institute was destroyed by the Nazis in 1933, and he died in exile in France two years later. Today, he is regarded as a foundational figure in the modern queer emancipation movement.
In the episode, Metzner discusses the foundation’s mission to preserve queer history and promote education, including its extensive archive of testimonies and its touring exhibition on the persecution of LGBTQ+ people under National Socialism. He also reflects on the fragility of legal progress, debates around gender identity, and the wider global backlash against LGBTQ+ rights.
🎧 You can listen to the full German-language episode below via Spotify.
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For those who prefer to read in English, a full-length long-read based on the interview is now available to all free and paid Scene subscribers on our website.
Leslie Clarke
There is also a YouTube version of the episode available with automatic subtitle translations for those who would like to follow the discussion in English or other languages.
Still Here is Scene’s podcast series on visibility, politics and the people shaping LGBTQ+ public life — in Brighton, across the UK and beyond.
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