Hidden Führer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler's Sexuality is a documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 based on the research of German Professor Lothar Machtan

Lothar Machtan

Lothar Machtan, Ph.D is a German historian, writer, as well as Professor of Modern and Current History at the University of Bremen.-Early life:...

 for his 2001 book The Hidden Hitler

The Hidden Hitler

The Hidden Hitler is the English-language version of the 2001 book Hitlers Geheimnis. Das Doppelleben eines Diktators by German-Jewish professor and historian Dr. Lothar Machtan. The original book was published in Germany by Alexander Fest Verlag, while the English-translated version was published...

that claimed Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 was a homosexual. Aired by HBO's CINEMAX Reel Life

Cinemax

Cinemax, sometimes abbreviated as simply "Max", is a collection of premium television networks that broadcasts primarily feature films, along with softcore erotica, original action series, documentaries and special behind-the-scenes features. Cinemax is operated by Home Box Office, Inc., a...

, the 90 minute documentary was directed by gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 documentarians Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato and was produced by Gabriel Rotello

Gabriel Rotello

Douglas Gabriel Rotello is an openly gay American television documentary writer and producer, and the founder of OutWeek...

.

Other interviews in the documentary include those with:

• Geoffrey Giles, author of a study of gays in the Nazi party, professor at the University of Florida
• Brigitte Hamann
  Brigitte Hamann
  Brigitte Hamann Ph.D., is a German-Austrian author and historian based in Vienna.Born Brigitte Deitert in Essen, Germany, she studied history in Münster and Vienna and for a time worked as a journalist in her native Essen...
  
  , German historian and author
• Ron Rosenbaum
  Ron Rosenbaum
  -Life and career:Rosenbaum was born into a Jewish family in New York City, New York and grew up in Bay Shore, New York. He graduated from Yale University in 1968 and won a Carnegie Fellowship to attend Yale's graduate program in English Literature, though he dropped out after taking one course...
  
  , author of "Explaining Hitler"
• Ralf Dose, German gay historian and founder of the Magnus Hirschfeld Society
• Michelangelo Signorile
  Michelangelo Signorile
  Michelangelo Signorile is a gay American writer, a national talk radio host whose program is aired each weekday across the United States and Canada. He is a political liberal, and covers a wide variety of political and cultural issues...
  
  , gay activist author

Of the film, a Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

review called it "a platform for taking Machtan's argument seriously."

Controversy

Most mainstream historians and surviving eyewitnesses dispute Machtan's argument (see Sexuality of Adolf Hitler).

External links

• Cinemax website for Hidden Führer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler's Sexuality
• New York Times film review for Hidden Führer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler's Sexuality