I was watching yet another History Channel show on Hitler, only this time the focus was on his family. I found it extremely interesting, especially about his cousin, Aloisia Veit, who spent her entire life in a mental institution and was gased her under her cousin’s regime.
It went into various relations, such as his half-brother Alois’s family who still live here in the US, some of his cousins, and his ancestors.
I wonder where I could obtain any more information. Anyone have any books to reccomend, or websites that AREN’T neo-Nazi David Irving fans? (That’s why I was reluctant to google).
This site (from Shoah) has some reminiscences of Hitler by his younger sister Paula Wolff. She never married- the surname Wolff was at Hitler’s insistence as he was embarassed by her and did not want her known as his closest relative. She was by all accounts sweet natured, though she was arrested by the Allies after WW2. She had this to say of her brother’s death:
and this to say of his career
She died in a tiny apartment in 1960.
Geli Raubal was Hitler’s niece by his half-sister Angela Hitler Raubal (who managed a boarding house for Jewish students). Historians differ on how sexual their relationship was and the truth may never be known, but she definitely lived as his consort whether it was platonic or not and she definitely died of a bullet to the heart in his apartment in 1931. The official verdict is it was suicide though rumors of murder (by Uncle Dolph or by his enemies or by his friends) abound. Geli’s niece Anna (born of her sister Elfriede) is Hitler’s closest living relative still in Germany and the only one born in his lifetime. According to some sources she turned down many proposals of marriage and other offers from neo Nazis anxious to marry into the bloodline and never had children to end the family line.
This family tree is from what appears at cursory glance to be an objective site. In any case, the family tree is correct.
Two anecdotes about the family I remember are that while she was dying Klara Poelzl Hitler was treated by a Jewish doctor named Bloch. The family was very poor (they had a civil service widow’s pension to support three people) and could not pay him much, but he charged them a fraction of his rate and let them pay that on time. Twenty-five years later Hitler gave Bloch and his immediate family safe transport to Switzerland.
Hitler’s brother Alois, Jr. (with whom he may have lived in Liverpool while dodging the Austrian draft) was the black sheep of the family, a ne’er do well and drifter always getting into trouble with the law and bad relationships. At one point he wrote home asking for money for a lawyer because he was in jail for theft. He received back a note from Adolf (who had forged his mother [A’s stepmother] signature) with a tiny amount of money in it and the note “To steal and be caught means you are not even a good thief. Forget the price of a lawyer. Use this to buy a rope and hang yourself.”
Having known a few people like Alois Jr. in my life I’ll actually cut Dolphy a little slack on that one.
Hmm. The article referenced by Cecil (I couldn’t find it online but I have it on a subscription database) says there are more grandnieces and grandnephews, most of them in Linz or the area. None are forward about their family connection and have denied it to the press. Some of his relatives (cousins) were arrested and deported to gulags by Stalin even though they had absolutely no contact whatever with the man. A particularly pathetic fate (according to the article) befell his half-brother Alois:
The author also mentions dining with a relative of Hitler’s (he does not identify the relative or the kinship for reasons of confidentiality) who has a less than embarassed position on the relationship:
The relative then goes on to say that the reason he does not acknowledge kinship is that he has Jewish business partners and acquaintances who believe he is half Jewish himself. Along with his brother and a cousin they launch periodic attempts to receive the earnings from Mein Kampf Hitler had at the time of his death as well as personal effects of him and Eva Braun (who also has relatives who have tried to claim the Hitler fortune).
As an aside, I read an article last year that talked about why there are so many Hitler and WW2 programs on the history channel. The main reason is that the archival video footage is in the public domain. Apparently in recent years big publishing houses have been buying up the rights to all the archival footage they can. To the point (IIRC) where the history channel could not even show footage of MLK on MLK day because they could not afford the royalties.
It is supposed to be a real problem for a lot of schools right now because their old documentary VHS tapes are pretty much dead and they cannot afford the replacement DVD’s.
Thank you. I know about Geli-who doesn’t-but not much about the rest of his family. Imagine how much it must suck though to be a relative of Hitler. They showed Alois’s family, Willy’s kids, and they mentioned Paula as well. It did say at one point she wanted to buy a certain house, and the owners wouldn’t sell, so she wrote a letter to her brother, who pretty much forced them to.
And there was a great-nephew still living in Germany whose parents were taken by the Red Army. That was pretty sad.
Balduran, that’s pretty depressing to think about.
Oh, something I forgot-Alois Sr.'s stepfather was the brother of Klara Hitler’s grandfather. It’s been speculated that his unknown father was either the man who became his stepfather, or his step-uncle, his wife’s grandfather, who took him in and made him his heir. That would make Hitler’s parents half-uncle/half-niece.
The name and likeness of Martin Luther King are registered trademarks of the King Family Foundation. If you wish to use his image and/or speeches, you have to pay his family. They once sued USA Today for reprinting the complete text of “I Have A Dream” (which King had copyrighted during his lifetime) on their front page on MLK Day.
Funny you should mention this. There was an article in the New York Times on Monday headlined “Three Quiet Brothers on Long Island, All of Them Related to Hitler.”
While an interest in Hitler’s family is natural, the simple fact is that family was not an important part of who Adolph Hitler was. Compare to Stalin, who married and had kids.
He was simply a very odd duck from an unremarkable family.
I know it wasn’t a part of who he was, I just became interested in knowing what his family was like-the illegitimate kids, the cousin who was gased in an asylum, the nephews who fought against him, etc.
Hitler was notably estranged from his relatives, ignoring them when he wasn’t actively contemptuous of them. He openly admitted he had no sentimental feelings toward family.
While this thread may have started in Cafe Society because there was a TV show involved, it’s really more General Question oriented: the OP is looking for factual information, not a discussion about art/entertainment. Hence, I’m moving this to GQ.
I’m surprised cckerberos didn’t note that as well.
So what does Cecil’s family think of him I wonder? As memory serves the television show about it noted that he had eleven illegitimate daughters, ten of whom were named Cecilia and the eleventh Paula [Cecilia] Abdul, and a half-sister who wet-nursed both David Koresh and Garth Brooks, neither of whom were babies at the time.
I wonder how martinlutherking dot org (I won’t link as it’s a site owned/operated by the white supremacist organization whose web page is stormfront dot org) gets away with using his likeness. Of course the King family could sue but the judgment against Stormfront would probably cost them thousands in legal fees and net them the organizations assets of three Chick-Fil-A’ gift certificates and an El Camino.
Speaking of family trees, I was surprised to learn in Coretta Scott King’s obituaries that none of her children have ever married or had children. Her youngest child, minister (and unlike her mother a gay rights opponent) Berniece is 43 and oldest daughter, Yolanda, is 51, both unmarried, so the odds aren’t good that they’ll continue the family, but perhaps the sons will (though obviously it’s their decision and I’m sure they have their reasons).
BTW, I remember Paul Harvey in one of his “Rest of the Story” anecdotes mentioning a cousin of Hitler’s who still lived in Austria or Germany, who was very embarrassed and self-conscious of his incredible resemblance to Adolph—and everyone could immediately see it! I think his last name was “Schmidt,” or at least that was the name he used.
Can’t attest to its authenticity, but just passing it along.
I just checked the database of registered trademarks at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. There is no active trademark for Martin Luther King, Jr., neither his name or his image.
I know infant mortality rates have improved greatly over the last century or so, but was what happened to Adolf’s siblings typical in the late 1800’s? Gustav: 1885-1887. Ida 1886-1888. Otto 1887-1887. Edmund 1894-1900. Out of 6 kids, only 2 survived past age 6.
