Chapter Eight: Adolf of Braunau am Inn

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Adolfus Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, at half-past six in the evening, at the Hotel zum Pommer* in Braunau am Inn, the second child of Klara Polzl and the fifth for Alois Hitler. He was baptized two days later, at three in the afternoon. His godparents were a couple by the name of Prinz from the Lowengasse in Vienna.

It's important to trace Adolf's life from his humble beginnings, because he was not born into greatness. He was an ordinary man with perhaps a little less than ordinary roots. The man he would become, is the embodiment of a horrible time in history, that I believe would have taken place with or without him.

The people behind his rise to fame were just that powerful.

By identifying the Holocaust with his name alone, we risk the same thing happening again, because we may mistakenly believe that once he was gone, the hatred was buried with him.

Adolf Hitler was a narcissist, possibly the result of his insecurities, and the people who propelled him to power, fueled his over inflated ego and exploited his mental instability.

The end result was the creation of a monster.

Growing Up

In 1894, Alois retired on a pension and the family moved to Linz, the capital of Upper Austria. He bought and sold farm land before finally settling in the suburb of Leonding.

On April 2, 1895, the six-year-old Aldofus Hitler entered the public school in the village of Fischlham; and two years later he was sent to the cloister school at Lambach, and finally a public school in Leonding. His report cards from these years show that he earned excellent marks, with exceptionals in singing, drawing, and gymnastics.

But despite good grades, he was described by teachers, fellow pupils, and neighbors as a rough-neck, a loud-mouthed ring leader in children's games, who often brought knives and axes to school.

His father had become increasingly violent, and he beat Adolf on a regular basis. His mother would console him, and he admitted later that he could manipulate her. Not that the thrashings weren't real. When he was 10, his father beat him so bad that he was in a coma for three days, not expected to live.

According to Adolf, to punish his father he became frivolous and lazy. His grades certainly reflected this new attitude, because in 1900, he failed his first year of secondary school.

He was also becoming political, getting caught up in the popular movements of the day. An embittered rebellion against the authority of Church and State was simmering among the intellectuals of Austria, particularly in the country sections outside Vienna. With battle cries of Home to the Reich and Away from Rome; change was in the air.

Georg Ritter von Schonerer, his father's hero was once more in the limelight, championing these causes and in 1901, 21 members of his party gained seats in the Parliament.

Like his father, Adolf became an admirer of Schonerer, and it is said that when he was 14, he actually spit out the communion host at church, in support of his movement for the conversion of all Roman Catholic German speakers of Austria to Lutheran Protestantism.

His father remained a vocal supporter of pan-Germanism, and often engaged in political debates. But his health was failing and he had developed a chronic cough, often spitting up blood. On the morning of January 3, 1903, shortly before ten o'clock, Alois Hitler collapsed in the street. A friend found him and brought him to a near-by inn, but he never recovered. The death records indicate: 'Died suddenly of pulmonary hemorrhage'.

Adolf would often blame himself, because they had constantly battled over his refusal to become a civil servant. He wanted to be an architect or an artist.

The Rest of the Family

Adolfus would have four brothers and sisters, but only one, Paula, survived to adulthood. Brother Gustav, born in 1885, died in 1887; Ida, born in 1856, died in 1888; Edmund, born in 1894, died in 1900.

Paula, born in 1896, learned applied art, and later led a modest life in Vienna. She never married and when Adolf rose to power, he asked her to change her name after she lost a job with a Vienna insurance company, because of it. From then on she became Paula Wolf.

Perhaps she understood better than most people who her brother really was. She once said "Although he had captured the public, who believed him their protector and friend, I knew what he wanted and I was worried not only for his physical safety but also about his sanity."

Adolf also had two half-siblings from his father's relationship with Franziska Matzelsberger. Angela, born in 1883, later married an official by the name of Raubal. After his death she was found living in Vienna as a cook and housekeeper, and for a time worked in a Jewish charity kitchen.

His half-brother, Alois Matzelsberger, born in 1882, was later later legitimized as Alois Hitler. He was in and out of trouble, and arrested several times for theft and later imprisoned for bigamy. He spent some time in England, married and had a family, but would later desert them.

In the 1930s, he opened an inn that was frequented by the National Socialists, in one of the busiest squares in Berlin, and it became quite fashionable. Following the war Alois was briefly involved with a right-wing political party, and in the 1950s he made money signing photographs of his brother and selling them to tourists. He died on May 20, 1956 in Hamburg.

Chapter Eight Continued: Vienna Days

Footnotes:

*In 1989 the new mayor Gerhard Skiba took the initiative and placed a memorial stone commemorating the victims of World War II in front of the building in which Hitler was born. The stone is made of granite from the Mauthausen concentration camp. It states: Für Frieden, Freiheit und Demokratie. Nie wieder Faschismus. Millionen Tote mahnen, or "For peace, freedom and democracy, never again Fascism, millions of dead warn (us)." It is often vandalized by members of neo-Nazi groups.

Sources:

Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944, Pg. 44-46

Chapter Seven Continued: Alois and Klara

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

If the story is true that Alois Schicklgruber had vowed not to return to Spittal until he had made something of himself, apparently this metamorphosis took place by 1876, because it was then that he was reunited with his family.

His uncle Johann von Nepornuk Hiitler was still alive, and now that Alois, while not exactly Bourgeoisie, was a gentleman, in the loose sense that he had money, courtesy of his wife, Anna Glasl-Horer; the matter of paternity had to be settled.

This was also of interest to others since he had set his eyes on his uncle's sixteen year old granddaughter, Klara Polzl. His own wife was ill and not expected to last long, suffering from the advanced stages of tuberculosis, so it was his desire to bring Klara back with him to Braunau am Inn, where she would keep house until his wife succumbed to her illness, and then she would keep the house, so to speak.

Alois would tell a friend later that the reason for the settlement of paternity then was due to the fact that his uncle wanted to name him in his will, but needed something official before he was prepared to do so.

As a result, an elderly gentleman, appeared before the notary in the city of Weitra. At the age of eighty-four, Georg Hiedler now declared, in the presence of three witnesses by the name of Rameder, Breiteneder, and Pautsch, that he was the father of the illegitimate child, Alois Schicklgruber, born on June 7, 1837. He stated that he had meant to make things right when he married the lad's mother, but forgot.

The story was obviously reasonable, and the legal document bearing his signature, was forwarded to Spittal, and on June 6, 1876, one day before his 40th birthday, Alois was legally adopted, after years of being called a bastard.

There was now just the matter of the records, and on November 23, 1876, he showed up with several members of his family, and convinced the parish priest, Father Josef Zahnschirm, to take care of it. So the priest simply put a line through the 'illegitimate' and wrote in his father's name.

And that is how Alois Schicklgruber became Alois Hittler/Hiitler/Hiedler, though his son Adolf would simply be given the surname Hitler. Probably a good thing because 'Heil Schicklgruber' doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

Klara Polzl-Hitler

Klara Polzl was born in 1860, the daughter of farmer Johann Polzl of Spittal, and Johanna Hiedler, daughter of Alois' adopted uncle. The Polz family lived on the neighbouring farm.

Her grandparents were Martin Hiedler and Maria Göschl of Walterschlag. The family had lived on this same homestead for four generations, so her lineage was well established.

When in 1876, Alois Hitler suggested that she become his ward, with the promise that once his wife was deceased he would marry the young lass, she agreed to the arrangement and travelled with her intended to his home in Braunau am Inn; where he was a customs official.

However, Alois' wife lived longer than expected and he soon grew restless, so began a relationship with a young hotel cook by the name of Franziska Matzelsberger. When the affair was discovered, his wife obtained a separation in accordance with the Austrian bed-and- board' law, and moved into a dwelling of her own.

The twenty-year-old Klara then packed up her things and moved to Vienna, where she secured a position as a maid, while Alois set up housekeeping with the pregnant Franziska.

Their first child Alois Jr. was born out of wedlock and when his first wife died, he married the boy's mother. A few weeks after the wedding, another child was born to the couple; a daughter they named Angela.

But in 1884, his second wife also died of tuberculosis, and Alois left with two small children, looked up his old flame Klara, brought her back from Vienna and they were married on January 7, 1885. Because of the family connection, they had to acquire a special dispensation from the church, though I don't believe they were biological kin.

But this couple would live on in posterity, because of an infamous son, by the name of Adolf Hitler.

Chapter Eight: Adolf of Braunau am Inn

Source:

Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944, Pg. 38-43

Chapter Seven Continued: Alois Schicklgruber-Hiedler

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Alois Schicklgruber was born on June 7, 1837, in Strones, now part of North West Austria, to Maria Ann, a peasant woman of 42. His father was unknown, though he would later adopt the surname of his step-father, Georg Hiedler, then being written as Hittler and Hiitler.

I don't know if anyone has ever considered the possibility that Maria was impregnated by her father. Her mother had died when she was 26, and relationships like this would not be uncommon, especially in remote rural areas where human contact was limited.

It must have been an issue then, because the Austrian Sigmund Freud, spoke often of it and even published an essay: Totem and Tabu, dealing with incest.

Is this why she refused to name the father? I think it's a definite possibility, and certainly more likely to have been him than either of the Hiedler brothers.

Was it Maria's father who was the brute, a trait passed on to Alois? Is this why he was sent to the safety of an uncle, when Maria was dying? Her father outlived her by a few months.

I suppose it will always remain a mystery, but the fact is that Maria did marry Johann Georg Hiedler when Alois was five, and some time after, when she was ill, Alois was sent to live with his uncle, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, in the village of Spittal. The name of this uncle is written as Johann von Nepomuk Hiitler, and since Johann von Nepomuk is the national saint of the Czech people; he may have been of that origin. (1)

Spittal was a market town, that had been the scene of several peasant uprisings. There is also some speculation that the postage stamp was invented there, though it is only one of several possibilities.

On a letter sent from Spittal to Klagenfurt, mailed on February 20, 1839, was affixed a stamp created by Ferdinand Egarter, who was postmaster at the time. The letter was addressed to Miss Konstanzia Egarter in Klagenfurt, and sent by her mother. Not a national stamp but still of great interest to collectors. (2)

Alois' uncle had a farm on the outskirts of the town, and was fairly prosperous. After his mother's death, his stepfather Georg would join them.

When reaching adolescence, Alois was hired on as a cobbler's apprentice, by a family member named Leder- miiller. However, the pay must have been low because there is a family story, that reveals a bit of the young man's temper. One day in a rage he threw his change purse out the window, bellowing that it contained only one kreuzer, and if he didn't have any more money than that, he didn't need the kreuzer either. (3)

The young Alois Schicklgruber does not seem to have been happy in his home. Apparently he was not treated as a legitimate child and was without expectation of inheritance. His son later related that his father left his native village fully determined not to return 'until he had made something of himself.' This 'some- thing, in accordance with small peasants' conceptions, was a profession of command: the police career.

At eighteen he became a border policeman in the Austrian customs service near Salzburg. He guarded the national border and hunted smugglers in a word, he became a man-hunter. An honorable profession, but scarcely friendly to man. In many countries it is the children of poor, out-of-the-way country sections who, from inborn hardness and contempt of humanity, choose the police profession. This illegitimate son of a small peasant took up his rifle and stalked the borders for human prey. The people in his native village must have looked on him with timid amazement when they first saw him in his shiny gold buttons, stamped with the imperial two-headed eagle, his pistol at his belt. The records [1855] show a young border patrolman: 'Alois Schicklgruber. (3)

At the age of twenty-seven, Alois would marry Anna Glasl-Horer, the adoptive daughter of a customs collector. She was fourteen years his senior, but was fairly well off. However, he abandoned her three years before her death from tuberculosis, and had already taken up with a young waitress, by the name of Franziska Matzelsberger, with whom he had at least two children: Alois* and Angela.

Franziska died young, and Alois would then be married for the third and final time, to Klara Pölzl, Adolf's mother.

Politics and Beer Halls

Throughout all of his marriages it does not appear that Alois was a faithful husband. It is said that he had a great fondness for singing clubs, beer-houses and waitresses, one of whom bore him a son when he was still married to his first wife. After her death he was wed to the waitress, who also gave birth to a daughter, Angela, before she too passed on.

In addition to his love for spirits, women and song, he was also passionate about politics, and in particular the notion of pan-Germanism. The same pan-Germanism that had resulted in the 1848 March Revolution, that killed William Eberhart's father and caused his mother Sophia, and stepfather Christopher Heffler, to leave their home in Mecklenburg, Prussia, and put down roots in Upper Canada.

And perhaps one of the songs Alois sang on his nights in the taverns, was one sang by Eberhart's parents, to a Joseph Haydn tune:

German women, German loyalty, German wine and German song
Shall retain in the world
Their old beautiful chime;
And inspire us to noble deeds
During all of our life.
German women, German loyalty,
German wine and German song!

By the 1860s the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Empire were the two most powerful nations dominated by German-speaking elites.

Wilhelm I, also known as Wilhelm the Great, became the King of Prussia on January 2, 1861, and with the help of his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, he established the German Empire in 1871. He then proclaimed himself to be the head of a union of German-speaking states.

Meanwhile the Kingdom of Austria had joined with the Kingdom of Hungary, in an attempt to compensate other ethniticities, which for many in Austria, only created a heightened feeling of German nationalism. Alois was one of these people, who would prefer to remain aligned with the German fatherland. As a result he became a staunch supporter of the Pan-German Reichsrat MP Georg von Schonerer.

So between hunting people down with his gun, womanizing and pounding his fists on the bars of the taverns at Braunau am Inn; Alois Schicklgruber led a very busy life.

Chapter Seven Continued: Alois and Klara

Footnotes:

*Alois jr. would eventually marry an Irish woman with whom he had many children, including a son, William Patrick Hitler. This son would later make a name for himself by alleging that Hitler's family had a Jewish origin.

Sources:

1. Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944, Pg. 38

2. Before the Penny Black, By: Ken Lawrence, 1996

3. Heiden, 1944, Pg. 39

Chapter Seven: The Schicklgrubers of Austria

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

On June 7, 1837, in the tiny village of Strones in what is now Lower Austria, Maria Ann Schicklgruber, gave birth to a son, in the home of her employers Herr and Frau Trummelschlager.

There was no church in Strones, so they made their way to the neighbouring parish of Dollersheim, where the Catholic Maria had her son baptized, with the Trummelschlagers acting as godparents. It is recorded in the church registers that she refused to reveal who the child's father was, so the priest baptized him Alois Schicklgruber and entered "illegitimate" in place of the father's name, on the baptismal register*.

Maria and her son then went to live with her widowed father, where they would remain for the next five years.

Maria Ann Schicklgruber

Maria Ann Schicklgruber, was born on April 15, 1795, the daughter of Theresia Pfeisinger and Johannes Schicklgruber**. Her mother died when Maria was 26, and she was left with a small inheritance, which she put away and never spent. (1)

Her life was that of a peasant woman, already 42 when her son was born, and she had never married. Life at Strones was hardly conducive to a social life, as most people grew up and left.

When Maria was registering the birth of her son, parish records indicate that there was a man by the name of Johann Georg Hiedler, residing in the village of Dollersheim. He was a wandering miller who had travelled the countryside, from job to job, for many years. (2)

Serfdom had been abolished in Germany in 1789, but it would be several decades before the practice ended, and while it meant that peasants once tied to the land by law, were free to live where they wanted, it also resulted in many of them being virtually homeless.

Hiedler had been married once, and fathered a son; but both mother and child had passed away, so without ties, he continued to roam. Georg and Maria met, and on May 10, 1842, were married in Dollersheim. She was 47 and her new husband 50.

Georg and Maria Hiedler lived under the most destitute of conditions at Strones; and are said to have used nothing better than a fodder-trough for a bed. (2)

Soon into their marriage Maria became ill, and Georg, ever the wanderer, may not have felt up to caring for Alois, so he was sent to live with his uncle, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, who had a modest but prosperous farm in the village of Spittal. Maria and Johann Georg then moved to Klein-Motten where they stayed with some of Maria's kin, the Sillips. She died of consumption on January 7, 1847, and was buried in Dollersheim in an unmarked grave*** which was never found.

There is some speculation that Nepomuk may have actually been the father of Alois, but the paternity**** has never been determined.

Chapter Seven Continued: Alois Schicklgruber-Hiedler

Footnotes:

*The registry was updated in 1876, Alois was legitimated and his surname was changed to Hitler.

**There were several members of the Schicklgrubers still living when Adolf was Chancellor of Germany. One was "Aloisia V" , who was 49 and mentally ill, so to avoid embarrassment was sent to the gas chambers in 1940.(3)

***After the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938, she was given an "Honor Grave" next to the church wall, which was tended by local Hitler Youth groups.

****When Maria's grandson Adolf was seeking power, the question of lineage was important, so he officially made Georg his paternal grandfather.

Sources:

1. The Life of Adolf Hitler, Southern Humanities Review, 1998, Translated by Thomas G. Ringmayr

2.Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944, Pg. 38

3. Hitler's Mentally Ill Cousin Killed In Nazi Gas Chamber, By: Kate Connolly, Daily Telegraph January 19, 2005