In 1876, Alois convinced the Austrian local authorities to acknowledge his deceased stepfather Johann Georg Hiedler as his biological father.

[8] At the age of 13, Alois left Johann Nepomuk Hiedler's farm in Spital and went to Vienna as an apprentice cobbler, working there for about five years.

According to Maser, Nepomuk was a married farmer who had an affair with Maria Schicklgruber and then arranged to have his single brother Johann Georg Hiedler marry Alois's mother Maria to provide a cover for Nepomuk's desire to assist and care for Alois without upsetting his wife.

[12] In 1931 Adolf Hitler ordered the Schutzstaffel (SS) to investigate the rumors regarding his ancestry, and they found no evidence of any Jewish ancestors.

[13] After the Nuremberg Laws came into effect in Nazi Germany, Hitler ordered the genealogist Rudolf Koppensteiner to publish a large illustrated genealogical tree showing his ancestry.

[16][17] As German historian Joachim Fest wrote: 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.

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.

[20] Opponents of the Frankenberger thesis have asserted that all Jews had been expelled from the province of Styria – which includes Graz – in the 15th century by Maximilian I, and that they were not officially allowed to return until the 1860s, when Alois was around 30.

Scholars such as Ian Kershaw and Brigitte Hamann dismiss the Frankenberger hypothesis, which had only Frank's speculation to support it, as baseless.

[21][22][23][24] Kershaw cites several stories circulating in the 1920s about Hitler's alleged Jewish ancestry, including one about a "Baron Rothschild" in Vienna in whose household Maria Schicklgruber had worked for some time as a servant.

[26] In 2019, gender psychologist Leonard Sax published a paper title "Aus den Gemeinden von Burgenland: revisiting the question of Adolf Hitler's paternal grandfather".

[27] Sax claims that Hamann, Kershaw, and other leading historians relied, either directly or indirectly, on a single source for the claim that no Jews were living in Graz prior to 1856: that source was the Austrian historian Nikolaus von Preradovich, whom Sax showed was a fervent admirer of Adolf Hitler.

Sax cited primary Austrian sources from the 1800s to demonstrate that there was in fact "eine kleine, nun angesiedelte Gemeinde" – "a small, now settled community" – of Jews living in Graz prior to 1856.

"[29] Evans argued that speculation about Hitler's ancestry persists "because some people have found his deep and murderous anti-Semitism hard to explain unless there were personal motives behind it ...

By 1860, after five years of service, he reached the rank of Finanzwach-Oberaufseher (Revenue guard Senior warden, analogous to an Army Corporal).

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.

The priest agreed to amend the birth certificate, the civil authorities automatically processed the church's decision and Alois Schicklgruber had a new name.

Historian Bradley F. Smith states that Alois Schicklgruber openly admitted having been born out of wedlock before and after the name change.

[11] Supposedly, Johann Georg Hiedler, who died in 1857, relented on his deathbed and left an inheritance to his illegitimate stepson (Alois) together with his surname.

[citation needed] In early 1869, Alois Hitler had an affair with Thekla Penz (born 24 September 1844) of Leopoldstein, Arbesbach, in the district of Zwettel, Lower Austria.

Alois Hitler kept Fanni Matzelsberger as his mistress while his lawful wife (Anna from whom he had separated) grew sicker and died on 6 April 1883.

[notes 1] Permission from Rome arrived, and on 7 January 1885 a wedding was held at Hitler's rented rooms on the top floor of the Pommer Inn.

One month after Alois accepted a better-paying position in Linz, on 1 April 1893 his wife and the children moved to a second floor room at Kapuzinerstrasse 31 in Passau.

[47] 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'."

According to reports, Alois Hitler liked to lord it over his neighbors, and even beat his own family’s dog until it would wet the floor.

[33][48] Alois has been described as "an authoritarian, overbearing, domineering husband and a stern, masterful, and often irritable father"[49] and as a "strict, short-tempered patriarch who demanded unquestioning respect and obedience from his children and used the switch whenever his expectations were not met.

"[4] In February 1895, Alois Hitler purchased a house on a 3.6-hectare (9-acre) plot in Hafeld near Lambach, approximately 50 kilometres (30 mi) southwest of Linz.

On 28 March 2012, by the account of Kurt Pittertschatscher, the pastor of the parish, the tombstone marking Alois Hitler's grave and that of his wife Klara was removed.

In 2011, for example, a vase with the word "unvergesslich" (unforgettable), with the two s-letters marked in the style of the doppelte Siegrune associated with the SS was left at the site.

The Upper Austrian Network Against Fascism also approved of the removal, calling it a "welcome success", with Robert Eiter from the organization commenting that "a lot of flowers and wreaths were deposited there from people who clearly were admirers".