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Alois Hitler (June 7, 1837 - January 3, 1903) was the father of Adolf Hitler.

Birth

Alois Hitler was born Aloys Schicklgruber (He legally changed his name to Alois Hitler when he was 39 years old) in the tiny farming village of Strones, Austria, to Maria Anna Schicklgruber, a forty-two year old unwed peasant woman. No one today knows who Alois' father was. When officially asked by the priest, either Maria refused to reveal who her baby's father was, or said she did not know, so when on the day of his birth Alois was baptised, in the nearby village of Dollershiem, the space for the father's name on his baptismal certificate was left blank, and the priest entered "illegitimate" into his birth record. Alois was taken by his mother and raised as an infant in a house in Strones shared with Alois' grandfather, Maria's elderly father Johannes Schicklgruber.

Youth

Sometime in the first five years of Alois' life, Johann Georg Hiedler moved into live with Maria, her father, and her son. Alois' mother married Georg five years after Alois was born. Sometime after the marriage, again it is unclear if it was soon after or up to five years after, Alois was sent to live with Georg's brother Johann Nepomunk Heidler, who owned a farm in the nearby village of Spital. Alois was therefore somewhere between five and ten years old when he went to Spital.

Early career

Alois spent his late childhood growing up on his step-uncle's farm. He attended elementary school, and took lessons in shoe-making from a local cobbler. When he was 13, he left Spital and went to Vienna, at first to be an apprentice cobbler, but ending up joining the Austrian Customs Service at age 18, a significant achievement for a peasant lad.

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 Shicklgruber 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 young junior customs official Alois used his birth name, but in 1876, almost forty years old and well established in his career, he took on his dead step-father's surname. Either he, or his relative Johann Nepomunk Heidler did on his behalf and with his knowledge, mislead the church into declaring that Alois was the legal son of Nepomunk's late brother Johann Georg Hiedler, Alois' step-father until this time. They gave the priest the impression that Georg was still alive and had testified he was the birth father. They also produced the required three witnesses, who all were relatives, and could not read what they were attesting to, nor sign it properly, simply marking the document they attested to with their X's. The church official agreed to amend the records, the civil authorities rubber-stamped the church's decision, and Alois had a new name. Exactly who decided on the spelling of "Hitler" instead "Hiedler" is not known. The official change made "Aloys Schicklgruber" now "Alois Hitler."

Who was Alois' real father?

Historians have discussed three candidates:

• Johann Georg Hiedler, the officially accepted father, who in his lifetime was Alois' step-father, but who long after he was dead was legally declared the birth father by the Catholic Church, and Austrian civil law, when petitioned to by Alois and Johann Nepomunk Hiedler;

• Johann Nepomunk Hiedler, Georg's brother, Alois' supposed step-uncle, who raised Alois during his late childhood years and later willed him a considerable portion of his life savings, but who, if he was the real father, never found it expedient to let it be publically known.

• Leopold Frankenberger's son, who Hans Frank claimed impregnated Alois' mother Maria while she worked in the Frankenberger house as a maid in the city of Graz, Austria.

Johann Georg Hiedler

It is possible that the official version is the true version, and Alois' father really was Johann Georg Heidler. In this case, an explanation for Alois being sent to live on his uncle's farm is that Georg and Maria simply were too poor to raise Alois, or could not raise him as well as his uncle. Unexplained though, is why Georg and Maria did not officially declare Alois their legitimate son once they were legally married, nor why Georg got old and died, with no desire to carry on his family name by legitimizing his son and giving him his rightful name.

Johann Nepomunk Hiedler

Maser argues that Alois's father may well have been Johann Nepomunk, a married farmer who had an affair, then arranged to have his single brother Johann Georg marry Alois's mother Maria to provide a cover for efforts to assist and care for Alois. This would explain, Maser argues, why Alois was brought up on the farm at Spital and did not stay instead with his mother and step-father, as in this scenario, Georg was willing to marry Maria, but not willing to raise his brother's child. Hitler biographer J. Fest does not accept Maser's view, thinking it too contrived to be true.

Frankenberger

Soon after Hitler became politically active in the 1920s, rumors were spread that his ancestry was Jewish. His opponents found out his father was not originally named Hitler, and that there was a mystery as to who his paternal grandfather had been. What Hitler thought about these rumors, as opposed to his public statements about them, is unknown. Himmler had the Gestapo investigate in 1942, and reputedly they discovered nothing. In Mein Kampf, Hitler states that his paternal grandfather was "a poor cotter" and of course says nothing to suggest he was anything but German. (Note: Hitler considered his family as Germans, the fact that they were Austrians was a matter of political borders, not nationality to him.) For historians, the matter of Jewish descent became centered around the claims made after the war by Hans Frank. Frank, in a death-row confession, told his priest about how he had been asked by Hitler to investigate, and he had discovered that Hitler's grandmother Maria had been a servant in Graz, working for a wealthy Jew named Leopold Frankenberger. Frank asserted that Maria got pregnant, then returned to her native village of Strones where she had her baby. Franks testimony was widely believed in the 1950s, but thought to be full of holes by historians today.

Summary

In all scenarios, historians speculate that one motivation that Alois had to change his name may have been money. Johann Nepomunk Heidler may have promised to leave him a legacy if he would change his name to Heidler and continue the family name. Not long after the name change, Alois made a major real estate purchase, inconsistent with the salary of a customs official. This motivation would apply regardless of wether Nepomunk was Alois' real father or not.

Of the three possibilities, only the last is historically important. The difference between Alois' father being either Nepomunk or Georg, has little historical consequence, outside of its making Adolf Hitler's ancestry more incestuous if his grandfather was Nepomunk, who also was his mother Klara's grandfather. The third possibility, if true, is historically earthshaking, as anti-Semitism was fundamental to Hitler's beliefs, life, and politics. However, Frank's testimony is widely disbelieved today, and while the absolute truth is considered unknown, and perhaps unknowable, the theory that Hitler was of partial Jewish descent is not current among the latest generation of historians. But, the final answer is still, "nobody knows."

Marriages

Retirement

Alois' personality and its effect on his son Adolf

Notes

Sometimes 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