Family tree of Adolf HITLER

German and Austrian politician

GermanBorn Adolf HITLER

Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party

Born on April 20, 1889 in Braunau Am Inn, Austria–Hungary , Germany

Died on April 30, 1945 in Berlin, Germany

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Hitler's father, Alois Hitler, was an illegitimate child and, for the first 39 years of his life, bore his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. Alois’ paternity was not listed on his birth certificate, and has been the subject of much controversy. After receiving a "blackmail letter" from Hitler's nephew William Patrick Hitler threatening to reveal embarrassing information about Hitler's family tree, Nazi Party lawyer Hans Frank investigated, and, in his memoirs, claimed to have uncovered letters that revealed Ms. Schicklgruber was employed as a housekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz and that the family’s 19-year-old son, Leopold Frankenberger, fathered Alois. No evidence has ever been produced to support Frank's claim, and Frank himself said Hitler's full Aryan blood was obvious. Frank's claims were widely believed in the 1950s, but by the 1990s, were 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 well after Alois was born.

In 1876, Alois took the surname of his stepfather, Johann Georg Hiedler. The name was spelled Hiedler, Hüttler, Huettler and Hitler, and was probably regularized to Hitler by a clerk. The origin of the name is either "one who lives in a hut" (Standard German Hütte), "shepherd" (Standard German hüten "to guard", English heed), or is from the Slavic word Hidlar and Hidlarcek. (Regarding the first two theories: some German dialects make little or no distinction between the ü-sound and the i-sound.)




Geographical origins

