Alois Hitler
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Alois Hitler, born Aloys Schicklgruber (7 June 1837 - 3 January 1903) was the father of Adolf Hitler.
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Birth
In the tiny and rustic farming village of Strones, in the Waldviertel, a hilly forested area in the northwest part of lower Austria just north of Vienna, a forty-two year old unwed Catholic peasant woman named Maria Anna Schicklgruber (1), whose family had lived in the area for generations, gave birth to an illegitimate boy and named him Alois. His father's identity remains a mystery. Maria either refused to reveal who it was or simply didn’t know. The day he was born, after Alois was baptized in the nearby village of Döllersheim, the space for his father's name on the baptismal certificate was left blank and the priest wrote illegitimate. Baby Alois was cared for by Maria in a house she shared with her elderly father, Johannes Schicklgruber, in Strones.
Youth
Sometime later, Johann Georg Hiedler moved in with the Schicklgrubers and married Maria when Alois was five. By the age of ten Alois had been sent to live with Georg's brother Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, who owned a farm in the nearby village of Spital.
Alois attended elementary school and took lessons in shoe-making from a local cobbler. When he was 13 he left the farm in Spital and went to Vienna as an apprentice cobbler which he worked at for about five years. In response to a recruitment drive by the Austrian government offering employment in the civil service to people from rural areas, Alois joined the frontier guards (customs service) of the Austrian Finance Ministry in 1855 at the age of 18.
Early career
Alois made steady progress in the semi-military profession of a customs guard. The work involved frequent re-assignments and he served in a variety of places all across Austria. By 1860, after five years service, he reached the rank of Finanzwach Oberaufseher (a non-commissioned officer), while serving in the town of Wels, Austria. By 1864, after special training and examinations, he had advanced further and was serving in Linz, Austria. In 1875 he was an inspector of customs posted at Braunau.
While his professional duties involved strict attention to (and application of) set rules, his private life seems to have been a serial flaunting of society's norms with regards to women and offspring. In the late 1860s he fathered an illegitimate child with a woman named Thelka whom he did not marry and whose family name is lost to history. Alois was 36 when he married for the first time in 1873 and it may have been for money. Anna Glassl was a well-to-do, fifty-year-old daughter of an official. Anna was sick when Alois married her and was either an invalid or became one shortly afterwards.
Name changed to Alois Hitler
Historian Ian Kershaw remarks: "The first of many strokes of good fortune for Adolf Hitler took place thirteen years before he was born. In 1876, the man who was to become his father changed his name from Alois Schicklgruber to Alois Hitler. Adolf can be believed when he said that nothing his father had done had pleased him so much as to drop the coarsely rustic name of Schicklgruber. Certainly, 'Heil Schicklgruber' would have sounded an unlikely salutation to a national hero" (Kershaw, p.3).
As a rising young junior customs official Alois used his birth name but in the summer of 1876, forty years old and well established in his career, he asked permission to use his dead step-father's family name. He appeared before the parish priest in Döllersheim and asserted that his father was Johann Georg Hiedler who had married his mother (Alois deliberately gave the priest the impression Georg was still alive and now had the desire to legitimize him). Three relatives appeared with Alois as witnesses, one of whom was Johann Nepomuk Hiedler's son-in-law. The priest agreed to amend the records, the civil authorities automatically processed the church's decision and Alois had a new name. The official change, registered at the government office in Mistelbach on January 6, 1877 transformed "Aloys Schicklgruber" into "Alois Hitler." It is not known who decided on the spelling of Hitler instead of Hiedler. It may have been the clerk in Mistelbach. Spellings were still being standardized at the time.
Who was Alois' real father?
Historians have discussed three candidates:
- Johann Georg Hiedler, who in his lifetime was the step-father and legally declared as the birth father long after he died.
- Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, Georg's brother and Alois' step-uncle, who raised Alois through adolescence and later willed him a considerable portion of his life savings but who (if he was the real father) never found it expedient to admit it publicly.
- Leopold Frankenberger's son, claimed by Hans Frank to have fathered Alois when his mother Maria worked in the Frankenberger house as a maid in Graz, Austria.
Johann Georg Hiedler?
The official version may be true and Alois' father really was Johann Georg Hiedler. An explanation for Alois being sent to live on his uncle's farm as a child is that Georg and Maria were simply too poor to raise Alois, or could not raise him as well as his uncle, or perhaps Maria's health was in decline (she died when he was ten). Unexplained is why Georg and Maria did not declare Alois their legitimate son once they were legally married, or why Georg died without legitimizing his son and perpetuating his line of the family. Did Alois lie to the priest, or did he simply stretch the truth a bit by saying what his father perhaps intended, but never got around to doing?
Johann Nepomuk Hiedler?
Historian Werner Maser suggests that Alois's father was Georg's brother, Johann Nepomuk, a married farmer who had an affair and then arranged to have his single brother Georg marry Alois's mother Maria to provide a cover for Nepomuk's desire to assist and care for Alois without upsetting his wife. This assumes Georg was willing to marry Maria and Hitler biographer J. Fest thinks this is too contrived and unlikely to be true.
Frankenberger's son?
Soon after Adolf Hitler became politically active in the 1920s rumours spread that his ancestry was Jewish. His opponents found out his father had not originally been named Hitler and nobody seemed to know who his paternal grandfather had been. What Hitler really thought about these rumours (as opposed to his public statements) is unknown.
Himmler had the Gestapo investigate in 1942 and they are said to have turned up nothing. In Mein Kampf Hitler states his paternal grandfather was "a poor cottager" and writes implicitly as a German (Hitler considered his family German and the fact they were Austrians was politics, not nationality). For historians the matter of Jewish ancestry centered around claims made after the war by Hans Frank, who in a confession to a priest while awaiting execution said that after having been asked by Hitler to investigate, he discovered Hitler's grandmother Maria had worked as a servant in Graz for a wealthy Jew named Leopold Frankenberger. Frank asserted that Maria got pregnant and returned to her native village of Strones to have the baby. Frank's testimony was widely believed in the 1950s but by the 1990s was generally doubted by historians. Ian Kershaw dismisses the Frankenberger story as a "smear" by Hitler's enemies, noting that all Jews had been expelled from Graz in the 15th century and were not allowed to return until the 1860s. There is also no evidence Maria Schicklgruber ever lived in Graz.
Was it for money?
Whether Alois' father was either of two brothers has little historical interest except for making Adolf Hitler's ancestry more incestuous since his mother Klara Pölzl's grandfather was Nepomuk.
Historians speculate Alois may have changed his name for money. Johann Nepomuk Hiedler might have promised to leave him a legacy if he changed his name to Hiedler and continued the family name. Six months after Nepomuk died Alois made a major real estate purchase inconsistent with the salary of a customs official with a pregnant wife.
Maser reports that in 1876 Franz Schicklgruber, the administrator of Alois' mother's estate, transferred a large sum of money (230 gulden) to Alois. Maser asserts this transfer was connected to a family decision involving changing Alois' last name from Schicklgruber to Hitler in accordance with his mother's wishes when she died in 1847.
Shame seems to have played no part. Smith states that Alois openly admitted having been born out of wedlock before and after the name change. He had done well by local standards and was not hampered by his name. The limiting factor was education. Alois eventually rose to full inspector of customs and could go no higher because he lacked the necessary school degrees.
See also: Ancestry of Adolf Hitler - Who was Adolf's grandfather? (http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa070197.htm) and The Straight Dope: Was Hitler part Jewish? (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_325b.html)
Middle career
In 1876, three years after Alois married his first wife, he hired Klara Pölzl as a household servant. She was the sixteen-year-old granddaughter of Alois' step-uncle (or father) Nepomuk. With Alois' name change Klara was officially his second cousin: If Nepomuk was Alois' father, then Klara was Alois' half-niece. Not long after, he had an affair with nineteen year old Franziska "Franni" Matzelberger, one of the young female servants employed at the Braunau inn (the Pommer Inn, house #219) where he was renting the top floor as a lodging.
Smith states that Alois had numerous affairs in the 1870s, resulting in his sick wife Anna initiating legal action to seek a separation and on 7 November 1880 Alois and Anna legally separated by mutual agreement. Franziska became 43 year old Alois' girlfriend but the two could not marry since under Catholic church law, divorce was not permitted. Franziska meanwhile demanded that the "servant girl" Klara find another job and Alois sent his cousin Klara away.
Franziska succeeded in gaining at least the status of a wife. She needed it, because in January 1882 she gave birth to Alois' illegitimate son, also named Alois, but since they were not married the child's last name was Franziska's, making him "Alois Matzelberger." Franziska was luckier (or perhaps prettier) than Alois' previous lover who had gotten pregnant, or maybe that baby had been a girl. For whatever reason Alois kept Franziska as his wife while his lawful wife grew sicker and, more than a year after the birth of Franziska's child, passed away. The next month, at a ceremony in Braunau with fellow custom officials as witnesses, Alois Hitler, 45, married Franziska Matzelberger, 21 and bulging with a second child due soon. He then legitimized his son as Alois Hitler, Jr.
Late career
Alois was secure in his profession, no longer the ambitious climber. Alan Bullock described Alois as a "hard, unsympathetic, and short-tempered" man. Franziska, for reasons unknown to history, went to Vienna to give birth to Angela Hitler. Then tragedy struck. Franni, still only 23, acquired a lung disorder and became too ill to function. She was moved to Ranshofen, a small village near Braunau. With no one to take care of the house or the children, Alois brought back Klara Pölzl, Franni's rival. Franziska died in Ranshofen on August 10, 1884 at the age of 23.
Her death did not appear to affect Alois at all. He replaced her with Klara who was already pregnant at the time (or about to be). Smith writes that if Alois had been free to do as he wished, he would have married Klara immediately but because of the affidavit concerning his paternity, Alois was now legally Klara's second cousin, too close to marry. He submitted an appeal to the church for a humanitarian waiver, not mentioning that Klara was already pregnant.
Alois was immune to what the local people thought of him since his salary came from the finance ministry and was probably ready to keep Klara as his "housekeeper" if permission was refused. It came and on 7 January 1885 a wedding was held early in the morning at Alois' rented rooms on the top floor of the Pommer Inn. A meal was served for the few guests and witnessess and then with his customary insensitivity and lack of romantic feeling he went to work as if it was any other day. Klara was hurt, later telling someone in exaggeration the whole thing was done in under an hour.
On 17 May 1885, five months after the wedding, Klara gave birth to her first child, Gustav. A year later, on 25 September 1886 she gave birth to a daughter, Ida. A son Otto followed Ida in 1887, but he died shortly after birth. Later that year diphtheria tragically struck the Hitler household, resulting in the deaths of both Gustav and Ida. Klara had been Alois' wife for three years and all her children were dead but Alois still had the children from his relationship with Franziska, Alois Jr and Angela.
On April 20, 1889 she gave birth to another son, Adolf. He was a sickly child and Klara fretted over him. Alois had little interest in child rearing and left it all to Klara. When not at work he was either in a tavern or busy with his hobby, keeping bees. It has been said he behaved like a self-important tyrant at home. If he was in a bad mood he picked on the older children or Klara herself, abusing her in front of them. Mostly he used his voice to lash out and hurt or humiliate, but he was apparently not above using physical blows and spankings.
In 1892 Alois was transferred from Braunau to Passau. He was 55, Klara 32, Alois Jr. 10, Angela 9 and little Adolf was 3 years old. In 1894 Alois was re-assigned to Linz. Klara had just given birth to Edmund so it was decided she and the children would stay in Passau for the time being.
Retirement
Alois_Hitler_last_years.jpg
In February 1895 Alois purchased a house on a nine acre (36,000 m²) plot in Hafeld near Lambach approximately thirty miles southwest of Linz. The farm was called the Rauscher Gut. Alois fantasized he would spend his retirement as a "gentleman farmer," indulging in beekeeping and living an easy rural life. He moved his family to the farm and retired on 25 June 1895 at the age of 58 after forty years in the customs service.
A lifetime as a civil servant had made Alois forget what farm life was like. Alois found taking care of nine acres (36,000 m²) to be more work than he had thought it would be and he didn't want it. The land went uncultivated and the value of the property declined. Far from being his dream retirement home the Rauscher Gut was a money-losing nightmare.
Meanwhile his family was still growing. On 21 January 1896 Paula Hitler was born (she was Klara and Alois' last child). With no workplace to escape to Alois was often home with his family. He had five children ranging in age from infancy to 14 and being involved with their daily life annoyed him. Smith suggests he yelled at the children almost continually and made long visits to the local tavern where he began to drink more than he used to.
Alois and his oldest son Alois Jr had a climactic and violent argument. Alois Jr. left home for good and the elder Alois swore he would never give the boy a penny of inheritance beyond what the law required.
Edmund, the youngest of the boys, had died of measles on 2 February 1900. If there was to be a family legacy, Adolf would have to carry it. Alois wanted the boy to follow in his footsteps and seek a career in the civil service. Adolf was so alienated from his father that he was repulsed by whatever Alois wanted. His father glorified the role of the civil servant while Adolf sneered at the thought of a lifetime spent enforcing petty rules. Alois tried to browbeat his son into obedience while Adolf did his best to be the opposite of whatever his father valued. Alois wanted him to be a practical, non-religious, non-political, sensible, realistic, stable and industrious civil servant. Adolf became lazy, romantic, idealistic and fantasy-oriented while dreaming first of being a priest, then an artist.
Death
On the morning of 3 January 1903 Alois went to the Gasthaus Stiefler as usual to drink his morning glass of wine. He had just been offered the newspaper when he collapsed. He was taken to an adjoining room and a doctor was summoned but Alois Hitler died at the inn, probably from a pleural hemorrhage, aged 65.
Quotes
"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" - Robert G. L. Waite
Notes
1Sometimes spelled "Schickelgruber"
References
- Bullock, Alan Hitler: A Study in Tyranny 1953 ISBN 0060920203
- Fest, Joachim C. Hitler Verlag Ullstein, 1973 ISBN 0-15-141650-8
- Kershaw, Ian Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris W W Norton, 1999 ISBN 0-393-04671-0
- Maser, Werner Hitler: Legend, Myth and Reality Penguin Books Ltd 1973 ISBN 0-06-012831-3
- Smith, Bradley F. Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth Hoover Instituted, 1967 ISBN 66-25727
- Waite, Robert G. L. The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler Basic Books 1977 ISBN 0-465-06743-3
- Payne, Robert The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler Praeger Publishers 1973 LCCN 72-92891de:Alois Hitler
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