Sexualität Adolf Hitlers

2012-05-21T19:38:02Z

24.112.139.6: /* Historically accepted sexuality */ period at end of paragraph #1 in this section

{{Refimprove|date=August 2008}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F051673-0059, Adolf Hitler und Eva Braun auf dem Berghof.jpg|thumb|250px|Adolf Hitler and [[Eva Braun]] with their dogs at the [[Berghof (residence)|Berghof]].]]
The '''sexuality of Adolf Hitler''' has long been a matter of historical and scholarly debate. Despite the [[Nazi Party]]'s opposition to [[homosexuality]] and [[Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust|persecution of homosexuals]], some historians have argued that Hitler himself was [[Homosexuality|homosexual]] or [[Bisexuality|bisexual]]. Some have argued that he was [[Asexuality|asexual]], whereas others dismiss these claims and believe he was [[Heterosexuality|heterosexual]]. He is believed to have had six female lovers; two of these women went on to commit [[suicide]], and a further two attempted it.

He met [[Eva Braun]] in 1929, and they married on 29 April 1945, one day before [[Death of Adolf Hitler|their suicide]]. He was also engaged to two other women earlier in his life.

==History==

=== Historically accepted sexuality ===

While the sexual preferences of numerous members of Hitler's inner circle are known, there has never be clear information on Hitler's own behavior. However, there is considerable evidence that he had crushes on a number of women during his lifetime, primarily ones much younger than himself, as well as overwhelming evidence of his antipathy to homosexuality, and no evidence he engaged in homosexual behavior.<ref> Nagorski, Andrew. ''Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power''. New York: Simon and Schuster, p. 81. </ref>

During his disavowal of [[Ernst Röhm]], Hitler cited his 'immoral sexual behavior'. However, Röhm had long been a confidant and close friend to Hitler, and Hitler had never objected in the past to Röhm's homosexuality. ({{lang|de|''Röhm-Putsch''}}).<ref> name="Evans"</ref> Hitler also sent a great number of gay men and lesbians to concentration camps during the Holocaust.[[Jonathan Zimmerman]], a historian at [[New York University]], points out that "Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis arrested roughly 100,000 men as homosexuals. Most convicted gays were sent to prison; between 5,000 and 15,000 were interned in concentration camps, where they wore pink triangles to signify their supposed crime."<ref> name="Zimmerman"</ref> Gay men were singled out for cruel treatment in the concentration camps. Nazi doctors often used gay men for scientific experiments in an attempt to locate a biological basis for homosexuality, purportedly to "cure" any future Aryan children who were gay. A study by Rüdiger Lautmann found that 60% of gay men in concentration camps died, as compared to 41% of political prisoners and 35% of Jehovah's Witnesses. The study also shows that survival rates for gay men were slightly higher for internees from the middle and upper classes and for married bisexual men and those with children. <ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/gaycomp.html |title=Gay Prisoners in Concentration Camps as Compared with Jehovah's Witnesses and Political Prisoners |last=Lautmann |first=Rüdiger}}</ref>
See ''[[pink triangle]]'' and ''[[Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust]]''.

Complicating the issue is that Allied efforts to demonize Hitler during the war resulted in accusations of various sexual practices that were stigmatized at that time. Thus, many claims of uralgia, homosexuality, etc., stem from WWII-era propaganda, without evidence to support them. The evidence that exists about Hitler's private life is considerable from people in his inner circle, such as [[Albert Speer]], several adjutants, his secretaries, and the Wagner family, among others. He had a few brief affairs when younger, and seems to have really been in love with his half-niece, [[Geli Raubal]]. He was monogamous with [[Eva Braun]] for years, hiding this relationship from the public and all but his inner circle. Within that circle however, most of whom survived the war, he was open about Eva Braun and they lived together openly at [[Berchtesgaden]] as a couple. His letters provide evidence that he was fond of her, and worried when she participated in sports or was late returning for tea.<ref name=Speer>{{cite book |last= Speer |first= Albert |isbn = 978-0-380-00071-5 |author-link=Albert Speer|title= Inside the Third Reich|location=New York |publisher= Avon|year=1971}}</ref> They married in a bunker before committing suicide. <ref name=Beevor>{{cite book |last= Beevor |first= Antony |isbn = 978-0-670-03041-5 |author-link=Anthony Beevor|title= Berlin: The Downfall 1945|location=London |publisher= Viking-Penguin Books|year=2002}}</ref> [[Ernst Hanfstaengl]], one of the members of Hitler's inner circle in the early years in Munich before he had gained any political power, wrote of Hitler's sexuality that "I felt Hitler was a case of a man who was neither fish, flesh nor fowl, neither fully homosexual nor fully heterosexual... I had formed the firm conviction that he was impotent, the repressed, masturbating type." <ref>Hanfstaengl, Ernst. ''Hitler: The Missing Years''. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1957, p. 123</ref> Nevertheless, Hanfstaengl was convinced enough of Hitler's heterosexuality that he tried to fix him up with the beautiful daughter of the American Ambassador, Martha Dodd (with no success).<ref>Larson, Eric. ''In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin''. New York: Crown Publishers, 2011.</ref>

Most books putting forward alternative sexualities for Hitler, like ''[[The Pink Swastika]]'', by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, have been either not accepted by most historians, or amply criticized for their multiple inaccuracies and manipulations of facts. <ref name=jensen>{{cite journal |doi=10.1353/sex.2002.0008 |author=Erik N. Jensen |date=January/April 2002 |title=The Pink Triangle and Political Consciousness: Gays, Lesbians, and the Memory of Nazi Persecution |journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality |volume=11 |issue=1/2 |pages=319–349, pp. 322–323 and n. 19 }}</ref> <ref>{{cite web |title=The Other Side of the Pink Triangle: Still a Pink Triangle |url=http://www.pink-triangle.org/ptps/revresp.html |date=October 24, 1994 |accessdate=2008-11-08}}</ref> Bob Moser, writing for the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]], says about ''The Pink Swastika'' that the book was promoted by anti-gay groups and that historians agree its premise (that most of the top Nazis were homosexual and that that is evidence that homosexuals are violent and dangerous) is "utterly false".<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Intelligence Report |publisher=[[Southern Poverty Law Center]] |issue=117 |year=2005 |month=Spring |title=Making Myths |author=Bob Moser |url=http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=328 }}</ref>

=== Langer's and Murray's two wartime OSS reports ===

In 1943, the [[United States|American]] [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS) received ''A Psychological Analysis of Adolf Hitler: His Life and Legend'', written by [[Walter C. Langer]] (with assistance from other leading [[psychoanalyst]]s) for the purpose of helping the [[Allied Powers|Allies]] understand the dictator, related to strategic purposes (including post-war purposes).<ref>Walter C. Langer: [http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/osstitle.htm ''A Psychological Profile of Adolph Hitler. His Life and Legend'']. The Wartime Report in original typewritten format is available [http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/profile-index.html online here] via the [[Nizkor Project]]</ref> It also appears as the mainstay of the fuller work that is available in book form as ''[[The Mind of Adolf Hitler|The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report]]'', in which Langer's Wartime Report is accompanied by a foreword by his brother, historian [[William L. Langer]], an introduction by Langer himself and an afterword by the Hitler psychoanalytic historian [[The Psychopathic God|Robert G.L. Waite]].<ref name=langer>{{cite book |last= Langer |first=Walter C. |isbn = 0-465-04620-7 |author-link=Walter C. Langer|title= The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report|location=New York|publisher= Basic Books|year=1972}}</ref> The researchers performed a "psychological analysis ... in which an attempt is made to understand Hitler as a person and the motivations underlying his actions." The OSS report states that Hitler was an [[Impotence|impotent]] [[Coprophilia|coprophile]].<ref name=langer/> The report describes Hitler as having "possibly even a homosexual streak in him," although the researchers concluded that the evidence of Hitler's homosexuality was too thin to make any conclusions. One of Hitler's opponents in the Nazi Party, [[Otto Strasser]], claimed that the Nazi dictator forced his niece [[Geli Raubal]] to urinate and defecate on him.<ref>http://www.xmag.com/archives/4-09-mar97/article2.html. Strasser, who fled Germany for his life, includes the allegations in his memoirs and was personally interviewed by Langer in the process of researching the wartime report.</ref> Langer also wrote that according to [[Ernst Hanfstaengl]], Helena Bechstein, the wife of the famous Berlin piano manufacturer, had groomed Hitler in the expectation that he would marry her daughter, Lottie, who was far from attractive. Out of sense of obligation, Hitler did ask Lottie, but was refused.<ref>"The Mind of Adolf Hitler", Walter C. Langer, New York 1972 p.96</ref>

Psychologist [[Henry Murray]] wrote a separate psychoanalytical report for OSS also in 1943, entitled ''Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler: With Predictions of His Future Behavior and Suggestions for Dealing with Him Now and After Germany's Surrender''<ref>Entry for [http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/WhatWeHave/SpecialCollections/Donovan/Hitler/index.cfm ''Dr. Henry A. Murray, Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler''] at Cornell University Law Library</ref>, in which he also dealt with Hitler's alleged coprophilia, but overall diagnosed Hitler a [[schizophrenia|schizophrenic]]. Murray based his report on W. H. D. Vernon's 1942 essay ''Hitler, the man: Notes for a case history''.<ref>W. H. D. Vernon (1942). ''Hitler, the man – notes for a case history.'' In: ''The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology'', July 1942, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 295–308; also see Medicus: ''A Psychiatrist Looks at Hitler.'' In: ''[[The New Republic]]'', 26 April 1939, p. 326–327.</ref>

=== Post-1945 research ===

In research following Hitler's death, a variety of claims have been made about his sexuality: that he was gay or bisexual, asexual, that he had only one testicle,<ref>{{cite web|last=Rosenbaum|first=Ron|title=Everything You Need To Know About Hitler's "Missing" Testicle|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2008/11/everything_you_need_to_know_about_hitlers_missing_testicle.html|publisher=Slate|accessdate=11 April 2012}}</ref> and the previously mentioned sexual activity with his half-niece, Geli Raubal.

Historian [[Lothar Machtan]] argues in ''[[The Hidden Hitler]]'' that Hitler was homosexual. He argues basically on speculation, including Hitler's experiences in [[Vienna]] with young friends, his adult relationships with (among others) [[Ernst Röhm]], Hanfstaengl and [[Emil Maurice]], and the ''Mend Protocol'', a series of allegations made to the Munich Police in the early 1920s by a soldier who served with Hitler during [[World War I]]. In 2004, [[HBO]] produced a documentary film based on Machtan's theory, titled ''[[Hidden Fuhrer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler's Sexuality]]''. Mend was a convicted [[fraudster]], and historian Anton Joachimsthaler is among those who regard the protocol as unreliable. [[Ron Rosenbaum]] was highly critical of Machtan's work, saying his "evidence falls short of being conclusive and often falls far short of being evidence at all".<ref>{{cite web|last=Rosenbaum|first=Ron|title=Queer as Volk|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2001/12/queer_as_volk.html|publisher=Slate}}</ref>

The 1995 book ''[[The Pink Swastika]]'', by [[Scott Lively]] and Kevin Abrams, dealt with similar topics. The claims in ''The Pink Swastika'' have been heavily the subject of heavy criticism by mainstream historians.<ref name=jensen>{{cite journal |doi=10.1353/sex.2002.0008 |author=Erik N. Jensen |date=January/April 2002 |title=The Pink Triangle and Political Consciousness: Gays, Lesbians, and the Memory of Nazi Persecution |journal=Journal of the History of Sexuality |volume=11 |issue=1/2 |pages=319–349, pp. 322–323 and n. 19 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Other Side of the Pink Triangle: Still a Pink Triangle |url=http://www.pink-triangle.org/ptps/revresp.html |date=October 24, 1994 |accessdate=2008-11-08}}</ref>

Jack Nusan Porter, of the [[University of Massachusetts Lowell]], wrote:
{{bquote|Did Hitler [[homophobia|despise homosexuals]]? Was he ashamed of his own homosexual [[sexual identity|identity]]? These are areas of [[psychohistory]] that are beyond known knowledge. My own feelings are that Hitler was [[Asexuality|asexual]] in the traditional sense and had bizarre [[sexual fetish]]es.<ref>http://chgs.umn.edu/educational/homosexuals.html</ref>}}

After the death of [[Winifred Wagner]]'s husband, [[Siegfried Wagner|Siegfried]], in 1930, Winifred's relations to Hitler grew so close that by 1933 there were rumors of impending marriage, but nothing happened.

[[Leni Riefenstahl]] was friends with Hitler for 12 years, and reports vary as to whether she ever had an intimate relationship with him.<ref>See Infield, Glenn B. ''Eva and Adolf'' New York:1974--Grosset and Dunlap (Interviews with former [[SS]] officers who had been close to Hitler and [[Eva Braun]])</ref> According to [[Ernst Hanfstaengl]], who was a close friend of Hitler throughout the later 1920s and early 1930s, Riefenstahl tried to begin a relationship with Hitler early on, but he turned her down.<ref name="the independent2">{{cite news |first= Tom|last= Mathews|pages=XX |title=Leni: The life and work of Leni Riefenstahl, by Steven Bach |date=2007-04-29 |publisher=[[The Independent]] |url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/leni-the-life-and-work-of-leni-riefenstahl-by-steven-bach-446731.html | location=London}}</ref> Riefenstahl, however, categorically denied having any romantic interest in Hitler.

==Female relationships==
It has been alleged that Adolf Hitler had relationships with a number of women other than Eva Braun.

{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
! Name
! Life
! Age at death
! Cause of death
! First contact with Hitler
! Relationship
! Reference(s)
|-
| [[Stephanie Rabatsch]]
| Unknown
|align="center"| Unknown
|
| c. 1895 in childhood
| Childhood love, likely [[platonic love]]
|<ref>Adolf Hitler - mein Jugendfreund: Ein authentisches Dokument mit neuen Bildern. Der Autor war zu Hitlers Schulzeit in Linz und später in Wien sein ... sind eine wichtige zeitgeschichtliche Quelle von August Kubizek von Stocker</ref>
|-
| [[Jean-Marie Loret|Charlotte Lobjoie]]
| 1898-1951
|align="center"| 53
|
| Allegedly met in 1917
| Not well substantiated claim that she bore his child
|<ref>Peter Allen, [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9088865/Hitler-had-son-with-French-teen.html "Hitler had son with French teen"] ''[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]]'' 17 February 2012</ref>
|-
| [[Eva Braun]]
| February 6, 1912- April 30, 1945
|align="center"| 33
| Double suicide with Hitler (age 56)
| Met in 1929
| Wife
|
|-
| [[Geli Raubal]]
| June 4, 1908- September 18, 1931
|align="center"| 23
| Suicide (speculated murder)
| Lived with Hitler in 1925
| Niece, speculated lovers
| <ref name="hitlerwomen"> Guido Knopp, [http://books.google.com/books?id=_46Cee1CH98C&pg=PA15&ots=N-wNanzuHE&dq=geli+raubal&sig=iB2z-4MwLhoTghGC_uZdTY5jroo#PPA16,M1 ''Hitler's Women'']. </ref>
|-
| [[Erna Hanfstaengl]]
| 1885- 1981
|align="center"| 96
| Natural causes
| Met in 1920s
| Rumoured lovers
|
|-
| [[Renate Müller]]
| April 26, 1906- October 7, 1937
|align="center"| 31
| Suicide (speculated murder){{Citation needed|date=October 2011}}
| Met in 1930s
| Alleged single sexual encounter
| <ref>[http://www.life.com/gallery/57621/image/3299404/hitlers-lovers "Masochistic One-Night Stand"] 14 November 2011</ref>
|-
| [[Maria Reiter]]
| December 23, 1911- 1992
|align="center"| 81
| Natural causes, unsuccessful suicide attempt in 1927
| Met in 1927
| Possibly lovers
| <ref name = "ro">Rosenbaum, Ron, ''Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of his Evil'', Macmillan, 1998, p.114-16.</ref><ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,864655,00.html "Foreign News: Uneven Romance"] ''[[Time (magazine)|TIME]]'' 29 June 1959</ref>
|-
| [[Unity Mitford]]
| August 8, 1914- May 28, 1948
|align="center"| 33
| Died eight years after attempting suicide from complications related to her suicide attempt{{Citation needed|date=October 2011}}
| Met in 1934
| Friends, speculated lovers
| <ref>[http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/martin-bright/2007/12/unity-mitford-home-hitler-war "Unity Mitford and 'Hitler's Baby'"] ''[[New Statesman]]'' 13 December 2007</ref>
|}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Rosenbaum, Ron. ''Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil''. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999. ISBN 0-06-095339-X.
* Entry for [http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/WhatWeHave/SpecialCollections/Donovan/Hitler/index.cfm ''Dr. Henry A. Murray, Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler''] at Cornell University Law Library

==External links==
* Vernon, W. H. D. (1942). [http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/WhatWeHave/SpecialCollections/Donovan/Hitler/upload/Hitler-Section2.pdf ''Hitler, the man: Notes for a case history''], ''The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology'', July 1942, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 295–308
* Langer, Walter C. (1943). [http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/profile-index.html ''A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend''] at ''nizkor.org''
* Murray, Henry (1943). [http://www.archive.org/details/AnalysisOfThePersonalityOfAdolphHitler ''Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler: With Predictions of His Future Behavior and Suggestions for Dealing with Him Now and After Germany's Surrender''] at ''archive.org''
* [http://www.archive.org/details/TheYoungHitlerIKnew ''The Young Hitler I Knew''] (1955 memoir written by Hitler's pre-1914 friend [[August Kubizek]] dealing with Hitler's youth in Linz and Vienna)
* [http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/57621/hitlers-lovers#index/0 Hitler's Lovers] - slideshow by ''[[Life magazine]]''

{{Adolf Hitler}}

[[Category:Adolf Hitler]]
[[Category:Sexuality of individuals|Hitler, Adolf]]
[[Category:LGBT history of Germany]]

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Sexualität Adolf Hitlers