Several people have asked the perhaps obvious follow-up question of ‘what was the deal with Hitler?’ (and by several I mean 12 different users, which we removed for being redundant) and given that it is part of the premise of the question, it makes more sense as a top-level response, both to directly address the premise and also as illustration for context in which Hägg’s statement can be understood. Having - unfortunately - written on this before, I’ve adapted and expanded on previous writings here.

In short, claims about Hitler’s ‘abnormal’ sexuality are well known, but also quite varied, for the most part based on rumor and innuendo rather than anything approaching reasonable suspicion, let alone documented fact. Hitler himself left us essentially nothing in his writings or known sayings that give us an real clues, and while many such as Kershaw have called him an ‘unperson’ for the lack of personal life, this is truer with his sexual life then almost any other facet of who he was, forcing us to rely entirely on the words and observations of others, which unfortunately vary in their credibility from the possible to the ludicrous.

Looking to August Kubizek, one of the few friends that Hitler had in during his late teens/early 20s, and his roommate in 1908, in his writings on Hitler, Kubizek recollected that he would talk about sex endlessly during many evening chats, particularly “on the need for sexual purity to protect what he grandly called the 'flame of life’”. He also would rant about sexual "depravity" in general, having plenty to say about prostitutes - members of the German race had no business risking disease with them, prostitutes we only for the "inferior races" - and homosexuals as well. He had an 'idealized' love, "Stephanie" while a boy in Linz, but it was purely a love from afar and he never told her. According to Kershaw, examining all the evidence, at the very least we can safely assume Hitler had no sexual experience through his mid-20s, as there is simply no evidence of a woman in his life, and the one account of him resorting to prostitutes is "baseless". During the war, his apparent lack of sexual interest was one means his comrades poked fun at him, once asking if he was using time in the rear to “look for a Mamsell”, to which he replied ”I’d die of shame looking for sex with a French girl”.

Broadly speaking, the claims about Hitler’s sexuality can be boiled down into three categories, none of which are mutually exclusive per se. The first is claims of homosexuality, which of course I don’t want to ascribe as not “normal” given the question asked here, but past authors have certainly portrayed it as such (Shirer, although not implicating Hitler directly, lumps in the “homosexual perverts” with murders as both being common in the Nazi hierarchy, for instance). The second is a penchant for sadomasochistic, submissive, or otherwise "perverted" behavior, and the final one, of course, centers on his possible relation to Geli Raubal, his young niece who committed suicide.

The last one is perhaps the most famous, given the salacious incest angle, not to mention that it was by far the most public and plausible, and while as Kershaw notes in his work on Hitler the emotional relationship was most likely the closest thing Hitler had to being "emotionally dependent on a woman”, we simply lack clear evidence to conclusively state the relationship was sexual, whatever the rumormongers insinuated, even if many authors such as Shirer ascribe it as absolute fact. More broadly, what few relations, including Geli, that Hitler was known to have demonstrate something of a pattern, causing many to argue that he was less interested in sex than in power, associating himself with women decades younger than himself and notably impressionable - Maria Reiter was 21 years younger, Geli Raubal 19, and Eva Braun 23 years younger. Eva Braun, who was his companion for the longest span, was often noted by observers for her lack of intelligent conversation and apparently vapid demeanor, something which apparently made her company most enjoyable to Hitler. His photographer, for whom she had originally worked, wrote of the relationship that:

To him she was just an attractive little thing, in whom, in spite of her inconsequential and feather-brained outlook - or perhaps just because of it - he found the type of relaxation and repose he sought. But never, in voice, look, or gesture, did he ever behave in a way that suggested any deeper interest in her.

The claim can be taken even further when we address Putzi Hanfstaengl’s opinion of Hitler, believing that he was simply impotent, and further that public speaking was essentially a replacement sexual act for him, exercising his power over the entire crowd. Of course, Putzi also related that Hitler had once professed his undying love forhis wife Helene, but both agreed it was less based on sexual attraction than Hitler’s "acting out a role [of the] languishing troubadour”. Putzi, of course, must be taken with a grain or two of salt. Of German and American parentage, he had soured on Nazism in the mid-30s, and left Germany, eventually ending up in the US where he provided information about the personal life of Hitler and other Nazi officials during the war. Putzi spun many tales, and is one of the sources of the more serious rumors - and lack of consistency - about Hitler, including allegations that he had engaged in sex with men during his time in Vienna, and also insinuating a relationship between Hitler and Rudolf Hess. Shirer relied on Putzi for much of his scuttlebutt on Hitler and others, but more critical readings of them generally don’t take his word at face value, so while some works still try to push such stories, I feel that Kenneth Lewes’ review of “The Hidden Hitler”, one of the more recent works that does so, is on the money in pointing out how he:

find[s] unjustified journalistic attempts to sniff out homosexual activity among the infamous and powerful offensive. But their real danger is the way they reenforce convenient stereotypes and thereby protect unconscious fears and hatreds from being brought out into the light and understood for what they are.

Shirer used claims of homosexuality to paint the Nazis as moral degenerates, and while they certainly may have been the latter, using their (possible) attraction to other men as evidence ought to be outright rejected, and at the very least not called an ‘abnormal sexuality’.

This gets to the last piece that I mentioned, namely other possible “unusual” sexual practices. And of course, I don’t want to kink-shame and call BDSM-style practices abnormal either, but do need to nevertheless acknowledge that past writers have used claims of those practices as support, and as with homosexuality, in the 1930s and 1940s of course, much of society would have agreed, unfortunately.

The final figure I’d note here is Otto Strasser. One of the earliest party big-wigs, he had broken with Hitler and fled Germany in 1930, and like Putzi, made a business of smearing his former compatriots. He too peddled tales of homosexual debauchery running rampant within the party, and added on additional perversions too, being the source of what a 1943 psychoanalysis by the American Walter Langer noted as attraction to “an extreme form of masochism in which the individual derives sexual gratification from the act of having a woman urinate or defecate on him,’” Otto in turn having claimed that Geli Raubal told him, presumably from first hand knowledge. Langer was slightly mistaken, but only in degrees, as Strasser’s original words only made reference to watersports rather than coprophilia. Small difference perhaps though, as the more important factor is the broad picture he was painting. Langer has other accounts, second hand, which he claimed also supported the allegations of masochism, but this too was unreliable, and Longer at least admits that he can’t take this as fact, only suspicion.

Roy Jenkins calls Churchill "the least dangerously sexed major politician on either side of the atlantic, let alone across the channel, since the younger Pitt". I can't comment on Pitt the younger, but Churchill was described as "undersexed" by William Manchester and in similar terms by Churchill himself. Those with large appetites for power (men, at least) often have prodigious appetites for sexual adventure and conquest, "dangerous" for the personal and political liabilities that can go along with immoderate behavior. Churchill found plenty of ways to undermine himself, but sexual indiscretion was not one of them.

There really wasn't anything especially strange about Churchill's sex life, there just wasn't much of it. He fathered 4 children with his wife Clementine, who was pregnant within a month of their wedding, and to whom he almost certainly remained faithful throughout his life. The letters they wrote each other throughout their marriage express deep and abiding love. She also may have been his only sexual relationship ever (this is contentious). It's fair to call these things unusual compared to most of history's "great men" and many politicians of Churchill's time, but it also describes at least one of my grandfathers.

It's interesting to note that he was quite different from his parents in this regard. Churchill's mother, Jennie, a vivacious socialite from New York, was known to have a number of lovers during both marriage and widowhood. What exactly happened behind closed doors will always be elusive, but Jennie's romantic life involved a series of powerful men including the Prince of Wales / King Edward VII. She was a widow at a young age. Churchill's father, Lord Randolph, contracted syphillis from an extramarital affair and died of the disease at 45. Randolph's early death certainly affected Churchill, driving him to achieve early success for fear of a short life. But if any of Jennie's adventures caused Churchill disomfort or aroused his disapproval, he never spoke or wrote a word about it.

I wouldn't want to go too far in seeking "reasons" for Churchill's sexual reticence; some people just don't have much of a libido, not all powerful men seek sexual power. Churchill was also incredibly self-absorbed and rather clumsy at flirtation and small-talk. Again quoting Jenkins: "He was emphatically not a ladies' man. He did not dance, and he was bad at routine dinner party conversation. Unless his female neighbors could inspire him to talk, preferably about himself, although with the future of the world as the next best thing, he mostly ignored them".

And while it has nothing to do with sex, I'll end with this quote from Clementine Violet Asquith describing her first encounter with Winston at one such party in 1906, because I like it and it gives an interesting look at the young man:

"For a long time he remained sunk in abstraction. Then he appeared to become suddenly aware of my existence... he burst forth into an eloquent diatribe on the shortness of human life, the immensity of possible human accomplishment - a theme so well exploited by the poets, prophets and philosophers of all ages that it might seem difficult to invest it with a new and startling significance. Yet for me he did so, in a torrent of magnificent language that appeared to be both effortless and inexhaustable and ended with the words I shall always remember: 'We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glow worm.' By this time I was convinced of it - and my conviction remained unshaken throughout the years that followed."

EDIT

Yikes, I just realized my last quote there wasn't from Clementine but from Violet Asquith, later Violet Bonham Carter, Daughter of H.H. Asquith. She was a close friend and early romantic interest of Winston's who wrote her memories of him after his death. I wish it had been Clementine's quote. :(

EDIT 2

Anyone still coming to this thread should check out the more recent answer by /u/Bacarruda, which is much more detailed and examines every aspect of potential scandal. I'm a lightweight around here. :)

This is one of those questions that is as prurient as it is hard to answer. Famous people, much like most people, tend to be pretty tight-lipped about their sex lives. That creates a vacuum that is filled with gossip, speculation, and outright fabrication. People want to know about this kind of thing (e.g. the fact this post currently has 2,500+ upvotes).

Churchill has been no exception. There was the thinly-sourced documentary featuring the family of a supermodel. There have been gushing headlines. My favorites are the duelling "Winston Churchill may secretly have been GAY" and "Winston Churchill rated women out of 1,000, loved sex and was not gay"

Let's try to sort through the rumors surrounding Churchill and some of his potential pecadillos. Did Churchill have an unusual sexual appetite for his era?

Was Churchill homosexual?

It's probably the oldest rumors about Churchill's sexuality and it's one of the few allegations about sex that were made about him during his lifetime. Jonathan Rose's The Literary Churchill details Churchill's first brush with accusations of homosexuality:

In 1895 a group of young officers in the 4th Hussars, including Churchill, allegedly tried to prevent another new officer, Allan Bruce, from joining the regiment. In February 1896 Bruce’s father, A. C. Bruce- Pryce, claimed that his son knew that Churchill had committed “acts of gross immorality of the Oscar Wilde type” at Sandhurst. Like Wilde, Churchill sued for libel. Unlike Wilde, he won, securing an apology and £500 in an out-of-court settlement. However, that was not the end of the controversy. Henry Labouchere’s Truth – a weekly devoted to denouncing Army scandals, miscarriages of justice, and Jews – pursued a vendetta against Winston, labeling him the ringleader of a conspiracy against Bruce.

The 25 June 1896 issue vaguely alluded to Bruce-Pryce’s charges but professed to disbelieve them, slyly publicizing the accusation while avoiding the risk of another defamation suit. (Labouchere had authored Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which outlawed all male homosexual acts and had been used to prosecute Wilde in 1895.) In the following months, Truth continued to pursue the Bruce case, attacking and insinuating (“A Subaltern in a Cavalry regiment does anything that he pleases. Penalty: nil”), all the while protesting that the journal would not be intimidated by threats of libel action. In 1899 Truth reported Churchill’s capture by the Boers with ill- concealed schadenfreude, reminding its readers once again of the three- year- old scandal.

The allegations against Churchill about Sandhurst seem to have been driven by Bruce-Pryce's personal vendetta . Given the motives of the accuser and the lack of proof, I don't think they can be taken seriously. Most Churchill biographers certainly don't.

Later in life, Churchill formed close personal relationships with several men who Michael Bloch and others have argued were closeted homosexuals. In *Closet Queens: Some 20th-Century British Politicians,* Bloch singles out some Churchill confidants.

Eddie Marsh, who was Churchill's private secretary for 25 years, may have been attracted to younger men. One of his Parliamentary Private Secretaries in the 1920s, Robert Boothby, is thought to have been secretly bisexual and slept with male and female prostitutes. There have been other, even less-substantiated claims that other members of Churchill's inner circle were secretly homosexual.

However, having gay friends, even close gay friends, doesn't make one gay. And it wasn't as if Churchill formed uniquely close friendships with men who may have been gay. He had similarly close relationships with straight men, as well. Bloch's book itself has come under fire for making some rather dramatic leaps of logic - for example, he rather grandly claims that Churchill's love of silk underwear and self-consciousness about his height were “elements in his make-up which might have aroused suspicions of homosexuality."

Verdict: Unless further evidence emerges, Churchill does not seem to have had homosexual relations or even homosexual attractions.

Was Churchill a heterosexual man with unusual sexual preferences?

This one is hard to prove or disprove simply because there really isn't any available information about Churchill's bedroom habits, kinks, fetishes, or other predilections. Clementine Churchill was a rather private person who never spoke about the matter. Churchill himself only made a few references to sex in his letters during the early 1900s.

Verdict: Barring the appearance of further evidence, we can't make a definitive call one way or another on this one.

I feel like, as always, poor Mussolini has yet again been left in the shadow by Churchill and Hitler.

What do we know about Mussolini's sex life? I only know some basics, namely that he was married and had two relatively well-known mistresses (Margherita Sarfatti and Clara Patacci).