[00010201.GIF  Page 195]

The belief that Hitler is homosexual has probably developed (a) from the 
fact that he does show so many feminine characteristics, and (b) from 
the fact that there were so many homosexuals in the Party during the 
early days and many continue to occupy important positions. It does 
seem that Hitler feels much more at ease with homosexuals than with 
normal persons, but this may be due to the fact that they are all 
fundamentally social outcasts and consequently have a community of 
interests which tends to make them think and feel more or less alike. 
In this connection it is interesting to note that homosexuals, too, 
frequently regard themselves as a special form of creation or as chosen 
ones whose destiny it is to initiate a new order. The fact that 
underneath they feel themselves to be different and ostracized from 
normal social contacts usually makes them easy converts to a new social 
philosophy which does not discriminate against them. Being among 
civilization's discontents, they are always willing to take a chance 
of something new which holds any promise of improving their lot, even 
though their chances of success may be small and the risk great. Having 
little to lose to begin with, they can afford to take chances which 
others would refrain from taking. The early Nazi party certainly 
contained many members who could be regarded in this light. Even today 
Hitler derives pleasure from looking at men's bodies and associating 
with homosexuals. Strasser tells us that his personal body guard is 
almost always 100% homosexuals.

[00010202.GIF Page 196]

He also derives considerable pleasure from being with his Hitler Youth 
and his attitude towards them frequently tends to be more that of a 
woman than that of a man.

There is a possibility that Hitler has participated in a homosexual 
relationship at some time in his life. The evidence is such that we 
can only say there is a strong tendency in this direction which, in 
addition to the manifestations already enumerated, often finds 
expression in imagery concerning being attacked from behind or being 
stabbed in the back. His nightmares, which frequently deal with being 
attacked by a man and being suffocated, also suggest strong homosexual 
tendencies and a fear of them. From these indications, however, we 
would conclude that for the most part these tendencies have been 
repressed, which would speak against the probability of their being 
expressed in overt form. On the other hand, persons suffering from his 
perversion sometimes do indulge in homosexual practices in the hope 
that they might find sexual gratification. Even this perversion would 
be more acceptable to them than the one with which they are afflicted. 

Early school years.

The foundations of all the diverse patterns we have been considering 
were laid during the first years of Hitler's life. Many of them, as we 
have seen, were due primarily to the peculiar structure of the home, 
while others developed from constitutional factors or false 
interpretations of events.

[00010203.GIF  Page 197]

Whatever their origins may have been, they did set up anti-social 
tendencies and tensions which disturbed the child to a high degree. From 
his earliest days it would seem he must have felt that the world was a 
pretty had place in which to live. To him it must have seemed as though 
the world was filled with insurmountable hazards and obstacles which 
prevented him from obtaining adequate gratifications, and dangers which 
would menace his well-being if he attempted to obtain them in a direct 
manner. The result was that an unusual amount of bitterness against 
the world and the people in it became generated for which he could 
find no suitable outlets. As a young child he must have been filled 
with feelings of inadequacy, anxiety and guilt which made him anything 
but a happy child.

It would seem, however, that he managed to repress most of his 
troublesome tendencies and make a temporary adjustment to a difficult 
environment before he was six years old, because at that time he entered 
school and for the next years he was an unusually good student. All of 
the report cards that have been found from the time he entered school 
until he was eleven years old, show an almost unbroken line of "A's" 
in all his school subjects. At the age of eleven the bottom dropped
right out of his academic career. From an "A" student he suddenly dropped 
to a point where he failed in almost all his subjects and had to repeat 
the year. This amazing about-face only becomes intelligible when we 
realize that his baby brother

[00010204.GIF Page 198] died at that time. We can only surmise that 
this event served to reawaken his earlier conflicts and disrupt his 
psychological equilibrium.

In Hitler's case we may suppose that this event affected him in at 
least two important ways. First, it must have reawakened fears of his 
own death which, in turn, strengthened still further the conviction 
that he was the "chosen one" and under divine protection. Second, it 
would seem that he connected the death of his brother with his own 
thinking and wishing on the subject. Unquestionably, he hated this 
intruder and frequently thought of how nice it would be if he were 
removed from the scene. Unconsciously, if not consciously, he must have 
felt that the brother's death was the result of his own thinking on the 
subject. This accentuated his feelings of guilt on the one hand, while 
it strengthened still further his belief in special powers 
of Divine origin on the other. To think about these things was almost 
synonomous with having them come true. In order to avoid further guilt 
feelings he had to put a curb on his thinking processes. The result of 
this inhibition on thinking was that Hitler the good student was 
transformed into Hitler the poor student. Not only did he 
have to repeat the school year during which the brother died, but ever 
after his academic performance was mediocre, to say the least. When we 
examine his later report cards we find that he does well only in such 
subjects as drawing and gymnastics, which require no thinking. In all
[00010205.GIF Page 199] the other subjects such as mathematics, 
languages or history, which require some thinking, his work is on the 
borderline - sometimes satisfactory and sometimes unsatisfactory.

We can easily imagine that it was during this period that the father's 
ire was aroused and he began to bring pressure on the boy to apply 
himself in his school work and threatened dire consequences if he failed 
to do so. From sociological evidence it would seem that this is about 
the age at which most German fathers first take a real interest in their 
sons and their education. If Hitler's father followed this general pattern, 
we can assume that he had cause to be irate at his son's performance. The 
constant struggle between himself and his father, which he describes in 
MEIN KAMPF, is probably true although the motivations underlying his 
actions were in all likelihood quite different from those he describes. 
He was approaching the adolescent period and this, together with his 
little brother's death, served to bring many dormant attitudes nearer 
the surface of consciousness.

Many of these attitudes now found expression in the father-son 
relationship. Briefly enumerated these would be (a) rejection of the 
father as a model; (b) an inhibition against following a career which 
demanded thinking; (c) the anal tendencies which found an outlet of 
expression in smearing; (d) his passive, feminine tendencies, and 
(e) his masochistic tendencies and his desire to be dominated by a 
strong masculine figure. He was [00010206.GIF Page 200] not, however, 
ready for an open revolt for he tells us in his autobiography that he 
believed passive resistance and obstinacy were the best course and that 
if he followed them long enough, his father would eventually relent 
and allow him to leave school and follow an artist's career. As a matter 
of fact, his brother Alois, in 193O, before the Hitler myth was well 
established, reported, that his father never had any objection to 
Adolph's becoming an artist but that he did demand that Adolph do well 
in school. From this we might surmise that the friction between father 
and son was not determined so much by his choice of a career as by 
unconscious tendencies which were deriving satisfaction from 
the antagonism.

Later school career.

He carried the same pattern into the schools where he was forever 
antagonizing his teachers and the other boys. He has tried to create the 
impression that he was a leader among his classmates, which is most 
certainly false. More reliable evidence indicates that he was unpopular 
among his classmates as well as among his teachers 
who considered him lazy, uncooperative and a trouble-maker. The only 
teacher during these years with whom he was able to get along was Ludwig 
Poetsch, an ardent German Nationalist. It would he an error, however, 
to suppose that Poetsch inculcated these nationalist feelings in Hitler. 
It is much more logical to assume that all these feelings were present 
in Hitler before he came in contact with [00010207.GIF Page 201] Poetsch 
and that his nationalist teachings only offered Hitler a new outlet for the 
expression of his repressed emotions. It was probably during this period 
that he discovered a resemblance between the young state of Germany and 
his mother, and between the old Austrian monarchy and his father. At this 
discovery he promptly joined the Nationalist group of students who were 
defying the authority of the Austrian state. In this way he was able to 
proclaim openly his love for his mother and advocate the death of his 
father. These were feelings he had had for a long time but was unable 
to express. Now he was able to obtain partial gratification through 
the use of symbols. 

The death of his father.

This probably served to increase the friction between father and son, 
for in spite of what Hitler says the best evidence seems to indicate 
that the father was anti-German in his sentiments. This again placed 
father and son on opposite sides of the fence and gave them new cause 
for hostility. There is no telling how this would have worked out in 
the long run because while the struggle between the two was at 
its height, the father fell dead on the street. The repercussions of 
this event must have been severe and reinforced all those feelings which 
we have described in connection with the brother's death. Again, it must 
have seemed like a fulfillment of a wish and again there must have 
been severe feelings of guilt, with an additional inhibition on thinking 
processes.

[00010208.GIF Page 202]

His school work continued to decline and it seems that in order to 
avoid another complete failure, he was taken from the school at Linz 
and sent to school in Steyr. He managed to complete the year, however, 
with marks which were barely satisfactory. It was while he was there 
that the doctor told him that he had a disease from which 
he would never recover. His reaction to this was severe since it 
brought the possibility of his own death very much into the foreground 
and aggravated all his childhood fears. The result was that he did not 
return to school and finish his course, but stayed at home where he 
lived a life which was marked by passivity. He neither studied nor 
worked but spent most of his time in bed where he was again spoiled by 
his mother who catered to his every need despite her poor 
financial circumstances.

One could suppose that this was the materialization of his conception 
of Paradise inasmuch as it reinstated an earlier childhood situation which 
he had always longed for. It would seem from his own account, however, 
that things did not go too smoothly, for he writes in MEIN KAMPF:

"When at the age of fourteen, the young man is dismissed from school, 
it is difficult to say which is worse; his unbelievable ignorance as 
far as knowledge and ability are concerned, or the biting impudence of 
his behavior combined with an immorality which makes one's hair stand 
on end...The three year old child has now become a youth 
of fifteen who despises all authority... now he loiters about, and God 
knows when he comes home."

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