Alois Hitler

This article is about Adolf Hitler's father. For his eldest son, see Alois Hitler junior .

Alois Hitler (approx. 1898)

Alois Hitler (born June 7, 1837 as Alois Schicklgruber in Strones, Döllersheim municipality , † January 3, 1903 in Leonding near Linz ) was an Austrian customs officer and father of Adolf Hitler .

origin

Alois Hitler was the illegitimate son of Anna Maria Schicklgruber . Their ancestors were poor small farmers. Alois' father cannot be clearly identified: The wealthy farmer Johann Nepomuk Hiedler in Weitra in the Waldviertel and his brother, the often unemployed and vagabond miller servant Johann Georg Hiedler, are possible fathers. In the baptism entry is Georg Hitler and a note that he married Anna Maria Schicklgruber on March 10, 1842.

A third variant, the so-called " Frankenberger thesis ", which Alois Hitler portrays as the son of a wealthy Jewish merchant named Frankenberger from Graz, has meanwhile been disproved. Alois' mother worked in the household of this merchant, and Adolf Hitler knew about such circumstances, claimed Hans Frank , Governor General in occupied Poland from 1939 to 1945, in his memoirs. He went on to speculate: “So I have to say that it cannot be completely ruled out that Hitler’s father was a half-Jew, arising from the extramarital relationship between the Schicklgruber and the Graz Jew. Accordingly, Hitler himself would have been a quarter of a Jew. "

After the Frankenberger thesis was taken up by some authors, such as Dietrich Bronder and Hennecke Kardel, in the 1960s and 1970s, Werner Maser at the latest refuted these rumors as irrelevant: in Graz it even went into the second half of the 19th century no resident Jews given. A Jew named Frankenberger is nowhere mentioned for the 19th century, and Anna Maria Schicklgruber was not even in Graz at the time in question. Brigitte Hamann assumes on this basis that "here the angry anti-Semite Frank wants to shift responsibility for an allegedly Jewish Hitler to the hated Jews and to make them insecure with rumors".

According to Hamann and Maser , the alleged attempts at extortion by William Patrick Hitler mentioned in this context with reference to family secrets cannot be traced back to the possibility of Adolf Hitler's Jewish ancestors, but to his incestuous relationships, with which "Hitler could have been blackmailed at least as well".

Life

Youth and entry into the customs administration

In 1842, when the illegitimate son was five years old, Anna Maria Schicklgruber married the 50-year-old Müllerknecht Johann Georg Hiedler. After the child was not officially adopted even after the child's mother was married, it was still called Schicklgruber. Since his mother was penniless and Alois should have a permanent residence, he grew up with Johann Nepomuk Hiedler until around 1850.

House in Leonding next to the old cemetery

Little is known about Alois Hitler's early youth. After attending elementary school, he apprenticed to a shoemaker . At the age of 13 he went to Vienna to continue his training in leather craft and passed his journeyman's examination in 1854 at the age of 17. After his military service he reported to the kk Finanzwache in 1855 , the customs administration of the Danube monarchy , which was then organized as a paramilitary . In 1860 he was promoted to the rank of non-commissioned financial guard supervisor , and in 1864 he achieved the highest level of subaltern service as a control assistant . In 1871 he was promoted to the higher service and transferred to Braunau am Inn as a controller .

First marriage and name change

In 1875, Alois Schicklgruber married Anna Glasl-Hörer, who was about 14 years older than him and an adopted daughter of a senior customs officer. Allegedly on the occasion of an inheritance matter, Johann Georg Hiedler officially declared his paternity a second time at the notary's office in Weitra . At that time he was already 84 years old, the child's mother had been dead for almost thirty years, Alois Schicklgruber had long been a customs office assistant in Braunau. The farmers Rameder, Perutsch and Breiteneder have signed this document as locally known witnesses. According to ecclesiastical and official views, the question of fatherhood was thus sufficiently clarified. Alois would probably have kept the name Schicklgruber if Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, Johann Georg's younger brother by 15 years, had not made his will and also wanted to give his brother's illegitimate son a modest share. But he made it a condition that Alois must accept the name Hiedler. The name Alois Schicklgruber was changed on June 4, 1876 in the parish register of the Döllersheim parish office to "Alois Hitler". This name change was confirmed on January 6, 1877. Alois Schicklgruber now called himself Alois Hitler, which secured him an inheritance.

The above description, however, differs in essential points from the facts that Wolfgang Zdral describes in his book Die Hitlers (page 14 ff.). Accordingly, Johann Georg Hiedler was "dead for 19 years" in 1876. The names of the three witnesses are given by Zdral (quoting older literature) with Josef Romeder, Johann Breiteneder and Engelbert Paukh. According to Zdral, the ( posthumous ) authentication of Johann Georg Hiedler's paternity and thus the logging of the name change first took place on June 6, 1876 at the notary Josef Penkner in Weitra in the presence of Alois Schicklgruber and the three witnesses mentioned. “The next day” - June 7th - “the ceremony is repeated in front of Josef Zahnschirm, the pastor of the Döllersheim parish.” Zdral suspects that the three witnesses were no longer personally present at this meeting and that the notarial document was sufficient . The entry of the pastor of Döllersheim reads: “(d) ace the registered as father Johann Georg Hitler, who is well known to the produced witnesses, known as the father of the child Alois indicated by the child's mother Anna Maria Schicklgruber and asked for his name to be entered in I looked up the local baptismal register, is confirmed by the manufactured ". According to Zdral, instead of the signatures of the witnesses, three crosses followed; the clergyman himself omitted the usual countersignature.

Second marriage

Alois Hitler's marriage to Anna remained childless. Finally he broke up with her. She died in 1883. In the same year, Alois married the inn cook Franziska Matzelsberger (1861–1884), who was 24 years younger than him, and with whom he had already married the illegitimate son Alois Hitler junior. (1882–1956) had fathered. Franziska died of tuberculosis shortly after the birth of her daughter Angela on August 10, 1884 .

Klara Hitler, b. Pölzl (1860–1907), mother of Adolf Hitler

Grave of Alois and Klara Hitler in Leonding (2009). It was closed on March 28, 2012.

Grave site, July 2016

Third marriage to second degree niece

On January 7, 1885, Alois Hitler was the third marriage to Klara Pölzl , a second-degree niece, which is why he had to obtain church dispensation for this connection beforehand . The episcopal ordinariate in Linz declared that it was not authorized to grant this dispensation and forwarded the request to Rome , from where it was approved by a papal parer . This request in the clean calligraphic handwriting of the kk state official is still in the archives of the episcopal ordinariate in Linz.

In 1875, as a young girl of 15, Klara had worked in the household of Alois and his first wife. After the second marriage, she left her relative's house and went to Vienna, where she found work as a housemaid. When Franziska, Alois Hitler's second wife, fell seriously ill soon after the birth of their second child, Alois Hitler called his niece back to Braunau.

There were six children from this marriage. Even before the marriage, Gustav was conceived, who was born on May 17, 1885 during the marriage and died in 1887. Ida followed in 1886, who did not survive 1888. For a long time, historians thought that their son Otto, born in 1887, passed away three days after he was born. It has now been proven that Adolf was already three years old when Otto, born in 1892, died seven days after he was born. Adolf was born in 1889 and Edmund in 1894, who died in 1900. Paula was last born in 1896 .

Prosperity in the high customs service

Thanks to Johann Nepomuk Hiedler's legacy and Alois Hitler's professional advancement, as well as the income associated with it, he was able to acquire several houses: first a property in Wörnharts (part of the market town of Großschönau ) for 5000  guilders , after which the 3.8 ha large Rauscher estate in Hafeld near Lambach . In 1892 Alois Hitler was promoted to civil servant rank IX and now served in Passau as chief customs officer, which corresponded to the rank of captain . In 1895 he became the head of the customs department of the Finance Directorate in Linz and finally retired with an annual pension of 1,100 guilders, which would have been the equivalent of a director. Now he has acquired the property no. 61 in Linz-Leonding, including a 1900 m² piece of land on which the pensioner raised bees, fruit and cattle.

When Alois Hitler died on January 3, 1903 at the age of 65, the family only stayed in Leonding until Adolf had to change schools. In 1905 the wife Klara sold the house and moved into an apartment in Linz. Alois Hitler is buried with his wife Klara in Leonding near Linz. In 2012 the grave was abandoned (with the consent of a relative as the beneficial owner) because right-wing extremist circles had viewed it as a place of pilgrimage.

literature

• Marc Vermeeren: De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889–1907 en zijn familie en voorouders. Soesterberg, 2007, 420 blz. Uitgeverij aspect, ISBN 90-5911-606-2 .
• August Kubizek : Adolf Hitler, my childhood friend. Stocker , Graz / Stuttgart 1953, ISBN 3-7020-0971-X .
• Werner Maser: Adolf Hitler legend - myth - reality. Munich and Esslingen 1971, ISBN 3-7628-0521-0 .
• Karl Merinsky: The end of the Second World War and the occupation in the area of ​​Zwettl in Lower Austria. Dissertation University of Vienna 1966.
• Karl Merinsky: Zwettl and the Döllersheim military training area. A contribution to the contemporary history of Lower Austria. In: Between Weinsberg, Wild and Nebelstein. Building blocks for local history of the Hohen Waldviertel. Zwettl 1974, pp. 137-169. (Ed. Franz Trischler, with the support of the Lower Austrian State Government).
• Wolfgang Zdral: Die Hitlers (The unknown family of the Führer). Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-593-37457-4 , or paperback edition: Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2008, ISBN 978-3-404-61631-2 , pages 10 to 38.

Documentaries

• Oliver Halmburger , Thomas Staehler: Family Hitler - In the shadow of the dictator. Documentary. With the collaboration of Timothy Ryback et al. Florian Beierl. Munich: Oliver Halmburger Loopfilm GmbH u. Mainz: ZDF History 2005.

Web links

Commons : Alois Hitler  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Matricula Online - Leonding, Deaths - Duplikate 1903, page 28, entry no. 1, 1st line
2. ↑ ^{a b} Cf. Werner Maser: Adolf Hitler. Legend - myth - reality. Munich and Esslingen 1971, pp. 25-28.
3. ↑ Hans Frank: In the face of the gallows. Interpretation of Hitler and his time on the basis of personal experiences and knowledge. Written in the Nuremberg judicial prison. Alfred Beck Verlag, Munich-Graefelfing 1953, p. 330f.
4. ^ Brigitte Hamann: Hitler's Vienna. Piper, Munich 1997, p. 77.
5. ↑ Jürgen Langowski: Did Hitler have Jewish ancestors? Who can interpret it all! On: Holocaust Reference. Arguments against Auschwitz deniers. 2007, last accessed on July 22, 2007. In this context, Langowski also refers to Brigitte Hamann: Hitler's Vienna. Piper, Munich 1997, p. 77, and Werner Maser: Adolf Hitler. Legend - myth - reality. Munich and Esslingen 1971, p. 36. On the ancestors of Adolf Hitler cf. the section Adolf Hitler: Origin .
6. ↑ For the circumstances that (possibly) led to the definition and later retention of the spelling "Hitler" - instead of "Hiedler" (or "Hüttler") - see the section "Ancestors" in the article Hitler (family) .
7. ↑ As reproduced in W. Zdral: Die Hitlers. P. 14 f., Quoted from Franz Jetzinger: Hitler's youth. Vienna 1956, p. 22.
8. ↑ See Ian Kershaw: Hitler, 1889–1936. Stuttgart 1998, p. 37.
9. ^ SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hamburg Germany: Archive find: Hitler's disabled brother was younger. In: SPIEGEL ONLINE. Retrieved May 31, 2016 . 
10. ↑ See Ian Kershaw: Hitler, 1889–1936. Stuttgart 1998, p. 39.
11. ↑ Grave of Hitler's parents abandoned. ORF Oberösterreich-News from March 29, 2012.