Description

Berlin: Hilde Radusch, September 12, 1975. Single page A4 sized TLS on Hildegard Radusch letterhead to Boris Freiherr von Kleppek together with a 10 pp. A4 sized type written radio dialogue sleep story (+1 pg. cover). Sleep story with minor handwritten corrections presumably by Radusch. In German. Very good with minor creasing to edges.

Hilde Radusch (1903-1994) is described by the influential Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld as ”one of the most important members of the lesbian-gay emancipation movement in the German speaking world” (translated). Radusch was a communist activist, part of the anti-fascist resistance, persecuted and imprisoned during the Third Reich, and a prominent Feminist and Lesbian activist. Known for her Gender-fluid poetry, the quote on her Berlin memorial tablet reads: “I have never felt that I am a woman; but do not ask what it is who I feel to be” (translated).

On offer is a TLS from Radusch to the Berlin musician and conductor Boris Freiherr von Kleppek explaining to von Kleppek that she wrote the enclosed manuscript for a radio program. The radio show never used the manuscript and perhaps he could make use of it. The manuscript is a 10-page narrative for radio entitled “Einschlaf-Gespräche” (Falling Asleep Conversations). This sleep story by Radusch is—as far as we can tell—completely unrecorded and unknown.

The dialogue follows two flying creatures (presumably birds, but not described) as they visit people before they fall asleep. It is dark, mysterious, and explores questions of identity and belonging that arise in the moments prior to sleep.

We have translated a representative section:

H. So you don’t like it here?

L. Yes, I do! I have never had such a nice aftertaste of how my life progressed. I live everything once again.

H. But aren’t you sad?

L. You don’t know how satisfying it is to be truly sad. You relive everything prettier than it was the first time. And then I think about this (falls asleep) and on that…

H. What do you say now?

L. Content sadness.

In one poignant section of the dialogue, the birds talk to a sheep. The sheep complains that it’s always the other sheep that receive the best grass. The sheep explains that they are marked, marked with a black spot. The birds explain that this makes the sheep different and interesting—but the sheep explains, no—I have the black mark and am always disadvantaged in the society of sheep.

An interesting unrecorded sleep story manuscript from an important figure in European LGBTQ+ rights.

For more on Radusch, please see the websites of the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld and Das feministische Archiv FFBIZ in Berlin (which is where Radusch’s papers and diaries are preserved). A book that discusses Radusch’s life extensively is Andrea Rottmann’s Queer Lives across the Wall: Desire and Danger in Divided Berlin 1945-1970. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023.

For more on the resurgence of sleep stories see Hillary Richard “Once Upon a Time… Bedtime Stores Were Just for Kids.” New York Times, January 1, 2022.

Price: $950

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