Older readers may recall the popular British war song, sung to the tune of Colonel Bogey which went like this:
‘Hitler, he only had one ball,
Goering, he had two but very small,
Himmler had something simmler,
But poor old Goebbels had no balls at all.’
Hilarious, isn’t it, although I recall the second line as being: ‘The other is hanging on the wall‘. Whatever. The whole purpose of the song was to make plucky Brits feel better about themselves by taking the piss out of Adolf Hitler. I was reminded of this semi-humorous song when reading about a new Channel 4 documentary called Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator, which we are promised ‘will use a sample of Adolf Hitler’s DNA -confirmed by rigorous scientific testing- to show whether his genes played a part in influencing his psychology and behaviour.’ Already, I have learned that Das Führer and I have something in common, which is ADHD. I truly hope that’s only thing because, apart from being am unhinged, genocidal fascist mass murderer, poor old Adolf apparently had a few issues in the genitalia department.
It was diagnosed in 1923 that Hitler had a ‘right-side cryptorchidism’, meaning that his right testicle had not descended (so the song above was not entirely accurate). But the section that is attracting most attention is that Hitler apparently had Kallman Syndrome which prevents a person from starting or fully completing puberty. To quote The Guardian: ‘Up to 10% of people with Kallmann syndrome also have a ‘“micropenis”; more prevalent symptoms are low or fluctuating testosterone levels.’ The suggestion appears to be that this explains everything: Hitler had that well known condition ‘Small Penis Syndrome‘. That’s why he did what he did, that and ADHD. Hmm.
I have always wondered about ‘Small Penis Syndrome’ in a somewhat lesser sense. Is it that which causes men to have personalised number plates on their cars? Is this why some men spend unhealthy amounts of time on social media in order to illustrate how great their lives are? I mean, it’s possible, isn’t it? If you’re moping around, trying to locate your micropenis, you’re not going to boast about it, are you? You’re going to talk about something – anything – else. Perhaps Hitler, being a psychopathic nutcase just took it all a step further?
There is another explanation, though. What if the whole premise of the show is what we experts call total bollocks? The programme makers not helping matters by paying all round wrong un and Holocaust denier David Irving £3,000 for a lock of hair purporting to belong to Adolf Hitler, which turned out not to be his hair at all. I don’t doubt that the evidence they finally did get was robust and genuine, but even then we need to remember that if there is an up to 10% chance that Hitler was a little short in the todger department, there is a more than 90% chance he wasn’t. For what little it’s worth, the BBC news item I heard on the radio earlier on made a point of mentioning the micropenis aspect and almost nothing else about the programme. Soon, the name Hitler and the word micropenis will be inseparable in people’s minds. Every time you see a clip of him on a platform ranting and raving to his fans, all you will be able to think about is what is, or isn’t, tucked in his Y fronts.
In all seriousness, I am concerned about the takeaway for some people is that Hitler had ADHD/Autism/insert neurological condition of your choice so that’s how the Holocaust happened. We’re already there with mental illness where it’s almost the norm when someone commits a hideous crime they must be ‘mentally ill’ when the simple fact is that us mental people are more likely to harm ourselves than anyone else.
I am not sure if this Channel 4 documentary will have any lasting effect on how people view Hitler. I rather doubt it. Whatever conditions he may have had, whether autism or the micropenis, the reality is that he was an evil, mass-murdering, genocidal, fascist maniac. Knowing that, for most of us, will be enough.
