online claiming Adolf Hitler invented the realistic sex doll during World War II. The tale says he approved a secret plan called the Borghild Project to give German soldiers artificial partners so they would avoid prostitutes and the spread of disease. It sounds wild enough to be true, but does history back it up? The answer is no.
Looking at the Wartime Timeline
The timeline itself makes the rumor collapse. Dr. Elizabeth Heineman, a historian at the University of Iowa and author of Before Porn Was Legal, has studied this claim closely. She points out that no inflatable sex dolls existed during the war.
Her research shows that by the mid 1950s adult product catalogs were massive, sometimes more than 150 pages. Yet even then there was not a single mention of inflatable dolls. If the Nazis had actually produced them, the postwar market would almost certainly have been flooded with such items. The silence in those catalogs is telling.
Where the Borghild Story Came From
The claim about Hitler ordering dolls for his troops mostly comes from one shaky source. A man named Norbert Lenz once wrote an article saying the Hygiene Museum in Dresden designed the dolls and that the project was wiped out when Dresden was bombed in 1945.
The problem is that Lenz has no verified track record as a journalist and his article is undated. Researchers contacted the Dresden museum and found no record that such a project ever existed.
Dr. Laurie Marhoefer, a historian at the University of Washington, has also studied this rumor. She explains that Nazi leaders like Himmler were worried about soldiers catching syphilis and tried to regulate brothels, but that was not unusual for wartime governments. The idea of an organized sex doll program is pure invention.
Why People Still Believe It
A headline that links Hitler with sex dolls is bound to grab attention. It gets repeated in books, on websites, and in social media posts that thrive on bizarre trivia.
But serious research has never confirmed it. Academic historians agree the story is closer to urban legend than actual history. It survives mostly because it sounds too outrageous to ignore.
What the Evidence Really Shows
The record is clear. Hitler did not invent the sex doll. The Borghild Project is nothing more than a modern hoax with no evidence behind it. It shows how fast misinformation spreads when a story is built around controversial figures and taboo subjects.
When you run across unusual claims like this, it helps to check where the information comes from and whether scholars have studied it. Not every strange fact floating around online holds up when you trace it back.
Want the real story behind sex dolls?
Take a look at our piece: A Brief History of Sex Dolls. It follows how early experiments eventually led to the hyper realistic designs on the market today.