Mystery of Adol Hitler’s family: What the Fuhrer tried to hide

About a hundred kilometres northwest of Vienna, in the north of Austria, is the small village of Döllersheim. Eighty years ago, this tiny Austrian village was wiped out by a German dictator with a comically short moustache. The dictator tried to hide, destroy everything that could help shed light on his family’s history. All that confirmed his very dubious Aryan origin.

It was here in Döllersheim that a woman named Maria Schicklgruber gave birth to an illegitimate child in 1837. This child was Alois Schicklgruber, the father of Adolf Hitler. Maria was forty-two years old, unmarried, and the father of her child is still not known for sure. The boy’s baptism certificate at the local parish church did not identify his father. When Alois was five years old, Maria Schicklgruber married Johann Georg Hiedler. It was his surname that Adolf Hitler’s father began to bear. The pedigree of this particular family, Hitler, in the future, indicated in his family tree to confirm the purity of his origin.

Ever since Adolf Hitler became an influential political figure, historians have tried to uncover the mystery of Hitler’s true origins because Adolf claimed to be of Aryan descent. Until now, this mystery has not been solved. There are several assumptions and versions.

Among several candidates for the biological father of Alois, historians have even identified a Jew named Leopold Frankenberger. In the family of this man, Maria Schicklgruber worked as a cook. It was in the city of Graz. But the researchers refute this version by saying that they do not converge in time. While Maria became pregnant with Alois, there were no Jews in Graz.

Hitler, at one time, such guesses led to a state of apoplectic rage. “People don’t have to know who I am,” he said. “They don’t have to know where I’m from.” In 1931, Hitler ordered the SS to investigate alleged rumours of his origins and found no evidence of any Jewish ancestry.

He then ordered a genealogist to prepare a large illustrated family tree showing his roots, which he published in Die Ahnentafel des Fuehrers (The Leader’s Lineage) in 1937, where Hitler showed that he had an impeccable Aryan lineage.

More plausible, researchers consider the version put forward by the historian Werner Maser. He believed that the birth father of Alois Schicklgruber was Johann Hiedler. It was the brother of the man who married Maria Schicklgruber five years after the child’s birth. It was he who raised Alois and bequeathed most of his savings to him.

According to Werner, Nepomuk Hiedler was a married farmer who had an affair with Maria. In an attempt to hide the romance and take care of his son, Nepomuk persuaded his brother to marry a woman. This could provide a cover for his desire to help Mary and Alois.

But assumptions are assumptions. The facts say only one thing: the Fuhrer very carefully wanted to hide absolutely any information about his family and origin. The reasons why the name Hiedler became Hitler are unclear. Some historians put forward a version that this was just a phonetic inaccuracy or even an error of the notary, who wrote down the information from the words.

It is with an attempt to hide the secret of their origin that historians associate the destruction of the village of Döllersheim. Like, too many sceptics went there to ask the local population. People were evacuated and scattered in different places. And the town was razed to the ground. The leader of the nation ordered the construction of a military training ground there.

More than two thousand residents were forcibly displaced, and their houses were blown up during exercises. After World War II, the training ground was captured by the Soviet Army and remained a military exclusion zone to this day. The Austrian Armed Forces currently run it. However, since 1981, the main square, the ruins of the Romanesque parish church of Saints Peter and Paul, and the surrounding cemetery have become available to visitors.

Adolf Hitler was a very controversial person. Clever, educated, undoubtedly possessed of a subtle romantic nature, one only looks at his paintings. It does not fit in my head how such a person could have done so much evil. Nevertheless, it is so.