Hans-Günter Klein


Hans-Günter Klein was a German musicologist, librarian, art historian, LGBT activist and researcher on the Mendelssohn family.

Life and activity

During the Second World War, the Klein family fled to Pomerania. After that he grew up in Hamburg, where he studied musicology, philosophy and history of art. In 1969 he received his doctorate. He immediately moved to Berlin to the music department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, whose Mendelssohn Archive he joined after Rudolf Elvers left the library and headed it for fifteen years.
Klein was heavily involved in research on musicians who were persecuted or ostracized during the National Socialist era, including Viktor Ullmann and Gideon Klein. Klein, who had also met Magnus Hirschfeld's collaborator Kurt Hiller, was one of the initiators of the founding of the, the founding meeting took place in his apartment in 1982. Klein was also one of the founding members of the Kurt Hiller Society.
Klein died in Berlin at the age of 76 and found his final resting place at Friedhof I der Dreifaltigkeitsgemeinde, Mehringdamm 21 in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

Publications