GAY-DOLF HITLER ; FUSSY FASCIST DRAGGED OUT OF CLOSET
WAS FEAR OF BEING OUTTED THE REASON HITLER HAD THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF GAY MEN THROWN INTO CONCENTRATION CAMPS?
—
“The Hidden Fuhrer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler’s Sexuality”
[ 1/2] (three and one-half stars)
Tonight at 7 on Cinemax
—-
WAS Hitler gay? Hard to know, but one thing’s for sure – here’s one historic figure that gay groups aren’t looking to lay claim to – and neither is anyone else aside from, say, the KKK and the Neo-Nazis.
Tonight’s riveting Cinemax reel, “The Hidden Fuhrer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler’s Sexuality,” is a documentary that explores areas of the Fuhrer’s life that, for whatever reason, the Nazi Party pig wanted to keep hidden.
With information from a best-selling book, “The Hidden Hitler” by Lothar Machtan, as well as footage and readings from letters and documents of the era, the filmmakers, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, explore the private life of der Fuhrer. And they come away with some quite compelling information.
Like?
Like the fact that from the age of 16 through 19, Hitler’s best buddy, August Kabizek, received letters from the future Fuhrer with demands like this: “I cannot endure it when you consort and converse with other young people. I demand exclusivity!”
He got it when Kabizek went to join art student Hitler in Vienna and was greeted at the train with “joyful excitement,” and a big old kiss, according to Kabizek’s book in the 1940’s.
They were roomies and frolicked around, occasionally having strange men buy them dinner and cavorting together in the great outdoors, once getting caught in a storm.
Wrote Kabizek of the incident, “He lay down naked on the cloth. And I wrapped him up. He was greatly amused by the adventure – the whole romantic conclusion pleased him greatly.”
Of course, there was the whole male homoeroticism of the idealized giant nude statues which Hitler, er, erected all over Germany.
Then there was Hitler’s conclusion that his experiences in WWI showed him the “meaning of a glorious male community.” This is what he concluded from several years on the front of one of the most horrific wars of all time?
When Hitler was arrested early on in his career, he shared a cell with Rudolph Hess (known at the time as “Frueline Anna”), who became one of his closest allies.
They were reprimanded by the prison warden for running around naked and not maintaining decorum. One scholar maintains that they were merely shirtless.
There’s also evidence that Hitler spent part of his art school years living in a men’s shelter that was widely known as a chicken hawk locale for rich businessmen and young men, although the idea of paying for sex with such a dour creep throws that theory into the land of the suspect info.
Eva Braun, his “mistress” who tried twice to commit suicide, wrote that Hitler believed “physical contact with me would be to him a contamination of the mission.”
So was Hitler gay – and was fear of exposure the reason he prosecuted gays with a coinciding directive that it should remain secret? Think J. Edgar Hoover.
Was fear of being outted the reason Hitler had thousands and thousands of gay men thrown into concentration camps after he had his close (openly gay) friend, a private army commandant, Ernst Rohme, murdered in cold blood along with 150 witnesses at the hotel where Rohme was staying?
All fascinating stuff. Is it merely lurid tabloid fodder based on shoddy research by the book’s author or serious history? It’s too late for anyone to know for sure, because Hitler’s minions destroyed all his private papers, and the German government built housing over his bunker – refusing to open it up and reveal it’s contents first.
But it does make for good, interesting television. Is it necessary to know what his sexuality was all about? It’s probably good to know as much as we can about anyone who’s made such a dent in history.
https://nypost.com/2004/04/20/gay-dolf-hitler-fussy-fascist-dragged-out-of-closet/