Was Hitler gay

A. It would seem so. Adolf Hitler had numerous homoerotic friendships in the 1920s and the dictator's later life can be understood better by taking into account his gay preferences, according to a new book. < xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Q. Details

A. Hitler's Secret - The Double Life of a Dictator by Lothar Machtan, modern history professor at Bremen University. Machtan says he is trying to shed light on old speculation that the Nazi leader was a closet homosexual. 'Adolf Hitler was fond of men. He had a homosexual nature. This seems at first quite trivial. But it is a detail that helps us to see his biography from another angle,' Machtan told a Germany newspaper.

Q. Evidence

A. In his youth, Hitler had several homosexual relationships, some with male prostitutes. Hitler lived in Vienna - the most daring and European capital of the day. He shared an apartment for four months with his close friend August Kubizek in a known homosexual area of Vienna. Both delighted in wearing the same clothes. 'People take us for brothers. That's what we would like to be,' Kubizek wrote in a letter produced by Machtan. Vice police even compiled a dossier on Hitler. It contained reports from rent boys picked up by Hitler. One of them claimed: 'I spent the entire night with him.' Another, who needed money for food, went to Hitler's home 'and left in the morning'.

Q. But Hitler served in the First World War - surely this didn't go on in the great German army

A. Yes, says Machtan. He claims Hitler took Ernst Schmidt, a fellow soldier, as a lover. In one document he found other soldiers referring to Hitler and his 'male whore Schmidt'.

Q. But this is all circumstantial.

A. Agreed. Machtan says there is no definite proof. However, the fuhrer's architect, Albert Speer said Hitler kept a photograph of Julius Schreck, his driver, next to one of his mother. Shreck died in 1936. This, he believes, is further evidence ... as is his assassination of Ernst Roehm.

Q. Assassination

A. Roehm, the leader of Hitler's Brown Shirt stormtroopers, was openly homosexual. He and Hitler had been friends since 1921 and it may be that he knew too much of Hitler's past. He was murdered in the Night of The Long Knives of June, 1934. Perhaps he was killed to prevent blackmail of the up-and-coming leader.

Q. Did Hitler's gay leanings make him any more sympathetic towards homosexuals

A. No. Thousands of them were killed, alongside Jews, gipsies and members of other minority groups that did not fit into the Nazi leader's vision of the Aryan race.

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By Steve Cunningham