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The Hidden Hitler
Adolf Hitler. No other figure in contemporary history is associated with such far-reaching historical impact and such monstrous crimes. His name alone is emblematic of world war and Holocaust. If only because of the barbarity for which he is responsible, Adolf Hitler has become an anxiety neurosis, a vision of horror. And that is why he remains even now as he was to many of his contemporaries: an incomprehensible mystery. In the half century since his death, he has been the subject of over 120,000 publications, and yet the historian John Lukacs, who has tried to impose some sort of order on the chaotic jumble, comes to the significant conclusion that "We are far from done with Hitler."What Hitler did in history has been amply documented in the monumental work of historians and biographers such Alan Bullock, Joachim Fest, Hans Mommsen and Ian Kershaw. Who Hitler was, however, as a person, what anchored him emotionally, has either eluded or been of little interest to writers who often burden themselves with the search for the origin of his evil as the explanation for his life and its consequences. Drawing from a wealth of archival sources, much of which has been long overlooked by historians, The Hidden Hitler focuses on Hitler the man. Lothar Machtan's controversial thesis is that Adolf Hitler was homosexual, and that one cannot begin to understand him, his entry into politics, and the early Nazi movement without a clear understanding of this aspect of his identity. The Hidden Hitler documents the homosexual milieu in which the young Hitler lived and thrived from his early years in Vienna, through the beginnings of his political career in Munich, and during his years as the F¸hrer. Machtan documents a succession of homosexual and homosexually inclined men among Hitler's most intimate friends and supporters, including August Kubizek, Rudolf H‰usler, Reinhold Hanisch, Ernst Schmidt, Ernst Rˆhm, Dietrich Eckart, Rudolf Hess, Emil Maurice, "Putzi" Hanfstaengl and Kurt Ludecke. Of these, Eckart and Rˆhm were pivotal to his entry into politics. Machtan also unearths surprising new documents that attest to Hitler's homosexuality in those early years. Of particular importance is the "Mend Protocol," portions of which appear for the first time in this book. While it is doubtful that Hitler was sexually active in any way (gay or straight) after 1933, his homosexual past, nevertheless, was his Achilles' heel. It threatened him politically and left him open to blackmail by his most intimate associates. The assasination of Ernst Rˆhm, along with roughly 150 other men over a four day period in 1934, served as a chilling message to all with knowledge, or access to knowledge, about the F¸hrer's past life.Recent books on the Nazi movement have argued that the Third Reich was a fundamentally sordid regime. Machtan provides powerful new evidence in support of this view. This side of Hitler and his "Munich clique," as Goebbels put it, has never been so vividly evoked. As an intimate portrait of Hitler and as a surprising portrait of the homoerotic nature of the early Nazi movement, The Hidden Hitler is a major and certainly controversial contribution to the biographical literature. Anyone who has read any previous biographer of Adolf Hitler will read The Hidden Hitler and wonder, "how could they have missed entirely the homosexuality of Hitler and his entourage?"
448 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
6 people are currently reading
277 people want to read
About the author
Lothar Machtan
12 books1 followerLothar Machtan is a German historian, writer, and professor of modern and contemporary history at the University of Bremen.
Machtan is best known for his 2001 book The Hidden Hitler, in which he discusses Adolf Hitler's sexuality and argues that the dictator was a secret homosexual. Machtan's other books focus on the German monarchy.
Machtan is best known for his 2001 book The Hidden Hitler, in which he discusses Adolf Hitler's sexuality and argues that the dictator was a secret homosexual. Machtan's other books focus on the German monarchy.
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September 10, 2018
The Hidden Hitler by Lothar Machtan
This is a hard book to analyze. The essential point of this book is an argument that Hitler was a practicing homosexual during his youth and the period that he was building up his political machine. There is no direct evidence for this. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence, innuendo and inference that might allow that conclusion to be drawn. Is the evidence enough to warrant that conclusion?
I’m not sure. On the one hand, during the last forty years, homosexual apologists have tended to lay claim to a broad variety of historical figures, such as Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln and John Henry Newman with less reason. This kind of thing used to be more common, but no one made a claim for Adolf Hitler.
On the other hand, there is no eyewitness testimony, just a lot of weird behavior that speaks to something and that Hitler was hiding something terribly private. People with something to hide usually have obscure private lives. Shakespeare, for example, private life is well-documented, but we don’t know all that much about his private life, perhaps because he was a dissenting Catholic.
Hitler’s private life, throughout his life, is similarly obscure in places, although, oddly, a lot of this obscurity comes from historians passing over known facts about Hitler’s life. This book does a surprising service by disclosing things that are known to historians. For example, I’ve heard passing references to Hitler’s boyhood friend, but never given much thought to him as a historical source, thinking that he was lost to history. According to the author, Lothar Machtan, the boyhood friend, August Kubizek, and Hitler appear to have an odd, perhaps homosexual relationship. Hitler wrote about his desire to set up housekeeping with August, they dressed alike, and they loved the music of Richard Wagner, which apparently was the “in thing” for homosexuals of fin de siècle Germany. In 1938, Hitler moved with alacrity to take all of Kubizek’s papers about him. Kubizek’s memoirs described a weird incident redolent of homosexuality. Hitler set himself up as the dominant member of the couple.
Hitler had two other similar relationships, including one with a fellow soldier, Schmidt, during World War I. In addition, Hitler never promoted past corporal, which would only have been possible if he was actively avoiding promotion for some reason. Machtan argues that the reason was a homosexual relationship with Schmidt, which would have been exposed if he had a higher rank. (See p. 91-92.) Machtan points out that we do not know the reason for the award of the Iron Cross to Hitler, but he notes that there was a delay in awarding the medal, which might be explained by the fact that a promotion should have gone with the medal and Hitler refused to be promoted. (p. 92.)
Hitler has always been portrayed as homeless, but Machtan suggests he may have been a street hustler. In one passage of Kubizek’s memoirs, Hitler and Kubizek were approached by an older gentleman, who Hitler immediately identified as homosexual. Hitler’s hostel was well-known to have been a location for homosexual prostitutes to work out of. Hitler checked in and out of the hostel and seemed to have more money than could be explained by painting post-cards, particularly given Hitler’s lack of a work ethic.
Do we really think that Hitler would have had moral qualms against prostituting himself?
Machtan does a thorough job of documenting what look to be blackmail attempts against Hitler by people claiming to have “dirt” on Hitler. The nature of the dirt is only hinted at, but sometimes the blackmailers were quite successful in their enterprises. Machtan identifies one such as Hanfstaengl. I read Hanfstaengl’s memoirs and I completely missed anything that would have put me on notice of homosexuality on the part of Hitler, but, then, I also never picked up that Hanfstaengl was himself a homosexual. (To be fair, Machten had access to an unpublished second memoir and interviewed Hanfstaengl’s son.)
One thing about the issue of homosexuality is how repressed it is from disclosure. Obviously, Hanfstaengl was not going to out himself, nor would any of Hitler’s partners. His risk came from third parties, such as Hans “Ghost Rider” Mend, who served with Hitler as a dispatch rider and obviously considered Hitler to have been something of a jerk and loser during his military years. Mend is the suspected source of information specifically outing Hitler – the “Mend Protocol” – which came into the possession of the German embassy in London in 1948. The Mend Protocol was affirmed or ascribed to the German resistance that was intended to be used in trying Hitler after he was ousted from power. (p. 65 -67.) The Mend Protocol confirms that Hitler was suspected of homosexual behavior with Schmidt and, interestingly, his politics were “Red” in the sense of Marxist. (p. 65-69.)
Then we come to Rohm and the homosexuals that Hitler surrounded himself. Rohm was indisputable to Hitler’s rise to power. Rohm was also an open and unabashed homosexual, albeit he never went so far as admitting that he had broken Paragraph 175. (p. 198.) Hitler had no objection to Rohm or his sexual identity; he stated that he was indifferent to what Nazis did so long as they were good fighters for Nazism. (p. 207.) Machtan also identifies others around Hitler as homosexual, including Hess, von Schirach, Hanfstangl, and Ludicke. Hitler promoted Karl Ernst, a waiter from Berlin’s homosexual scene, to the command of the Berlin SA. (p. 207.) Machtan argues that the brutality of the Rohm putsch was required because Rohm knew about Hitler’s homosexuality, albeit it is certainly explained by the fact that Rohm had the loyalty of millions of violent thugs. (p. 211, 220.) Machten also suggests that Erich Klausener was not murdered because he was the head of Catholic Action, but because he might have acquired documents on Hitler because he had been the head of the police department of the Prussian ministry of the interior. (p. 217.) This seems like a stretch, but Karl Zehnter was an obscure victim of the putsch whose only connection was that he was a friend of Rohm and Ernst and served them as a waiter in private meetings between Rohm and his friends. (p. 217.) Rohm’s former lover Martin Schatzl was also liquidated out of fear that he had been told something about Hitler by Rohm. (p. 217-218.)
I’ve noted in other reviews, the strange connection that was formed by people living in Germany during the 1920s between homosexuality and ultra-nationalism. Joseph Roth’s Spider’s Web, written in 1923, presented the beginning of the loathsome protagonist’s career as occurring with a homosexual tryst with a nationalist nobleman. In Swastika Night, written by Murray Constantine in 1937, presented a future world ruled by the descendants of the Nazis where the males were brutal homosexuals and the women were reduced to brood mares.
Machten offers an explanation for this connection. In 1906-1909, the political weekly Die Zukunft accused Phillipp Prinz zu Eulenberg, a friend of Kaiser Wilhelm of homosexuality. Harden was a Jew. If Hitler was homosexual, he would have had some sense of that when he was 17 to 20, which might have cemented his pro-German nationalism/anti-Semitism. Hitler mentions this affair in Mein Kampf. Machten writes:
“Where Hitler was concerned strong language of this kind must have fallen on fertile ground, because he would already have discerned some connection between his own proclivities and the Jew Harden’s public attacks on the German emperor’s homosexual adviser. He must have felt personally assailed by Harden’s revelations.” (p. 49.)
Now, a critical reader must agree that paragraph constitutes first-rate speculation and mind-reading, but if we put a series of “perhaps” in front of each clause, there is something interesting about the fact that this incident was sufficiently formative for Hitler to mention it in Mein Kampf fifteen years later.
Something was in the air, associating the Nazis with homosexuality. Presumably, this included Rohm and was certainly inspired by the usual political mud-slinging, but it may have been inspired by all the information that was available at the time. For that matter, Machten describes the belief of some German homosexuals who looked forward to better times under the Nazis. (p. 244-248.)
Another feature of Hitler’s life is the absence of female romantic entanglements. Even the most famous – Eva Braun – was a “beard.” Machten quotes Braun as mentioning the absence of sex in their relationship. She was also quoted as saying “Just think how convenient it is for a woman never to have to be jealous of any other woman.” (p. 170.) That might be a tribute to Hitler’s integrity, but it sounds like a cutting back-handed compliment.
The evidence in favor of Machten’s thesis builds up bit by bit. If true, Hitler was a part of a German homosexual community.
Am I convinced? Not really. I am skeptical of the facts presented; I want to see them in the original sources. Also, rumors and gossip about the powerful are too common to uncritically accept such gossip and most of Machten’s evidence is hearsay.
However, this is an illuminating book. It sheds a lot of light on the relationships – frequently, the “b*tchy” relationship – between the leading Nazis. It also sheds some light on Hitler’s relationships in his youth, political career and with women. It also throws some interesting light on the culture of the time – Wagner was the Liza Minnelli of Germany in the 1920s??? Who knew???
Frankly, I intend to file this information as a possible explanation and see what confirmations turn up when I read more on the period.
This is a hard book to analyze. The essential point of this book is an argument that Hitler was a practicing homosexual during his youth and the period that he was building up his political machine. There is no direct evidence for this. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence, innuendo and inference that might allow that conclusion to be drawn. Is the evidence enough to warrant that conclusion?
I’m not sure. On the one hand, during the last forty years, homosexual apologists have tended to lay claim to a broad variety of historical figures, such as Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln and John Henry Newman with less reason. This kind of thing used to be more common, but no one made a claim for Adolf Hitler.
On the other hand, there is no eyewitness testimony, just a lot of weird behavior that speaks to something and that Hitler was hiding something terribly private. People with something to hide usually have obscure private lives. Shakespeare, for example, private life is well-documented, but we don’t know all that much about his private life, perhaps because he was a dissenting Catholic.
Hitler’s private life, throughout his life, is similarly obscure in places, although, oddly, a lot of this obscurity comes from historians passing over known facts about Hitler’s life. This book does a surprising service by disclosing things that are known to historians. For example, I’ve heard passing references to Hitler’s boyhood friend, but never given much thought to him as a historical source, thinking that he was lost to history. According to the author, Lothar Machtan, the boyhood friend, August Kubizek, and Hitler appear to have an odd, perhaps homosexual relationship. Hitler wrote about his desire to set up housekeeping with August, they dressed alike, and they loved the music of Richard Wagner, which apparently was the “in thing” for homosexuals of fin de siècle Germany. In 1938, Hitler moved with alacrity to take all of Kubizek’s papers about him. Kubizek’s memoirs described a weird incident redolent of homosexuality. Hitler set himself up as the dominant member of the couple.
Hitler had two other similar relationships, including one with a fellow soldier, Schmidt, during World War I. In addition, Hitler never promoted past corporal, which would only have been possible if he was actively avoiding promotion for some reason. Machtan argues that the reason was a homosexual relationship with Schmidt, which would have been exposed if he had a higher rank. (See p. 91-92.) Machtan points out that we do not know the reason for the award of the Iron Cross to Hitler, but he notes that there was a delay in awarding the medal, which might be explained by the fact that a promotion should have gone with the medal and Hitler refused to be promoted. (p. 92.)
Hitler has always been portrayed as homeless, but Machtan suggests he may have been a street hustler. In one passage of Kubizek’s memoirs, Hitler and Kubizek were approached by an older gentleman, who Hitler immediately identified as homosexual. Hitler’s hostel was well-known to have been a location for homosexual prostitutes to work out of. Hitler checked in and out of the hostel and seemed to have more money than could be explained by painting post-cards, particularly given Hitler’s lack of a work ethic.
Do we really think that Hitler would have had moral qualms against prostituting himself?
Machtan does a thorough job of documenting what look to be blackmail attempts against Hitler by people claiming to have “dirt” on Hitler. The nature of the dirt is only hinted at, but sometimes the blackmailers were quite successful in their enterprises. Machtan identifies one such as Hanfstaengl. I read Hanfstaengl’s memoirs and I completely missed anything that would have put me on notice of homosexuality on the part of Hitler, but, then, I also never picked up that Hanfstaengl was himself a homosexual. (To be fair, Machten had access to an unpublished second memoir and interviewed Hanfstaengl’s son.)
One thing about the issue of homosexuality is how repressed it is from disclosure. Obviously, Hanfstaengl was not going to out himself, nor would any of Hitler’s partners. His risk came from third parties, such as Hans “Ghost Rider” Mend, who served with Hitler as a dispatch rider and obviously considered Hitler to have been something of a jerk and loser during his military years. Mend is the suspected source of information specifically outing Hitler – the “Mend Protocol” – which came into the possession of the German embassy in London in 1948. The Mend Protocol was affirmed or ascribed to the German resistance that was intended to be used in trying Hitler after he was ousted from power. (p. 65 -67.) The Mend Protocol confirms that Hitler was suspected of homosexual behavior with Schmidt and, interestingly, his politics were “Red” in the sense of Marxist. (p. 65-69.)
Then we come to Rohm and the homosexuals that Hitler surrounded himself. Rohm was indisputable to Hitler’s rise to power. Rohm was also an open and unabashed homosexual, albeit he never went so far as admitting that he had broken Paragraph 175. (p. 198.) Hitler had no objection to Rohm or his sexual identity; he stated that he was indifferent to what Nazis did so long as they were good fighters for Nazism. (p. 207.) Machtan also identifies others around Hitler as homosexual, including Hess, von Schirach, Hanfstangl, and Ludicke. Hitler promoted Karl Ernst, a waiter from Berlin’s homosexual scene, to the command of the Berlin SA. (p. 207.) Machtan argues that the brutality of the Rohm putsch was required because Rohm knew about Hitler’s homosexuality, albeit it is certainly explained by the fact that Rohm had the loyalty of millions of violent thugs. (p. 211, 220.) Machten also suggests that Erich Klausener was not murdered because he was the head of Catholic Action, but because he might have acquired documents on Hitler because he had been the head of the police department of the Prussian ministry of the interior. (p. 217.) This seems like a stretch, but Karl Zehnter was an obscure victim of the putsch whose only connection was that he was a friend of Rohm and Ernst and served them as a waiter in private meetings between Rohm and his friends. (p. 217.) Rohm’s former lover Martin Schatzl was also liquidated out of fear that he had been told something about Hitler by Rohm. (p. 217-218.)
I’ve noted in other reviews, the strange connection that was formed by people living in Germany during the 1920s between homosexuality and ultra-nationalism. Joseph Roth’s Spider’s Web, written in 1923, presented the beginning of the loathsome protagonist’s career as occurring with a homosexual tryst with a nationalist nobleman. In Swastika Night, written by Murray Constantine in 1937, presented a future world ruled by the descendants of the Nazis where the males were brutal homosexuals and the women were reduced to brood mares.
Machten offers an explanation for this connection. In 1906-1909, the political weekly Die Zukunft accused Phillipp Prinz zu Eulenberg, a friend of Kaiser Wilhelm of homosexuality. Harden was a Jew. If Hitler was homosexual, he would have had some sense of that when he was 17 to 20, which might have cemented his pro-German nationalism/anti-Semitism. Hitler mentions this affair in Mein Kampf. Machten writes:
“Where Hitler was concerned strong language of this kind must have fallen on fertile ground, because he would already have discerned some connection between his own proclivities and the Jew Harden’s public attacks on the German emperor’s homosexual adviser. He must have felt personally assailed by Harden’s revelations.” (p. 49.)
Now, a critical reader must agree that paragraph constitutes first-rate speculation and mind-reading, but if we put a series of “perhaps” in front of each clause, there is something interesting about the fact that this incident was sufficiently formative for Hitler to mention it in Mein Kampf fifteen years later.
Something was in the air, associating the Nazis with homosexuality. Presumably, this included Rohm and was certainly inspired by the usual political mud-slinging, but it may have been inspired by all the information that was available at the time. For that matter, Machten describes the belief of some German homosexuals who looked forward to better times under the Nazis. (p. 244-248.)
Another feature of Hitler’s life is the absence of female romantic entanglements. Even the most famous – Eva Braun – was a “beard.” Machten quotes Braun as mentioning the absence of sex in their relationship. She was also quoted as saying “Just think how convenient it is for a woman never to have to be jealous of any other woman.” (p. 170.) That might be a tribute to Hitler’s integrity, but it sounds like a cutting back-handed compliment.
The evidence in favor of Machten’s thesis builds up bit by bit. If true, Hitler was a part of a German homosexual community.
Am I convinced? Not really. I am skeptical of the facts presented; I want to see them in the original sources. Also, rumors and gossip about the powerful are too common to uncritically accept such gossip and most of Machten’s evidence is hearsay.
However, this is an illuminating book. It sheds a lot of light on the relationships – frequently, the “b*tchy” relationship – between the leading Nazis. It also sheds some light on Hitler’s relationships in his youth, political career and with women. It also throws some interesting light on the culture of the time – Wagner was the Liza Minnelli of Germany in the 1920s??? Who knew???
Frankly, I intend to file this information as a possible explanation and see what confirmations turn up when I read more on the period.
July 29, 2025
I was watching a documentary called Three Days in Aushcwitz and the filmmaker showed off two of his books from his personal library on the Holocaust. The Hidden Hitler was one of them. Hitler was gay? I didn't believe that could be possible, until I saw this gif:
So I thought I'd now be open to the possibility and read this book. I really didn't want Hitler to be gay because I like gay people and they have enough problems without having the whole Hitler guilt thing on their backs.
But Hitler was gay. And man, Hitler was not just gay, he was FLAMING. How could I have missed it? Especially with that hand flip thing he did constantly? So much still to learn about World War II.
Machtan has over 100 pages in the Notes section to back up his claim of Hitler's homosexuality -- taken from personal letters, police reports, newspapers and even a report from Hitler's WWI Army days stating that despite being awarded an Iron Cross, he could not be promoted because he was gay.
Hitler liked to set his underlings back-stabbing each other. It helped him retain power (and probably provided him with a good laugh.) It does get hard to keep track of what Nazi is backstabbing another Nazi later on in the book. Other than that, a surprisingly lively read and definitely worth pointing out to the camera if you just happen to be making a documentary.
So I thought I'd now be open to the possibility and read this book. I really didn't want Hitler to be gay because I like gay people and they have enough problems without having the whole Hitler guilt thing on their backs.
But Hitler was gay. And man, Hitler was not just gay, he was FLAMING. How could I have missed it? Especially with that hand flip thing he did constantly? So much still to learn about World War II.
Machtan has over 100 pages in the Notes section to back up his claim of Hitler's homosexuality -- taken from personal letters, police reports, newspapers and even a report from Hitler's WWI Army days stating that despite being awarded an Iron Cross, he could not be promoted because he was gay.
Hitler liked to set his underlings back-stabbing each other. It helped him retain power (and probably provided him with a good laugh.) It does get hard to keep track of what Nazi is backstabbing another Nazi later on in the book. Other than that, a surprisingly lively read and definitely worth pointing out to the camera if you just happen to be making a documentary.
May 21, 2012
This book, along with another, Explaining Hitler by Ron Rosenbaum, is one of the more intriguing of the many books that I have read about Adolf Hitler.
In a nutshell, Machtan tries to explain much of Hitler's character and behaviour with reference to his early exposure to, and or experience of homosexuals.
I agree with what the New York Review of Books wrote in late 2001 : "But the biggest problem with Machtan's book ... isn't the reliability of his sources but his mode of argumentation. He accepts what fits his thesis and rejects what doesn't." [Quoted from Wikipedia]
Despite this, the book is filled with fascinating information about the early life of a failed young painter* who later converted his creative urges into something far darker, and, ultimately, completely destructive.
*PS: A few years ago, some of Hitler's paintings were displayed as part of an exhibition at the White Cube in Mason's Yard (London, UK: http://whitecube.com/exhibitions/jake...). Many of us would be satisfied if we were able to paint as well as Hitler did (see for example: http://www.bytwerk.com/gpa/hitlerpain...) , but no doubt the admission committee of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts had good reasons for rejecting him. What a shame they did not realise the catastrophic consequences of their decision!
In a nutshell, Machtan tries to explain much of Hitler's character and behaviour with reference to his early exposure to, and or experience of homosexuals.
I agree with what the New York Review of Books wrote in late 2001 : "But the biggest problem with Machtan's book ... isn't the reliability of his sources but his mode of argumentation. He accepts what fits his thesis and rejects what doesn't." [Quoted from Wikipedia]
Despite this, the book is filled with fascinating information about the early life of a failed young painter* who later converted his creative urges into something far darker, and, ultimately, completely destructive.
*PS: A few years ago, some of Hitler's paintings were displayed as part of an exhibition at the White Cube in Mason's Yard (London, UK: http://whitecube.com/exhibitions/jake...). Many of us would be satisfied if we were able to paint as well as Hitler did (see for example: http://www.bytwerk.com/gpa/hitlerpain...) , but no doubt the admission committee of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts had good reasons for rejecting him. What a shame they did not realise the catastrophic consequences of their decision!
March 15, 2018
Like some of the others who have reviewed this book, I agree that this book is troublesome. While there is some evidence the author presents that could be compelling that Hitler was homosexual, there is other information that requires one to really stretch to believe he was gay. After reading all 321 pages of this book, I still cannot be sure. I think it is more likely than not that he was homosexual. So why would we care? Well, the author argues that much of what is written about Hitler focuses on the evil that he perpetrated rather than on why he did it. This books attempts to look at Hitler's person and what issues in his life may have driven him to be this person who perpetrated such evil. Now, understand, he never says homosexuals are evil. As I understand it, he seems to argue that Hitler probably had some latent anger as a result of hiding his homosexual proclivities, and this may have contributed the terror he unleashed on the world.
That said, I learned a bit more about the history of that era that was interesting to me, and that made this book worth reading. Ultimately, I don't really care whether Hitler was gay or not. I am more interested in understanding why his rise to power happened so I can help make sure something like that never happens again.
That said, I learned a bit more about the history of that era that was interesting to me, and that made this book worth reading. Ultimately, I don't really care whether Hitler was gay or not. I am more interested in understanding why his rise to power happened so I can help make sure something like that never happens again.
November 14, 2017
The author is Jewish. That is all you need to know.
April 20, 2023
The main point that Lothar Machtan tries to make in The Hidden Hitler is that Adolf Hitler was a homosexual. He does this based on an analysis of people he had, or may have had relationships with, especially in his early years, and reports from after Hitler’s death by people who knew him through the government of the Nazis.
The book also investigates Hitler’s girlfriends, including some early, fairly minor ones, but mostly the two most famous girlfriends – Geli Raubal and Eva Braun.
There is not much about the rise or fall of the Third Reich, or very much about Hitler’s personal life aside from the suspicions of his homosexual relationships and what happened when one of these went wrong.
The most thought-provoking idea in the book was the suggestion that Hitler’s hatred of Jews arose from his idea that they were somehow responsible for the prejudices against homosexuals.
The book also investigates Hitler’s girlfriends, including some early, fairly minor ones, but mostly the two most famous girlfriends – Geli Raubal and Eva Braun.
There is not much about the rise or fall of the Third Reich, or very much about Hitler’s personal life aside from the suspicions of his homosexual relationships and what happened when one of these went wrong.
The most thought-provoking idea in the book was the suggestion that Hitler’s hatred of Jews arose from his idea that they were somehow responsible for the prejudices against homosexuals.
June 7, 2020
I initially picked up this book thinking it would be more of a biography that focused on Hitler's personal affairs (as opposed to a focus on his political activities). The focus, however, is strictly on Hitler's sexuality, the author claiming that he was a homosexual. I went into the reading with an open mind, willing to consider the possibility, but quickly became frustrated with Machtan's methods. Rather than presenting evidence and drawing a conclusion from it, Machtan asks the reader to accept his analysis as fact, then view his "evidence" through that lens. He continually (and erroneously) insists that statements and events only make sense if Hitler was homosexual. He gives credence to statements that might be construed as supporting his theory, without acknowledging the obvious biases and agendas of the various actors involved. The end result is a very poor attempt at a scholarly novel. An associate professor of Modern and Current History at Bremen University should have much higher standards for himself.
January 16, 2016
The author makes some serious leaps of interpretation with the existing evidence. He may be correct, he may not be, but it seems as though he's twisting relatively neutral material to suit his thesis. Very entertaining but dubious read.
March 18, 2021
Interesting perspective on Hitler’s youth and a testament that all great evil comes from a place of pain and self-hatred. It was actually the first book regarding WW2 that made me see Hitler as an actual person and not only the awful monster he was.
July 19, 2019
I got a message in graduate school when I made my first attempt to disrupt the monstrous mystique of Adolf Hitler that to do so was an "immoral" endeavor. A claim inspired my initial attempt. "No one loved Adolf Hitler." I don't know who said it. I just remember the assertion. While the intention seemed clear, fear and loathing, along with a healthy dose of moral superiority, the assertion failed to ring true. Certainly, someone loved Adolf Hitler, at the very least his mother.
Twelve years later, after loads of research, I have realized plenty of people loved Adolf Hitler. Or their idea of him. The more books I read by people who "knew" Adolf Hitler, the more I suspect they either thought they knew him and didn't or knew plenty they did not admit.
Did this ambiguity result from loyalty or self preservation?
Lothar Machtan didn't know Adolf Hitler. He didn't know any of the people whose testimony he uses as supporting evidence to back his assertion. "Adolf Hitler was a homosexual."
Biographers have suggested Adolf Hitler was heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, asexual, and impotent. I read he had a "micro penis." I read he had one ball. He was a neuter. He was a sadist. He was a masochist. He was a prude. None of these biographers spent as much time as Machtan has considering Adolf Hitler's sexuality. Machtan devotes hundreds of pages to it.
Not sure about his motivation. To consider Adolf Hitler's sexuality is to consider his humanity.
Disparity persists.
All the disparity points to mythology. One which Adolf Hitler created around himself and which the people loyal to him continued to perpetuate intentionally, unintentionally, or otherwise.
XO.
Twelve years later, after loads of research, I have realized plenty of people loved Adolf Hitler. Or their idea of him. The more books I read by people who "knew" Adolf Hitler, the more I suspect they either thought they knew him and didn't or knew plenty they did not admit.
Did this ambiguity result from loyalty or self preservation?
Lothar Machtan didn't know Adolf Hitler. He didn't know any of the people whose testimony he uses as supporting evidence to back his assertion. "Adolf Hitler was a homosexual."
Biographers have suggested Adolf Hitler was heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, asexual, and impotent. I read he had a "micro penis." I read he had one ball. He was a neuter. He was a sadist. He was a masochist. He was a prude. None of these biographers spent as much time as Machtan has considering Adolf Hitler's sexuality. Machtan devotes hundreds of pages to it.
Not sure about his motivation. To consider Adolf Hitler's sexuality is to consider his humanity.
Disparity persists.
All the disparity points to mythology. One which Adolf Hitler created around himself and which the people loyal to him continued to perpetuate intentionally, unintentionally, or otherwise.
XO.
March 8, 2021
More like 2.5 stars. I really expected this book to be interesting, but a lot of books on Hitler and Nazi Germany have been written, so of course there are some "bad apples" out there, too.
In a nutshell, the author seems to like fruits a lot, especially cherries, which he so graciously picks throughout the book. He is trying very hard to demonstrate that Hitler was gay. While no definitive answer can be given and arguments to support either side of the story can be made, the way he tries to impose his ideas as facts upon the reader was pretty annoying.
In a nutshell, the author seems to like fruits a lot, especially cherries, which he so graciously picks throughout the book. He is trying very hard to demonstrate that Hitler was gay. While no definitive answer can be given and arguments to support either side of the story can be made, the way he tries to impose his ideas as facts upon the reader was pretty annoying.
May 24, 2021
I read this Book for an academic paper about the heternormative masculinity Ideals of soldiers and the scandals about Ernst Röhms homosexuality and murder. As „fun“ as this theory is, because its a rather different approach especially to the Events from 1934, it is waaaaaaay too circumstancial when ist comes to actual evidence.
December 6, 2017
I feel that the author pushes to some conclusions sometimes. Anyway there are plenty of evidence of Hitler's homoerotism. As we say in portuguese..."Bichona enrustida".
June 10, 2022
Very interesting
April 14, 2024
A substantial research based on archive documents and literature available climaxed into a convincing conclusion that Hitler wasn't such macho as his antigay policies could one mislead.
June 11, 2025
The book is interesting because it gives you a different point of view than what you were used to, at least for those of us who have read biographies of Hitler by authors who have a fantastic ability to ignore homoeroticism.
However, the greatest sin committed by Lothar Machtan is to CLAIM that Hitler was homosexual. I know I'm asking a lot for a book published in the early 2000s by a man who was born in the 50s, but it seems that both he and the scholars who refuse to speculate about the sexuality of historical figures forget that sexuality can be a spectrum and that not everything boils down to gay and straight.
In the first place is Angelica Raubal. During a part of the book I wondered how the author would adress the issue of the niece, because however you interpret it, it's quite obvious that Adolf Hitler had quite strong feelings towards his niece, as disgusting as it may sound. How far this relationship "deepened" will always be a mystery to historians and non-historians alike. And if Hitler over-dramatized his mourning for Angela as another excuse not to commit to a serious relationship (as Lothar Machtan theorizes) it's something I'm willing to accept because the Austrian politician has a track record as a two-faced actor. However, the author disappointed me a lot when he simply said that this was not the dramatic story of a couple, but of a love triangle! between Emil Maurice, Angela Raubal and Hitler. Again, I am willing to accept that he may have been attracted to his driver (I'm open minded what can I say), but, leaving aside the fact that it all sounds like a stupid soap opera, it's lazy to simply boil down the whole Angela Raubal affair to that, when almost all Hitler biographers have agreed that it was a complex issue. Lothar Machtan should have treated the dictator's attraction to Angela and his chauffeur as separate issues. But he didn't do that because it didn't fit with his sensationalist theory.
Another mistake is assuming information...or believing that we readers are fools. For example, Röhm, Hafenstaengl and Kurt Ludecke tried to blackmail Hitler with information that could endanger the leadership of the Third Reich. And what was that information? We don't know, we will never know, but Machtan says it was about the dictator's sexuality. It could be anything, for example more details about his relationship with Angela. After all, Otto Strasser didn't blackmail, but spread rumors about Hitler fetishes and sexual anomalies, especially towards his niece.
It’s a pity that the book has been written in this way, because many things can be said about the sexuality of this particular dictator and his relationships with some men (Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer, Kubizek…). In general his relationships with men needed to be studied more closely. But instead Machtan gave us a book like this, written to get as much attention as possible. Something he got because if I'm not mistaken it was a hit in Germany (back in the early 2000's)
However, the greatest sin committed by Lothar Machtan is to CLAIM that Hitler was homosexual. I know I'm asking a lot for a book published in the early 2000s by a man who was born in the 50s, but it seems that both he and the scholars who refuse to speculate about the sexuality of historical figures forget that sexuality can be a spectrum and that not everything boils down to gay and straight.
In the first place is Angelica Raubal. During a part of the book I wondered how the author would adress the issue of the niece, because however you interpret it, it's quite obvious that Adolf Hitler had quite strong feelings towards his niece, as disgusting as it may sound. How far this relationship "deepened" will always be a mystery to historians and non-historians alike. And if Hitler over-dramatized his mourning for Angela as another excuse not to commit to a serious relationship (as Lothar Machtan theorizes) it's something I'm willing to accept because the Austrian politician has a track record as a two-faced actor. However, the author disappointed me a lot when he simply said that this was not the dramatic story of a couple, but of a love triangle! between Emil Maurice, Angela Raubal and Hitler. Again, I am willing to accept that he may have been attracted to his driver (I'm open minded what can I say), but, leaving aside the fact that it all sounds like a stupid soap opera, it's lazy to simply boil down the whole Angela Raubal affair to that, when almost all Hitler biographers have agreed that it was a complex issue. Lothar Machtan should have treated the dictator's attraction to Angela and his chauffeur as separate issues. But he didn't do that because it didn't fit with his sensationalist theory.
Another mistake is assuming information...or believing that we readers are fools. For example, Röhm, Hafenstaengl and Kurt Ludecke tried to blackmail Hitler with information that could endanger the leadership of the Third Reich. And what was that information? We don't know, we will never know, but Machtan says it was about the dictator's sexuality. It could be anything, for example more details about his relationship with Angela. After all, Otto Strasser didn't blackmail, but spread rumors about Hitler fetishes and sexual anomalies, especially towards his niece.
It’s a pity that the book has been written in this way, because many things can be said about the sexuality of this particular dictator and his relationships with some men (Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer, Kubizek…). In general his relationships with men needed to be studied more closely. But instead Machtan gave us a book like this, written to get as much attention as possible. Something he got because if I'm not mistaken it was a hit in Germany (back in the early 2000's)
July 20, 2017
I picked this up on a whim. I didn't even read the jacket, it was just deeply discounted and I was in line at the time. I also inherited this WWII history buff thing from my German father. And, lo and behold, something I feel almost stupid not knowing....Hitler was gay? At first I thought this was possibly sensationalist rumors, but there are almost 100 pages of annotations and citations. I did have that, "yeah, that makes it obvious now" moments given that his relationship with Eva Braun was well known to be friendship more than anything. I have never even heard of some of the men in the book (for good reason- he didn't want the public to know, and, er, some of them died because they did know first hand). So I thought this was a very interesting read, especially given the NSDAP and Paragraph 175.
Disclosure: I never really critique in reviews, just comment. The only real critique I have is that whoever proofread it didn't catch the misspelling of Hanfstaengl's name more than a few times. It's easily done in his case, but still....
Disclosure: I never really critique in reviews, just comment. The only real critique I have is that whoever proofread it didn't catch the misspelling of Hanfstaengl's name more than a few times. It's easily done in his case, but still....
May 22, 2014
Well...interesting conjecture about Hitler being a homosexual...the "evidence" was all pretty circumstantial but definitely plausible. The author jumped around some so it was sometimes hard to follow. Machtan makes reference to a number of private documents and has extensive footnotes. There is a lot of information that could lead one to believe Hitler was a homosexual, but it could also be construed as him being more asexual than anything. It was an interesting read, however, with information about life in Germany that I hadn't read elsewhere.
April 8, 2010
It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that someone who was gay would subject other gays (along with jews and other minorities and the disabled) to the wrath he had for "lower beings". After reading this, there is no doubt in my mind that he was gay. It only goes to show you he had many more problems than we all witnessed.
Want to read
February 23, 2008I started reading this but am going to put it down for awhile. I am having a hard time getting into it, as it is pretty technical in the beginning. I will try again when I am in a different mind set.
June 7, 2012
The author explores Hitler's sexuality/homosexuality and that of many of his associates going all the way back to his teenage years based upon documentation and interviews which were not destroyed after his rise to power.
Read
October 5, 2012This is a book about what Hitler was really like behind his cover story. I thought it was kinda of interesting because I like books about war stories and in particular WW2. It shows how cruel Hitler really was and why the author thought he was this way.
August 7, 2012
Rubbish
Read
October 18, 2012What a hoot!
June 21, 2014
Interesting examination of the possible secret homosexuality of Der Fuhrer, even if the writer offers nothing concrete in terms of evidence.
October 23, 2017
Interesting.
March 10, 2021
This book was awful. Boring and speculative - too much “he may have” or “ we can speculate”... where’s your actual evidence? Also confusing - we need to understand pronouns and antecedents!
September 29, 2009
Eye opening
September 29, 2010
An interesting book
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