Eros in Prison

An illumination of the sexual misery of prisoners, written on the basis of personal experiences, observations and reports during eight years of imprisonment. With a foreword by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld / Dr. med. Felix Abraham, doctors at the Institute for Sexual Science, Berlin. Translated from the German, introduced and annotated by Ed Walker. Karl Plättner (1893-1945) was a communist revolutionary and author. He took part in the armed uprising following the Kapp putsch and became a founding member of the anti-parliamentary Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) in April 1920. During the March Action of 1921 in Central Germany Plättner, together with Max Hoelz was one of the leading militant leaders of insurrectionary workers. After the failure of the uprising, he tried to redirect the struggle towards clandestine actions and robberies. While in prison, he renounced political terrorism and individual acts of expropriation, returning to the German Communist Party. The publication of his book Eros im Zuchthaus (Eros in Prison) caused a sensation. Plättner discussed, with great frankness for the times, topics such as masturbation, homosexuality and the situation of pregnant women in prison. The book was also mentioned in the opening credits of the 1928 film Geschlecht in Fesseln (Sex in Chains) directed by William Dieterle, for which Plättner worked as a consultant. The introduction by Ed Walker follows Plättner through the years of persecution by the Nazis, his life in concentration camps, and his final collapse after liberation.