Women and Hitler

THE SHYNESS OF A NEUROTIC MAN

It is difficult to sum up Hitler's love life in a few short
lines, not because he was a Don Juan or an ingrained
womanizer, but because he was not a ladies man.

"A JERK AFRAID OF WOMEN"
(Marlene Dietrich)

However the complexity of his life and the intricacies of his acts show a dark and somber
pattern that has puzzled many observers and experts. Hitler's love life was miserable and
he was plagued all his life by a strong Oedipus complex, his terror of venereal diseases,
and probably by some sort of physical deformity. Hitler's sexual life has been the object of
much speculation, many books and hundreds of essays. In 1943, Maj.Gen.William J.
Donovan, powerful director of the OSS (Offices of Strategic Services) instructed American
psychiatrist, Walter C. Langer, to carry out a survey and interviews to find out what sort of
man the Fuhrer of Germany was. He also asked a psycho-analyst called Henry A.Murray to
carry a similar job. Both works reached similar conclusions but have been since largely
criticized by other scholars.

                                  A one testis man

Langer's findings were incredibly accurate; as we will see later in this chapter. The one
thing that Walter C. Langer did not guess was revealed by Russians forensics in 1945:
Hitler had only one testicle. According to medical terms, the Fuehrer of the IIIrd Reich was
monorchid (only one testis) or cryptorchid (undescended testis). Hitler's doctor, the very
unorthodox Theo Morell pretended that this was untrue but Morell was not far from being
considered by most German doctors as a charlatan, and one can doubt that he ever
seriously checked on his boss's testis or that Hitler would ever let him examine such a
secret place. Hitler hated to be touched. It must be said too that once examining Hitler's
face on an X-ray picture, Morell confused the sinuses and the cheekbones. According to
historian John Toland, two others MD examined Hitler, notably Dr. Giesing in 1944, and all
of them testify that his sexual organs were normal but Giesing (1807-1977), summoned to
the Fuehrer's headquarters in East Prussia after the assassination attempt of 20th July
1944 and dismissed in September, was an eye/ear doctor and one can seriously doubt he
had an ...eye on Hitler's sexual organs.

Undaunted by denegations, the Russians doctors have always been adamant: the charred
corpse of Herr Hitler, unearthed from the yard of the Chancellery in May 1945, had only
ONE testicle. Most historians, for reasons which are not clear, never believed this assertion
but Germany has always been rampant with gossips about Hitler's sexuality and physical
abnormalities. Bella Fromm, a social columnist in the 1930s wrote in a book titled Blood
and Banquets (1942),"I believe, she said, and many people have felt the same way, that
Hitler is asexual, or perhaps impotent; finding a sexual sublimation through cruelty."

                An unusual power of hypnotic magnetism

Hitler's mother Klara was a pretty and sweet woman who took great care of her beloved "
Adi", but she was extremely possessive of him (sheltering him from paternal beatings,
yellings and confrontations) and he became her favorite child. He inherited her lovely pale
blue eyes whose glare had some unusual power of hypnotic magnetism.

According to Walter Langer (1), young Adolf witnessed, on many occasions, scenes of
conjugal rape that would have irretrievably traumatized him. But it is pure Langer's
speculations. If they are founded, it is easy to imagine the fabric of contradictions therefore
offered by a father who cherished his official status of Herr Oberoffizial Hitler but who at the
same time used to come back late at home rather drunk to extract from his young wife
sexual gratifications sometimes with violence or even, according to Langer, with a whip. It is
true that all his life, Hitler was fascinated by the whip and once Chancellor of the Reich, the
whip never left him. There is even a vivid description of Hitler wielding the whip in
Berchtesgarden by a member of his entourage that must be read to realize how grotesque
this man could be as soon as his attitude to women was concerned. It is a piece of high
litterature.

This fabric, according to many psychiatrists and other experts who studied Hitler's case,
would have created in Hitler a terrible surge to find a superior model to help him reach a
psychological balance. He found models of this sort during WWI in Ludendorff, Hindenburg
and Schopenhauer. His fascination for both the heroes of WWI may as well explain his
brown nose attitude during the war and his endless admiration for despots like Napoleon or
weirdos like Alexander the Great. In any case, his rejection of the father was so intense
that he never referred -like every German- to Germany as vaterland but as mutterland
(motherland). Consequently, Hitler seems to have been quite shy vis a vis young girls
during his adolescence and his early years in Vienna as a would-be artist.

A hymn to the beloved

It is hardly to believe but the story is true. Kubizek told that, for several years in Linz, Hitler
was mad about a well off young girl named Stephanie Rabatsch (2) to whom he sent one
anonymous love letter in 1908 just before to depart for Vienna : in it, he asked her to wait
for him to graduate from Art School and they would get married. He never dared to
approach her and was always satisfied with a quick glance from her. He even wrote a poem
about her entitled "Hymn to the beloved". Urged by Kubizek to be more decisive and
bolder, Hitler shunned away arguing he was not yet in a position to conquer the heart of
his beloved. She got engaged to a Captain from the Hessian command in Linz soon after.
After the war, this woman confirmed to have been the recipient of an anonymous love letter
in the 1900s but always maintained she was unaware of the identity of the writer.

Hitler was not made of the material that makes young men to declare themselves and dare
to do so. Fear of being rejected, silly childish pride or shame of a physical deformity, and
also Hitler's constant shyness with women will always plague him. To justify his shyness to
Stephanie, he used to tell Kubizek that he was too poor to stand a chance: he would
declare himself to his flame, he said to Kubizek, once he will be a successful and well
respected architect or artist. (sic) In 1908, Hitler was already 19 years old and it was
amazing to note how shy, immature and out of touch with reality he was at this time.
Further more, it is revealing to notice that Hitler always bolted at the last minute when it
came to show what he was made of : he did not dare declare himself to Stefanie and in the
same manner he turned away from the door of Roller who was more than willing to meet
and help him. Deep in his heart, Hitler had no confidence in himself : he was a looser but
his braggings and monologues gave the impression of a fearceful and committed young
man.

Attractive to older women

In his book "Adolf Hitler, mein Jugendfreund" (The young Hitler I knew in its English
version)(*), Kubizek went as far as stating that Hitler could only live a romantic affair in his
mind and that he would have been incapable to face the sometimes bitter music of a true
love affair. His later alledged affair with his niece Geli Raubal will be a tragic evidence of
this assertion. Kubizek knew well his friend Adolf and it is a pity that his testimony was
somehow vilified by historians for two reasons: 1- the book would have been written by a
ghost-writer who fantasized a lot from Kubizek's memories, 2- Kubizek was accused of
excessive indulgence to Hitler by a Franz Jetzinger who published a "Hitler Youth" book in
1956, an assertion that impaired the credibility of Kubizek's book. Kubizek died the same
year and could not defend himself. Since then, historians tend to disregard Kubizek's
version of Hitler's youth.

Credible or not, one fact is certain: during his years in Vienna, according to Kubizek or
others sources, Hitler had no love affairs or even sexual affairs, although he seemed to
have been quite attractive to older women and they responded to him; because of his
good manners, sexy shyness, aloofness and neat appearance. Hitler did not seize the
opportunities often offered to him and even ignored "billets doux" (love letters) furtively
addressed to him by older women.

For almost a year, August Kubizek lived with Hitler in a modest pension on Stumpergasse
in Vienna: Hitler's monthly pension of 25 kronen only covered the cost of a meager diet, so
he had to be frugal with what was left of his inheritance. Kubizek, a very gifted musician,
was admitted to the Music Conservatory whereas Hitler had already been refused the year
before and would be again very soon. Kubizek's musical career was shattered by WWI and
he ended up as an obscure clerk in Weimar Germany. After WWII, his past came back to
the surface and the Allies even admonished him for a friendship that ceased abruptly in
1908 when Hitler left the pension without a word, never to see his good and faithful friend
until 1938.

                          The stupidity of the victors

The vindictive stupidity of the Allies then knew no limits: Kubizek was jailed during 17
months and interrogated by an American officer whose subtleness is flagrantly apparent in
the following dialogue:

* Later when he (Hitler) was Chancelor, did you see him again?
* Yes
* Often?
* Sometimes
* How did you get to him?
* I was going to see him
* And then you stayed very close to him?
* Yes, very close
* Alone ?
* Yes, alone
* Without surveillance ?
* Without surveillance
* Could you have killed him?
* Yes
* And why did not you do it?
* Because he was my friend.

This brilliant officer should have been awarded the Medal of Dumbness. Anyway after he
had done with his meager part of Klara's inheritance and was only left with a pension of 25
Kronen a month, Hitler stopped altogether to live with his friend: he left the pension without
a word or a note for a guy who had been the best and most understanding of friends.
Kubizek came back from vacations to find the room empty and the landlady at a loss to
explain where Hitler was or why he left. In fact, Adolf had left because in the meanwhile he
had once more failed the Art Academy test and he could not bear to tell the truth to
Kubizek. Even as a teenager, Hitler's selfishness and vanity prevailed upon real friendship
and sincere feelings. After WWI and the influencing readings of Shopenhauer, Hitler will
become completely impervious to any human feeling.

Nevertheless, during his first year in Vienna, young Adolf was well dressed, careful to make
good impression, still relatively well-off, and if he used to please women, these attentions
were never reciprocated. Kubizek could not do with this constant refusal to jump into the
waters of sexuality -which are not always cold- and to take advantage of one's charms. In
so much as Hitler was then miles away from the vengeful and spitting cobra of the 1930s:
he was then modest but apparently confident in his own value and his own mission. Careful
to learn and to improve his culture, he frequently went to the Opera, read a lot, ranted and
lectured everybody in every Cafe of Vienna. Kubizek told us that Hitler was then a
charming young man who pleased everybody and whom everybody liked: "Hitler was
well-liked and respected by almost everyone he met", wrote Kubizek.

If he did not respond to gallant propositions, noted Kubizek, it is because of his fears for
the high rate of syphilis that existed in Europe at that time, and the incurable and horrible
consequences of contracting it. One night, Hitler gave Kubizek a lecture about
"commercial" love: "He pointed out that men were there only to satisfy their sexual urges
while the women were only concerned with their "earnings".Was he really honest or a bit of
a hypocrite when he was uttering such ideas and did it take a Hitler to harbor these
common ideas in the early 1900s?

We will never know because Hitler never accepted the offers of a prostitute in Kubizek's
presence. Once he absented himself for three days and came back to the pension "dead
tired" and to Kubizek asking where he had been, Hitler gave some story about exploring
the city and never brought up the subject again. (2) Has he been on a "prostitute tour" and
was he too proud to acknowledge it to his best friend ? Years later, some members of his
inner circle sustained that he had contracted siphylis in Vienna from a prostitute Jew. An
assertion that has never been seriously vindicated and was even denied by a medical test
done in 1940.

Conventional, prude, conformist views

Actually it is pretty obvious that Hitler's views were conventional, prude, conformist and
notably influenced by Christian morals, in one world quite petty-bourgeois, somehow like
his artistic tastes.

Hitler -who was then beginning to develop a social conscience- went one day as far as
blaming the government for "its lack of actions against this plague (syphilis) that was
spreading havoc to the health of the capital" where more than 10,000 prostitutes were
unregistered and unchecked. In pre-war Vienna, any girl over 16 could get a licence as a
prostitute but thousands did not even bother to get one.

According to Reinhold Hanish, his partner in a short-lived watercolors trade, Hitler held
very decent views about women and respected them but, once again, he had very
conventional ideas about them: they were supposed to bear children, keep the household
running and men sexually satisfied. On another hand, it seemed rather evident to many
people that Hitler was a very independent men and that he was afraid to lose his
independence by getting involved into a sentimental affair. Later in life, he once confessed
to Leni Riefenstahl that a love affair would turn him away from his duties as Chancellor; a
rather bogus excuse purporting to be inspired by higher considerations. To me it is plainly
ridiculous to believe Hitler had such high motivations: he was afraid of powerful women and
could only stand pale insignificant figures like Eva Braun, the ghostlike woman who was his
companion from 1932 to 1945. However he was extremely polite and charming to his
female guests at the Berghof and could be an amusing and witty "causeur" (chatter). But
women were more attracted to him by the magnetic power he exuded than by his
conversation that was generally dull and repetitive. He loved to pretend to enjoy a good
psychological sense of women albeit generally biased by his prejudices and his
conceptions of the role of a woman in the society. .

                                  Ein grosses weisse

Some people used to evoke his feminine characteristics, as his handwriting, his neatly kept
suits or the way he teamed up with Ernst Roehm, SA leader and overt homosexual, to call
upon Hitler's homosexual tendencies. This aspect of his character is examined in the
chapter "Was Hitler gay"? Others, like Ernst Jung, estimated that "hinter Hitler schrift ist
nichts als ein grosses weisse" (behind this handwriting lays a feminine character).

In the end, Don Juan "Adi" is credited with very few love affairs. Officially he had two, the
first one with his niece Angelika Geli Raubal, daughter of his half-sister Angela, and the
second one with the frivolous and rather silly Eva Braun, assistant of Herr Heinrich
Hoffmann, official photographer of the Nazi Party. Hoffmann was tried by a German court
as a Nazi profiteer - he had received huge royalties for the use of his photographs - and
was imprisoned for five years. Hoffmann had constant access and was very privy to Hitler
and used to provide his master with porno movies and, according to gossips, with
unquestioning easy ladies.

Before 1933, his life is singularly void of women, either in Vienna or in Munich and he was
very well known during WWI to have never resorted to the dubious charms of the moving
military brothels. It is only after the war and when he became a political figure that he
seemed to find some confidence: he then started to show some interest in women,
especially artists and movies stars, but above all it is women of influence who started to be
interested in this Fuehrer who was the talk of the city. A lot of female power brokers,
generally older than Hitler, threw their nets around this pathetic and solitary figure; or they
thought so.

                         I would love Adolf to be my son

Among the most famous Hitler's female power brokers was Carola Hoffman, a 61 years old
widow who, as soon as 1920, took him under her protection and introduced him in Berlin
high society. Another one, richer and most powerful, was the wife of piano maker Carl
Bechstein, Helena, who took over Hoffman's role and cherished it so much that she used to
tell her friends:"I would love Adolf to be my son". She often visited him while he served a
prison sentence in 1923 after this failed putsch in Munich, pretending to be his adopted
mother. Hitler would often sit at her feet and lay his head against her bosom while she
stroked his hair tenderly and murmured "Mein Woelfchen" (my little wolf, sic). The
Bechsteins financed the purchase of the nazi party newspaper "The Voelkischer
Beobachter" and introduced him to Munich's high society.

She eventually forced her protege to propose her ugly daughter, Lottie, but fortunately for
the world, Lottie had more sense than money and thought that she would be better off if
she stayed a maid. Hitler's failure to convince the daughter to become Frau Adolf Hitler
considerably froze the idyll between the aspiring mother-in-law and the rejected Romeo:
Frau Bechstein was disconsolate over the failure of her plans and began to criticize Hitler's
social reforms as well as his actions. However she remained a Nazi until her death in 1951.
Shortly before his death in December 2000, Rudolf Pfeiffer-Bechstein, the widower of Lotte
Bechstein, told German television viewers that his wife had been sexually intimate with
Hitler. Something must have happened between them as evidenced by the fact that Hitler
presented Lotte with what may have been his last watercolor and was one of the few with a
personal inscription, "To my beloved Lottie, your Wolf." One can doubt Herr Pfeiffer's
declarations.

The most famous Hitler's guardian angel was probably Frau Victoria von Dirksen,
mother-in-law of the German ambassador to Moscow, widow of the builder of the Berlin
underground. Along side with the Thyssens and the Krupps, she lavished huge amounts of
money upon Hitler and the NSDAP to facilitate their access to power. It was in her
residence that Hermine Hohenzollern, second wife of the exiled Kaiser Wilhem II, was
denied by Hitler her request to let her husband come back to the vaterland. Hitler was no
fool and rather impervious to women persuasive charms. He also befriended a lot Helene
Hanfstagl, wife of Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstagl, a Socialite well connected with American and
German power brokers. But, in spite of a timid pass he made at her one evening, their
relation was purely platonic.

Like were all his other relations with powerful women, Hitler being satisfied with maternal
attention and financial backing, like the spoiled brat he has always been. According to
Rauschning, he was often acting like a poodle, sitting to the feet of his mentors and happy
to be called "mein woelfchen". For a man who was, at the same time, the herald of iron will,
it was not a small contradiction; bullies are often made of clay.

          A British Fascist among his female admirers

Born in 1914, Unity, nicknamed Bobo, eventually got crazy about Hitler; to the point she
shot herself in the head on the day of declaration of war by England to Germany. Hitler,
moved by her incredible gesture, will let a special train repatriated her to London where
she will live a vegetative life until her death in 1948. Her grandfather, Algernon Bertram,
the Lord Redesdale (1837-1916) wrote the introduction to Houston S. Chamberlain's racist
works, "The foundations of the XIXth Century".

Hitler had a weakness for Unity but turned her down in many occasions because, as he
would say to Leni Riefenstahl, his duty was not in matrimonial affairs: "marriage would
plunge me into a sea of responsibilities that would turn me away from my main
responsibilities that I owe to my people. To say the least, the decisions I would have
to take would be such that I would not be allowed the slightest error. If things should
turn sour, I would not accept it and there would be one exit only : a bullet in my
head." This prophetic and ridiculous excuse was served to silly Unity and she took it
literally, unable to see what a flat and mediocre excuse it was.

It is a mystery that educated and well-off people could have been mystified to such extent
by a braggart, a bully and an uneducated man like Hitler. How is it that they did not see
that Hitler was mentally sick, dangerous and full of crap ? That is another mystery.
Ambition and class prejudices explain sometimes a lot of things but still, it is puzzling to
notice the havoc spread by Hitler's theories, thanks to the gullibility of people in high
circles. As would say in his Memoirs Albert Speer, who also came from a privileged family:
"We threw ourselves on our bellies." Disgusting.

But the list is not yet closed: One of the most talked about platonic affairs of Herr Don Juan
Hitler was with an English-born orphan, Winifred Williams, who was married to Siegfried
Wagner, son of the composer.

                  And then came Winifred Wagner

In 1915, Winifred had married Richard Wagner's son (who was much older and embroiled
in homosexual dalliances) whom she had met in 1914 at the Bayreuth Festival. It was then
hoped in the Wagner family that the marriage would end Siegfried's homosexual scandals,
the associated costly settlements that often accompanied these scandals, and also provide
children for the Wagner lineage. Through Winfred, the continuation of the Wagner line was
saved; as she managed to have four children: Wieland (1917-1966), Friedelinde
(1918-1991), Wolfgang (born 1919) and Verena (born 1920). In the early 1920s, she
became a fanatic admirer of Hitler and even smuggled into his prison cell the paper he
needed to type his book, Mein Kampf. She soon began to tell her friends and relatives that
"this man was going to be the savior of Germany." Her brother-in-law Houston S.
Chamberlain, who married Richard Wagner's daughter Ewa, once wrote to Hitler :"With a
blow you have transformed the state of my soul."

In 1933, widowed since 1930, she gave to her relationship with the new Fuehrer such a
turn that people started to talk about a new forthcoming marriage for Winifred. But Hitler
was no fool: he used Wagner's popularity and Winifred's social connections to increase his
own popularity and very often attended the Bayreuth Festival just long enough to be
acclaimed and then left. Not all Winifred's children were fond of uncle Adolf and in many
respects the attraction of Adolf and Winifred seemed to have been staged for mutual
benefit more than out of serious attraction. It is said in some circles that she proposed to
him and that he declined the offer to marry a Wagner. Forty years later, on her bed death,
the British born Walkyrie, unrepentant like Leni Riefenstahl, declared that she regretted
nichts and she added : "To meet Hitler was an experience that I would have never wanted
to miss." Some people never learn.

(1) The Mind of Adolf Hitler 1943, Basic Books NY 2rd edition 1972. Available on the Net.
(2) See Walter S Franck' Smoter
(*) Kubizek, August. The Young Hitler I Knew. Trans. E.V. Anderson. Westport Conn.
Greenwood Press, 1976.
(**) Questions to All Experts 20th Century

American
women always
knew how to
handle bullies

Stefanie Rabatsch,
Hitler's mythic lover, in
her prime and elderly time

The mother in law of
Herbert von Dirksen,
German ambassador to
Moscow, spent lavishly
upon Hitler's endeavours
to get to power

Diana Guinness, who
married Sir Oswald
Mosley, leader of the
British Nazis, was one of
those British
aristocrasts, like the King
himself, who fell in love
with Hitler and his crazy
theories.

Winifred felt no passion
for her homosexual
husband and was much
more attracted to the
asexual Hitler who
helped her to revive
Bayreuth Festival.

Our Wedding
Adolf and Germania
January 30th, 1933

However, in a testimony published in 1941 in the magazine "Current
History", Captain Karl Mayr, who was Hitler's boss at the end of the
Great War, told that "Hitler's deformity" was well known in the Army
since his incorporation in 1914 and that he was often mocked by his
comrades about it. The deformity was mentioned in his medical
report. Karl Mayr -who pretended in his "Memoirs" that Hitler was a
mere pawn in Goering's hands- was murdered in Buchenwald
concentration camp in 1945.

As an adolescent and a very young man, Hitler showed an unusual
shyness and restraint but this characteristic melted like snow in the
sun when he came to power: he then turned into some sort of
sado-masochistic perverted, bullying voyeur, porn-addicted, jealous
lover and his attitudes would bring to suicides of several young
women who were close to him, because they were totally disgusted
with their lives or his demands.

While he still was a teenager on vacations in the
Tyrol, a young girl milking a cow in a barn made a
timid pass at him: scared away, Hitler stepped back
and hit down an oil lamp that almost set the barn in
fire. Thirty five years later, in the Chancellery bunker
assailed by Russian troops, he was still evoking the
scene. An anecdote that tells a lot about Hitler's
maturity and his affectivity. His childhood friend from
Linz, August Kubizek, who shared a bedroom with him
in Vienna during one year, wrote a book after WWII
(Adolf Hitler, mein Jugendfreund, 1953) where he told
the story of a certain Stephanie.

Anyway, Hitler was not the sort of young guy who conquers women with
the power of his charm, his boldness, his charisma or his stamina. He
lacked self-confidence and was excessively shy with girls and women.
Flirtations were out of the question and even a conversation with a young
girl, outside the necessary everyday dealings, was rare for young Adolf.
In 1925 whereas he is only a rising star in Germany's politics, he threw
himself to the knees of beautiful Helene Hanfstangl complaining he had
"nobody to take care of him." It was a shy and childish advance that
Helene ignored but it discribed well the man.

Hitler always showed a
disturbing interest to
young children,
especially very young
girls who were keen on
jumping on uncle Hitler's
lap to the dismay of
many of their parents.

But there was
nothing that
Hitler liked
more than
enslaving
them into
Youth
Movements

Hitler made several
unsucessful passes at
his female mentor,
cineast, Leni
Riefenstahl, who made
documentaries to the
glory of the human
body

Two other young female admirers, members of British high
society, Diana Guinness, wife of a brewing baron, and her
younger sister Unity Mitford, both members of Sir Oswald
Mosley's Black Shirts fell too for Herr Adolf: they were the
daughters of Lord Redesdale. Unity was a very close friend of
British-born Winifred Wagner, daughter-in-law of the famous
composer, Diana will divorce her beer baron to marry Oswald
Mosley.

Diana and Unity (left)
with SS officiers they
admired so much. Initially
they were wearing so
much make-up that even
Göring told them they
should put less if they
wanted to be accepted
into Nazi high society

Magda Goebbels (between Hitler and Goebbels) was fascinated
by Hitler and married Goebbels out of a desire to stay closer to
her Führer. She lived to bitterly regret it.

Watch this video of one of
Hitler's secretary, Traudl
Junge, to understand why
some other women could
not say no to the Führer.