You’ve heard the song. Everyone has. It’s been a playground staple for generations, belted out to the tune of the "Colonel Bogey March." It claims Hitler only had one, Göring had two but very small, and Himmler had something similar. It’s catchy. It’s a classic piece of wartime propaganda. But when you strip away the British sarcasm and the catchy rhythm, you’re left with a question that historians and medical experts have actually spent decades trying to answer: Did Hitler have one ball?
Honestly, the answer isn’t a simple yes or no, though modern medical records have swung the needle pretty hard in one direction. For a long time, people thought it was just a myth created by the British to emasculate a dictator. It makes sense. If you want to take the wind out of a man who obsesses over "racial purity" and strength, you mock his anatomy. But in 2015, some dusty paperwork from a 1923 prison exam changed the conversation entirely.
The Landsberg Prison records and the "right-side" problem
After the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler was tossed into Landsberg Prison. You’d think a future dictator would get some privacy, but he had to undergo a standard medical checkup just like any other inmate. Dr. Josef Brinsteiner was the man with the clipboard that day. For nearly a century, his notes were lost or tucked away, but when they surfaced at an auction and were later analyzed by Professor Peter Fleischmann of Erlangen-Nuremberg University, they revealed something specific.
Brinsteiner’s notes recorded that Hitler was "healthy and strong" but suffered from "right-sided cryptorchidism."
Basically, that’s the medical term for an undescended testicle. It’s not that it wasn’t there; it just never dropped into the scrotum. It stayed up in the inguinal canal. So, to anyone looking at him—or to Hitler himself—it would have appeared that he only had one. This isn't some conspiracy theory or a British joke. It’s a clinical observation from a German doctor who had no reason to lie in 1923, long before Hitler was the Führer.
Why the "Battle of the Somme" story doesn't quite hold up
There is another version of the story. It’s more dramatic. In this version, Hitler loses a testicle to a piece of shrapnel during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. A Scottish soldier named Johan Meyer claimed he saw it happen, or rather, he spoke to a German medic who allegedly treated Hitler. According to this account, Hitler’s first question to the medic wasn't "Will I live?" but "Will I be able to have children?"
It's a "good" story. It fits the narrative of the wounded soldier. However, most historians, including Ian Kershaw, who wrote the definitive biography of Hitler, find this less credible than the prison records. If you get hit by shrapnel in that specific area, you usually have significant scarring or other injuries. The 1923 medical exam mentions the undescended testicle but doesn't mention massive shrapnel scarring in the groin. Usually, doctors notice if half a man's pelvic region has been shredded by metal.
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The Soviet Autopsy: A mess of contradictions
Then we have the 1945 autopsy. When the Red Army found the charred remains of Hitler outside his bunker in Berlin, they performed a post-mortem. The Soviet report explicitly stated that the "left testicle could not be found."
Wait. The 1923 record said the right one was missing.
This discrepancy is why people get so confused. You have two different reports from two different eras claiming two different sides. Here’s the thing: the Soviet autopsy is widely regarded as questionable. The bodies were badly burned. The Soviets also had a massive political incentive to make Hitler look "deformed" or "degenerate." They wanted to strip away any lingering "heroic" image of the man. If the doctor in 1923 saw a right-side issue, and the Soviets in 1945 saw a left-side issue, someone is wrong. Given that Dr. Brinsteiner saw Hitler alive and healthy, his notes carry more weight than a hurried autopsy on a burned corpse in a war zone.
Hypospadias and the "micro" rumors
It gets weirder. In 2016, historians Jonathan Mayo and Emma Craigie published Hitler’s Last Day: Minute by Minute. They dug into more medical records and suggested Hitler might have also suffered from a condition called hypospadias.
This is a condition where the opening of the urethra is not at the tip of the penis but somewhere on the underside. In severe cases, it can lead to what is colloquially known as a "micropenis." This would explain Hitler's well-documented fear of being seen naked. He famously refused to allow doctors to examine him without his clothes on in later years, and he never let anyone see him in the bath or shower.
Does this matter for history? Sorta.
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Psychologically, these physical issues might have fueled his intense feelings of inadequacy or his compensatory need for total power. If you feel physically "less than" in a society that prizes hyper-masculinity, you might overcompensate by trying to conquer the world. It’s a classic psychological theory, though we should be careful not to over-diagnose a dead man based on "could-have-beens."
The propaganda machine vs. reality
The British knew what they were doing with that song. They understood that for a man like Hitler, being mocked for his anatomy was more damaging than being called a murderer. To be a murderer was to be "powerful." To have "one ball" was to be a joke.
The song's lyrics were actually written by Toby O'Brien, a publicist for the British Council. He wrote it in 1939 as a way to boost morale. It worked incredibly well. It humanized the "monster" by making him pathetic. It’s fascinating that a piece of wartime propaganda actually happened to align (mostly) with a medical reality that wouldn't be confirmed for decades.
How this shaped his private life
Hitler’s relationship with Eva Braun has always been a point of fascination. If these medical conditions—the undescended testicle and the potential hypospadias—were real, it would certainly explain the lack of children. It also explains why he was so incredibly private about his body.
His personal physician, Theodor Morell, who was known for injecting Hitler with everything from bull semen to amphetamines, never mentioned these specific genital deformities in his diaries. However, Morell was also terrified of Hitler. He wasn't exactly a neutral observer. He was a "feel-good" doctor who gave the Führer what he wanted to hear.
The sheer volume of drugs Hitler was on by the end of the war—cocaine eye drops, methamphetamines, and various hormones—would have likely rendered him impotent anyway. Whatever physical issues he started with were compounded by the chemical cocktail he was consuming daily.
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The verdict on the keyword
So, did Hitler have one ball? Strictly speaking, he probably had two, but one was permanently "stowed away" inside his body. To any casual observer, or in the context of the famous song, he appeared to have only one. The 1923 Landsberg Prison record is the "smoking gun" here. It’s a contemporary, objective medical document. It confirms that the man who wanted to create a master race had a fairly common congenital defect.
It’s a bizarre footnote in history. It doesn't change the outcome of World War II, but it does peel back a layer of the manufactured image Hitler created for himself. He wanted to be seen as a Greek god in a suit; the reality was a man with a "right-sided cryptorchidism" and a massive insecurity about his own body.
Understanding the historical context
To really grasp why this matters, you have to look at the "cult of the leader" in Nazi Germany. Physical perfection wasn't just a preference; it was state policy. The irony of the leadership is staggering. Goebbels had a club foot. Göring was morbidly obese and addicted to morphine. Hitler had an undescended testicle and likely other genital issues. They were the furthest things from the "Aryan ideal" they preached.
When you're researching this, keep a few things in mind to stay on the right track:
- Trust the 1923 records over the 1945 ones. The prison exam was done under stable conditions by a professional with a living patient. The Soviet autopsy was chaotic and politically charged.
- Look for "Cryptorchidism." If you're searching academic databases, use that term instead of "one ball." You'll find the actual medical papers published by Professor Fleischmann.
- Contextualize the propaganda. Remember that the British song was a weapon of war. Just because it turned out to be partially true doesn't mean the British had his medical files in 1939. They just got lucky with a good insult.
- Check the source of the "Somme" story. Most historians now treat the Johan Meyer account with extreme skepticism. It’s a bit too "neat" for a war story.
If you're interested in the medical history of world leaders, your next move should be looking into the diaries of Theodor Morell. They provide a terrifying look at Hitler's declining health and the sheer amount of drugs he was taking to stay functional. It gives you a much better picture of his mental state than the "one ball" story ever could.