By Marc David Baer

Publisher: Columbia University Press (April 2020)

German, Jew, Muslim, Gay offers an astonishing perspective on the history of modern Germany and German-speaking Central Europe from the vantage of a man who united multiple marginal identities in himself, devoted his life to promoting religious utopias and secular brotherhoods, and considered himself as part of a spiritual elite that held the key to Germany’s salvation. Hugo Marcus (b., 1880, Posen [today, Poznañ], Poland; d., 1966, Basel, Switzerland) was an extraordinary individual. He is the only figure to have played an important role in the gay rights movement and in establishing Islam in Germany.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: Fighting for Gay Rights in Berlin, 1900–1925
CHAPTER 2: Queer Convert: Protestant Islam in Weimar Germany, 1925–1933
CHAPTER 3: A Jewish Muslim in Nazi Berlin, 1933–1939
CHAPTER 4: Who Writes Lives: Swiss Refuge, 1939–1965
CHAPTER 5: Hans Alienus: Yearning, Gay Writer, 1948–1965
Conclusion: A Goethe Mosque for Berlin

Source: Columbia University Press