Was Adolf Hitler a Homosexual?
The spurious claim that Adolf Hitler was an active homosexual – or had at least experimented with homosexuality – at some point in his life is a common trope of so-called ‘Conservative’ and ‘Christian’ attacks on the former German leader. Many of these attacks are not motivated by a sincere conviction that Hitler was a homosexual but rather are a desperate slur based on a desire to find reasons to attack and/or delegitimize Hitler and his ideology National Socialism.
In this essay I will put to bed the basis for these claims and also demonstrate why they are not only wrong but are directly contrary to the evidence just as I have dealt with the myths that Hitler was a paedophile/child molester (1) and/or was part-jewish/had Rothschild ancestry in separate articles. (2)
The first thing to note by way of beginning is the fact that a lot of authors use bad evidence and try to weaponize allegations about Hitler’s sexuality (not limited to Hitler’s alleged homosexuality) and a lot of the ‘sources’ for this were previous supporters of Hitler trying to get back at him such as Otto Strasser and Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl. (3)
Most of these allegations date back to prominent anti-Nazi jewish journalists like Konrad Heiden (4) and were then heavily pushed by predominately jewish Freudians as Rosenbaum has pointed out:
‘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.’ (5)
Proponents of the ‘sexual secret’ theory – of which homosexuality is but one albeit one of the more prominent – then engage in some ‘guilt by association’ to ‘prove’ their hypothesis as Plant explains:
‘What they did was to indict him by association. Because SA chief Ernst Roehm was admittedly an active homosexual, these writers concluded that the dictator himself and all of his top henchmen must have shared Roehm’s inclinations.’ (6)
That this is a system of ‘proof’ that really isn’t proof of anything can easily be seen in assertions as varied as Lawrence Mass’ claim that ‘homosexuals heavily influenced early Nazism’ (7) and prominent anti-Nazi journalist and early historian of the Third Reich William L. Shirer’s unevidenced claim that:
‘No matter how murky their past or indeed their present. Murderers, pimps, homosexuals, perverts or just plain rowdies were all to the same to Hitler if they served their purpose.’ (8)
This is seen in the most exhaustive of modern attempts to argue the thesis that Hitler was a homosexual at some point in his life, which is Lothar Machtan’s 2001 book ‘The Hidden Hitler’.
The problem with Machtan’s thesis is not only that it is almost entirely based on the previously described dubious testimony of Otto Strasser and Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl without mentioning the fact both are known to lie such as Strasser’s claim that Hitler’s bodyguards were all ‘100 percent homosexual’ – which is simply wrong - which unsurprisingly he doesn’t really mention although Walter Langer does in his book arguing that Hitler was a homosexual. (9)
Machtan’s case is – for example - based on asking leading questions – as well as begging the question - such as his uncritical citation of an alleged reading of General Otto von Lossow’s transcript of an alleged homosexual prostitute in Munich named ‘Michael’s’ unsupported claim that Hitler propositioned him for sex in December 1923 from Eugen Dollmann’s biography of Otto von Lossow and his alleged ‘secret papers’. (10)
Machtan then speculates that there is no other reason Hitler would have attracted the support of older, experienced men such as Dietrich Eckart and Ernst Roehm unless they were having sex with him. (11)
This is obviously a ludicrous argument to make because it basically asserts that older men would never follow a younger one unless they were having sex with one another, which would necessarily suggest that say older Macedonian soldiers/officers would never have followed Alexander the Great unless he was also having sex with them which clearly could not have been the case.
Machtan’s argument just doesn’t make any sense, but it does show you how sparse the evidence for ‘Hitler’s homosexuality’ is!
We’ll come back to Machtan’s assertions and why they are wrong later, but for now let’s move to the best piece of evidence for the ‘Hitler was a homosexual’ theory which is found in the memoirs of Hitler’s close friend during his Vienna days between 1907 and 1913 August Kubizek.
Kubizek is generally regarded as a reliable source because his account is neither fantastic nor propagandistic and has also been well verified as far as it can be.
As Jones explains:
‘The three ate dinner amid lively conversation and after thanking him for the dinner and returning to the Stumpergasse, Hitler and Kubizek began discussing the man.
“He’s a homosexual,” said Adolf baldly.
This startled Kubizek, and Hitler had to explain to his friend just what the word meant. Then Hitler went into a tirade as to how homosexuality would not allowed in his “ideal state.”’ (12)
Jones then clarifies the point about why this is the best evidence for Hitler’s homosexuality as follows:
‘‘Hitler, the product of turn-of-the-century Vienna, could have made it into a later edition of Krafft-Ebing. Stories have abounded about his supposed homosexuality. There was the fact of his knowing immediately that the man who invited Kubizek and him to dinner one night in the spring of 1908 was a homosexual. This points, at the very least, to a knowledge of such practices by this monkish youth who was supposedly keeping away from worldly infection.’ (13)
Jones’ point is well taken even if it is rhetorical because he rightly asks the obvious how the young Hitler knew the man was a homosexual if he’d not had experience of such encounters before.
However, the problem with taking this as evidence is that it assumes without justification that the only reason Hitler would know the man was a homosexual trying to sexually proposition both Kubizek and him is because Hitler had gone with such a man – or even that particular homosexual – before.
What Jones ignores is the simple fact that there are multiple more obvious solutions to this problem such as Hitler had naively gone with such a man before but refused his sexual advances, that Hitler had read of the practice (he is universally admitted to have been a voracious reader even at this early stage of his life) and assumed (rightly or wrongly) that this was what the man wanted then acted accordingly or Hitler could have known other young men who this has happened to and who had consented/refused the invitation.
Indeed, Hanfstaengl’s later claim that where Hitler lived in Vienna was a notorious haunt of homosexuals – often used to buttress the ‘Hitler was a homosexual’ argument – (14) could actually be read here as evidence for the opposite given that this that’d neatly explain how and why Hitler knew of the practice without Hitler being an active or passive homosexual himself as Kershaw has also implied in his discussion of this passage from Kubizek. (15)
After all, one doesn’t have to be a homosexual to understand homosexual practices.
Jones however is honest enough to point out that there is very little real evidence of Hitler’s homosexuality and much often not mentioned evidence against it writing that:
‘Evidence of Hitler’s homosexuality is far from conclusive. Reports such as those of a German doctor, himself a homosexual, who X-rayed Hitler before the war, tend to discount the homosexual theories: “As a homosexual I was fascinated by Hitler’s eyes, speech and gait, but I could tell at once he was not one of us.”’ (16)
We can thus see that the case for Hitler’s homosexuality is very weak and based on myopic interpretations of little pieces of evidence without entertaining obvious alternative explanations.
Walter Langer’s argument for Hitler’s homosexuality offers a good case to illustrate the point as he tries to read homosexuality into Hitler’s life claiming (without evidence) that Hitler’s photographer Heinrich Hoffmann’s home was a ‘meeting place for homosexuals’, (17) that (future Hitler Youth Leader) Baldur von Schirach was a homosexual (18) then bringing up the notoriously inaccurate Rauschning as testimony concerning Hitler’s homosexuality during the 1920s (19) and Hanfstaengl as hearsay evidence of Hitler’s homosexuality between 1907 and 1913 (his Vienna days). (20)
Langer also throws in the (false) claim that Hitler was found guilty of paederasty by the Munich police also based on Rauschning (21) and which is possibly referring to the same ‘Michael’ testimony cited by Machtan. (22)
In order to make his claims seem more reasonable Langer (unlike Machtan) concedes that Hitler had sexual relationships with at least two film actresses between 1926 and 1931 (23) who he names as ‘Renarte Mueller’ [Langer means Renate Müller] (24) and Leni Riefenstahl (25).
Neither of these claims is likely to be true as Müller was not associated with NSDAP till after 1933 and Riefenstahl first saw Hitler speak in 1932. However, there were multiple other women in Hitler’s life between 1926 and 1932 as I will document later.
Langer then goes on to go from this brief foray into Hitler’s heterosexual relationships to claiming that seeing Hitler as a homosexual is a matter of belief (not absolute fact) (26) which he uses as a way of trying to downplay his documented relationships with women while claiming the idea that Hitler had ‘at least one homosexual relationship in his life’ (I paraphrase but that’s the sum of his point) is inherently reasonable. (27)
Langer further throws in Otto Strasser’s ludicrous claim that Hitler’s personal bodyguard was always ‘100 percent composed of homosexuals’ as if it were fact [it isn’t] (28) and then proceeds to assert that we have no information of any heterosexual relationships up till after Hitler’s release from Landsberg prison on 20th December 1924. (29)
The historical truth is very different to what Langer and Machtan claim, and this is not hard to point out when we address their claims regarding Hitler’s known heterosexual relationships.
Let’s begin with the popular and heavily promoted ‘Geli committed suicide to get away from Hitler’s loathsome sexual advances’ narrative, which is cited by Machtan as part of his evidence for ‘Hitler was a homosexual’ by claiming that Hitler’s relationship with Geli was a ‘cover’ for his homosexuality. (30)
Machtan’s interpretation of the relationship between Adolf Hitler and Geli Raubal is almost certainly a case of history being read to suit an agenda because while there is absolutely no evidence of a sexual relationship whatsoever. (31)
The claim is actually the wrong way around and the ‘Geli committed suicide to get away from Hitler’s loathsome sexual advances’ 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. (32)
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). (33)
More important historical context usually excluded from the equation is that Hitler was often photographed with beautiful women who we know 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. (34)
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, (35) which we know continued from the 1919 to the end of his life. (36)
More immediate context to support Toland’s argument of Hitler’s strident heterosexuality was discovered only in 1959 when Mimi Reiter’s relationship with Hitler from 1926 to 1931 came to light. (37) The relationship between Mimi Reiter and Hitler reveals Hitler (at worst) to be completely normal sexually (38) as well as the fact that Reiter was completely infatuated with Hitler. (39)
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. (40)
This already puts a completely different and far more plausible (and evidence-based!) interpretation Hitler and Geli’s relationship than Machtan’s claim that Geli was ‘cover’ for Hitler’s homosexuality.
But what about Hitler’s more famous (and last) relation with Eva Braun?
What do we know about Hitler and Eva Braun’s relationship?
The reality is that we know relatively little for certain (41) but from what we do know it is clear that Hitler cared deeply for Eva and made sure she was well-looked after from early on. (42) We also know that they met when Eva was working in Hitler’s long-time friend and photographer Heinrich Hoffmann’s photography shop in Munich in the autumn of 1929 when Eva was 16. (43)
Hitler and Eva’s relationship is often styled as ‘cold’ (44) and sometimes as ‘asexual’ by proponents of the ‘Hitler was a homosexual’ theory in order to downplay the idea that Hitler and Eva had a normal heterosexual romantic and sexual relationship in order to lend support their pet theory. (45)
Modern biographers such as Kershaw however have argued that in the absence of actual evidence to the contrary, we have to assume that Hitler and Eva’s relationship was both a love match (also indicated by Hitler marrying Eva in the Fuhrer Bunker before their deaths in 1945) and included a healthy amount of sexual intercourse. (46)
Bullock for example even directly implies that Hitler and Eva had a healthy sex life since ‘the original basis of their relationship was physical’. (47)
This also fits Hitler’s relationship with Mimi Reiter – which may have also been sexual – that was going on at the same time as Hitler’s relationship with Eva and also further adds to the picture of a Geli Raubal desperate for Hitler’s attention and for him to go beyond an uncle-niece and into a sexual relationship with her.
We also know of other women that Hitler seems to have been dating on and off at this time such as Jenny Haug (daughter of an early NSDAP member who was at one time Hitler’s chauffeur) and even Winifred Wagner. (48)
Still others Hitler may or may not have had romantic and/or sexual relationships with at this time include Helene Hanfstaengl (wife of Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl; who is one of the sources for much the spurious claims about Hitler’s homosexuality which may have been triggered by such a cuckolding scenario) and Henrietta Hoffmann (daughter of Heinrich Hoffmann; who was later to marry Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach in 1932). (49)
Thus, we can see in the foregoing discussion that despite the usual claims that Hitler was not particularly interested in sex – only heightened by Hitler’s own documented strident aversion to public discussion of sex and desire for women to be traditional wives and mothers – (50) are simply wrong and that while Hitler wasn’t like Julius Streicher (then Gauleiter of Franconia) and frequently propositioning any woman he met for sex (albeit frequently successfully). (51)
It is very clear that Hitler had numerous female admirers and that these predate even World War One as well as that Hitler appears to have a rather tumultuous private life and seems to have been dating at least two young women (primarily Mimi Reiter and Eva Braun) at the same time between 1929 and 1931 (as well as probably between 1926 and 1929) as well as that these relationships may well have also been sexual.
This then puts a completely different interpretation on the ‘evidence’ for Hitler’s alleged homosexuality and we can see from the foregoing discussion that this is an invention of whole cloth.
Even Kershaw reluctantly agrees when he writes how:
‘Hitler’s disturbed sexuality, his recoiling from physical contact, his fear of women, his inability to forge genuine friendships and emptiness in human relations, presumably had their roots in childhood experiences of a troubled family life. Attempts to them will inevitably remain speculative. Later rumours of Hitler’s sexual perversions are similarly based on dubious evidence. Conjecture – and there has been much of it – that sexual repression later gay way to sordid sado-masochistic practices rests, whatever the suspicions, on little more than a combination of rumour, hearsay, surmise and innuendo, often spiced up by his political enemies.’ (52)
While Bullock wrote how works purporting to argue the ‘sexual secret’ theory – which remember ‘Hitler was a homosexual’ is a common version of – are simply ‘misleading’. (53)
Indeed, while we can argue there were some notable homosexuals within the National Socialist movement, they were also few in number and viewed by Hitler with significant suspicion. (54)
The reason that Hitler has been labelled as a homosexual by some is also exhibited by Joseph Goebbels – then Gauleiter of Berlin – who was besieged by rumours that he was homosexual because he was unmarried, and his relationships with women never worked out too well until he met and married Magda Quandt. (55)
A not dissimilar situation to Hitler’s own romantic history during the 1920s and early 1930s!
Yet Goebbels has never been seriously accused of being a homosexual in large part because he was a notorious homophobe even within the ranks of the ardently anti-homosexual NSDAP! (56)
Richard Plant – a jewish homosexual himself – has pointed out that the ‘Hitler was a homosexual’ argument is one of convenience made by implication by major anti-Nazi writers on Hitler and the Third Reich giving the examples of both Joachim Fest and William L. Shirer who deliberately ignore the NSDAP’s hatred and near immediate (and very public!) destruction of Germany’s homosexual movement centred on Magnus Hirschfeld’s infamous ‘Institute for Sexual Research’ in 1933 while casting aspersions about ‘Nazi homosexuality’ in order to delegitimize Hitler and the Third Reich. (57)
He also points to the fact that the official Communist Party line about the NSDAP’s leadership was that they were homosexuals and in the few decades after World War II they have often been depicted as such on the silver screen. Indeed a 1936 Communist Party film - Gustav von Wangenheim’s ‘The Fighters’ - depicts them as such but as promptly buried in 1939 after the Nazi-Soviet Pact. (58)
If Plant is correct – and I think he is – then the ‘Hitler was a homosexual’ is yet another example of a leftover propaganda line promoted by the forces of communism centred on the Soviet Union in a not dissimilar vein to the similarly stubborn and utterly fallacious claim that the NSDAP set the Reichstag fire themselves which has long been debunked.
Then this line was taken up jews such as Konrad Heiden and then the (heavily jewish) followers of Freud – who remember enjoyed a spate of popularity in the decades after World War II – who buttressed the original communist lies and smears with the dubious testimony of prominent ‘Nazi traitors’ like Otto Strasser, Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl and Hermann Rauschning, which has since morphed yet again into a way for so-called ‘Conservatives’ and ‘Christians’ to falsely attack Hitler as a homosexual when the evidence clearly contradicts this claim and in fact places Hitler as a rather vigorous heterosexual with multiple young female partners and admirers throughout his life!
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-adolf-hitler-a-paedophile-andor
(2) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-adolf-hitler-of-jewish-or-rothschild
(3) Ron Rosenbaum, 1998, ‘Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of his Evil’, 1st Edition, MacMillan: London, pp. 83-84; 181; Ian Kershaw, 1998, ‘Hitler’, Vol. 1, 1st Edition, Penguin: New York, pp. 46; 352
(4) Rosenbaum, Op. Cit., pp. 128-134; Richard Plant, 1986, ‘The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War on Homosexuals’, 1st Edition, Henry Holt: New York, p. 15
(5) Rosenbaum, Op. Cit., p. 137
(6) Plant, Op. Cit., p. 15
(7) Lawrence Mass, 1994, ‘Confessions of a Jewish Wagnerite: Being Gay and Jewish in America’, 1st Edition, Cassell: London, p. 214
(8) William Shirer, 1960, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’, 1st Edition, Simon & Schuster: New York, pp. 79-80
(9) Walter Langer, 1972, ‘The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report’, 1st Edition, Basic Books: New York, p. 196
(10) Lothar Machtan, 2001, ‘The Hidden Hitler’, 1st Edition, Perseus: Oxford, pp. 133-139
(11) Ibid., p. 139
(12) J. Sydney Jones, 1983, ‘Hitler in Vienna 1907-13: Clues to the Future’, 1st Edition, Blond and Briggs: London, p. 67
(13) Ibid., p. 76
(14) Langer, Op. Cit., p. 133
(15) Kershaw, Op. Cit., p. 46
(16) Jones, Op. Cit., p. 76
(17) Langer, Op. Cit., p. 99
(18) Ibid., p. 99
(19) Ibid., p. 103
(20) Ibid., p. 133
(21) Ibid., p. 138
(22) Machtan, Op. Cit., pp. 135-138
(23) Langer, Op. Cit., p. 101
(24) Ibid.
(25) Ibid., p. 102
(26) Ibid., pp. 102; 149
(27) Ibid., p. 196
(28) Ibid.
(29) Ibid., p. 185
(30) Machtan, Op. Cit., pp. 161-162
(31) Alan Bullock, 1954, ‘Hitler: A Study in Tyranny’, 1st Edition, The Companion Book Club: London, p. 358; Kershaw, Op. Cit., pp. 352-354; John Toland, 1977, ‘Adolf Hitler’, 1st Edition, Book Club Associates: London, p. 229
(32) Kershaw, Op. Cit., pp. 353-354
(33) Toland, Op. Cit., pp. 273-275; Rosenbaum (Op. Cit., p. 126) and Kershaw [grudgingly] (Op. Cit., p. 354) agree.
(34) Toland, Op. Cit., p. 274
(35) Jones, Op. Cit., p. 67
(36) Kershaw, Op. Cit., p. 281; supported by Bullock, Op. Cit., p. 357 and Toland, Op. Cit., p. 32
(37) Kershaw, Op. Cit., pp. 284-285
(38) Rosenbaum, Op. Cit., p. 110
(39) Kershaw, Op. Cit., p. 284
(40) Ibid., pp. 284-285
(41) Ibid., p. 352
(42) Bullock, Op. Cit., pp. 359-360
(43) Ibid., p. 359
(44) Ibid.
(45) Machtan, Op. Cit., p. 170
(46) Kershaw, Op. Cit., p. 352
(47) Bullock, Op. Cit., p. 359
(48) Kershaw, Op. Cit., p. 352
(49) Ibid.
(50) Jones, Op. Cit., p. 75
(51) Randall Bytwerk, 2001, ‘Julius Streicher: Nazi Editor of the Notorious Anti-Semitic Newspaper Der Stürmer’, 2nd Edition, Cooper Square Press: New York, pp. 38-39; 42; 49
(52) Kershaw, Op. Cit., p. 46
(53) Bullock, Op. Cit., p. 358
(54) Philip Blood, 2006, ‘Hitler’s Bandit Hunters: The SS and the Nazi Occupation of Europe’, 1st Edition, Potomac: Sterling, p. 62
(55) David Irving, 1996, ‘Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich’, 1st Edition, Focal Point Publications: London, pp. 71-72
(56) Toby Thacker, 2009, ‘Joseph Goebbels: Life and Death’, Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke, pp. 118; 120
(57) Plant, Op. Cit., pp. 16-18
(58) Ibid., p. 16