Customer Reviews

The Hidden Hitler

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With the literally thousands of books and articles about Hitler that have appeared over the last half century, it is nothing short of remarkable that no one has ever thought to examine the wealth of documentary evidence suggesting that Hitler was homosexual, or to analyze the impact his sexuality may have had on some of his actions. Machtan's well-researched book should open a whole arena in the Hitler studies.
Obviously this book has upset many. It's thesis seems particularly offensive to many gay people, afraid that the revelation of Hitler's possible homosexuality will lead to a simple equation that Hitler was evil because he was gay.
But Machtan is careful not only to avoid such simplistic reductionism, but to point out instead the immense damage Hitler did to gay people in Germany in his apparent attempts to cover up his history of homosexuality and destroy those who knew about it. As a result, Machtan throws a whole new light on the homophobia of the Nazis, the destruction of the SA, the persecution of Magnus Hirschfeld and the roundup of gay Germans.
This book is a bit dry at times, and loaded with footnotes. But that's no vice in a work of such a potentially sensational nature. Machten avoids prurient sensationalism and outrageous or unsubstantiated claims, preferring to quietly focus on the conclusions that can be culled from the admittedly murky sources.
All told, a major contribution, well researched and thoughtfully rendered.

Using a wide and complete variety of archival records, Lothar Machtan has reconstructed the milieu of Hitler's early adulthood, intellectual and political formation, and salient actions in his bellicose and genocidal maturity. Machtan's methodology and interpretation of evidnce is the standard stock of modern history. There are no unreasonable reaches beyond the evidence. Nor does Machtan condemn homosexuality as a life style. Simply put: Machtan presents a strong case that Hitler was gay. The main point of his thesis is that Hitler hiding his homosexuality was part of a larger dominant behavioral pattern of Hitler having fabricated a falsified persona as Germany's all-knowing, multi-talented and invincible "Fuehrer." Machtan concludes that Hitler was a superb liar and spellbinding public speaker who deceived the German people and led them into a disastrous period of the near total destruction of Germany and Europe.

It will be years before we know the final secrets behind Hitler and what drove his intense political ambition and anti-semitism, but this book makes a valuable contribution that, due to the modesty and lack of knowledge amongst historians of homosexuality, has been lacking from any other intelligent analysis of Hitler. Extremely unpopular amongst some as it seems to shift blame from Hitler himself onto the homosexual community, or at least makes us see Hitler as more of a person one could almost sympathize with ('poor Hitler - he was forced to spend his life in the sexual closet, and could not help the way this repressed energy expressed itself.'). However, I think that is silly reasoning. It doesn't relieve Hitler of any guilt if we investigate his person and look at his biological drives, but provides us an interesting insight into the development of an anti-semitic dictator.

Personally, I think many complaints about this book come from people who think that Lothar Machtans has exaggerated Hitler's homosexuality. This complaint is partly justified, I think, and I doubt he had all of the gay relationships insinuated in this book. But Machtan's book is valuable as it forces us to admit that Hitler, although maybe not simply homosexual, had some serious psychosexual neuroses that played a large role in his political career. He presented an asexual image, as if Germany was his virgin bride, and Eva Braun was just a stage prop to give the effeminate dictator some much-needed masculinity. Saying Hitler was not sexually normal does not relieve him of any responsibilty, but brings us far closer to the truth than those that merely relate Hitler's life without looking into his sexual psychology.

To understand this book's unpopularity in Germany and elsewhere, one must remember that it is equally unpopular with people on the political left as on the political right. As mentioned above, for many on the left this book tries to lessen Hitler's crimes and make him seem more human, while those on the right wing see this book as an attack on the masculinity of their hero. It will be years before books on this theme can be objectively handled in Germany, and until then it will remain unappreciated. However, it is definitely recommended reading for anyone interested in 20th century history who does not suffer from such distortions in their judgement.

I have enjoyed reading The Hidden Hitler and when I turned to the Amazon reviews I found several reviews to be unfairly negative and the positive reviews to be brief and not helpful so I decided to make a few comments of my own on this useful book.
My comments here are critical but should not discourage the reader from approaching the book, which is accessible.
First, Machtan's thesis is not nearly so new or so ignored as he likes to present it. Konrad Heiden, one of Hitler's earliest biographers, goes over much of the same material but reaches totally different conclusions. Heiden notes that rumors of Hitler's homosexuality were rife in the 20's and 30's. Other biographers have reached different conclusions than Machtan does, which does not necessarily mean that Hitler's (alleged) homosexuality has been ignored. I note that Machtan totally ignores Heiden, except to list him in the bibliography, and perhaps the fact that Heiden, who was a contemporary of Hitler and published in 1944, disputes the homosexuality of Hitler prompted this otherwise curious omission.

As a second point, Machtan makes a mess of the Geli Raubal mystery. I know of few people who think her death was a suicide as Machtan strongly implies. He is right that facts are scarce but she died in 1931 about two years after her alleged lover was driven from the scene. Most accounts of her death recognize the central importance of letters to her written by Hitler. The letters were hunted down and the holders killed. Their contents are unknown but by inference were explosive - and they were between Hitler and Geli. A conservative thesis is that Hitler revealed himself, not as a homosexual, but as a man with sexual intentions toward her that shocked her. Machtan discusses Geli in a few short pages and does not report any of the inferences that do not support his thesis. Instead, he makes her out to be a sort of "trophy wife" or camouflage to hide his male dalliances. Again, I have not read any other account that argues that Hitler was not in love (as he defined it) with her and was not devastated by her death.

A Third point must be made. Some of the reviewers here accuse Machtan of poor sourcing and use of inference over facts. This is unjust. I believe Machtan marshals his sources as well as anyone can in this mystery. Please remember that Hitler, like Stalin, was at great pains to revise his biography and that both men considered murder a proper form of editing. Almost one hundred years after the fact it is extremely difficult to reach facts without inferring them from actions. The startling difference in interpretation is the central issue.
My final point is two-fold. First, that although Machtan tries hard not to pigeonhole Hitler, the use of the very loaded term homosexual in fact narrows the discussion, and does not broaden it.

The second point is that, to return to Heiden's analysis, there is more than one way to read the same material. Heiden explicity rejects homosexuality as a part of Hitler's makeup. Instead, he makes four points: 1) Hitler's reserve around women was an aspect of extreme shyness 2) that Hitler's view of women was an extreme case of the Madonna/Whore duality and he was alternately attracted to women and repelled by their "dirtiness." 3) that his actual sexuality, though direct primarily at women, defied a simple name and included sadism and masochism, dominance and fetishes that appalled Geli and other women. My point is not to agree or disagree with Heiden's assessment but to point to the fact that the same evidence can be interpreted in a number of ways. Finally, 4) Heiden and Machtan are in apparent agreement about the chameleon nature of Hitler and his ability to mimic his surroundings. Hitler was perfectly capable of knowingly surrounding himself with homosexual men, such as Rohm, discarding them when they ceased to be of value and then acting shocked when he "discovered" their proclivities. I think Machtan is on firm ground when he discusses the attraction to certain homosexuals of the Nazi movement and its forerunners. The cult of masculinity, if you will, would be a great attraction to some homosexual men and it is not in itself surprising that Hitler would use them for his own advancement.

In sum, I think Machtan actually narrows the understanding of Hitler by his thesis which seems to me to try and Put Hitler into a specific milieu and keep him there. I think the reality is much broader.

This thorough and well-researched book makes a rather strong case that Hitler was homosexual. The nitpickers will have their gripes, but the evidence--albeit mostly circumstantial--is quite convincing. A great deal makes sense when you connect the dots, as Machtan does. Sex is a very powerful human drive. It is so powerful that, at least with regard to the famous, it simply can't be concealed. We have no doubts about Stalin's heterosexuality or Clinton's or Churchill's--or any leader's, in fact. Hitler produced no children, was no womanizer, and showed apparently no genuine sexual interest in women. We would know if he had. Machtan discusses Hitler's purely platonic relationship with Eva Braun. She and Hitler's niece both made suicide attempts (one of which succeeded) because of Hitler's controlling behavior, which at the same time included a severe lack of attention. Quite a bit now makes sense, including the Rohm purge, which was not just an attempt to wipe out people who knew of Hitler's homosexuality but to intimidate others who might consider blackmailing him. The people Hitler associated with, where he lived and slept, where he went, what he did and did not do--all this put together makes the case quite clear. Quarreling with a few points doesn't upset the big picture. That Hitler was gay is an astonishing revelation when you consider it. In one more respect Hitler was a living lie. That he was gay adds one more layer of irony to the man and the era.

In the years leading up to the Nazi seizure of power, there was a little known Kultural conflict in Germany which simmered and flared throughout the Wiemar era (1919 - 1933). For reasons which may be evident to many in today's circle of homoerotic "friends," there were/are two opposing or antagonistic elements within the homosexualist community - one "gay," the other homosexual. During the Weimar period, Germany's militant "gays" were led by Adolf Brandt. The Brandt faction published their own newspaper called the Eigene', meaning, Community of The Special or Elite, which became the German, then eventually American, Society for Human Rights. The "Elite" held pederasty as superior - an even `higher' form of love and a sexual aspect of superior leadership. Members imagined themselves superior to "breeders" or "heterosexuals," and certainly FAR ahead of effeminate homosexuals whom they considered emasculated gossips.

During the 1920's and early 30's, the German homosexual movement was headed by the effeminate Jewish homosexualist and political activist, Dr. Magnus Hirshfeld. Hirshfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee for the emancipation of German homosexuals plus the Berlin based Institute of Sexology. And whereas American sexologist Alfred Kinsey likely patterned his Bloomfield Indiana based sex Institute after Hirshfeld's example, because of the nature of his "work," Kinsey would more likely have "resonated" better with Brandt.

Hirshfeld worked for the repeal of section 175 of the German penal code, relating to homosexual crimes, which included pederasty, meaning the seduction and sexual molestation of young boys. And whereas Hirshfeld advocated homosexuals were members of a third sex or gender, i.e., a woman in a man's body, Brandt's clique would have nothing of this. In fact Brands followers were proud of their ultra-masculine connection between "friends," and they largely despised Hirshfeld for his condemnation of pederasty, or man/boy "love." Brandt's group traced its roots back to Sparta and other homoerotic warrior cults which today finds seminal expression in NAMBLA, an acronym for The North American Man Boy Love Association. Indeed, many dynamics of America's homosexualist Kulture are revealed in Chauncey's book, Gay New York, wherein the author describes the competition on the docks between the effeminate "homosexual" Drag Queens and female prostitutes for the New York "seafood" (sailor) trade. Important to know is this . . . Self-identified effeminate homosexual drag queens strive mostly to seduce heterosexual men, not bugger young boys. And whereas this crucial distinction may be obscure, it is THE key factor to our understanding of how Hitler, and his cult of homoerotic followers could at once be "gay" while simultaneously brutalizing some, but not all, homosexuals. The truth of this riddle, understandably absent in the main theme of Lothar Machtan's book The Hidden Hitler, is that for identification purposes, Hitler WAS NOT a homosexual. Like most, if not all of Hitler's close associates, Hitler was a militant "gay" and a fellow traveler in the brutally violent, homofascist Community of The Special.

Like Germany between the flames and today in America, most violent crime committed against effeminate homosexuals is likely perpetrated by "ubermenchen" militant "gay" pederasts. For the record, acts of "gay" violence have often been unjustly stamped on the backs of the so-called "straight" community by a mostly naive and often complicit media. Indeed, as Dr. Judith Reisman, author of Kinsey: Crimes & Consequences documents, and in what flies in the face of "embedded" popular notions, it is the militant "gay" pederast who disproportionately shares in America's sex crime statistics. It is also worth knowing how Brandt's militant "gay" faction became the largest "gay" rights movement in Germany, and that in 1933 Brandt's faction eclipsed and destroyed Hirshfeld's Institute. In fact, the first book burning in Germany in May of 1933, was to destroy evidence held by Hirshfeld of sexual deviance among the Nazi rank and file.

The struggle in Germany between self-identified "third sex" homosexuals and "ubermenchen" militant "gay" pederasts is further documented in, The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality In The Nazi Party, first published in 1995, and now available in a newly updated and expanded 2002 fourth edition.

Cordially,

Kevin E. Abrams....

It can take years for valuable works of foreign scholarship to be translated into English. All the more irritating that the one book Basic Books should translate almost contemporaneously should be this lemon. Lothar Machtan has done some useful research into the peripheral world of Nazi intrigue and blackmail. And the thesis that Hitler was gay is not completely implausible. But otherwise, this is a remarkably tendentious book.

Some of the most impressive work in gay studies has been to examine the socialcultural millieu of the homosexual lifestyle. But from this book scholars like George Chauncey or Randolph Strumbach have clearly been wasting their time. For Machtan's portrait of early German homosexuality relies on the dated and partial work of Magnus Hirschfeld. Clearly not a subsitute for a thorough analysis, Machtan breathlessly cites Hirschfeld to state that homosexuals could be found in hostels (all of them?), the army (during mass conscription?), prison (under the fearlessly light regime that Hitler underwent?) and among lovers of Wagner (?!). Machtan does not distinguish between homosexuality, homosociality, misogyny, misanthropy, and contempt for independent women. There is little appreciation that one's sexual orientation isn't necessarily an invariable quality like the colour of one's eyes. There is no systematic discussion of gender ideology in the Nazi party that would put perspective on Hitler's views. The main evidence for Hitler's homosexuality, that he was cold and distant around women, suffers from the fact that Hitler tended to be cold and distant around men. If there is little evidence of any great heterosexual love in his life, there is no more evidence of any great homosexual one. Finally, and most unforgiveably, there is no real discussion of the Nazi ideology towards homosexuals, and no real systematic analysis of what they actually did to them. Clearly detailing Nazi cruelty towards homosexuals would complicate Machten's thesis too much.

So much for general problems of evidence. What about Machten's specifics? On the inside cover 10 men are listed as the "homosexual or homosexually inclined men among Hitler's most intimate friends and supporters." The homosexuality of one of these men (Rohm) has been publicly known since the thirties. Another (Kurt Ludecke) was a homosexual blackmailer on the periphery of Hitler's circle. The evidence that the other eight were homosexaul ranges from plausible to weak to non-existent. Emil Maurice, Hitler's chauffeur, doesn't seem to be homosexual at all, and indeed his main sexual interest appears to have been in Hitler's niece. Most of the others were married, several had children. One of these was August Kubizek, Hitler's friend in pre-war Vienna. He was married with a child, and after the Anschluss a Nazi accused him of corruption. Nothing came of this, but Machtan gratuitously adds without evidence that this accusation was also an attack on his homosexuality. It suits Machtan to interpret the weak and naive personalities of Kubizek and Rudolph Hess, as homosexual ones, as well as friendships with homosexuals as evidence of homosexuality.

Machtan devotes a chapter to the accusation of Hans Mend, who claimed that Hitler actively carried on a homosexual relationship during the first world war at the front. There are several problems with this, such as the fact that it is not corroborated by Hitler's other colleagues at the front, or the fact that before 1933 Mend had been convicted of petty criminal offenses, or that in 1932 Mend had tried to get money by writing a sycophantic account of Hitler's war years. Machtan devotes another chapter to the reminisces of two obscure pro-Nazi homosexuals, Hans Ziegler and Erich Ebermayer, which amounts to little more than gossip. He portays the night of the long knives as a cunning and well thought out plan to exterminate anyone who knew of Hitler's homosexuality. But Ian Kershaw points out in Hubris that the Rohm Purge was simply not that well structured or thought out in advance. Moreover, if Hitler was as promiscous as Machtan suggests, how could he be sure he would never be exposed? Why do people only trade in innuendo and never speak out directly? If Hitler sought to exterminate people who knew of his secret, why does Machtan quote, (second-hand of course) the evidence supposedly acquired by one prominent Bavarian opponent who later died peacefully in his bed? I could go on about the over-elaborate 1932 plot in which Hitler supposedly secretly slanders Rohm so he can look good defending him, a plot that could have backfired so easily. There is also the questionable assumption that all evidence of blackmail must have been about Hitler's homosexuality. And there is the misquotation from Mein Kampf. Hitler blamed the supposedly Jewish press in pre-war Vienna for attacking the Kaiser. Without any evidence from the text, Machtan states these attacks must have been related to the homosexual scandals in the kaiser's entourage. Indeed, Hitler's anger over these attacks must have been the cause of his anti-semitism! At this point Machtan is simultaneously reductionist, tendentious and disingenous, and so is his whole book.

this book was excellently written, MacHtan really did an excellent job of compiling all the information in this book, its almost as if good ol' Adolph him self is recounting his experiences him self. there are alot of bits and pieces of many many other books and accounts of others that were very close to him. so many stories and experiences are recalled in the book by his generals, close friends and lovers. what i found very interesting was the fact that he was a homosexual, i never before had heard that fact, before i read this book. i would reccomend this book to anyone interested in learning some dirt or some nasty secrets on him that were not intended to ever be read again.

Hitler is a true historic enigma. His was such a contradictory life that biographers can easily read just about anything into it. He was somehow both monstrous and banal at the same time but was he a homosexual?

Machtan seems to think that he was. But what constitutes proof of such a claim? Hitler was a historical figure, much has been written about him even during his life. There is a wealth of documentation for just about every facet of his personality, his day to day existence as both a private and very public figure.

So where's the proof? Machlan offers very little hard factual evidence that can be independently verified. Most of his proof are 'edited' interpretations of memoirs that are ambiguous at best. There just is no 'smoking gun' presented here just the same kind of innuendo that hints at everything and proves nothing.

Was Hitler a raging heterosexual then? No. He seems, to me, to have been more asexual then anything else. There was some sort of emotional 'relationship' between him and his niece.. was it a sexual one as well? Eva Braun ..kept carefully hidden from the German public.. was considered his sexual mistress by most of his closest companions...was that all just a cover? There is much more verifiable proof that his sexual drive was both heterosexual (and low).

So the thesis of this book? "Unproven" but probably not true is the best I can do. There are just too many blanks and too few hard facts given here to prove it.

This book is a primary source for "The Pink Swastika", written by Scott Lively and also reviewed by me. "The Hidden Hitler" is a far better book, with more thorough documentation and no hidden agenda outside of seeking the Truth. As history is explained and documented in this book, a lot of other things fall into place. I never did believe there was a homosexual holocaust, it just didn't make sense in the scheme of what I know about the Nazi motivation for a Master Race. They were far too self-centered to care about so-called "morality" -- and far too immoral, at that. That said, the "Night of the Long Knives" apparently was a homosexual slaughter based on internalized homophobia (my words) and the self-centered narcissism of Hitler and his obsession for the preservation of his historical image. That, to me, makes sense, in its own perverted way.

It is difficult to be clear about the difference between homosexuality and pederasty even today, and it certainly would have been difficult back then. Surely there was overlap, as there is today, particularly for gay men. Very few gay men are rapists, but there are clearly men who rape boys. Rape, however, is not the issue in this book. Power is. And, then again, rape is about power, isn't it?

Given that, the Hitler Youth makes sense as well. Seduction, betrayal, secrets, power, and the Lebensborn homes, where women were nothing more -- nor less -- than breeders (again, based on my own research) speaks to me of a brilliant homosexual coup d'etat that makes "don't ask, don't tell" a monument to efficiency. After all, how can one control one's entourage without secrets?

This is not about the gay "community." There is no gay "community," in fact, and there certainly wasn't one then. There was a sub-culture, as there always has been, but they did not then, and they do not now, speak with one voice. The oppression, narcissism and self-loathing they lived with, however, could definitely contribute to a perverse distortion of power and control and a terrorizing ab-reaction against the masses should someone of such proclivities actually make it to the apex.

The anti-Semitism is a given, and had little to do with the homosexuality. Many people were (and are) anti-Semitic, Germany did not corner the market on that. Nor did they corner the market on medical experimentation. They did, however, corner the market on efficiency, expediency, and drama. The epitome of Queendom, if there ever was one.