http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,564899,00.html
London, October 7, 2001
[Pictures added by this
website]
 Hitler
with Ribbentrop
Hitler was gay -
and killed to hide it, book says
Kate Connolly in Berlin
The Observer
ADOLF Hitler was gay [homosexual] - or
so says a sensational new biography on the Nazi
dictator due to be published tomorrow. Eyewitness
accounts from Hitler's former lovers, and
historical documents that for the first time
illuminate rumours that have circulated for over
half a century, are disclosed in Hitler's
Secret: The Double Life of a Dictator.
The respected
German historian Lothar Machtan even claims
in his book that Hitler ordered the deaths of
several high-ranking Nazis to prevent the secret of
his homosexuality from surfacing.
Ernst Röhm, the leader of Hitler's
Sturm Abteilung or Storm Troopers, tried to
blackmail Hitler by threatening to reveal his
sexuality. Röhm, who was also gay, was
murdered as a result, according to Machtan, a
history teacher at Bremen University.
He refers to scores of historical documents to
support his thesis. In 1915, the young Hitler was a
dispatch rider at the front in France. Years later,
yet before Hitler became infamous, one of his
fellow soldiers, Hans Mend, wrote in his
memoirs: 'At night, Hitler lay with Schmidl, his
male whore.' Schmidl, otherwise known as Ernst
Schmidt, and Hitler were 'inseparable lovers' for
five years, according to Machtan.
Hitler's service notes read that as a result of
the love affair there was reluctance among senior
officers to promote him. According to Erich
Ebermeier, a lawyer and writer who viewed
Hitler's military files years later: 'Despite his
bravery towards the enemy, because of his
homosexual activity he lost out on a promotion to
non-commissioned officer.'
Police reports from Munich after the First World
War also suggest that Hitler was pursued by police
because of his sexual orientation. 'As a "brown"
[fascist] activist, Hitler managed to lure
many young men to his side, but not only for
political reasons,' says Machtan.
According to a Munich police protocol from the
early part of the 20th century, a 22-year-old man
called Joseph told the police: 'I spent the
whole night with him.' Another, Michael, who
was 18, told them: 'I had been unemployed for
months, and my mother and my brother were always
hungry, so, at his request, I accompanied the man
to his home.' Another, a boy called Franz,
said: 'He asked me if I'd like to stay with him and
he told me his name was Adolf Hitler.'
The police reports were collected by Otto von
Lossow, a German army general who took part in
suppressing the Hitler putsch in 1923. He kept the
Munich police file for years, as, he described it,
'a form of personal life insurance'. If Hitler had
attempted to push him aside, he would have
blackmailed him with the information, he said. The
police documents were published some years ago in
Rome by Eugen Dollmann, a close friend of
Heinrich Himmler's and also Hitler's
interpreter. But because his book never appeared in
German, the startling information remained largely
overlooked by historians.
Machtan says that Hitler was particularly drawn
to Rudolf Hess, his deputy, who was known in
party circles as 'black Emma' and with whom he had
spent months in Landsberg prison.
Why, then, did the Nazis persecute homosexuals,
sending hundreds of thousands of them to their
deaths in labour camps and the gas chambers?
 'Hitler
himself never condemned homosexuality, but he
allowed the persecution of gays in order to
disguise his own true colours,' Machtan
says.
Related items on this website
October 1999 story:
Hitler secretly gay --historian (Joachim
Fest)-
David Irving's
comments on this allegation
-
Eva Braun's cousin
breaks her silence about her times with Hitler's
mistress
-
see also http://www.smh.com.au/news/0110/08/world/world20.html
Picture: Ribbentrop (left) with
Hitler (Walter Frentz). To order a poster-size copy
of this picture 
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