Bridget Dowling

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Bridget Elizabeth Dowling , also Brigid Dowling , married Bridget Hitler (born July 3, 1891 in Dublin , Ireland , † November 18, 1969 ) was the sister-in-law of Adolf Hitler because of her marriage to Alois Hitler junior . The son William Patrick Hitler emerged from the marriage with Alois Hitler . She was born in Dublin, Ireland, where she grew up.

Before World War II

In 1909 she attended the Dublin Horse Show with her father, William Dowling , where she met Alois Hitler junior, who pretended to be a wealthy hotelier traveling Europe when he was actually a waiter at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin . At further meetings, Alois Hitler courted Bridget Dowling, so they soon discussed getting married. On June 3, 1910, the couple ran off to London and lived for a time on Charing Cross Road . Her father threatened that he would report Alois Hitler for kidnapping, but then finally consented to the marriage after his daughter had pleaded with him.

The couple settled at 102 Upper Stanhope Street in Toxteth , Liverpool and had their only child there in 1911 - William Patrick Hitler. The house was destroyed in the last German air raid on Liverpool, the so-called Liverpool Blitz , on January 10, 1942.

Alois Hitler junior went to Germany in 1914 to start his own business there. However, these plans were thwarted by the outbreak of the First World War . Bridget Hitler refused to move to Germany with him because he had developed violent traits and started beating her son. Alois Hitler left his family and remarried, thereby committing bigamy . After the war he sent Bridget a message saying he was dead. He was charged with bigamy in 1924 but escaped conviction thanks to Bridget's intervention. Bridget raised her son alone and eventually divorced, despite being a Catholic against divorce on religious grounds. She took on lodgers in her home in Highgate , North London.

Emigration and Allegations

Bridget Dowling Hitler offers informational material about the British War Relief Society (1941)

In 1939 she accompanied her son on a trip through the United States to which he was invited to give lectures about his famous uncle Adolf Hitler . Both decided to stay in the US and Bridget Dowling wrote a manuscript "My Brother-in-Law Adolf" claiming that her famous brother-in-law moved to Liverpool from November 1912 to April 1913, to live there with Bridget and Alois Hitler in order to avoid compulsory military service in Austria. She claimed that she introduced Adolf Hitler to astrology and recommended that he shave off the edges of his mustache. She did not succeed in selling the manuscript to a publisher and most historians rejected her work as a fairy tale with which she wanted to monetize her famous relatives.

There is no evidence that Hitler ever visited his relatives in Liverpool. Professor Robert Waite refuted her claims that Adolf Hitler lived with her, as did most of the rest of the book in the appendix to his book The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler . According to David Gardiner , Bridget Dowling's daughter-in-law said that Bridget Dowling admitted to her that the book was fictitious. Still, the story of Adolf Hitler's visit to Liverpool remained widespread and became the subject of Beryl Bainbridge's novel Young Adolf (1978) and Steve Yeowell's comic The New Adventures of Hitler (1989).

post war period

After the war, Bridget Dowling settled on Long Island with her son and took the name Stuart-Houston. She died there on November 18, 1969 and was buried in Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Coram , Long Island. Her son, who died on July 14, 1987, was also buried there.

swell

  • Marc Vermeeren: De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889-1907 en zijn familie en voorouders. Aspect, Soesterberg 2007, ISBN 978-90-5911-606-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ David C. Gardner : The Last of the Hitlers . BMM, 2001, ISBN 0-9541544-0-1 , p. 131.
  2. ↑ Bridget Dowling's birthday is controversial. David C. Gardner identified two women who had this name (father's name). One was born on July 3, 1891 (mother: Elisabeth Reynolds). The other was born on January 6, 1891 (mother: Esther Cullan). Gardner thinks that it is the latter, whereas Wolfgang Zdral (pages 134, 262 and in the appendix) takes July 3, 1891 as his birthday.
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Zdral : The Hitlers . Campus Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-593-37457-9 , p. 262, appendix.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Dowling, Bridget
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dowling, Bridget Elizabeth (full name); Dowling, Brigid; Hitler, Bridget
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Sister-in-law of Adolf Hitler because of her marriage to Alois Hitler junior
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Dublin , Ireland
DATE OF DEATH 18th November 1969