Did Adolf Hitler really only have one testicle?

The lyrics often change – in one variant, it is suggested in rhyme that the Fuhrer’s remaining testicle now resides as something of a war trophy in the Albert Hall – but where does this claim come from, and is there any truth to it?

Is there any truth that Hitler had one testicle?

On balance it seems unlikely that Hitler only had one testicle, but there are conflicting arguments on both sides.

That said, there have been several stories that, if true, would mean the song was actually based on anatomical fact. According to one, Hitler lost a testicle during the First World War after being hit by shrapnel at the battle of the Somme in 1916; another says the injury occurred much earlier, in childhood, during an altercation with a goat.

It all seems to be the stuff of hearsay. Although Hitler was wounded at the Somme, it was in the thigh rather than the groin. What’s more, that claim comes from many decades later from an unconfirmed source, a priest who supposedly took the confession of the German medic who treated Lance Corporal Hitler.

Perhaps the single best piece of evidence that counters the claim that Hitler only had one testicle comes from the doctor who treated Hitler as a child, an Austrian Jew named Eduard Bloch who fled to the United States in 1940, insisted to American interrogators that the genitals of the future Fuhrer were “completely normal”.

Still, the seemingly endless fascination with Hitler’s reproductive equipment and sexual proclivities has persisted over the decades. Years after the war, a new claim emerged that the Soviets had carried out an autopsy of Hitler after taking Berlin in 1945, in which they found he did indeed have a missing testicle. This is not widely accepted as credible, however.

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Was anything wrong with Hitler’s testicle?

In 2015, a German researcher was able to study the medical records made during an examination of Hitler at Landsberg Prison.

He was held there after the failure of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, the failed uprising he instigated in 1923.

According to the notes written by Dr Josef Steiner Brin, Hitler was “healthy and strong”, but did have a “right-side cryptorchidism”, or an undescended right testicle.

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Where does the song “Hitler has only got one ball” come from?

The song appeared in the early days of the Second World War. While its origins are unknown (over the years several people have claimed they wrote the lyrics to be used for propaganda purposes), it caught on with the British soldiers as a means of ridiculing Hitler.

Crude and childish, it aimed to emasculate both the Nazi leader and his inner circle, by implying they were not full men. Singing about Hitler and co. not having the usual number of balls was to call them cowards too: “to have no balls” is another way to say someone has no courage or nerve.

By bringing Hitler’s physical state into question, there may have been a further intention to the song in challenging the Nazis’ claims about a master race of perfect humans. When they were talking all the time about tall, muscular blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryans, the song serves to illustrate how Hitler, and those around him, were far from meeting those standard themselves.

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