Why Adolf had a big nose — but tiny lederhosen

At school in the late sixties, we used to sing a well-known little ditty, to the tune of colonel Bogey. ‘hitler’ it began, ‘has only got one ball. the other is in the Albert hall.’

A new book by Emma craigie and Jonathan Mayo suggests we were right on at least one of these counts. Apparently, the Fuhrer may have suffered from discomfort in the trouser region, owing to ‘ an undescended testicle and a rare condition called penile hypospadias in which the urethra opens on the underside of the penis’.

Unconfirmed rumours about Adolf hitler circulated in Britain throughout World War II, some of them more damaging than our schoolboy chant, others less so.

Diaries written by ordinary people at the time repeat a recurrent rumour that hitler had a secret son, aged 12.

Meanwhile, the diary of the writer caradoc Evans contained this entry: ‘Mary tycanol tells me that hitler was in college in Aberystwyth. that much is certain. Miss Arnold corroborates: “oh yes, everyone knows that hitler was in college in Aberystwyth. he gave special orders that, though london be razed, Aberystwyth must be saved.” ’

And, of course, similar rumours continue today. last year, a book titled hitler In Brazil — his life And his Death argued that, far from dying in his bunker in 1945, he had escaped to the small town of Nossa senhora do livramento in Brazil, where he had lived for 30 years, having first changed his name, a trifle clumsily, you may think, to Adolf leipzig.

clearly, most of these conjectures were off target, but there are still plenty of little details about hitler which are both interesting and true.

For instance, the historian Andrew Roberts confirms that, though he was short-sighted, he was too vain to wear glasses in public. this meant that his secretaries had to type out all his speeches in an extra-large font.

In her memoirs, his loyal secretary christa schroeder noted another area of vanity. ‘Many people say I should shave off the moustache, but that is impossible,’ he once explained. ‘ My nose is much too big. I need the moustache to relieve the effect.’

Was he right? I suppose his silly little moustache might have distracted attention from his nose. But, then again, he could have achieved much the same effect by wearing a brightly coloured paper hat at all times or blowing a kazoo.

Frau schroeder thought that he would have been better off letting his moustache blossom into a bushy beard, which would then have hid his mouth.

‘his teeth were yellow and he had bad breath,’ she recalled.

of course, none of this goes very far in answering the questions that continue to loom over the other end of his body. schroeder came to believe that hitler may well have lived and died a virgin.

‘Even his relationship with Eva Braun was a facade,’ she wrote in her memoirs, adding: ‘ Eva Braun confided to her hairdresser . . . that hitler never had sexual intercourse with her.’

schroeder also mentions that hitler absolutely hated being seen in his swimming trunks.

Might such sheepishness have had something to do with his offbeat private parts?

his chauffeur also confirmed that, in romantic terms, hitler was a little backward in coming forward. Whenever they went to a strange town before the war, he would have to search for girls to meet hitler.

‘he would sit down with them and converse. he paid them, but never requested services.’

In his memoir Inside the third Reich, hitler’s architect, Albert speer, wrote about the Fuhrer’s adolescent attitude towards women. ‘ he spoke more about their figures than their charm or cleverness, and always there was something in his tone of the schoolboy who is convinced that his wishes are unattainable.’

BUT what of our schoolboy claim as to what had gone missing in the Royal Albert hall? Even though the hall has been regularly cleaned over the course of the past 70 years, with any number of ice-cream cartons, scrunched up tickets, concert programmes, paper tissues, plastic cups, etc, having been swept up, as far as I know not a single cleaner has reported finding anything resembling that most off-putting of items.

on the other hand, it is a vast, cavernous venue, packed full of little nooks and crannies. It’s perfectly possible that you could lose something in there and not find it again for decades.

on my last visit, I noticed that many of the staff were wearing gloves. Who knows? Perhaps this was on the wise old principle of ‘better safe than sorry’.