Propaganda portrayed Hitler as a man who came into history from nowhere. There was no place for family in this myth; no one should have known about it. His half-brother Alois kept the beer house in Berlin, his half-sister Angel watched the house, his sister Paula was engaged to the killer, one nephew fought on Hitler's side, the other fought against. This family had many secrets. Modern studies explain why the dictator hid his origin. He was simply afraid that it would make him vulnerable. But who were his relatives? What did Hitler think about his relatives, who did they consider him to be?
Adolf Hitler's mother
Klara Peltzl was born into a peasant family in Waldviertel (Austria) in 1860. The girl's father is Johann the Baptist Peltzl, mother is Johann Hütler (Gütler), the daughter of Johann Nepomuk Hüttler. Alois (Alois) Hitler - the father of Adolf Hitler - was an illegitimate child whom the husband of his mother recognized only in 1876, when he was already 39 years old. Johann Georg Hüttler, who always wanted to have a son, adopted a child, but as a child, Alois constantly lived with his uncle (according to other sources - his grandfather) - Johann Nepomuk. It was through his efforts that Aloise was recognized as the son of Johann Georg. During adoption, the surname changed to Hitler. So, Klara Hitler and Alois Hitler, as a result of the connection of which the Nazi dictator was born, were related to each other.
Clara Peltzl's family
Clara had five brothers and as many sisters. Almost all of them died young. Only the sisters Johann and Theresa lived a relatively long life (48 and 67 years, respectively). Johanna was not married, had a hunchback, died of a coma due to diabetes. Adolf Hitler aunt bequeathed most of his fortune. Theresia Hitler (Schmidt) married a wealthy villager and continued the clan. The remaining children of Johann Baptista and Johann Hütler died in childhood or at a very young age: Johann, Franz and Maria lived less than a year, Joseph - at twenty-one, Anton - at five, Karl Boris - at a year and a few months, Maria - at four years.
Acquaintance with Alois
After graduation, the biography of Clara Hitler took her to Alois's house, where she got a job as a housekeeper. The girl was then only thirteen years old. Alois also had to rely only on herself at thirteen. He escaped from the house and got a job as an apprentice shoemaker. Five years later, he entered the border guard, quickly promoted and soon became a senior customs inspector in the town of Braunau. Soon Alois Hitler inherited the company. He married a woman who was fourteen years older than him. The wife divorced him when Alois got a mistress - cook Fanny (Francis) Matzelsberger. Then Alois was attracted by sixteen-year-old Clara, but he was married to Fanny, who gave birth to two children - a daughter, Angela, and a son, Alois. Two years later, Fanny died.
The marriage of Alois and Clara
Alois Hitler entered into a relationship with Clara at a time when he was officially married to Fanny Matzelsberger. To marry her, the man needed to get permission from the Vatican, because formally, Clara was his blood relative. The local Catholic bishopric did not give permission for this marriage. At this point, a relative of Alois, who was twenty-three years older than her, was already pregnant. She regularly attended church, faithfully performed her household duties. Clara Hitler could not overcome the status of a servant in which she came to the house of Alois. Even years later, she called her husband "Uncle Alois."
In the first years after the wedding, Clara gave birth to two boys and one girl, but the children died in infancy. Gustav Hitler died at two years and seven months, and his sister Ida - twenty-five days after his brother at the age of one and a half years. The third child of the couple - Otto Hitler - lived only three days. Two children died within one month from diphtheria. Otto died of hydrocephalus. Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889. Biographers write that Clara Hitler's love for her son was unconditional. He was born after the death of three children, so Clara, most likely, after giving birth experienced fear and anxiety, which could inflict a severe blow on the psyche of Adolf.
Surviving children
In total, Clara Hitler had six children. When Adolf was already almost five, Edmund was born. At the beginning of 1896, the daughter of Paula was born in the Hitler family. Edmunt died at the age of six from chickenpox. Only Adolf and Paula survived. They were the only siblings who lived to adulthood. Paula Hitler (pictured below) worked as a secretary in Vienna, and after dismissal she began to receive financial support from her brother. At the request of Adolf, she took the invented surname Wolf and moonlighted from time to time. Wolf was Hitler’s childhood nickname, which he used in his twenties for safety reasons. Paula was the only relative of the leader of the Third Reich, to whom Hitler was attached all his life.
In the last days of World War II, when defeat was inevitable, by order of Martin Bormann, Paula was transported to Berchtesgaden. Then Paula was forty-nine years old. In May 1945, Hitler's sister was arrested and interrogated. Later, she returned to Vienna, lived on her own savings for some time, and then worked in an art store. Since 1952, she looked after former members of the SS and surviving from the close circle of her brother in Berchtesgaden. Paula died in 1960 at the age of sixty-four. She was the last of the then close relatives of the Fuhrer.
Other relatives
In the family of Klara Hitler and Alois, not only their own children were raised, but also his son Alois Hitler, Jr. and the daughter of Angela Hitler from Fanny Matzelsberger. All children were brought up by Clara. At fourteen, Alois Jr. fled home due to a conflict with his father. After this tyranny of the father went to Adolf. The future dictator was thinking about running away from home at eleven. Angela (pictured below with her husband), Adolf's older half-sister, lived with her family until 1903. In 1903, she became the wife of Leo Raubal, tax inspector. From him she gave birth to a son, Leo, the daughters of Geli and Elfrid.
Obviously, Angela had a good relationship with her half-brother. She moved to the capital of Austria and after the First World War, she began working as a manager. For ten long years she knew absolutely nothing about Adolf's life, but in 1919 he made contact with his half-sister. In 1928 (eighteen years after the death of her first husband), she moved to Berghof, where she became Hitler's housekeeper. Some researchers believe that Adolf had sexual relations with his niece Geli, who committed suicide in 1931.
Angela herself did not approve of her stepbrother’s relationship with Eva Brown. Their relationship finally deteriorated when in 1935 Hitler gave Angela a day to pack his bags. He accused the woman of helping Goering acquire land opposite his plot in Berchtesgaden. Hitler finally broke off his warm relationship with Angela. He did not even attend her wedding. In 1936, Angela Hitler married Martin Hammich, a German architect and director of a construction school. During World War II, the Führer contacted his sister again. She was a mediator in his communication with other family members.
The fate of the Angels
After the bombing of Dresden, the head of Nazi Germany moved his half-sister to Berchtesgaden so that it would not be captured by Soviet soldiers. He allocated her 100 thousand Reichsmarks, and in his will guaranteed Angela a monthly pension of 1000 Reichsmarks. Angela praised her brother very much even after the war ended. She stated that she did not know anything about the Holocaust (like Hitler). Angela Hitler was sure that if Adolf knew what was happening in the concentration camps, he would have stopped it.
The death of Clara Hitler
In 1903, Alois Hitler passed away. On the morning of the third of January, he went into a tavern to drink a glass of wine out of habit, picked up a newspaper and suddenly felt unwell. Soon he died either from myocardial infarction, or from hemorrhage in the lungs (there is several version). Two years later, Klara Hitler sold their house and moved to Linz. Paula was then five years old, Adolf was fourteen. In 1907, Clara Hitler was given a terrible diagnosis - breast cancer. Soon she was admitted to the "Merciful Sisters" hospital in Linz. At the beginning of the year, she underwent a heavy operation, which lasted an entire hour. Eleven months later, the woman died. The cause of Clara Hitler's death is cancer.
The mystery of Hitler's nationality
Adherents of the myth of the Jewish origin of the leader of fascist Germany operate on a mass of facts, some of which can be classified as fabrications. However, these rumors really have to be based on something. Suspiciously is the behavior of the Führer, who prevented the publication of his family tree after the advent of power and even destroyed documents. Back in 1928, the Berlin police proved that Adolf Hitler's grandfather was a Jew. Harvard researchers came to the same conclusion in 1943.
What is the nationality of Clara Hitler? Analysts believe that Hitler had Jewish blood on his paternal side, but only syphilis could be transmitted along the mother's side, which caused the death of many infants, as well as Klara’s brothers and sisters. Adolf's godfather and family doctor was a Jew. Even if we omit questions of nationality, the leader of Nazi Germany was born as a result of incest. There is information that his sister Ida had a mental illness, her aunt suffered from diabetes and was born a hunchback, the son of another aunt was a hunchback with speech defects.