Alois Hitler, Sr. was an Austrian civil servant and the father of German
dictator Adolf Hitler. Early life
Alois Schicklgruber was born in the hamlet of Strones, parish of
Döllersheim, in the Waldviertel, an area in northwest Lower Austria, to a
42-year-old unmarried peasant, Maria Schicklgruber, whose family had lived in
the area for generations. At his baptism in Döllersheim, the space for his
father's name on the baptismal certificate was left blank and the
priest wrote "illegitimate". His mother cared for Alois in a house she shared
with her elderly father, Johannes Schicklgruber.
Sometime later, Johann Georg Hiedler moved in with the Schicklgrubers; he
married Maria when Alois was five. By the age of 10, Alois had been sent to
live with Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, who owned a farm in the
nearby village of Spital. Alois attended elementary school and took lessons in
shoe-making from a local cobbler. At the age of 13 he left the farm in Spital and
went to Vienna as an apprentice cobbler, working there for about five years. In
response to a recruitment drive by the Austrian government offering employment
in the civil service to people from rural areas, Alois joined the frontier
guards of the Austrian Finance Ministry in 1855 at the age of 18.
Early career Alois Schicklgruber made steady progress
in the semi-military profession of customs official. The work involved
frequent reassignments and he served in a variety of places across Austria. By
1860, after five years of service, he reached the rank of
Finanzwach-Oberaufseher. By 1864, after special training and examinations, he
had advanced further and was serving in Linz, Austria. He later became an
inspector of customs posted at Braunau am Inn in 1875. He eventually rose to
full inspector of customs and could go no higher because he lacked the
necessary school degrees. Change of surname
As a rising young junior customs official, he used his birth name of
Schicklgruber, but in mid-1876, 39 years old and well established in his career,
he asked permission to use his stepfather's family name. He appeared
before the parish priest in Döllersheim and asserted that his father was Johann
Georg Hiedler, who had married his mother and now wished to legitimize him.
Three relatives appeared with him as witnesses, one of whom was Johann
Nepomuk, Hiedler's brother. The priest agreed to amend the birth certificate,
the civil authorities automatically processed the church's decision and
Alois Schicklgruber had a new name. The official change, registered at the
government office in Mistelbach in 1877 transformed him into "Alois Hitler". It
is not known who decided on the spelling of Hitler instead of Hiedler. Johann
Georg's brother was sometimes known by the surname Hüttler.
Smith states that Alois Schicklgruber openly admitted having been born out of
wedlock before and after the name change. Alois may have been influenced
to change his name for the sake of legal expediency. Historian Werner Maser
claims that in 1876, Franz Schicklgruber, the administrator of
Alois' mother's estate, transferred a large sum of money to him.
Supposedly, Johann Georg Hiedler, who died in 1857, relented on his deathbed
and left an inheritance to his illegitimate stepson together with his
name. Some Schicklgrubers remain in
Waldviertel. Biological father
Historians have discussed three candidates as Alois' biological father:
Johann Georg Hiedler, his brother Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, and Leopold
Frankenberger. Most historians are satisfied that Alois' father was Johann
Georg Hiedler, who during his own lifetime was the stepfather and
posthumously legally declared birth father of Alois. According to historian
Frank McDonough, the most plausible theory is that Johann Georg Hiedler was
the real father of Alois. An explanation for Alois being sent to live on his
uncle's farm as a child is that Hiedler and Maria were simply too poor to raise
him, or could not raise him as well as his uncle, or perhaps Maria's health was
in decline. Werner Maser suggests that Alois' father
was Johann Nepomuk, Georg's brother and Hitler's step-uncle, who raised Alois
through adolescence and later willed him a considerable portion of his life
savings, but never admitted publicly to be his real father. According to Maser,
Nepomuk was a married farmer who had an affair and then arranged to have his
single brother Hiedler marry Alois' mother Maria to provide a cover for
Nepomuk's desire to assist and care for Alois without upsetting his wife. This
assumes Hiedler was willing to marry Maria in this situation, and Adolf
Hitler biographer Joachim Fest thinks this is too contrived and unlikely to be
true. Alois' son Adolf Hitler, following the
rumours that his paternal grandfather was a Jew, in 1931 ordered the SS to
investigate the alleged rumours regarding his ancestry; they found no
evidence of any Jewish ancestors. After the Nuremberg Laws came into effect
within the Third Reich, Hitler then ordered the genealogist Rudolf
Koppensteiner to publish a large illustrated genealogical tree showing
his ancestry; this was published in the book Die Ahnentafel des Fuehrers in
1937, which concluded that Hitler's family were all Austrian Germans with no
Jewish ancestry and that Hitler had an unblemished "Aryan" pedigree. As Alois
himself legitimized Johann Georg Hiedler as his father and the priest changed
this on his birth certificate in 1876 this was considered certified proof for
Hitler's ancestry, thus Hitler was considered a "pure" Aryan.
Although Johann Georg Hiedler was considered the officially accepted
paternal grandfather of Adolf Hitler by the Third Reich, the question of who his
grandfather was has caused much speculation and has remained unknown.
German historian Joachim Fest wrote that:
The indulgence normally accorded to a man's origins is out of place in the
case of Adolf Hitler, who made documentary proof of Aryan ancestry a
matter of life and death for millions of people but himself possessed no such
document. He did not know who his grandfather was. Intensive research into
his origins, accounts of which have been distorted by propagandist legends and
which are in any case confused and murky, has failed so far to produce a
clear picture. National Socialist versions skimmed over the facts and
emphasized, for example, that the population of the so-called Waldviertel,
from which Hitler came, had been 'tribally German since the Migration of
the Peoples', or more generally, that Hitler had 'absorbed the powerful forces
of this German granite landscape into his blood through his father'.
After the war Hitler's former lawyer, Hans Frank, claimed that Hitler told him
in 1930 that one of his relatives was trying to blackmail him by threatening
to reveal his alleged Jewish ancestry. Hitler asked Frank to find out the
facts. Frank says he determined that at the time Maria Schicklgruber gave birth
to Alois she was working as a household cook in the town of Graz, her employers
were a Jewish family named Frankenberger, and that her child might
have been conceived out of wedlock with the family's 19-year-old son, Leopold
Frankenberger. However, all Jews had been expelled from
the province of Styria in the 15th century and were not allowed to return
until the 1860s when Alois was around 30. Also, there is no evidence of a
Frankenberger family living in Graz at that time. Scholars such as Ian Kershaw
and Brigitte Hamann dismiss the Frankenberger hypothesis as baseless..
Frank's story contains several inaccuracies and contradictions, such as
he said "The fact that Adolf Hitler had no Jewish blood in his veins, seems,
from what has been his whole manner, so blatant to me that it needs no further
word", also the statement Frank had said that Maria Schicklgruber came from
"Leonding near Linz", when in fact she came from the hamlet of Strones, near
the village of Döllersheim. Rosenbaum suggests that Frank, who though he had
turned against Nazism after 1945 remained an anti-Semitic fanatic, made
the claim that Hitler had Jewish ancestry as a way of proving that Hitler
was a Jew and not an Aryan. DNA
In 2010 Jean-Paul Mulders's and historian Marc Vermeeren used samples
from Adolf Hitler's distant relatives to try to trace the Hitler family's
haplogroup. Their conclusion was that it belongs to the Haplogroup E1b1b. This
haplogroup originated in East Africa about 22,400 years ago. However,
Hitler's closest living relatives were not tested.
Marriages and children = Early married life=
Alois was 36 when he married for the first time. Anna Glasl-Hörer was a
wealthy, 50-year-old daughter of a customs official. She was sick when
Alois married her and was either an invalid or became one shortly
afterwards. Not long after marrying his first wife,
Anna, Alois Hitler began an affair with Franziska "Fanni" Matzelsberger, one of
the young female servants employed at the Pommer Inn, house #219, in the city
of Braunau am Inn, where he was renting the top floor as a lodging. Smith states
that Alois had numerous affairs in the 1870s, resulting in his wife initiating
legal action; on 7 November 1880 Alois and Anna separated by mutual agreement.
The 19-year-old Matzelsberger became the 43-year-old Hitler's girlfriend.
In 1876, three years after Hitler married Anna, he had hired Klara Pölzl
as a household servant. She was the 16-year-old granddaughter of Hitler's
step-uncle Nepomuk. If Nepomuk was Hitler's father, Klara was Hitler's
half-niece. If his father was Johann Georg, she was his first cousin once
removed. Matzelsberger demanded that the "servant girl" Klara find another job,
and Hitler sent Pölzl away. On 13 January 1882, Matzelsberger gave
birth to Hitler's illegitimate son, also named Alois, but since they were not
married, the child's last name was Matzelsberger, making him "Alois
Matzelsberger". Hitler kept Matzelsberger as his wife while his
lawful wife grew sicker and died on 6 April 1883. The next month, on 22 May at
a ceremony in Braunau with fellow custom officials as witnesses, Hitler, 45,
married Matzelsberger, 21. He then legitimized his son as Alois Hitler, Jr.
Alois' second child, Angela, was born on 28 July 1883.
Hitler was secure in his profession and no longer an ambitious climber.
Historian Alan Bullock described Alois as "hard, unsympathetic, and
short-tempered". Matzelsberger, still only 23, acquired a lung disorder and
became too ill to function. She was moved to Ranshofen, a small village near
Braunau. During the last months of Matzelsberger's life, Klara Pölzl
returned to Alois' home to look after the invalid and the two children.
Matzelsberger died in Ranshofen on August 10, 1884 at the age of 23. After
the death of his second wife, Pölzl remained in his home as housekeeper.
= Marriage to Klara Pölzl and family life=
Pölzl was soon to be pregnant by Hitler. Smith writes that if Hitler had been
free to do as he wished, he would have married Pölzl immediately but because of
the affidavit concerning his paternity, Hitler was now legally Pölzl's first
cousin once removed, too close to marry. He submitted an appeal to the church for
a humanitarian waiver. Permission came, and on 7 January 1885 a wedding was held
at Hitler's rented rooms on the top floor of the Pommer Inn. A meal was
served for the few guests and witnesses. Hitler then went to work for the rest of
the day. Even Klara found the wedding to be a short ceremony. Throughout the
marriage, she continued to call him uncle.
On 17 May 1885, five months after the wedding, the new Frau Klara Hitler gave
birth to her first child, Gustav. A year later, on 25 September 1886, she gave
birth to a daughter, Ida. Her son Otto followed Ida in 1887, but he died
shortly after birth. Later that year, diphtheria struck the Hitler household,
resulting in the deaths of both Gustav and Ida. Klara had been Hitler's wife
for three years, and all her children were dead, but Hitler still had the
children from his relationship with Matzelsberger, Alois Jr., and Angela.
On April 20, 1889, she gave birth to another son, future Nazi dictator Adolf.
He was a sickly child, and his mother fretted over him. Alois was 51 when he
was born. Hitler had little interest in child rearing and left it all to his
wife. When not at work he was either in a tavern or busy with his hobby, keeping
bees. In 1892, Hitler was transferred from Braunau to Passau. He was 55, Klara
32, Alois Jr. 10, Angela 9 and Adolf was three years old.
Beginning on August 1st, the family lived at Theresienstr. 23. One months
after Hitler accepted a better paying position in Linz, on April 1, 1893, his
wife and the children moved to a 2nd floor room on Kapuzinerstr. 31. Klara
had just given birth to Edmund, so it was decided she and the children would
stay in Passau for the time being. On 21 January 1896, Paula, Adolf's younger
sister, was born. She was the last child of Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl. Hitler
was often home with his family. He had five children ranging in age from
infancy to 14. Edmund died of measles on 2 February 1900.
Alois wanted his son Adolf to seek a career in the civil service. However,
Adolf had become so alienated from his father that he was repulsed by whatever
Alois wanted. Adolf sneered at the thought of a lifetime spent enforcing
petty rules. Alois tried to browbeat his son into obedience while Adolf did his
best to be the opposite of whatever his father wanted.
Robert G. L. Waite noted, "Even one of his closest friends admitted that Alois
was 'awfully rough' with his wife [Klara] and 'hardly ever spoke a word to
her at home'." If Hitler was in a bad mood, he picked on the older children or
Klara herself, in front of them. William Patrick Hitler says that he had heard
from his father, Alois Jr, that Alois Hitler, Sr. used to beat his children.
After Hitler and his oldest son Alois Jr. had a climactic and violent
argument, Alois Jr. left home, and the elder Alois swore he would never give
the boy a penny of inheritance beyond what the law required. According to
reports, Alois Hitler liked to lord it over his neighbors.
Retirement In February 1895 Hitler purchased a
house on a nine-acre plot in Hafeld near Lambach, approximately 30 miles
southwest of Linz. The farm was called the Rauscher Gut. He moved his family to
the farm and retired on 25 June 1895 at the age of 58 after 40 years in the
customs service. He found farming difficult; he lost money, and the value
of the property declined. Death
On the morning of 3 January 1903, Hitler went to the Gasthaus Wiesinger as usual
to drink his morning glass of wine. He was offered the newspaper and promptly
collapsed. He was taken to an adjoining room and a doctor was summoned, but
Alois Hitler died at the inn, probably from a pleural hemorrhage. Adolf Hitler,
who was 13 when his father died, says in Mein Kampf that he died of a "stroke of
apoplexy". Removal of tombstone
On 28 March 2012 the tombstone marking Alois Hitler's grave in Leonding was
removed by a descendant according to Kurt Pittertschatscher, the pastor of
the parish. The descendant is said to be an elderly female relative of Alois
Hitler's first wife, Anna, who has also given up any rights to the rented burial
plot. The plot was covered in white gravel and a tree which has since been
removed. The remains of Adolf Hitler's parents are still interred there.
See also Hitler family
References Additional sources
Bullock, Alan Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. 1953 ISBN 0-06-092020-3
Fest, Joachim C. Hitler. Verlag Ullstein, 1973 ISBN 0-15-141650-8
Hamann, Brigitte Hitler's Vienna, Tauris Parke Paperbacks 2010 ISBN
978-1-84885-277-8 Kershaw, Ian Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris. W
W Norton, 1999 ISBN 0-393-04671-0 Langer, Walter C. The Mind of Adolf
Hitler. Basic Books Inc., New York, 1972 ISBN 0-465-04620-7 ASIN: B000CRPF1K
Payne, Robert The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler. Praeger Publishers 1973
LCCN 72-92891 Rosenbaum, Ron Explaining Hitler: The
Search for the Origins of His Evil, New York: Random House 1998 ISBN
0-670-82158-6 Vermeeren, Marc De jeugd van Adolf
Hitler 1889–1907 en zijn familie en voorouders. Soesterberg, 2007, 420 blz.
Uitgeverij Aspekt. ISBN 978-90-5911-606-1
Waite, Robert G. L. The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler. Basic Books 1977 ISBN
0-465-06743-3