1 The footnotes correspond to those set out in the original text.
2 Ernst Franz Hanfstaengl, nickname "Putzi," an intimate associate of Hitler's in the early years, was of the opinion that the categories sometimes got confused. "What Hitler is looking for in a woman is half-mother and half-sweetheart." See interview with Hanfstaengl in Appendix.
3 "At that time Hitler found a home of a sort with a simple lady, Frau Carola Hoffman, the widow of a secondary school director. She lived in the Munich suburb Solln. She first heard Hitler speak in 1920 and at once became very fond of him. The 61-year-old became a mother to the 30-year-old Bohemian, a mother such as he had not had all his life, not even in his own mother. Her country home became for a while an unofficial party headquarters; the old lady had been through the beer-hall battles of the Movement and founded a local party branch in Solln. Hitler always had to send her his most recent photo, on which he might write something like "To my dear, precious little mother, Christmas 1925, your admiring Adolf Hitler." (Konrad Heiden, Adolf Hitler, Zurich 1936)
4 After the failed putsch of 1923
5 According to Hanfstaengl, the relationship with Frau Bechstein was "unusual. She was smitten with Hitler quite early in his career and gave him considerable financial assistance to further his career. Early in his career, when there was still considerable danger of arrest, he adopted the name Wolf as a type of camouflage, in the party. Frau Bechstein adopted it as a nickname and up to the time Hanfstaengl left Germany she still called him Wolf or 'mein Woelfchen.' She always has used the familiar Du when speaking to him and had really played a mother role towards him. She is one person who can scold him and he stands shamefacedly and says nothing while she does it. " — See interview with Hanfstaengl in Appendix.
6 Friedelinde Wagner was the granddaughter of Richard Wagner and the daughter of Winifred, whose personal involvement with Hitler was a subject of much public speculation during the 1930's. Friedelinde's account of Hitler in the Wagner home is given in the interview in the Appendix
7 "For the past fifteen years Hitler's greatest woman friend has been Frau Victoria von Dirksen, formerly a fashionable hostess in her Margaretenstrasse mansion in Berlin.....(she) gave up most of her late husband's fortune to promoting Hitler's career. Their friendship has not been interrupted by her recent quarrels with his Party. When in Berlin, he still loyally takes tea with her every fortnight." Jannet Flanner (details unknown)
8 Magda Goebbels, wife of Hitler's Propaganda Minister, Dr. Joseph Goebbels. "Hitler is very fond of Mrs. Goebbels. He frequently has her at the Chancellory to supervise arrangements for his parties and in the past she has sometimes spent weeks at Berchtesgaden while Hitler was staying there. He has considerable respect for her opinions and since she enjoys this informal relationship she exerts considerable influence over him. Mrs. Goebbels knows this and does everything in her power to further it." Louis Lochner, see Appendix Interviews
9 Kurt Georg W. Lüdecke, I knew Hitler, New York 1937
10 "In his autobiography his brothers and sisters are not mentioned. The only one of them for whom he seems to have any attachment is his step-sister, Angela. He got into touch with her again when he revisited Vienna after the War. She was then the widow of a man named Raubal, and in domestic service as a cook. Frau Raubal and her daughter, Grete (Geli), came to see Hitler while he was a political prisoner at Landsberg in 1924. When the Party was refounded in the following year and Hitler's finances began to improve, they moved to Munich to keep house for him." G. Ward Price, I know these dictators, London 1937
11 "He was a frequent visitor at Wahnfried, the Wagner home, and there were many rumors that he would marry Winifred after her husband died. She perhaps came closer to fulfilling his ideal of half-mother and half-sweetheart than any other woman of whom we have any knowledge." See Hanfstaengl, Appendix Interview
12 See Appendix Interview with Friedelinde Wagner
13 " Hitler frequently called Zeissler and asked him to send actresses to the Chancellory." See full text of interview with A. Zeissler in Appendix Interviews.
14 "Henny, too, was a blonde and one of very questionable reputation." See Hanfstaengl, Appendix Interview
15 "Many extraordinary stories have been circulated in Party circles about Hitler's relations with Henny. According to one of the most popular stories, Hitler had once obliged Henny to have very abnormal sexual relations with him. The nature of these relations was not specified, but it was said that later Henny....had told her father the entire story. Thereupon her father.....had used Henny's story in order to blackmail Hitler." See Hanfstaengl, Appendix Interview.
16 To an intimate circle it was perhaps common knowledge, but even within this circle there seems to have been a consensus that Hitler's perversion was so unspeakable, or at least unprintable, that it was not a fit subject for discussion. Hansjuergen Koehler in his book Inside Information (London 1940) will do no more than state evasively "Adolf Hitler has a peculiar kind of perversion in his behavior to women which is impossible to describe in detail." Otto Strasser, whose oral account is one of the most important sources of our information about the exact nature of Hitler's perversion, is unwilling to commit himself in print. "I knew all about Hitler's abnormality. Like all others in the know, I had heard all about the eccentric practices to which Fräulein Hoffmann was alleged to have lent herself, but I had genuinely believed that the photographer's daughter was a little hysteric who told lies for the sheer fun of it. But Gely, who was completely ignorant of this other affair of her uncle's, confirmed point by point a story scarcely credible to a healthy-minded man." (Otto Strasser, Hitler and I, Boston 1940). In Gespräche mit Hitler (English title Voice of Destruction, New York 1940) Hermann Rauschning states simply: " It is beyond telling."
17 According to oral information given by Hanfstaengl (see Appendix Interview) Geli "was in her early twenties at this time. She was rather tall, blonde.....heavily built, somewhat plain and on the whole showed rather clearly her peasant background....there is no doubt that Hitler was deeply attached to her, although she acted very peculiarly towards him. She seemed to be rather cool towards him at times and manifested more fear towards him than fascination for him. "
18 The speculation continues to this day. In Hitler and I Otto Strasser gives this account of the affair: "....my brother Paul and I met in Austria in the spring of 1936, and spent a few days together. 'And to think,' Paul murmured one evening, 'that Gregor once stopped Hitler from committing suicide.' – 'When was that?' I asked not very attentively. Paul hesitated, then continued in a low voice: 'After the murder of his niece Gely.' – At this I started. 'Did Gregor tell you that too?' Paul nodded. 'I swore to keep it secret. Gregor.....told me he shot her during a quarrel, that perhaps he did not realize what he was doing. As soon as he had done it, he wanted to commit suicide, but Gregor prevented him.' "
19 "She was twenty-five years old and Hitler was forty-seven. There was nothing much to distinguish Eva Braun from a great many other healthy and healthy-looking young Bavarian women with olive skin and rather dark blond hair, but something about her attracted Hitler when she was sent up one day to take some photographs at the Berghof.....Hitler found her intelligent, mentally responsive, cheerful and natural in manner. He asked Hoffmann to let her come up again to take photographs, and in time began showing her small attentions, such as inviting her to this and that function....by late 1937 the relationship has reached the point where Fräulein Braun had at her disposal special guest rooms both at the Chancellory and at Hitler's house at Berchtesgaden." F. Oechsner, This is the enemy, Boston 1942
20 In Konrad Heiden's Adolf Hitler (1936) there is an interesting reflection of the contemporary view of Riefenstahl more as actress than filmmaker. Hitler continued to employ her as the official film director of the Nazi party conferences at Nürnberg despite the fact that "in most people's judgment bad films have resulted." She was on Du terms with Hitler and Goering but maintained that Hitler was "far above any personal relationship."
21 Lochner, Louis P. What about Germany? New York 1942
22 Lüdecke, Kurt Georg I knew Hitler New York 1937
23 Rauschning, Hermann Gespräche mit Hitler (English: Voice of Destruction New York 1940)
24 Olden, Rudolf Hitler, Amsterdam 1935
25 Gespräche mit Hitler / Voice of Destruction
26 In Hitler's case, pornography is often linked with sado-masochism — an important point in view of the perversion described on the next page. As early as 1942, Bella Fromm noted in her Berlin book Blood and Banquets that "I rather believe, and many people have felt the same way, that he is asexual, or perhaps impotent, finding a sexual sublimation through cruelty. They take private films of an especially gruesome nature in concentration camps. Films that only the Fuehrer sees. These are rushed to him and shown, night after night. Occasionally Hitler's interest in a woman may be aroused; he may feel attracted by her charm – but that is all. His emotions culminate in a kind of jealousy caused by his sense of frustration, in the knowledge that he cannot respond normally."
27 The chief witness is Otto Strasser. Langer visited Strasser personally in Montreal in 1943 and had an interview with him. To the best of the editors' knowledge, that interview is published here in full for the first time (see Interview Appendix). The relevant passage, as told to Strasser by Geli, Hitler's niece, reads as follows: " She finally told Strasser that Hitler made her undress and that he would lie down on the floor. Then she would have to squat down over his face where he could examine her at close range and this would make him very excited. When the excitement reached its peak he demanded that she urinate on him and that gave him his sexual pleasure." It seems highly probable that Henny Hoffmann was required to go through the same kind of performance. The variants of voyeurism and masochism are both documented. Strasser maintains that Hitler asked Leni Riefenstahl to masturbate in front of him and Zeissler was told by Renate Mueller herself that she kicked Hitler while he was lying on the floor, arousing him sufficiently for him to masturbate in front of her (see Interview Appendix for details).
28 "Until brother Edmund arrived, Hitler shared the parents' bedroom, which was the custom of the land....I concur with the interpretation of Hitler's narration of a boy's observation in the parental bedroom in Mein Kampf as a thinly disguised screen memory of is own observation of parental intercourse." Redlich, Hitler
29 In Hanisch, Reinhold: I was Hitler's Buddy, New Republic, April 5, 1939. Hanisch lived with Hitler in a hostel for destitute men in Vienna before the First World War.
30 In Inside Information, Hansjuergen Koehler reports: "The greatest attachment he had for a woman was.....for his niece, Grete Raubal. I have only heard the story told by friends in the Party, as Grete herself — or Geli, as Hitler called her — took her life in 1930 out of grief for 'Alf's abnormality.' She appears to be the only woman who has loved him really unselfishly and who strove for a permanent tie with him. Hitler loved his niece enough to think of wedding her yet he knew that his abnormality would make a marriage scarcely tolerable. He visited several well-known doctors and even underwent treatment which, however, was not successful."
31 "Perhaps in fantasy his humble mother had become Germania, whom he could serve, avenge, and save." Redlich, Hitler (OUP 1999)
32 The Habsburg Empire finally became defunct after World War I
33 " My predominant impression of the simple furnished apartment was its cleanliness. It glistened; not a speck of dust on the chairs or tables, not a stray fleck of mud on the scrubbed floor, not a smudge on the panes in the windows. Frau Hitler was a superb housekeeper." This reminiscence was recorded by Dr. E. Bloch, family doctor to the Hitler family after their move to Linz in 1903, in My Patient Hitler, as told to J.D.Ratcliff in Collier's magazine March 15, 1941. In the same article he speaks of Hitler's mother as ensuring that her son was "neat and clean."
34 "No data on toilet training....exists." Redlich, Hitler (OUP 1999)
35 " Dr. Bloch stresses that the relationship between mother and son, their reciprocal adoration, was unusual" — excerpt from Langer's interview with Bloch on March 5, 1943
36 The assumption of Hitler's jealousy, who had his mother to himself until brother Edmund and sister Paula were born, is shared by Bradley F. Smith in Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth (Stanford 1967)
37 According to William Patrick Hitler, the son of Alois, Adolph's step-brother, Adolf was subject to physical abuse by his father. "When asked if he ever heard about the father whipping Adolph (sic), he replied in the affirmative. He said the father used to beat Adolph just as well as Alois but not so frequently."He likewise confirmed that Adolf was "the apple of his mother's eye.....pampered from early morning until late at night." — from an unpublished interview with William Patrick Hitler in New York on September 10, 1943
38 "In my opinion, Hitler had a severe syphilophobia and believed that syphilis was an illness transmitted through many generations that destroyed races and nations and, ultimately, mankind." Redlich, Hitler
39 One exception to this statement is Hanfstaengl, even if he is unable to provide evidence for his impression "that Hitler might have contracted a venereal disease from a Jewish prostitute in Vienna during this period (before World War I) which resulted in impotence." This would also explain the horror of syphilis and reinforce the connection Langer explores below between Hitler's filth obsession and his anti-Semitism. Perhaps a little too neat. See Appendix Interview with Hanfstaengl.
40 A reference to Hitler's having been gassed in World War I. Hitler's temporary loss of sight after this episode is discussed by Georges-Anquetil in Hitler conduit le bal (Paris 1939). He concludes that its origins were of a hysterical nature, a phenomenon with which physicians on the front were quite familiar.
41 Hitler, as usual, had his revenge. Roehm was liquidated in the 1934 Putsch
42 Friedelinde Wagner, see Interview Appendix
43 "Hitler is the slave of the women he loves." Konrad Heiden, Hitler und Ich (Zurich 1936)
44 See Zeissler, Appendix Interview
45 Susi Liptauer and Maria Reiter can be added to this list, making a total of six.
46 Meaning "dung-eating", and by extension also "to be dirtied"
47 See Rauschning interview in Appendix
48 See interview with Strasser in Appendix
49 Particularly interesting are the remarks Hanisch makes connecting Hitler's filth with a Jewish appearance. "Hitler wore a long coat he had been given....and an increasingly greasy derby hat on the back of his head. His hair was long and tangled and he grew a beard on his chin such as we Christians seldom have, though one is not uncommon on Leopoldstadt or the Jewish ghetto.......Hitler at that time looked very Jewish so that I often joked with him that he must be of Jewish blood." Hanisch, I was Hitler's Buddy, New Republic, April 5, 1939
50 Schönerer ran the anti-Semitic, anti-clerical and anti-Habsburg German Nationalist Party. The populist Lueger, mayor of Vienna and head of the Catholic Party, provided Hitler with a model for his oratory.
51 The inhibition against following a career that demanded logical thinking was in Langer's view part of Hitler's reaction against his father, leading him to adopt any point of view which was the opposite of his father's.
52 See Hanfstaengl Interview in Appendix
53 Axel Heyst, After Hitler, London 1940
54 Hitler and I (Boston 1940)
55 The biographer of H. Murray, Langer's Harvard colleague on the OSS report, maintains that the suicide prediction was more Murray's contribution than Langer's (Forrest. A. Robinson, Love's Story Told, Cambridge, Mass., 1994)
56 See confirmation at the end of the book
57 John Keegan writes of this in The Mask of Command (German translation: Die Maske des Feldherrn, Rowohlt 2000 ,S. 468.)
58 Nicolaus Henningsen (Hrsg)Aus germanischer Urzeit, Texte von Plutarch et al., Hermann Schaffstein Verlag 1913 cit.n. www.jadu.de/mittelalter/gibt/teu.html (Plutarch et al., Texts from Early Germanic History)
59 cit.n. Karl Ferdinand Werner, Karl der Grosse oder Charlemagne? (Karl the Great or Charlemagne?) Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften Sitzungsberichte Jahrgang 1995 Heft 4, S.10.
60 Ludolf Herbst, Hitlers Charisma, Die Erfindung eines deutschen Messias, Fischer 2010 . (Hitler's Charisma, the Invention of a German Messiah.)
61 Nicolaus von Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant 1937-45; von Hase und Kohler, 1980 S. 398 und S. 417.
62 John Toland, Das Finale, Bastei, 1978, S. 381
63 Maxim Biller writes: "Hitler decided to throw the rest of humanity, with the exception of his own whining nation, into the garbage can." (Der gebrauchte Jude {The Used Jew} S. 154.) Biller doesn't go far enough here. If one speaks of Hitler as of someone who could commit such crimes personally, then he too has thrown his own nation into the garbage can.
64 For example Rudolf Diehls, Luzifer Ante Portas (Lucifer At the Gates) DVA 1950, S. 57: "One could not suppress the feeling that a power emanated from him that could never set about transforming itself into a force for order....He was mass."
65 Frank Thadeusz, Kindheit ohne Gewissen (Childhood Without A Conscience) DER SPIEGEL 2012, Heft 48, S.136.
66 Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans And The Holocaust (Hitlers willige Vollstrecker: Ganz gewöhnliche Deutsche und der Holocaust, Pantheon 2012).
67 Including the original footnotes
HITLER'S SEX
Unpublished Documents
of the US-Secret Service (OSS)
(1943)
Edited and commented by
John David Morley and Benno Heussen
Translation of chapter 5 : John Bass
Vitolibro
In the spring of 1943 Colonel William J. Donovan of a recently formed US military intelligence unit, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), had a meeting in Washington with a psychoanalyst named Dr. Walter C. Langer from Cambridge, Massachusetts. What the military needed, Donovan told Langer, was a realistic appraisal of the German leader in order to maximize the Allies' war effort. What sort of a person was Hitler? What might he do when the tide of war began to turn against him? The military considered it of vital importance to know as much as possible about Hitler's psychological make-up before undertaking a full-scale invasion of continental Europe (the Allies made their landing in Normandy in June the following year).
Langer put to work a team of psychoanalytically trained researchers. Their job was to locate the documents, books, newspaper articles and, on occasion, the persons that could supply them with the source material needed for this task. Within six months they had assembled a dossier of some eleven hundred closely spaced typewritten pages, internally referred to as the Hitler Source Book. An A to Z of all aspects of Hitler, beginning with ANIMALS, affection for: and ending with WRITINGS, literary style