Fritz Flato (1895-1949)

(this text can also be heard in the audio clip)

Fritz Flato was born in Berlin on January 4, 1895. He came from a Jewish family and grew up at Kommandantenstraße 63-64. He studied law in Breslau and set up as a lawyer and notary in his parents’ house in 1925.

Fritz Flato lived a relatively openly gay life – a courageous stance at the time. Flato courageously defended homosexuals in court who were accused because of their sexual orientation. He also stood up for freedom of expression by representing publishers and authors in censorship proceedings. In 1927, for example, he defended the Radszuweit publishing house, which published the lesbian magazine “Die Freundin”, against accusations of producing “trashy and dirty literature”. Flato argued that the magazine was a harmless publication … “clean and impeccable” and that its inclusion in the list of trashy and dirty literature would amount to the suppression of a sexual minority.

From the early 1920s, Flato was involved in the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (WhK), the world’s first homosexual organization. The WhK was closely linked to Magnus Hirschfeld, and its members often met in the rooms of Hirschfeld’s institute, where the House of World Cultures is located today. Flato was a member of the board for legal affairs from 1930 and offered free legal advice in his office every Wednesday from 6 to 7 pm.

When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, this relative freedom came to an end. Flato was one of the few Jewish lawyers who initially remained licensed, presumably due to his voluntary participation in the war.

Fritz Flato was committed to the activist and WhK board member Kurt Hiller during his internment in a concentration camp. When Hiller was arrested for the third time in 1933 and sent to a concentration camp, Flato campaigned for his release. Despite the increasing dangers for Jewish lawyers, Flato submitted several petitions to the Gestapo. In his memoirs, Hiller later recalled with gratitude: “In response to the umpteenth petition from my lawyer Dr. Flato, who, although Jewish, was still allowed to work at the time because he had the rescue medal […] the Gestapo inquired with the Oranienburg camp administration about the degree of my ‘readiness for release’ and about my state of health.”

Flato’s persistent commitment ultimately contributed to Hiller’s release from the Oranienburg concentration camp in 1934. This courageous stand for his friend and colleague, despite the personal risks in the initial phase of the Nazi regime, underlines Flato’s integrity and civil courage.

In 1935, he was stripped of his notary’s office and his license to practice law, and in December he was forced to immigrate to New York.

We can assume that in the early 1930s Fritz Flato had a relationship with Benjamin Hartwig, who was 21 at the time and had an impressive athletic body. The two remained in contact even after Flato went into exile and Hartwig supported the Flato families in applying for compensation in the post-war period.

In exile, Flato was unable to build on his professional successes in Berlin. His German law degree was not recognized in the USA. In 1945, he applied to take part in the Nuremberg trials on behalf of the American government. The rejection was a heavy blow for Flato.

He no longer wanted to live in Germany: “I have no desire to return to Germany,” he wrote to Kurt Hiller in 1945. “It will bear the marks of poison for generations to come.”

The loss of his homeland and the lack of career prospects weighed heavily on him. In May 1949, Fritz Flato ended his own life in New York.

Today, a memorial stele at Kommandantenstraße 62 commemorates Fritz Flato and his work.