Richard Oswald’s ‘Aufklärungsfilm’ was one of the first films in the world to deal with the subject of homosexuality, and also is an important film in the history of trans and intersex identities. It features the sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, who also consulted on the film. The film’s reception history enables a discussion of censorship mechanisms within the Weimar Republic, and its reconstruction is ideal for focusing attention on the materiality of the filmic medium. It remains only in a fragment, reconstructed based on documents, censorship records and a Hirschfeld documentary that retained some scenes from the film.