Hitler family

Adolf Hitler had a central role in the rise of Nazism in Germany, provoking the start of World War II, and holding ultimate responsibility for the deaths of many millions of people during the Holocaust.

"[5][6] Willie had publicly criticized his uncle by 1938, fought with the United States military during World War 2 and had even later changed his last name from Hitler to Stuart-Houston.

[1] Speculations have been made, particularly regarding Johann Nepomuk and a Graz Jew by the name of Leopold Frankenberger, rumored by the head of the General Government in Nazi-occupied Poland, Hans Frank during the Nuremberg Trials.

No evidence has been found that a "Frankenberger" lived in the area; the Jews were expelled from Styria (which includes Graz) during the 15th century and were not permitted to return until the 1860s, several decades after the birth of Alois.

Not long after the wedding, Alois Hitler began an affair with 19-year-old Franziska "Fanni" Matzelsberger, one of the young female servants employed at the Pommer Inn, house no.

[notes 3] Permission was granted, and on 7 January 1885 the wedding took place in Hitler's rented rooms on the top floor of the Pommer Inn.

In February 1895, Alois Hitler purchased a house on a 3.6-hectare (8.9-acre) plot in Hafeld near Lambach, approximately 50 kilometres (30 mi) southwest of Linz.

[21] 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 various interpretations, Adolf disliked the thought of a career spent enforcing petty rules, and was perhaps so alienated from his father that he was repulsed by whatever Alois wanted.

Adolf and Paula were left with some financial assistance from their mother's pension and her modest estate of about 2,000 Kronen, after the medical and funeral costs were paid.

In her memoirs, Bridget Dowling claims that Adolf Hitler lived with them in Liverpool from 1912 to 1913 while he was on the run to avoid being conscripted in his native Austria-Hungary, but historians dismiss this story as a fiction invented to make the book more appealing to publishers.

At the beginning of the First World War, Adolf Hitler was a resident of Munich and volunteered to serve in the Bavarian Army as an Austrian citizen.

[40] Recommended by Hugo Gutmann, he received the Iron Cross, First Class, on 4 August 1918,[41] a decoration rarely awarded to one of Hitler's low rank (Gefreiter, equivalent to corporal).

Hitler's post at regimental headquarters, providing frequent interactions with senior officers, may have helped him receive this decoration.

During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, he was wounded either in the groin area[45] or the left thigh by a shell that had exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout.

[59][65] Historian Ian Kershaw contends that stories which circulated at the time alleging "sexual deviant practices ought to be viewed as anti-Hitler propaganda".

[66] When the NSDAP won 107 seats in the Reich parliament in 1930, the Times Union in Albany, New York, published a statement of Alois, Jr.[67] As Hitler prepared for war, he became distant from his family.

Hitler's second cousin, once removed, Aloisa Veit (named as Alois V), was gassed as part of the Nazi programme Aktion T4 which was a campaign to kill people who were deemed to be mentally ill.

[1] Aspiring to be an officer, Heinz joined the army as a signals NCO with the 23rd Potsdamer Artillery Regiment in 1941, and he participated with the invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa.

He was wounded in January 1943 during the Battle of Stalingrad,[69][verification needed] and Friedrich Paulus asked Hitler for an airplane to evacuate Raubal to Germany.

Hitler gave orders to check the possibility of a prisoner exchange with the Soviets for Stalin's son Yakov Dzhugashvili, who was in German captivity since 16 July 1941.

[73] During the spring of 1945, after the destruction of Dresden in the massive bomb attack of 13/14 February, Adolf relocated Angela to Berchtesgaden to avoid her being captured by the Soviets.

There is some evidence Paula shared her brother's strong German nationalist beliefs, but she was not politically active and never joined the Nazi Party.

After midnight on the night of 28–29 April 1945, Adolf and Eva Braun were married in a small civil ceremony within the Führerbunker in Berlin.

Paula was released from American custody and returned to Vienna, where she lived on her savings for a time, then worked in an arts and crafts shop.

The resulting conversation was the only filmed interview she ever gave and was broadcast as part of a programme named Tyranny: The Years of Adolf Hitler.

Also that year, he changed his surname to Stuart-Houston; some have commented on its similarity with the name of the racialist writer Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

Following Mitford's attempted suicide and return to the United Kingdom, she spent time at Hill View Cottage, a private maternity home in Oxfordshire.

Bright found that Hill View Cottage was used as a maternity home during the war and that the presence of Mitford was a consistent rumour throughout the village.

Deborah dismissed the theory of Hitler's baby as "gossip of villagers", but confirmed that Unity had stayed at the maternity home to recover from a nervous breakdown.