What is Hitler's real name? Adolf Hitler - Reich Chancellor of Germany

A lot has already been written about the biography of Adolf Hitler himself. However, the woman who gave birth to the future Fuhrer invariably remains in the shadows. Historians, if they mention Clara Pelzl, are most often in passing. Meanwhile, as Alexander Klinge writes in his book "10 Myths about Hitler", acquaintance with the fate of the dictator's mother allows us to understand why he so carefully concealed the history of his family.

Poor peasant woman and servant

Clara Pelzl was born in Austrian Empire in 1860. In addition to her, the family had 10 more children. However, only the second of Clara's sisters survived to adulthood. The Pelzl spouses were ordinary peasants, therefore, as a 15-year-old girl, Clara got a job with her wealthy uncle Alois Hitler.
By that time, Alois had married a wealthy lady of convenience. But she fell ill, and the man needed a housekeeper. Anna died soon after, and Alois registered a new marriage. However, his second wife also passed away. It was then, or perhaps a little earlier, that the aging Alois began to stare at his young niece Clara.

Marriage with uncle

In fact, the Catholic Church did not have to approve of their marriage, since Clara Pelzl and Alois Hitler were in a rather close relationship. Alexander Klinge, author of the book "10 Myths about Hitler", calls the relationship between Klara and Alois nothing more than incest. Nevertheless, Hitler Sr. petitioned the Episcopal Ordinariat in Linz, begging to be allowed to marry Clara.
It is interesting that Clara herself was directly involved in this process. According to the writer and historian Erich Schaake, Pelzl told the church representatives that she is not a relative of Alois Hitler, since his real father is unknown. Nevertheless, for the first time, the lovers were refused. However, Alois did not calm down and forwarded the statement above. In the end, "yes" was said directly from Rome.

Clara and children

In 1885, Clara Pelzl and Alois Hitler got married. It is worth noting that even after the official marriage, Clara continued to call her husband "uncle". By the time of the wedding, Clara was already carrying her first child under her heart, and in the same 85th she gave birth to her son Gustav. Following Gustav, Ida and Otto were born. But they all died in preschool age... Adolf became the fourth child of the Hitler couple.
The overwhelming majority of researchers, including psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, described Clara as an ideal wife, mother and even stepmother: after all, she raised not only her own son and daughter (Adolf and his younger sister Paulo), but also Alois's children from previous marriages. However, the writer and psychologist Alice Miller spoke out against idealizing Hitler's mother. Miller argued that Clara was also guilty of her son becoming a monster. According to Alice, Pelzl forgave Alois beatings and all kinds of bullying, and not only in relation to herself, but also in relation to children.

Death of Hitler's mother

Nevertheless, almost no one denies Hitler's sincere love and affection for his mother. As Olga Greig writes in her book "The Fuehrer's Woman", Clara's death was a real tragedy for Adolf. She died at the age of 47 from cancer. As soon as Hitler found out about his mother's diagnosis, he immediately rushed home and was by her side until the last minute.
It is noteworthy that Eduard Bloch, a Jew by nationality, was Clara Hitler's attending physician. Despite the fact that Bloch himself spoke of Adolf with respect and said that he had never seen a person who was so acutely worried about the loss of his mother, perhaps it is in this tragedy that the beginnings of Hitler's anti-Semitism lie. At least the author of the book "Hitler" Marlies Steiner cites this version as one of the most widespread.

The propaganda portrayed Hitler as someone who came into history out of nowhere. In this myth there was no place for a family, no one should have known about it. His half-brother Alois kept a pub in Berlin, Angel's half-sister watched over the house, his sister Paula was engaged to a murderer, one nephew fought on Hitler's side, the other fought against. This family had many secrets. Modern research explains why the dictator hid his origins. He was simply afraid that it would make him vulnerable. But who were his relatives? What did Hitler think about his relatives, who did they think he was?

Adolf Hitler's mother

Clara Pelzl was born into a peasant family in Waldviertel (Austria) in 1860. The girl's father is Johann Baptist Pelzl, mother is Johann Hütler (Gütler), daughter of Johann Nepomuk Hüttler. Hitler - the father of Adolf Hitler - was an illegitimate child, whom his mother's husband recognized only in 1876, when he was already 39 years old. Johann Georg Hüttler, who always wanted to have a son, adopted a child, but as a child, Alois constantly lived with his uncle (according to other information - grandfather) - Johann Nepomuk. It was through his efforts that Alois was recognized as the son of Johann Georg. Upon adoption, the surname was changed to Hitler. So, Clara Hitler and Alois Hitler, as a result of whose connection the Nazi dictator was born, were related to each other.

Clara Pelzl's family

Clara had five brothers and the same number of sisters. Almost all of them died young. Only sisters Johanna and Theresa lived relatively long lives (48 and 67 years, respectively). Johanna was not married, was a hunchback, died of a coma due to diabetes. Her aunt bequeathed most of her fortune to Adolf Hitler. Theresia Hitler (Schmidt) married a wealthy peasant and continued the family. The rest of the children of Johann Baptist and Johann Hütler died in childhood or at a very young age: Johann, Franz and Maria lived for less than a year, Joseph at twenty-one, Anton at five, Karl Boris at a year and a few months, Maria at four years.

Meet Alois

After leaving school, the biography of Clara Hitler took her to the house of Alois, where she got a job as a housekeeper. The girl was then only thirteen years old. Alois, too, had to rely only on himself at thirteen. He ran away from home and got a job as a shoemaker's apprentice. Five years later, he got into the border guard, quickly promoted in the service and soon became a senior customs inspector in the town of Braunau. Soon, Alois Hitler inherited the company. He married a woman fourteen years his senior. His wife divorced him when Alois got a mistress - cook Fanny (Francis) Matzelsberger. At the same time, Alois was attracted by the sixteen-year-old Clara, but he married Fanny, who gave birth to two children - daughter Angela and son Alois. Fanny died two years later.

Alois and Clara's marriage

Alois Hitler entered into a relationship with Klara at the time when he was officially married to Fanny Matzelsberger. To marry her, a man had to get permission from the Vatican, because formally Clara was his blood relative. The local Catholic bishopric did not give permission for this marriage. By this time, a relative of Alois, who was twenty-three years older than her, was already pregnant. She regularly attended church, faithfully performed her duties at home. Clara Hitler could not overcome the status of a servant in which she came to the house of Alois. Even years later, she called her husband "Uncle Alois".

In the first years after the wedding, Clara gave birth to two boys and one girl, but the children died in infancy. Gustav Hitler died at two years and seven months, and his sister Ida - twenty-five days after his brother at the age of one and a half years. The couple's third child, Otto Hitler, lived for only three days. Two children died within one month from diphtheria. Otto died of hydrocephalus. Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889. Biographers write that Clara Hitler's love for her son was unconditional. He was born after the death of three children, so Klara most likely experienced fear and anxiety after giving birth, which could have dealt a strong blow to Adolf's psyche.

Surviving children

In total, Clara Hitler had six children. When Adolf was almost five, Edmund was born. At the beginning of 1896, daughter Paula was born into the Hitler family. Edmunt died at the age of six from chickenpox. Only Adolf and Paula survived. They were the only siblings who survived to adulthood. (pictured below) worked as a secretary in Vienna, and after her dismissal, she began to receive financial support from her brother. At the request of Adolf, she took the fictitious surname Wolf and worked part-time from time to time. Wolf was Hitler's childhood nickname, which he used in the twenties for security reasons. Paula was the only relative of the leader of the Third Reich, to whom Hitler was attached all his life.

In the last days of World War II, when defeat was inevitable, by order of Martin Bormann, Paula was transported to Berchtesgaden. Paula was then forty-nine years old. In May 1945, Hitler's sister was arrested and interrogated. She later returned to Vienna, lived on her own savings for a while, and then worked in an art store. Since 1952, she has been caring for former SS members and survivors of her brother's close circle in Berchtesgaden. Paula died in 1960 at the age of sixty-four. She was the last of the Fuhrer's closest relatives who lived then.

Other relatives

In the family of Clara Hitler and Alois, not only their own children were brought up, but also his son Alois Hitler Jr. and daughter Angela Hitler from Fanny Matzelsberger. All children were raised by Clara. At fourteen, Alois Jr. ran away from home due to a conflict with his father. After this, the tyranny of his father went to Adolf. The future dictator contemplated running away from home at the age of eleven. Angela (pictured below with her husband), Adolf's older half-sister, lived with her family until 1903. In 1903, she became the wife of Leo Raubal, inspector tax service... From him she gave birth to a son Leo, daughters Geli and Elfrida.

Obviously Angela had with her stepbrother good relationship... She moved to the capital of Austria and after the First World War, began working as a manager. For ten long years, she knew absolutely nothing about Adolf's life, but in 1919 he established contact with his half-sister. In 1928 (eighteen years after the death of her first husband) she moved to the Berghof, where she became Hitler's housekeeper. Some researchers believe that Adolf had sexual relations with his niece Geli, who committed suicide in 1931.

Angela herself did not approve of her stepbrother's relationship with Eva Braun. Their relationship finally deteriorated when in 1935 Hitler gave Angela a day to pack her bags. He accused the woman of helping Göring acquire land opposite his site in Berchtesgaden. Hitler finally broke off the warm relationship with Angela. He didn't even attend her wedding. In 1936 Angela Hitler married Martin Hammich, a German architect and director of a school of construction. During World War II, the Fuhrer contacted his sister again. She mediated his communication with other family members.

The further fate of the Angels

After the bombing of Dresden, the head of Nazi Germany transported his half-sister to Berchtesgaden so that she would not be captured Soviet soldiers... He gave her 100 thousand Reichsmarks, and in his will guaranteed Angela a monthly pension of 1,000 Reichsmarks. Angela had a very high opinion of her brother even after the end of the war. She stated that she knew nothing about the Holocaust (like Hitler). Angela Hitler was sure that if Adolf knew about what was happening in the concentration camps, he would have stopped it.

Death of Clara Hitler

In 1903, Alois Hitler died. On the morning of January 3, he went to a tavern to drink a glass of wine out of habit, picked up a newspaper and suddenly felt unwell. Soon he died either from myocardial infarction or from hemorrhage in the lungs (there are several versions). Two years later, Clara Hitler sold their house and moved to Linz. Paula was then five years old, Adolf - fourteen. In 1907, Clara Hitler was diagnosed with breast cancer. Soon she was admitted to the Merciful Sisters Hospital in Linz. At the beginning of the year, she underwent a serious operation that lasted an hour. Eleven months later, the woman died. Clara Hitler's cause of death is cancer.

The secret of Hitler's nationality

The adherents of the myth about the Jewish origin of the leader of fascist Germany operate with a mass of facts, some of which can be classified as fictions. However, these rumors really have to be based on something. The behavior of the Fuhrer, who obstructed the disclosure of his ancestry after the coming of power, and even destroyed the documents, is also suspicious. Back in 1928, the Berlin police proved that Adolf Hitler's grandfather was Jewish. Researchers at Harvard reached the same conclusion in 1943.

What is the nationality of Clara Hitler? Analysts believe that Hitler had Jewish blood on his paternal side, but only syphilis could be transmitted through his mother, which caused the death of many babies, as well as Clara's brothers and sisters. Adolf's godfather and family doctor was a Jew. Even leaving questions of nationality aside, the leader of Nazi Germany was born as a result of incest. There is information that his sister Ida had a mental illness, his aunt suffered from diabetes and was born a hunchback, the son of another aunt is a hunchback with speech impairments.

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Alois Hitler, the father of the Fuhrer, was sent to study with a shoemaker in his youth. But he did not want to sew shoes and became a customs official, that is, according to the concepts of the people of his circle, he "got into the people." At 58 years old, Alois retired relatively early. He was restless - he changed places of residence all the time, from one town to another. But in the end he settled in Leonding - a suburb of Linz.

Alois Schicklgruber, aka Hitler, was married three times: the first time to a woman who was fourteen years his senior. The marriage was unsuccessful. Alois went to another woman, whom he married after the death of his first wife. But soon she died of tuberculosis. The third time he married a certain Clara Pelzl, who was twenty-three years younger than her husband. In order to formalize this marriage, it was necessary to seek permission from the church authorities, since Clara Pelzl was obviously in close relationship with Alois. Be that as it may, Clara Pelzl became the mother of Adolf Hitler. Alois's first marriage was childless, two children survived from the second marriage - Alois and Angela, from the third also two - the future Fuhrer of Germany and a certain Paula, an unremarkable woman who outlived her brother. In total, Alois Hitler had seven children, one of them illegitimate and two born immediately after marriage. In Leonding, in his own house with a garden, Alois Hitler lived to his death. Adolf Hitler was the third child from his father's third marriage. The Hitler family was unfriendly. And Adolf Hitler himself was extremely cold towards relatives, in particular to his own sister Paula and half-brother Alois. The only person to whom Hitler had kindred feelings was his half-sister Angela Hitler, married to Angela Raubal. When Hitler became an influential man in Bavaria, he discharged the then widowed Angela and made her his housekeeper. Angela Raubal ran the household of Hitler's bachelor both in Munich and at his residence in Berchtesgaden, in the Bavarian Alps. Hitler had an affair with his daughter Angels - also Angela (Geli) Raubal.

Adolf's brother, Alois Hitler, served five months in prison for theft at the age of 18. After being released, he was again caught two years later, this time he was imprisoned for eight months. In 1929, that is, already at the time when Adolf Hitler began to enter into force, Alois was tried for bigamy. Then he left for England, started a new family there, left her and returned to his homeland. In Nazi Germany, Alois "settled down", opened a thriving beer bar in Berlin, which was eagerly visited by the Nazi brothers and foreign journalists - the latter because they hoped to find out from Alois some details about Adolf Hitler. But Alois knew how to keep his mouth shut. He, no doubt, knew that several of Adolf Hitler's friends, who had rendered services to the future Fuehrer at the beginning of his journey and had shown excessive talkativeness, had ended badly. The SS men removed them without much noise. According to foreign correspondents, Alois Hitler was in the thirties a stout man, a typical German innkeeper.

From the point of view of the law, there is nothing reprehensible in Hitler's pedigree. None of his ancestors was neither a highwayman, nor a murderer, nor a recidivist thief. But in a society created by the nationalists and their Fuehrer, Hitler's genealogy could have raised great suspicion. The Fuhrer's grandfather remained unknown. But be that as it may, nothing can be said with complete certainty about Hitler's grandfather. In the "Third Reich" this could play a fatal role. What if one "quarter" of the Fuhrer would be "non-Aryan"? A non-Aryan quarter could crush any career!

According to Hitler's book "Mein Kampf", Hitler's parents wanted to make an official out of their son, and the future Fuhrer himself dreamed of becoming a free artist. Mein Kampf tells of a "tragic conflict" that arose on this basis between a cruel father and an unhappy son. However, the post-war biographers of Hitler easily proved that the myth of the tyrant - the father and the long-suffering son is not true. Hitler's father was neither a villain nor a despot: he was just an ordinary man in the street who managed to rise one step higher than his parents, jump out of simple craftsmen into officials, into a "standing collar proletarian," as small employees were then called in Germany. And Alois Hitler wanted to give his son an education, despite the material sacrifices associated with this. But Hitler, by all accounts, did not study well. He had to leave one real school. It was in Leoding. The second - in Linz - he also failed to finish.

Throughout his life, the Nazi Fuhrer retained his hatred of the intelligentsia, attacked education as such and educated people. Disrespect for all mental work, especially in the field of social sciences, in the "Third Reich" is undoubtedly due to the fact that this Reich was headed by people whose "educational qualifications" were extremely low in comparison with any other bourgeois the state. Hitler, in particular, despised any knowledge (excluding, perhaps, knowledge in some areas of technology) and any process of cognition, believing that only the final results of this process are important, purely utilitarian conclusions from which the state and the fascist party can derive momentary benefits.

At Mein Kampf, he called educators "monkeys" and "dumb." "Their (teachers. - auth.) Only goal," he wrote, "was to hammer our heads in and make us the same learned monkeys as they were." And many years later, in 1942, at his headquarters, Hitler again repeatedly scolded the gymnasium, gymnasium orders, teachers. Reading his statements about the school, you do not know what is more surprised: the rancor of the Nazi Fuhrer or his ignorance. Here are some examples of Hitler's reasoning: “Why does a guy who wants to study music, geometry, physics, chemistry need? What will he remember from this later? Nothing!" Or: “Why learn two languages? One is enough. " Or, "In general, I have learned no more than ten percent of what others have learned." In the preface to Hitler's Table Conversations, the historian Percy Schramm, who at one time kept a "diary of the armed forces" at Hitler's headquarters, writes that Hitler felt particular hatred for "dirty social-democratically minded people's teachers", "stupid and dependent mental proletarians ". According to Schramm, Hitler was going to replace them with non-commissioned officers who were transferred to the reserve, since they are "clean and well trained to educate people." Hitler believed that in schools one should avoid "exaggerated education -" brain massage ", from which" children become fools ", etc.

Subsequently, painting that period of his life, Adolf Hitler created two legends that were supposed to whitewash his educational failures in the eyes of the German philistine. The first legend was that, as a teenager, he allegedly fell ill with a serious pulmonary disease. It was with this that Hitler explained in Mein Kampf his departure from the real school. However, no evidence of a serious and long-term illness of Hitler was found.

According to the second legend, spread by the future Fuhrer, after the death of his father, the Hitler family fell into extreme poverty, because of which the young Adolf had to leave school. However, this legend is also untenable. Hitler's mother received a decent pension. In addition, just in 1905, when Hitler took leave of the school, his mother sold the house in Leonding for 10 thousand crowns, which was a substantial sum in those days. Thus, the Hitler family lived quite well even after the death of their father.

After dropping out of school, Hitler led an idle life for more than two years - he did a little painting, was a regular at the local theater, wrote poetry and even took music lessons. And as soon as he became interested in playing the piano, his mother acquired the instrument - another proof that poverty in the Hitler's house was out of the question. In those days, as the first biographer of Hitler, the German historian Konrad Heiden, wrote, “the young Hitler was almost elegant,” he wore “a black hat with wide brims and unchanging kid gloves, walked with a black cane decorated with a knob of Ivory, in a black suit, and in winter he wore a black coat with a silk lining. " Hitler, notes Hayden, "could then be called a spoiled bourgeois son." "He treated any work for the sake of a" piece of bread "with contempt."

Alois Hitler

Alois Hitler is a much less likeable figure. He was an illegitimate child and therefore bore at first the surname of his mother - Schicklgruber - and only much later changed it to Hitler. He did not receive any content from his parents and did everything in his life himself. Hard work and self-education helped him go from a petty employee of the Austro-Hungarian customs to the "highest rank", which gave him the unconditional status of a respected bourgeois. Thanks to his humble life and ability to save money, he saved so much money that he was able to buy an estate and still leave the family a decent fortune, which even after his death ensured a reliable existence for his wife and children. Of course, he was selfish, he was not bothered by the feelings of his wife, however, in this respect, he was probably a typical representative of his class.

Alois Hitler was a lover of life; especially he loved wine and women. He was not a womanizer, but the narrow framework of bourgeois morality was too narrow for him. He loved to drink a glass of wine and did not deny himself this, but he was not at all a drunkard, as reported in some publications. But the main thing in which the life-affirming orientation of his nature was manifested was his passion for beekeeping. He usually spent most of his leisure time near the hives. This fascination manifested itself early; the creation of his own apiary became a dream of his entire life. Finally, the dream came true: he bought a peasant farm (at first too large, then - smaller), and by the end of his life he equipped his yard in such a way that it brought him great joy.

Alois Hitler is often portrayed as a cruel tyrant - probably in order to make it easier to explain the character of his son. But he was not a tyrant, although he was an authoritarian person; he believed in values ​​such as duty and honor, and considered it his duty to determine the fate of his sons before their maturity. As far as we know, he never used corporal punishment on Adolf; he reproached him, argued with him, tried to explain to him what was good for him and what was bad, but he was not that formidable father figure who instills in his son not only respect, her terror. As we will see, Alois early noticed the growing irresponsibility and escape from reality in his son, which forced his father to pull back on Adolf more than once, warn of the consequences and try to reason with his son. Much indicates that Alois Hitler was quite tolerant of people, he was not rude, never behaved defiantly and certainly was not a fanatic. His political views also correspond to this image. He showed a great interest in politics, holding liberal, anti-clerical views. He died of a heart attack while reading a newspaper, but his last words expressed indignation at the "black", that is, reactionary clerics.

How to explain that two normal, respectable and non-destructive people gave birth to such a "monster", which was Adolf Hitler?