Page 43 - All About History - Issue 180-19

Hitler In Love

propagandists came out in force claiming that Hitler was away that night, but that didn’t stop Described as an
she had killed herself because she was ‘nervous’ rumours spreading that he had done it. He just ‘enchantress’ and a
about an upcoming music recital, giving that couldn’t let Geli go to Vienna, or have the baby she ‘princess’, Geli was often
as a reason for her actions. However, she was was supposed to be carrying. Others claimed that seen hanging from
Hitler’s arm in 1929-31
given a Catholic funeral, a rite that was denied he had hired someone to murder her and make it
to those who committed suicide, and was buried look like an accident.
at the Zentralfriedhof Cemetery in Vienna on 23 Whatever the truth, the aftermath of her death
September 1931. And why would she start writing was certainly shady. Her body was taken for an
a letter saying she’d meet someone in Vienna, only autopsy but disappeared out of a side door and
to end her life halfway through? was shipped off to Vienna. The corpse was gone
There are some who saw her death as an before the Monday morning papers. If Hitler’s
accident – perhaps she had been playing with political career was to gather speed, he needed
her uncle’s pistol when it suddenly went off, the the scandal of a woman dying under his roof to
bullet tearing into her chest. Maybe in the shock rapidly shrink away into the background.
she had thrown the gun onto the sofa before But despite public appearances, Hitler was
sinking to the ground, her life slipping away from distraught. Geli’s death left him heartbroken –
her. A few people came up with the idea that a there was a hole in his life where the vivacious
jealous woman had come into the flat during the and confident young woman had been. After
night, hellbent on killing her – the Nazi Party was seeing her face splashed across every newspaper,
particularly keen on this story. he couldn’t bear it any more and so headed to an

Geli poses with
two of Hitler’s
dogs in front of
Berchtesgaden,
where they lived
before moving
to Munich

An unAnswered questIon

Historians have speculated about Hitler’s sexuality for years, but where’s the evidence?

In the image Hitler created for himself he was a man This isn’t the only school of thought, though. There
married to the Fatherland. In his mind he had been put are a number of historians past and present who
on this Earth to bring freedom to the German people, and believe that the Fuhrer was homosexual, or at least
there was no time for him to be having fun and frolicking repressing strong homosexual tendencies. Lothar
around with women. Machtan, a German historian and writer, believes
Hitler had his fair share of women in his life – Geli and so. One partner he suggests is August Kubizek, who
Eva were the most famous, but there were others, too. had lived with Hitler in Vienna in 1908, but this isn’t
However, as far as the bedroom was concerned, historians mentioned at all in Kubizek’s memoirs. Instead he talks
have differing opinions about what went on. There are about how they both fell for the same girl, Stefanie
some who put forward the argument that the dictator was Rabatsch. Machtan doesn’t stop there – he also claims
actually asexual – that is, he didn’t participate in sex. But that Hitler had an affair with a fellow soldier during World
it doesn’t take much to disprove this theory; Geli was so War I, although no evidence has been found. Perhaps
disgusted by the sex acts she was made to perform that it we’ll never know the whole truth – or perhaps he was
put distance between her and her half-uncle, while Eva’s simply a heterosexual man, whatever his individual August Kubizek, one of the
biographer claims they had a very active sex life. sexual proclivities may have been. men it has been claimed
had an affair with Hitler

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