Here are the erotic writings of a Jewish lesbian who met fame in Germany before and during the Nazi era.
Marie-Madeleine was a German Jew, lesbian poet and novelist whose eroticism and love for morphine was revealed in many of her shocking, sensational, and bestselling books of the early twentieth century. Born Gertrud Günther, and starting at age 15 she wrote over 46 books until 1932 when Nazis condemned her work as degenerate. In 1943 she entered a sanatorium for morphine addiction where she died a mysterious death while under the care of Nazis doctors.
Priestess of Morphine: The Lost Writings of Marie-Madeleine contains many of this fascinating woman’s works, translated for the first time into English, and also contains Stephen J. Gertz’s Foreword and Dr. Amy Shapiro’s Afterword explaining why Marie-Madeleine has become a rediscovered heroine of lesbian and drug literature. Fascinating period images from Marie-Madeleine’s lost literature and career supplement Dr. Ronald Siegel’s amazing rediscovery.
You, needle, who struck so true,
And stung my skin blood red, —
Pallid venom, blessings on you,
Whom into my veins I fed.
The pains that wildly scream,
Fall silent now, scarce aroused,
As dark clouds downward stream,
And let my sorrows calmly drowse.
from a poem titled “Morphium”
Don’t stand there at the door,
I don’t want to see you any more.
Don’t look at me so dazed and disorderly,
I can love only what belongs to me!
Along your throat the bloody tear, —
It’s not my mouth that bit you there!
And though for pity you hotly cry,
In my arms you never again will lie.
I do not want to save you. Go and putrefy, —
Bed down somewhere else. Rot and die!
And if my yearning for you consumes me, —
I can love only what belongs to me!
from a poem titled “Unfaithful” ✪
