The Hidden Hitler

The Hidden Hitler is the English-language version of the 2001 book Hitlers Geheimnis. Das Doppelleben eines Diktators (Hitler's Secret: The Double Life of a Dictator) by German-Jewish professor and historian Dr. Lothar Machtan. The original book was published in Germany by Alexander Fest Verlag, while the English-translated version was published by Basic Books in New York City. (ISBN 0-465-04308-9)

The book discusses Adolf Hitler's sexuality. Machtan argues that Hitler was a closeted homosexual. Among the evidence, it cites the allegedly homoerotic nature of his friendship with August Kubizek during Hitler's youth in Vienna.

The question of Hitler's homosexuality is also raised in Walter C. Langer's pioneering work The Mind of Adolf Hitler and in Waite's psychoanalytic history The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler.

Industry reviews

• The New York Times Book Review (12/16/01) - "... But the biggest problem with Machtan's book (which has been translated by John Brownjohn) isn't the reliability of his sources but his mode of argumentation. He accepts what fits his thesis and rejects what doesn't. One feels, at times, that one is reading an internal F.B.I. report from the J. Edgar Hoover era rather than an evenhanded work of scholarship in which the author is ready to be led by the facts. To interpret evidence his way, Machtan employs innuendo and insinuation ..."

See also

• The Pink Swastika
• List of books by or about Adolf Hitler
• The Saturday Night Live character "Gay Hitler" possibly based on Machtan's book at Saturday Night Live characters appearing on Weekend Update
• Discussion of Springtime for Hitler in the 1968 film The Producers
• National Socialist League (United States), also known as the Gay Nazi Party

External links

• The Sunday Telegraph (10/7/2001) said: "the distinguished German historian Dr Lothar Machtan presents compelling evidence that Adolf Hitler was a homosexual."
• Q-online [1] article by Paula Martinac, a Lambda Literary Award-winning author
• The New York Times [2] Walter Reich was critical of the book, saying that Machtan's biggest problem "isn't the reliability of his sources but his mode of argumentation."
• The Washington Post [3] said "the author presents extensive evidence that Hitler was a homosexual and that his fear of his sexual identity being exposed shaped several of his political decisions and key historical events during the Nazi era."
• Die Zeit review by historian Hans Mommsen, "Viel Lärm um nichts" (German: "Much Ado About Nothing"): "Lothar Machtan's thesis that Adolf Hitler was a homosexual is scientifically neither tenable nor fertile."
• Die Welt (10/13/2001) review by historian Ian Kershaw, "Der ungerade Weg" (German)
• Lothar Machtan authorized "The Hidden Hitler" to be scanned in full by Amazon.com [4] to facilitate search referencing.