Documentary Review: ‘Sex and the Swastika’ (1999)
Sometimes mainstream television documentaries can actually point out useful information without actually meaning to.
Meredith Chambers’ 1999 ‘Sex and the Swastika’ (1) is a good example of just that because it starts out by narrating the history of sex-based anti-Nazi propaganda as a means used by the British the ‘Political Warfare Executive’ (or PWE) (2) – the far less-known sister agency to the infamous ‘Special Operations Executive’ (or SOE) – (3) to try and undermine as well as discredit the Third Reich’s leadership in the eyes of their citizens and troops. (4)
It rightly points out that the main later source for these claims was the American ‘Office for Strategic Services’ (or OSS) – SOE and PWE’s American cousin – which created the ‘secret dossier’ on the ‘sex life of Adolf Hitler’ (5) and that the author of this ‘secret dossier’ was the non-jewish Freudian psychiatrist Walter Langer (6) and that all the ‘unusual sexual preferences’ claims were based entirely on gossip. (7)
Even as ‘Sex and the Swastika’ recounts the rumours that Hitler was a homosexual, impotent, perverted and/or promiscuous; (8) it correctly notes that the ‘evidence’ Langer collected was ‘very inconsistent’ and downright contradictory most of the time which makes sense given that it is – as I noted above - was based entirely on gossip.
It is ironic but while almost all Langer’s findings have been long been dismissed by biographers of Hitler and historians of the Third Reich; (9) they have been picked up and widely cited by (largely jewish) Freudian ‘psycho-historians’ in the 1950s to 1970s then were in turn picked by the so-called ‘Christian conservatives’ in the 1980s to the 2000s.
As Ron Rosenbaum explains:
‘The other group that has joined the Freudians in promoting the notion of a sexual secret – indeed, formed, in effect, a strange explanatory alliance with them – consists of a number of embittered ex-Nazi defectors from Hitler’s inner circle, former intimates such as Otto Strasser, Ernst Hanfstaengl, and (to a lesser extent) Hermann Rauschning. If the mostly Jewish Freudians lacked inside information and the former Nazi leaders lacked objectivity and theory, the two groups found – at a distance – common ground in their vision of Hitler, with the Freudians frequently adapting the Strasser and Hanfstaengl perversion stories as confirmation for their speculations.’ (10)
What a lot of these ‘psycho-historians’ and ‘Christian conservatives’ leave out is something that ‘Sex and the Swastika’ actually mentions because along with the claims that Hitler was a homosexual, (11) a paedophile, (12) into sadomasochism (13) and/or had one testicle. (14) This is that Hitler was linked to a lot of young women in Germany in terms of them being his sexual partners. (15)
Now this is more a case of ‘Sex and the Swastika’ being accidentally right as they are talking post-1932 which is not correct but if they were talking pre-1932 then they would be correct. Since we know the names of numerous confirmed Hitler girlfriends such as Mimi Reiter and Jenny Haug with others more speculative but strongly suspected such as Winifred Wagner, Helene Hanfstaengl and Henrietta Hoffmann. (16)
In truth this quite spectacular mistake by Langer quoted by ‘Sex and the Swastika’ illustrates how bad the information Langer had to go on was with his principal sources being Alfred Zeisler, Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl and Otto Strasser.
Alfred Zeisler was a jewish film director who had worked in Germany in the 1920s; (17) who claimed Hitler asked him to send young actresses over to apartment(s) between 1926 and 1931 (18) and then Hitler would spend his time telling them about medieval torture methods. (19) He also claimed Hitler had an affair with the actress Renate Muller who he begged to kick him while he was on the floor. (20)
This is very clearly nonsense as Renate Muller wasn’t in any way associated with the NSDAP till after 1933!
Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl was another source of Langer’s who claimed that Hitler had sadomasochistic tendencies. (21)
Hanfstaengl - despite seeming to be a solid source as he was indeed an early member of the NSDAP and a confident of Hitler - is quickly revealed not to be when we note that he was discovered to be a completely unreliable fantasist by British intelligence in 1940 and then in the United States by the OSS and President Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 whose judgment has long been echoed by biographers of Hitler. (22)
Indeed, British intelligence’s verdict on Hanfstaengl’s credibility is pretty damning: he was ‘an adventurer, untrustworthy and a liar.’ (23)
His motives indeed may well have been more personal as there is some speculation that Hitler may have cuckolded him and had an affair with his wife Helene. (24) This alone would give Hanfstaengl plenty of good reasons to spread false rumours about Hitler’s sexuality after his arrival in the United States in 1940.
Hanfstaengl does however repeat the famous fable of Hitler’s alleged sexual relationship with his niece Geli Raubal (25) and claims that Hitler beat Geli with his riding whip and gained sadistic pleasure from it. (26)
I’ve explained why the traditional Geli narrative is completely backwards not to mention silly in a previous article where I wrote how:
‘The entire relationship between Adolf Hitler and Geli Raubal is almost certainly a case of history being read to suit an agenda in the first instance because there is absolutely no evidence of a sexual relationship whatsoever.
In the second, the popular and heavily promoted ‘Geli committed suicide to get away from Hitler’s loathsome sexual advances’ narrative is actually the wrong way around and this narrative comes from the SPD (the German Socialist Party) aligned ‘Münchener Post’ in the immediate aftermath of her death – probably as a way to make political capital out of Geli’s suicide - and was immediately explicitly denied publicly by Hitler.
Indeed, one of Hitler’s contemporaries and earliest biographers John Toland performed extensive interviews with people who had known Hitler very well at the time (not just relying on Strasser and Hanfstaengl’s anti-Hitler gossip as so many have since) and concluded that Geli likely committed suicide because she wanted a sexual relationship with Hitler not Hitler with Geli and committed suicide because Hitler rejected her advances (preferring to stay as her kind caring uncle).
More important historical context usually excluded from the equation is that Hitler was often photographed with beautiful women who found him very attractive in the 1920s and 1930s and this appears to have severely upset Geli as well as caused other problems in Hitler’s love life.
This is known to have been the case since Hitler’s Vienna years between 1907 and 1913 and merely represents a continuation of Hitler’s love of women and their love of him.
More immediate context to support Toland’s argument was discovered only in 1959 when Mimi Reiter’s relationship with Hitler from 1926 to 1931 came to light. The relationship between Mimi Reiter and Hitler reveals Hitler (at worst) to be completely normal sexually as well as the fact that Reiter was completely infatuated with Hitler.
That Reiter and Hitler’s relationship occurred at almost exactly the same time at the alleged one between Geli Raubal and Hitler lends significant force to Toland’s argument that Geli committed suicide in Hitler’s flat with his pistol on 18th September 1931 not because she wanted to marry someone else or because she couldn’t bear Hitler’s sexual advances, but rather because Hitler didn’t reciprocate Geli’s feelings and desire for something more than a close uncle-niece friendship (remember Adolf and Angela Hitler’s father and mother were also uncle and niece) as even Kershaw admits.’ (27)
Thus, we can immediately see the problem with Hanfstaengl’s narrative as well as the ‘Hitler murdered Geli’ narrative (28) after Geli was ‘appalled by Hitler’s sexual demands’ (29) which included Geli urinating on Hitler (30) and was promoted by Langer’s third main source (and philo-Semite): Otto Strasser.
Indeed, something that ‘Sex and the Swastika’ draws out very well – and is almost unique in doing so I might add – is that opposition anti-Nazi press – they specifically show the SPD-aligned ‘Münchener Post’s’ title pages – were already trying to use sexual scandals to bring down Hitler and the NSDAP when Geli committed suicide (31) and the (often jewish-owned) newspapers then used this as well to spread rumours. (32)
It also rightly mentions that Hitler successfully sued the ‘Münchener Post’ for libel and forced them to print a full retraction of the claims about his relationship with Geli and his alleged role in her death (33) which is rarely mentioned by those who claim that Hitler murdered and/or had a sexual relationship with Geli because it rather puts the kibosh on their pet theory.
Indeed ‘Sex and the Swastika’ ends by having historian Anna Maria Sigmund simply that as regards Hitler:
‘There is no historical evidence of perversions of any kind.’ (34)
All in all ‘Sex and the Swastika’ is pretty fair to Hitler as regards his sexuality since even while promoting the myth that Hitler was ‘sexually abnormal’ the documentary does take pains to state that is ‘hard to separate fact from fiction’ (35) as to stress that PWE was deliberately spreading sexually-based anti-Nazi propaganda that senior figures in the NSDAP and the Wehrmacht were ‘homosexuals and sadomasochists’ (36) which was deliberately distorted and ‘improved’ (aka made far worse) from gossip received by PWE. (37)
A good example of a frequent PWE target was Munich City councillor and SS General Christian Weber (38) with them falsely claiming that Weber ‘engaged in orgies’ and nicknamed him ‘The Stallion of Reims’. (39)
Thus, we can see that ‘Sex and the Swastika’ reveals the tension that exists in television documentaries of this kind in that it strives to seem like it is being ‘fair and balanced’ when in truth it is mentioning all sorts of long-discarded misinformation and gossip then claiming and/or implying it has some kind of ‘factual basis’ (40) to make the watcher believe there is more truth to these false claims than not.
Such is the power of good propaganda!
References
(1) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5911494/
(2) ‘Sex and the Swastika’, 2 minutes; 5 seconds
(3) Ibid., 3 minutes; 5 seconds
(4) Ibid., 0 minutes; 20 seconds
(5) Ibid., 0 minutes; 35 seconds
(6) Ibid., 20 minutes; 35 seconds
(7) Ibid., 22 minutes: 40 seconds
(8) Ibid., 23 minutes; 20 seconds
(9) Ibid., 46 minutes; 25 seconds
(10) Ron Rosenbaum, 1998, ‘Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of his Evil’, 1st Edition, MacMillan: London, p. 137
(11) Debunked here: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-adolf-hitler-a-homosexual
(12) Debunked here: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-adolf-hitler-a-paedophile-andor
(13) Debunked here: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-adolf-hitler-into-sexual-sadomasochism
(14) Debunked here: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/did-adolf-hitler-only-have-one-testicle
(15) ‘Sex and the Swastika’, 23 minutes; 25 seconds
(16) Ian Kershaw, 2001, ‘Hitler’, Vol. 1, 1st Edition, Penguin: New York, p. 352
(17) ‘Sex and the Swastika’, 23 minutes; 50 seconds
(18) Kershaw, Op. Cit., pp. 353-354
(19) ‘Sex and the Swastika’, 24 minutes; 5 seconds
(20) Ibid., 25 minutes; 20 seconds
(21) Ibid., 25 minutes; 50 seconds
(22) Rosenbaum, Op. Cit., pp. 128-134; Ian Kershaw, Op. Cit., pp. 46; 352; Ernst Hanfstaengl, Richard Evans, 2005, ‘The Unknown Hitler: Notes from the Young Nazi Party’, 1st Edition, Gibson Square: London, p. 19
(23) Hanfstaengl, Evans, Op. Cit., p. 19
(24) Kershaw, Op. Cit., p. 352
(25) ‘Sex and the Swastika’, 28 minutes; 30 seconds; also 29 minutes; 0 seconds to 32 minutes; 0 seconds
(26) Ibid., 28 minutes, 35 seconds
(27) From my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-adolf-hitler-a-paedophile-andor
(28) ‘Sex and the Swastika’, 32 minutes; 10 seconds and also 35 minutes; 30 seconds to 36 minutes; 10 seconds
(29) Ibid., 32 minutes; 25 seconds
(30) Ibid., 32 minutes; 40 seconds
(31) Ibid., 36 minutes; 40 seconds
(32) Ibid., 37 minutes; 5 seconds; also, Kershaw, Op. Cit., pp. 353-354
(33) ‘Sex and the Swastika’, 38 minutes; 25 seconds
(34) Ibid., 46 minutes; 30 seconds
(35) Ibid., 28 minutes; 50 seconds
(36) Ibid., 8 minutes; 10 seconds
(37) Ibid., 8 minutes; 25 seconds
(38) Ibid., 9 minutes; 10 seconds
(39) Ibid., 9 minutes; 25 seconds
(40) Ibid., 7 minutes; 20 seconds; 8 minutes; 27 seconds
There are claims about Hitler's sexual perversions galore in Trevor Ravenscroft's The Spear of Destiny, surely a product of British Intelligence. The book's eye witness account of the chancellor only having one testicle is made by Walter Johannes Stein, a Jewish anthroposophist who lived in Vienna at the same time as Hitler.
Your passing mention of Freudian psycho-historians of the 70s who also latched onto claims of Hitler's sexual neuroses reminded me of a group w/ the same name in the early aughts that I was involved with for a while in NYC. It was headed by Lloyd DeMause and most of its leading lights were Jewish. Their main issue was repressive child rearing practices and infant abuse leaving indelible scars on the psyche. Probably not a continuation of the same group, tho I'm sure they would have condemned Hitler's upbringing as being too strict.
I hope you don't mind me ranting but I'm damn sick of this culture of calumny. It is ignoble to the core. This shows how far down the sewage pipe of subversion Europeans had variously gotten due to such subversive influence as Jews can muster, which had gotten to the point of about 50 and more generations or so by that point, even in England, so far away was it from the Judeo-Romanic radial center of this influence, Judea's "Headquarters Europe". Before the antics of the Papal regimes (the various "crowns" of Europe under his pimpage), this sort of idiocy, even in war, would have been unthinkable, as would have most of the war and strife seen since their influence. The pinnacle of hypocrisy and subversion of the soul, the Papacy and its offshoot authoritarian rackets diminished the dignity and honor of the aristocrat and common man alike, while ensuring the complete protection of the Jew, shuffling him around the realms under Papal control whenever the people have had enough of them, in the same way that it has shuffled its pedo priests around to different parishes when they are caught. Rather than these sorts of things happening and this sort of low-ditch vileness of tongue I'd rather men kill each other in duels on as regular a basis as is necessary to prevent it, another thing this wretched imposition took from us.