Max Hodann


Max Julius Carl Alexander Hodann was a German physician, eugenicist, sex educator and Marxist, "the best-known and most controversial medical sex educationalist in the Weimar Republic". He wrote for a working-class readership and for children. After 1933, as a refugee from Nazi Germany, he lived predominantly in Norway and Sweden.

Life

Max Hodann was born in Neisse, Upper Silesia, the son of a military doctor. After his father died in 1899, Hodann and his mother moved to Berlin, then to Meran in the Tyrol, and back to Berlin in 1904. He was educated at a Berlin gymnasium and took part in the German Youth Movement. He studied medicine at the University of Berlin, graduating in 1919.
Hodann was a medical health officer in Reinickendorf, Berlin from 1922 to 1923. He worked at Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science from 1926 to 1929 as head of sexual counseling and the "eugenic department for mother and child" He organized public question-and-answer sex education evenings, and wrote several sex education publications which were temporarily banned. He was a member of the Association of Socialist Physicians and the National League for [Birth Control and Sexual Hygiene] in Weimar Germany.
Hodann was arrested in February 1933, and detained without trial for several months. He crossed the border to Switzerland, staying briefly in France, the Netherlands and Denmark before living in England, where he was unsuccessful in efforts to set up an Institute. Moving to Norway, where he was financially supported by the Norwegian workers' organization Workers' Justice Fund, he published articles on family and sexuality in the Norwegian workers' press. After visiting Palestine in 1934, he co-authored a book with Lise Lindbæk about the Jewish return to Palestine. He worked as a military doctor in Spain during the Civil War from 1937 to 1938, returning to Norway and publishing a children's novel in Norwegian under the pseudonym Henry M. Dawes. Shortly before the German invasion of Norway in 1940, he moved to Sweden. There he published a novel worked with German military deserters, as well as with the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education. He died from an asthma attack in Stockholm on 17 December 1946. There are papers at the Archives of the Swedish Municipal Workers' Union in Stockholm.

Works

Die Jugend zum Sexualproblem, Leipzig, 1916.Schriften zur Jugendbewegung, Leipzig: Radelli & Hille, 1916.Die Urburschenschaft als Jugendbewegung; in zeitgenössischen Berichten zur Jahrhundertfeier des Wartburgfestes, Jena: E. Diederichs, 1917Die sozialhygienische Bedeutung der Beratungsstellen für Geschlechtskranke: unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Beratungsstelle der Landesversicherungsanstalt Berlin, Leipzig: Vogel, 1919. Doctoral dissertation, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität BerlinDeutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, Vol. 45, No. 50, p. 1389
  • 'Aus den Parlamenten', Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, Vol. 45, No. 51, p. 1423
  • "Hygienische Maßnahmen in Sowjet-Rußland", Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, Vol. 45, No. 52, p. 1442-3Erziehungsarbeit und Klassenkampf, Jena, Thür. Verlagsanstalt und DruckereiEltern und Kleinkinder-Hygiene , Leipzig: Oldenburg, 1923.Bub und Mädel. Gespräche unter Kameraden über die Geschlechterfrage, Leipzig: Oldenburg, 1924. Foreword by Paul Oestreich.
  • * Translated by Boris Osipovich Finkelʹshteĭn into Russian, 1925; translated into Ukrainian, 1925.
  • * Translated into Swedish as Saker som man inte talar om, Stockholm: Arbetarkultur, 1934.Der jugendliche Mensch und der Erzieher, Berlin, 1925.Woher die Kinden kommen: Ein Lehrbuch, für Kinder lesbar, Rudolstadt: Greifenverlag, 1926. Illustrated by Willi Geißler. New edition as Bringt uns wirklich der Klapperstorch? Ein Lehrbuch, für Kinder lesbar Geschlecht und Liebe in biologischer und gesellschaftlicher Beziehung, Rudolstadt: Greifenverl., 1927.
  • * Translated by Jerome Gibbs as Sex life in Europe: A biological and sociological survey, New York: The Gargoyle Press, 1932.Der Mensch, sein Körper und seine Lebenstätigkeit, München: Birk, 1927.Sexualpädagogik: Erziehungshygiene und Gesundheitspolitik. Gesammelte Aufsätze u. Vortr. , Rudolstadt/Thür.: Greifenverl., 1928.Elternhygiene : Eugenik für Erzieher, Rudolstadt: Greifenverl., 1928.Von der Kunst des Liebesverkehrs, Rudolstadt i. Thür.: Greifenverl., 1928Die Sexualnot der Erwachsenen, Rudolstadt: Greifenverl., 1928.Sexualelend und Sexualberatung, Thür. Rudolstadt, 1928Unzucht! Unzucht! Herr Staatsanwalt! zur Naturgeschichte des deutschen Schamgefühls, Rudolstadt: Greifenverlag, 1928Onanie: weder Laster noch Krankheit, Berlin: Universitas, 1929Sowjetunion: Gestern, Heute, Morgen, Berlin: Universitas, 1931Der slawische Gürtel um Deutschland; Polen, die Tschechoslowakei und die deutschen Ostprobleme, Berlin: Universitas, 1932Jødene vender hjem, Oslo: Aschehoug, 1934.The New Birth Control and Abortion Law in Iceland. Reprinted from the Marriage Hygiene, etc., Bombay, 1936.Sex and Modern Morality. Reprinted from the "Marriage Hygiene," etc., Bombay, 1936. Translated by Stella Browne.History of modern morals, London, W. Heinemann ltd, 1937. Translated by Stella Browne from the unpublished German original.Jakob går over grensen, Oslo: Tiden Norsk Forlag, 1938.