Hitler and Wittgenstein went to the same school

[Jakuchu]

[Danioover9000]

   Seriously? Wow, I didn't know that.

[Tim R]

Excerpt from a book that discusses possible interaction between the two:

 

Homoerotic experiences?

And further: Both the later philosopher and the later dictator remained known throughout their lives for the bizarreness of their behaviour, for their absolute inability to have normal, uninhibited contact with other people. The philosopher had two homosexual brothers who committed suicide; he himself was homosexual and more than once pushed later lovers into situations (for example, participation in the Spanish Civil War) that led to their deaths.

Cornish probably falls a little short here when he only touches en passant on the question of the dictator's sexuality. Was Hitler homosexual? Was he what is known in English as a "closet gay"? (So was he a "concealed gay" who possibly kept his "true nature" shamefully hidden even from himself - "in the closet")? Is it not striking how the dictator dealt with homosexuals in his own movement? Röhm and other gay followers of the SA, who had initially backed the "Führer" but could have become "dangerous" to him later, were liquidated. Residents of the men's homes in Vienna who knew him from his younger years were systematically investigated and eliminated. And all his "normal" sexual relationships, even when he was already in his prime, took place with almost boyish, barely twenty-year-old young women, who were consistently driven to suicide in the course of these relationships. (The same applies, in a modified form, to the relationship with Eva Braun).

Curious? Certainly. And was there perhaps a particular experience that could be used to pinpoint the beginning of this development? Cornish believes it was the encounter with Wittgenstein. He had already had a relationship with Pepi, the son of his Linz host parents, which in quick succession included "infatuation", "rupture", "half reconciliation", "semblance of innocence", "reconciliation" and "tenderness" (according to the diary notes). "Tenderness" of this kind may have been commonplace at Haus Wittgenstein, the finest address in the cultural Vienna of those days, with two older brothers experienced in the matter. In Linz, this seems at least questionable. Among pubescents there may well be occasional moments that one later prefers to sweep under the carpet of a gracious oblivion. But how would it have been if there had been "tenderness" between these two teenagers?

 

lol

[Jakuchu]

@Tim R yeah, seems like that book contains a lot of speculation. But the little boy in that picture is Wittgenstein. In the article it says that they artificially aged his face and the result was that it actually is him. No idea how that works haha