Felix Abraham (1901 – 1937) was a German doctor, sex forensic scientist (court expert) and “head of the sex forensic department” at the First Institute for Sex Science in Berlin.

• Volkmar Sigusch : History of sexology. Frankfurt/M., New York: Campus Verlag 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38575-4 , pp. 100, 347, 354 f., 361.

Life

At the end of 1928, Abraham received his doctorate from Philipp Schwartz in Frankfurt am Main with his dissertation Investigations into the changes in mortality statistics in the first year of life , which appeared in book form in the same year. A year after receiving his doctorate , he began working as a resident. From 1929 until the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933 and the subsequent closure of the institute for sexology in Berlin, he was its “head of the sex forensic department” ( forensic medicine ) and took part in sexology courses. His special interest focused on the “ sexual offenses ” of the time, such as Infantilism , Exhibitionism and Flagellantism . In addition to the board , he was one of the three permanent doctors at the institute and successor to the psychiatry lecturer Arthur Kronfeld.

• Josef Hynie: On the history of sex research in Czechoslovakia , first published in: Rolf Gindorf and Erwin J. Haeberle (eds.): Sexology and Sexual Policy , Berlin 1992, pp. 91-117

At the institute, he was the contact person for ” transvestites “, a term that at the time encompassed today’s terms from travesty to transgender to transsexuality . Rudolph Richter (* 1891) lived and worked under the first name Dora , also known as Dorchen , as a housemaid at the institute for more than ten years. Already in 1922 a castration was carried out. A penectomy was performed in early 1931 , followed by the construction of a neovagina in June 1931. This first complete surgical “ genital remodeling“ was carried out by Ludwig Levy-Lenz at the institute, like the second case of Hugo Otto Arnold Ebel (Toni Ebel) . Both cases were published by Abraham in 1931 in the Journal of Sexual Science .

Around 1933 Abraham was friends with the pianist Ellen Epstein . In 1935 Abraham was practicing medicine in Berlin. At the end of 1937 he committed suicide in exile in Florence. His suicide is documented by a letter from early 1939.

On November 12, 2016, a stumbling block was laid in front of his former place of residence, Berlin-Steglitz , Gritznerstraße 78. 

• ↑ The Unknown Hero of the Early Transgender Movement. In: www.queer.de. Retrieved November 13, 2016

Fonts

• Studies on the changes in mortality statistics in the first year of life , Münch, Frankfurt am Main-Niederrad 1928 (dissertation)
• Foreword to Karl Plättner : Eros in the penitentiary. Screams of longing from tormented people for love. An illumination of the prisoners’ sexual misery, edited on the basis of personal experiences, observations and communications during eight years of imprisonment . Foreword by Magnus Hirschfeld and Felix Abraham,
  1st edition: Mopr-Verlag, Berlin 1929;
  2nd edition: Witte, Hanover 1930
• Editor of Perversions Sexuales. D’après l’enseignement du doctor Magnus Hirschfeld, par son premier assistant le doctor Félix Abraham ; Traditional and adapted by the doctor Pierre Vachet , Editions Internationales François Aldor, Paris 1931.
• Surgical interventions in the case of anomalies in sex life , in: Therapy of the Present n°67, 1926, pp. 451-455
• Genital Transformations in Two Male Transvestites , Journal of Sexual Science and Sexual Policy, No. 18, 1931 pp. 223–226.

Literature

• Volkmar Sigusch : History of sexology. Frankfurt/M., New York: Campus Verlag 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38575-4 , pp. 100, 347, 354 f., 361.
• Rainer Herr: Felix Abraham . In: Volkmar Sigusch and Günter Grau (eds.): Person Encyclopedia of Sex Research , Frankfurt/M., New York: Campus Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-593-39049-9 , pp. 19-21.
• Ralf Dose : “There hasn’t been a so-called bourgeois life for him for a very long time.” medical Felix Abraham – Fragments of a Life. In: Announcements of the Magnus Hirschfeld Society. Issue 54, June 2016, pp. 9–23.

Web Links

Commons : Felix Abraham  – Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Felix Abraham in the German National Library catalogue
• dr medical Felix Abraham , online exhibition Institute for Sexology (1919-1933) – with photo
• Herbert Henck : Ellen Epstein (1898-1942) – A Jewish artist from Silesia – With information about her friend Abraham, as of January 17, 2008, footnote 62
• Waßmer Jörg, in: Blog “Alles um Liebe” Sexual Diversity in the Collection of the Jewish Museum on July 28, 2018, https://www.jmberlin.de/blog/author/joerg-wassmer/ with a rare photo by Felix Abraham im Sexology Institute Berlin.

Itemizations

1. Memorial plaque Dr. Felix Abraham , Magnus Hirschfeld Society website, accessed May 26, 2017.
2. Josef Hynie: On the history of sex research in Czechoslovakia , first published in:
   Rolf Gindorf and Erwin J. Haeberle (eds.): Sexology and Sexual Policy , Berlin 1992, pp. 91-117
3. The Unknown Hero of the Early Transgender Movement. In: www.queer.de. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .

Categories :

• Medic (20th Century)
• sexologist
• Emigrant from the German Reich at the time of National Socialism
• German
• Person for whom a stumbling block was laid in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district