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Baptized Aloys Schicklgruber, (June 7, 1837 - January 3, 1903), his legal name changed when he was 39 years old to Alois Hitler. Alois Hitler was the father of Adolf Hitler.

Birth

Alois was born 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 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.

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 birthname, but in 1876, almost forty years old and well established in his career, he took on his 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 offical 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 offical 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 his uncle Nepomunk;

• Johann Nepomunk Hiedler, Georg's brother, 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 while she worked for his father as a maid in the city of Graz, Austria.

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.

Maser argues that Alois's father may well have been Johann Nepomunk, who had arranged to have his brother Johann Georg marry Alois's mother 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.

Another possibility, once popular but now mostly considered unlikely by historians, was that Alois's father was the son of a wealthy Graz Jew named Frankenberger, who impregnated Maria Anna when she worked as a servant.

Finally, it is possible that the official version is true, and Alois' father really was Johann Georg Heidler.

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