From research I have found that there is no certain proof that Adolf
went to Liverpool University. However, for a period of 6 months he stayed with
his half brother in Liverpool to escape conscription from Austria in World War
1. There is massive controversy to whether Hitler actually visited Liverpool.
There are a lot of reputable people who argue either way. It will be so
interesting to try and get to the bottom of the story.
I have got the contacts for ‘Mike Royden’ who is an Historian local to
Liverpool who has published a book and papers on the investigation whether Hitler
came to Liverpool.
Mike Unger, former EDITOR of the Liverpool Echo and Post, has written a
book about it called The Hitlers of Liverpool.
I have listed links for news articles which have been published and also
a pub where Adolf has supposedly had a pint! Poste House Pub Landlord Steve - 07860373215
Mike Unger
Associate Director
Global Consulting Limited
Global House
2 Spinney Hill Road
Leicester
LE5 3GG
0116 2515225
Or could try him through the book publishers:
Bluecoat Press
42 The Vineries
Liverpool,
L25 6EX
Telephone: 07764820082
check out:
There's some controversy as to whether Hitler did actual spend time in
Liverpool... our documentary could look at the evidence and even find out!!!
Mike Unger's book claims a 23 year old Adolf Hitler fled to Liverpool
from Germany to avoid service in the Austrian army before World War I, living
in a flat in Toxteth, Liverpool, with his married half-brother Alois from Nov.
1912 to April 1913.
The flat - 102 Upper Stanhope Street in Toxteth - was destroyed by
German Luftwaffe bombers in World war II.
The road still exists but the house where Hitler stayed has been
demolished. People living/working/shopping on that site today would be very
engaging to capture their reactions.
Mike Unger, author of the book "The Hitlers of Liverpool,"
claims that Hitler spent five months in Liverpool wandering around the city and
sightseeing.
One of his favorite haunts was the Poste House pub where he drank beer.
You could talk to drinkers in the pub today!
Address: 23 Cumberland St, City Centre, Liverpool L1 6BU Phone:0151 236
4130
see this story:
also see:
Love this review:
5.0 out of 5 stars The ideal Christmas gift! 25 Dec 2011
By Jim Aitken
If you're a fan of Liverpool or the Third Reich, then this is the book
for you!
In the past a lot of the family history of Adolf Hitler wasn't the
histroy we were taught: this is a shame since it's a rich tapestry of Northern
stories which are by turns charming and bittersweet.
Trade unionist Bobby Hitler and wife Sheila spent the Weimar era living
in public housing while bringing up their three kids Barry Hitler, Damon Hitler
and Karen "Kags" Hitler. Another offspring Claire "ginge"
Hitler appeared much later.
The Hitlers move from The Estate to a Cala homes development in another
part of Liverpool and many adventures ensued: Damon Hitler invented the
'mullet' hairstyle, Barry Hitler became a serial killer and nightclub
entrepreneur, while parents Bobby and Sheila Hitler inexplicably moved to
Wythenshawe where they watched a lot of television and Bobby Hitler picked his
nose and broke wind a lot.
Adolf came to visit the family a couple of times but didn't appreciate
the gregarious nature of Liverpudlians, preferring to spend his time alone,
often sitting for hours in the area surrounding the Albert Dock producing
slightly forlorn watercolour paintings of drab surrounding warehouses.
It may have been the solitary nature of the young Adolf, or it may have
been undiagnosed bipolar disease, but Adolf Hitler began to feel that everyone
was against him; Karen "Kags" Hitler would subject him to lengthy
Marxist diatribes, while Barry Hitler once even forced young Adolf into being
the getaway driver for a heist that Barry and accomplices were carrying out on
a local branch of Victoria Wine. Unfortunately one of the gang was in fact an
undercover policeman and the resultant bloodbath ended in a Mexican Standoff
that left everyone dead.
Hitler then decided that maybe Liverpool wasn't his kind of town and
blew his brains out in the Cavern.
Adolf Hitler - did he visit Liverpool during 1912-13?
A question has been raised by David Deacon of Liverpool - we could also
speak to him, for his views.
Is there any truth in the story that Adolf Hitler spent time in
Liverpool during 1912 and 1913 and if so what was he doing here?
It sounds more Monty Python than Making History doesn't it?
There is a link. Many people have recounted the story that just before
the first world war Adolf Hitler did spend a few months in Toxteth. Local
Historian Mike Royden knows the story well (here's his email m.royden@virgin.net), "As I was growing
up, every time Adolf was mentioned, my father would say he was once in
Liverpool, and the street was pointed out to me later when we would be driving
home from Town and he would say "This is Upper Stanhope Street where
Hitler once lived"."
Upper Stanhope Street has changed a fair bit since 1912, not least
because of the damage Hitler's bombs did during the war.
The story is that Adolf came to stay at 102 Upper Stanhope Street in
Toxteth, the home of his half-brother Alois and his Irish wife Bridget.
According to the highly respected biographer of Hitler, Sir Ian
Kershaw, of Sheffield University (you could track him down), "Adolf
Hitler was the fourth son of his father's third marriage. His father was also
called Alois. The second marriage produced a boy and a girl and the son was
Alois jnr., Hitler's elder half brother, who was a bit of a ne'er do well and a
wastrel and who had already been in prison twice for theft, before he went to
Ireland via Paris around 1909. There he met a young Irish woman called Bridget
Dowling and the following year they were married in London, then set up house
in Liverpool". According to her so-called memoirs, in 1912 he was visited
by his younger half-brother Adolf who got off a train at Lime Street Station
before spending the best part of five months spending his time wandering around
the docks and so on, not learning any English and eventually going back to
Vienna in April 1913.
Remember, this is Bridget's story as written in the 1930's. It's a text
with few references and therein lies the problem. I went in search of hard
facts to the Liverpool Record Office. Research officer Roger Hull had dug out
some paperwork including a document that confirms that Alois Hitler was living
in Toxteth at the time in question. His wife gave birth to William Patrick
Hitler, 102 Upper Stanhope Street and we have the birth certificate for that.
This says that on 12th March 1911 that in 102 Upper Stanhope Street Toxteth
Park, which is just to the south of Liverpool, William Patrick, a boy, was born
to Alois Hitler and Bridget Elizabeth Hitler, formerly Dowling. Alois was a
hotel waiter and the informant was the mother, B.E. Hitler. Very promising -
Roger and I searched for more evidence but with little reward.
If we look at the Liverpool directories between 1911 and 1914, there is
a Thomas William John living at 102 Upper Stanhope Street, he's listed on the
electoral roll for 1911-12, but not for 1910-11. This man is obviously on the
electoral register and is quite well off at the time and he is probably letting
rooms out in his house to those who want to stay there including
"aliens" which Alois would have been at the time. Of course we have
to remember that at this time there wasn't universal male suffrage until 1918,
and, of course, no women could vote in national elections. So the electoral
roll isn't quite as useful as it is today.
But we didn't come up with anything else, not even a census return. Mike
Royden, who has known this tale for most of his life, isn't surprised,
"Well apart from Bridget's manuscript I cannot find any other document
that specifically places Adolf Hitler in Liverpool in 1912/13." So where
next? According to Roger Hull, "what we have to ask is, what was the
relationship like between Adolf and his half brother - if it is proved to be
bad then that casts doubt on whether he came here or not and why would he come
to Liverpool?" Professor Ian Kershaw can answer one of those questions,
"Adolf Hitler never really had a great deal of time for him. During
theThird Reich when Adolf Hitler had reached the pinnacle of power, Alois had
very little to do with him. Afterwards he changed his name and lived in
obscurity and died, I think Hamburg, in 1956". So, no evidence of a close
relationship between the two men.
Sir Ian Kershaw’s Secretary - Beverley Eaton b.eaton@sheffield.ac.uk
We cannot prove that Adolf Hitler was in Liverpool, but we've nothing to
disprove it either. According to Mike Royden, "Maybe the evidence doesn't
specifically exist in Liverpool - if you're trying to find the movements of
Hitler 1912/13, you probably need to look elsewhere".
Which is exactly what Professor Sir Ian Kershaw has spent much of his
time doing; "There is actually an eye witness to Adolf Hitler's presence
in the men's home in Vienna in February 1913 at a time when he is supposed to
be in Liverpool. Beyond that, the records kept by the men's home were very
careful records and they recorded when people were residents and when they
left. Adolf Hitler did actually leave the men's home just for a few days and
they recorded his departure and his return in May 1913 when he left to go to
Munich. They again registered his departure. Since the records are so carefully
kept, they would unquestionably have recorded a departure of his in 1912 had he
been going to Liverpool. What a wonderful surreal image to think of Hitler
standing on the terraces at Anfield, but there isn't a grain of truth in the
story."
Produced and researched by Nick Patrick (December 2003)
Our Story: Adolf Hitler - did he visit Liverpool during 1912-13?
The story itself begins in pre-war Liverpool when young Adolf, still
hoping for a career as an artist came to stay at the house of his half brother
and his wife in Upper Stanhope Street, in Toxteth, Liverpool. There he stayed
for around six months before returning to the men's hostel in Vienna. As the
only source for this is Bridget's own memoir, it has inevitably undergone
thorough analysis.
Much of the interest has stemmed from the publication of a memoir in the
1970's written by Bridget Hitler, the wife of Alois. This was met with the
inevitable reporting in England, especially in the Liverpool press. It also
influenced local writer Beryl Bainbridge to produce Young Adolf, a
fictionalised story about his visit to Liverpool as told in the Memoir. She followed
this in 1981 with a drama commissioned by the BBC called The Journal of Bridget
Hitler, and starring Maurice Roeves, Siobhan McKenna and Julian Glover.
Dramatised with Philip Saville, it portrayed the 'pre-war visit' to half
brother's Liverpool home as featured by his Irish sister-in-law in her
memoir.
Since then, there have been many corruptions of the story, including a
version by a local writer who also featured a fake photograph on his web site
of a young Hitler standing in front of the William Brown Street Galleries and
Library buildings, just to muddy the waters still further.
The story came to the fore again in 2002, when David Gardner, a former
crime writer and senior foreign correspondent on the Daily Mail published a
book entitled The Last of the Hitlers. Although it deals primarily with his
story of how he traced the last remaining relatives of the Nazi Dictator, he
discusses the Liverpool connection, and this was followed by a Channel 5
documentary which consequently reawakened interested in the story.
So much for the background. The story itself begins in pre-war Liverpool
when young Adolf, still hoping for a career as an artist came to stay at the
house of his half brother and his wife in Upper Stanhope Street, in Toxteth,
Liverpool. There he stayed for around six months before returning to the men's
hostel in Vienna. As the only source for this is Bridget's own memoir, it has
inevitably undergone thorough analysis.
The Toxteth Hitlers
According to an interview given to the Daily Express in the ‘30s,
Bridget may have met Alois at a staff dance at the Royal Hibernian Hotel in
Dublin. This contrasts with the version she gave in her memoirs where she
states she met Alois for the first time at the Dublin Horse Show in 1909. There
she said her father and neighbour began talking to a stranger. The young man
cut a dashing figure in his smart suit and waxed, turned up handle bar
moustache. He introduced himself as Alois Hitler from Austria, and with his
“fine foreign manners and his debonair Viennese ways'” he made a great
impression on the teenage Bridget. "He fairly won my heart with his sugary
talk and foreign ways", she declared.
They agreed to meet and a close friendship soon developed between them.
However, Alois had already created suspicion in the family with his fancy talk
about being in the “hotel business” and being there on a fact finding trip
covering France, Belgium, and the British Isles to study the trade. It wasn't
long before they discovered he was actually a waiter at the Shelbourne Hotel,
sent there by a London employment agency. Despite this, Bridget was “head over
heels in love” and they began to see more of each other.
The Dowlings clearly did not approve of the relationship, especially
once they became aware of his true station. Having decided to marry, the couple
then eloped to London where they were married at Marylebone Registry Office on
3 June 1910. William Dowling, Bridget's father and a farm labourer from
Kilnamanagh, was so incensed he even wanted the police to arrest Alois for
kidnapping.
"My father - rest his soul - was a real Irishman", said
Bridget. "He would not hear tell of a wedding to a foreigner. Alois and I
used to meet every afternoon in the museum and make plans to elope. Four months
later when Alois had saved enough money we went to England on the night boat
and came to London. I wrote to my mother and said I would not return until we
got permission to marry. She talked my father around and he gave his
consent".
Words: M W Royden
Our Story: Adolf Hitler - did he visit Liverpool during 1912-13?
Bridget was reunited with her father the following year when she
presented him with a new grandson. By now the Hitlers had relocated to Upper
Stanhope Street in Toxteth, Liverpool, where their baby was born on 12 March
1911. He was christened William Patrick.
Alois found it difficult to settle in Liverpool and changed his source
of income four times in their first two years of married life. He ran a
restaurant on Dale Street, a boarding house on Upper Parliament Street, and
then a hotel in Mount Pleasant. When he became a salesman for a disposable
razor firm, he began to have grand ideas about developing his own business in
the same field. This, he hoped, would involve his sister Angela and brother-in-law
Leo Raubal back in Austria. He then sent them money to cover their travelling
expenses in the hope they would come to Liverpool for a visit where he could
discuss his ideas further. According to Bridget, "...we were looking
forward with pleasure to their visit. When we went to Lime Street Station to
meet them I eagerly scanned the couples descending from the 11.30 train,
wondering if I would recognise our relatives. Instead of Angela and Leo Raubal,
however, a shabby young man approached and offered Alois his hand. It was my
husband's younger brother, Adolf, who came in their place".
A row then broke out between the brothers and Bridget left them to it.
When they returned to the flat later that evening the tension was gone, and
once Adolf had retired to bed Bridget berated her husband for the way he had
treated him. What then followed was a diatribe against Adolf and how Alois
portrayed himself as the classic mistreated step-child, while all favouritism
went to the true off spring of the mother. He described to his young wife his
unhappy childhood and the way he was constantly beaten by his father,
especially when he came home the worse for wear after yet another night at the
local tavern. Despite his uncomfortable memories, Alois was not going to turn his
half-brother away and this was to be the beginning of a stay that would keep
Adolf in Upper Stanhope Street for almost 6 months, from November 1912 until
April 1913.
Alois snr, the natural father of both boys, was born on 7 June 1837 to
Maria Anna Schickelgruber, a forty-two year old unmarried daughter of Johann
Schickelgruber from the village of Strones in Lower Austria. The entry made
that same day in the baptismal register of Dollerscheim parish, shows that the
baby was christened Alois Schickelgruber. The space in the register for the
father's name was left blank and despite much speculation has remained a
mystery ever since.
In 1842, Maria Shickelgruber married a journeyman miller named Johann
Georg Hiedler. The marriage lasted only five years as Maria died in 1847. Young
Alois was taken in by his step-father's brother, who raised him like his own
son. Why this was so is unclear, but Johann Georg may have returned to his
travels to support himself.
At eighteen, Alois entered the Austrian civil service and by 1875 he had
risen to the position of customs inspector in Braunau am Inn. The following
year he had cause to have his name changed. It would not appear to be due to
his illegitimacy, as he had never attempted to conceal it, rather, it may have
been due to a legacy from his heir-less adopted father Johann Nepomuk Hiedler
that required Alois to legally take the family name.
As a consequence his birth records were altered to read Johann Georg
Hiedler as the name of his father, despite the fact he had been dead for nearly
20 years. In fact, it was misspelled as “Johann Georg Hitler” in the process.
The parish priest was also persuaded to strike out Schickelgruber and to change
“out of wedlock” to “within wedlock” There was also marginal note: “The under
signed confirm that Georg Hitler, registered as the father, who is well known
to the under signed witnesses, admits to being the father of the child Alois as
stated by the child's mother, Anna Schickelgruber, and has requested the entry
of his name in the present baptismal register”. Three illiterate witnesses
added their marks to the statement. The statement was clearly false, but his
natural parents were no longer around to object. From January 1877 Alois
Schickelgruber called himself Alois Hitler.
Words: M W Royden
Alois, who was now a much respected customs official, was to marry three
times. Firstly, to Anna Glassl, a woman much older than himself, then to two
young women, Franziska Matzelberger and Klara PÖlzl who were young enough to be
his daughters. Anna Glassl, whom he married in 1873, was by then aged fifty and
it seemed to be a marriage of convenience, she being fourteen years his senior,
well off, and with useful connections in the civil service. It wasn't long
before Alois took himself a mistress and by 1880 Anna, who had clearly had
enough, was granted a legal separation. The focus of his affections were then
focused on his live in lover, although she did set the condition that the
potential rival for Alois affections, his cousin Klara PÖlzl - who was keeping
house, should be dismissed.
In 1882, Alois jnr was born, although he was not legitimised until the
following year, when Alois snr and Franziska were married after the death of
Anna earlier that year. A daughter Angela followed a few weeks after the
wedding. In August 1884 Franziska contracted TB and died at the age of only
twenty-four. While she had been sent to the country for convalesence, Alois
immediately brought Klara back to look after the children. She became pregnant
very quickly after the death of Franziska. As they were second cousins they
needed special dispensation from the church to marry, which took four months.
Once cleared, they were married on 7th January 1885. Five children followed
soon afterwards, of which Adolf was the fourth, born in 20th April 1889. Her
first three children all died at various stages of infancy, while her fifth,
Edmund, born in 1894, died from measles in 1900 aged six. Paula, her sixth
child, born in 1896, although living until 1960, is generally thought to have
been retarded.
Alois snr has been described as a pompous, strict authoritarian, who
demanded respect, while giving little time or devotion to his family. He
frequently resorted to beating his sons to ensure unquestioned discipline. At
thirteen Alois jnr left the family home, having been found the position of a
waiter. However, by 1900 he had been found guilty of theft and jailed for 5
months, followed by a similar offence two years later for which he received 8
months. Under this cloud he left for Paris, then London, trying to make a fresh
start by securing work in the catering industry.
The domineering Alois snr died in January 1903 and the family relocated
to Linz two years later. In 1907, his third wife Klara - Adolf's mother - died
from cancer aged forty seven. The grief stricken Adolf, who had already failed
to secure a place at the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts, determined to return to
the city intent on becoming an architect. It did not go well. From early 1908
until May 1913 he remained in Vienna, living hand to mouth, drifting from one
menial job to another, unable to get into college to pursue his chosen career.
By 1910, after a period of living rough, often in the open, he moved into a
men's hostel while hawking postcards of paintings he had made of views of the
city.
So far, much of this detail about the brother's early life is factual
and generally accepted by most historians and biographers. It is the next
development which has caused the most controversy.
Adolf Hitler in Liverpool
The only source for Adolf's “visit” to Liverpool is contained in
Bridget's Memoir. According to Michael Unger, "The existence of Bridget's
memoirs has been generally known since the early 1970's when the historian
Robert Payne, gathering material for his book The Life and Death of Adolf
Hitler, read them in the manuscript division of the New York Public
Library”.
Payne's discovery, led to a series of articles in the Liverpool Daily
Post in the early 1970's. The unfinished manuscript, which ends in mid
sentence, was published for the first time in 1979, with an introduction and
discussion of its authenticity by Unger, then editor of the Daily Post.
Historians have little time for the memoir, and have been highly
critical of its contents feeling there are too many discrepancies (not just
with the Liverpool episode) to take seriously. Indeed, Kershaw goes as far as
calling the memoir a work of fiction without a grain of truth. And here lies
the problem. Until something else appears placing Hitler in Liverpool, the
controversy will continue. As the only source for this is Bridget's own memoir,
it has inevitably undergone thorough analysis.
The memoir was probably written by Bridget and son William, during 1940-41,
perhaps with the help of a ghost writer, as there are noticeable differences in
style contained within.
Words: M W Royden
The myth surrounding Hitler's visit was not helped by the novel Young
Adolf by Beryl Bainbridge. This was a work of fiction where Bainbridge took the
idea of Adolf visiting Liverpool, as recounted in the memoir, and developing
the idea further. Later it was made into a two part television drama, thus
reaching an even wider audience. Although she made it clear at the time that it
was a product largely of her own imagination, many observers, especially
Liverpudlians, accept the visit as historical fact. Talking to the Washington
Post in 1979 about non-fiction, Bainbridge said, "I haven't really got the
education for that sort of thing. The bit of what I laughingly call research
that I did on young Adolf I quite enjoyed. I felt rather educated rushing
around looking in libraries... the part of them [the memoirs] that seems the
most real is the part about Adolf coming to Liverpool. It's the most
understated, whether it’s true or not. There's no proof that he came, but
there's no proof that he didn't.”
Years later in the Foreword to Gardner's Last of the Hitlers, her view
of the memoir was undimmed, "...what rings true, by reason of its mundane
content, its very naivety of expression, is her account of Adolf's arrival in
Liverpool". This encapsulates the view of many of those who feel this
section of the memoir has credibility, its very matter of factness, not dressed
up for effect, in fact, quite the opposite. The ordinariness of it is quite
stark. Young Adolf playing her child in the kitchen, while chatting about the
future of Germany - "...he would never hesitate to interrupt my housework
to explain how Germany was going to take its rightful position in the world.
First would come France, then England. I didn't find this talk very
interesting, but whenever I tried to get away he would begin to shout, although
I rarely troubled to contradict him. He would whip himself up into a rage and
go on until hoarseness or some interruption stopped him. I put it down partly
to the pleasure he took in hearing his own voice - another trick he had in
common with my husband - and partly to a desire to domineer me".
A few paragraph later, she says "... During his Liverpool stay
Adolf hadn't even picked up enough English to ask directions to the
station". This topic of conversation seems quite bizarre, given the fact
he was an Austrian and there in Liverpool, according to Bridget, to dodge the
draft into the Austrian army. Until one remembers that the memoir was written
c.1941 with a complete awareness of Hitler's true intention by then. Maybe it
was quite simple and appealing to look back to her little flat in Toxteth and
recount where Adolf Hitler first had the idea for world domination. That should
sell a few books on the lecture circuit.
Words: M W Royden
At the time the memoir was written, it was common knowledge that there
was a “lost year” in Hitler's life. Hitler had never alluded to it - it wasn't
in Mein Kampf or any other of his writings. Hitler had conveniently glossed
over the period, or rewritten it, to provide a more acceptable version for a
public figure he now was. His failure to enter the Academy, living rough, the
doss houses, and draft dodging, was a phase he felt was not for public
consumption. Bridget and William may have been only too ready to fill the
“missing months” with an alternative story. Those close to him say apart from
brief trips to Italy and Paris, he had made no visit to any other country,
although this is still not conclusive enough.
Kershaw and Waite both point to the fact that there are no records in
Germany or Austria that point to a visit abroad, while they do place him in Vienna
at the time he was supposed to be in Liverpool.
According to Kershaw, "There is actually an eye witness to Adolf
Hitler's presence in the men's home in Vienna in February 1913 at a time when
he is supposed to be in Liverpool. Beyond that, the records kept by the men's
home were very careful records and they recorded when people were residents and
when they left. Adolf Hitler did actually leave the men's home just for a few
days and they recorded his departure and his return in May 1913, when he left to
go to Munich. They again registered his departure. Since the records are so
carefully kept, they would unquestionably have recorded a departure of his in
1912 had he been going to Liverpool. What a wonderful surreal image to think of
Hitler standing on the terraces at Anfield, but there isn't a grain of truth in
the story."
The blue half were not to be left out. While researching his book The
Last of the Hitler's, David Gardner was called by his business partner who had
just received a letter from someone he described as a “complete whacko”,
"some guy says Hitler lived next door to him in Liverpool and they used to
go together to watch Everton at Goodison Park. It goes on and on about how he
converted Adolf from liking Liverpool when he first came to Britain." A
letter written by the ghost of Shankly no doubt.
The rest of the memoir continues about how Alois left the family home
for Germany in May 1914, never to return, and subsequent events of the 1920's
and 30's. Alois remarried bigamously in 1916, for which he was charged by the
German authorities in 1923, while Bridget and William moved to live in London
in 1924. William renewed contact with his father when he visited him in Germany
in 1929 and 1930, before returning there in 1993 to try to take advantage of
his relationship with his uncle, the new FÜhrer. The dream of a high powered,
well paid position did not materialize. It would appear that he was more of a
thorn in the side to his uncle who was “related to state” only, and who tried
to erase his family details and their potential embarrassing revelations from
all public knowledge.
By 1938, following a summons to Hitler, William was given an ultimatum
to give up his British nationality and commit himself to the Nazi cause.
William declined and made a clandestine exit from the country, now fearful of
his own safety. Months later in March 1939 he arrived in New York with Bridget,
ready to tour the country giving lectures on the subject of "My Uncle
Adolf", the visit being organised between a theatrical agents in London
and New York. William was now sufficiently at home in his adoptive country that
he decide to enlist in American Forces to fight for the allies against Uncle
Adolf. Whatever his motives, and the FBI and the OSS were keeping a watchful eye
on his every move, he was eventually accepted and signed up to the US Navy. In
surreal circumstances, as he gave his name to the recruiting officer, he was
met with the reply "Glad to see you Hitler - my name is Hess!" Except
in this case it was Gale K Hess of Chicago. After training he was sent to the
Medical Corps and saw action before being honourably discharged in 1946.
Nothing further is heard of William or Bridget Hitler again, although
John Toland indicated knowledge of them still living in the New York area in
the 1970's when carrying out research for his Hitler biography. He has
steadfastly refused to divulge anything further aver since. The trail was
picked up by British Journalist David Gardner, formerly of the Daily Mail, who
spent most of the 1990's trying to find out what happened to William,
especially as there was suggestion that the Hitler name was still alive and
well in America. After much research he discovered their final resting place,
"He died in 1987, 18 years after his mother, in the anonymity he craved
for much of his life. His family even considered leaving the grave unmarked,
but decided instead to bury him under the false name that had brought him
peace".
In light of the fate of his uncle and everything the Nazi regime stood
for, William felt it advisable to melt away into the background, change his
name and live in obscurity, in contrast to the very public life he had enjoyed
on his lecture tour. Clearly, the worry of retribution towards anyone bearing
the name could not be ignored. Nevertheless, Gardner discovered William had
made a success of his American life. He married a German girl he had met during
his time working in Germany during the 1930's and together they appeared to be
the model family, four all American boys, while he worked in the medical field.
Later he set up a blood analysis laboratory in the home they moved to in the
countryside to avoid prying eyes.
Neighbours spoke about them as a pleasant family, well respected in the
community. There were four sons, Alexander (1949), Louis (1951), Howard (1957)
and Brian (1965). Howard was killed in a car crash in 1989, but the three
remaining brothers are still living, bearing a double barrel name that gives no
hint of their roots. Gardner has refused to disclose their adoptive name and
where they live, although it has been uncomfortably easy for this author to
discover it through other channels. None of the sons are married and it seems
that the Hitler name may now finally die.
Words: M W Royden
It seems strange that there is still this impression of the scouse
Hitler being the black sheep of the family given Uncle Adolf's track record.
The fact that his family have led a relatively normal life in America in the
face of their family history is some achievement.
The family understandably refused to co-operate fully with Gardner nor
with the Channel 5 film company. He persisted in trying to shed light on
Bridget's memoirs. William's wife Phyllis told Gardner, "it's all made
up," while "Alex said, "We read it and it was the funniest thing
I ever saw in my life".
However, on a later visit when pressed further, Alex went so far as to
say it was all true and not only did Adolf visit Liverpool but he visited
Ireland too, furthermore, the remaining manuscript was actually completed and
the library only had the first half. These were further contradictions in
William Patrick Hitler's life. Not only did he give his first son the middle
name of Adolf, but the adopted name he was to use for the rest of his life was
the same double barrel name of one of the most notorious anti-semitic
historians of the far right. A family of many contradictions, and a branch that
has created the myth of Hitler in Liverpool. Consequently, however unlikely the
story is, it seems we may never get to the truth.
