Facts about Hitler’s family

• Birth: Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria on April 20, 1889
• Parents: His parents were Alois (1837-1903) and Klara (1860-1907) Hitler. His father was known as a strict man who raised his children as was the custom of the time. He died on January 3, 1903 at the age of 65
• Siblings: The Hitlers only had one sibling who survived childhood: Paula (1896-1960). The other siblings were: Gustav (1885-1887), Ida (1886-1888), Otto (1887) and Edmund (1894-1900)
• Half siblings: Hitler also had a half-brother Alois Jr. (1882-1856) and half-sister Angela (1883-1949) from his father’s 2nd marriage
• Adolf Hitler: Hitler was the fourth in a family of six children from his father’s 3rd marriage (not including the two half-siblings)
• Last name: There are a number of conflicting theories about the origin of the name Hitler in historical sources, which is not helped by the fact that Hitler’s father was an “illegitimate” son with an unknown father. It is also these theories that gave rise to theories that Hitler himself had a Jewish family background. However, these rumors are today considered to be untrue

Fact: Adolf Hitler ended his days by committing suicide in the Führer’s bunker – but not before the war was truly lost

 

Childhood and youth

• Schooling: Adolf Hitler was generally considered a relatively good student at the first schools he attended. However, later on – for a variety of reasons – he began to fall behind in school and graduated at the age of 16 without a diploma
• Art: Hitler was very fascinated by art and felt like an overlooked artist. He also applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where his drawings were temporarily accepted but ultimately rejected as “unsatisfactory”
• School of Architecture: The headmaster of the Academy of Fine Arts referred Hitler to the School of Architecture, where a high school diploma was required – which Hitler did not have. This, along with the rejection from the Academy of Fine Arts, were arguably the two biggest failures of Hitler’s youth
• Daydreaming: For several years, Hitler lived a life of daydreaming and laziness combined with working on unrealistic city plans, completing musical compositions (Wagner’s symphonies), etc. He also spent a lot of time wandering the streets and dreaming of the buildings he would one day build. He also spent a lot of time in museums, the opera and the like.
• 20 years: Around 1909, his inherited money began to run out and he moved to a men’s hostel in Meidling (1910-1913). Hitler’s political and ideological foundations began to take shape during this period
• Work: Hitler disliked single-minded work and in the time between the men’s shelter and his joining the DAP political party, he supported himself primarily by selling postcards and sketches that he painted himself. However, he came from a wealthy family and also inherited money several times (both before and during his time in the men’s shelter), which was the vast majority of his income
• Munich, Germany: On May 24, 1913, he moved to Munich, as Austria began gearing up for World War I and he did not want to fight for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In Munich, he continued his day-to-day existence and continued to make a living from sketches and postcards. This continued until August 3, 1914, when he volunteered for a Bavarian war regiment and participated on behalf of Germany in World War I
• 1. World War I: During the war, he worked as a courier, which was a very dangerous job and also earned him his first wound in 1916. He received the Iron Cross of the First Degree for his service as a courier. As a soldier, he was both skilled and obedient, but not very popular with the other soldiers; they found him too uncritical of his superiors
• Hysterical: Just before the war ended in 1918, he went blind after a gas attack. However, some sources claim that the blindness was due to hysteria or post-traumatic stress reaction – there are no clear facts on this. However, he was diagnosed as a psychopath by a military doctor during this period, and his company commander said: “I’ll never make this hysteric a non-commissioned officer!”

 

Hitler’s rise to power

• DAP: The Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers’ Party) abbreviated ‘iDAP’ discovered Hitler’s speaking abilities in 1919 and admitted him as the 55th member. In 1920, Hitler pushed through a change of the party’s name to ‘Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei’ (NSDAP) and his influence in the party generally grew rapidly
• Speakers: On March 31, 1920, he was discharged from the army and was already able to live off his fees as a speaker. In 1921, he became chairman of the party and was a significant political figure at local level, but remained relatively unknown and insignificant at national level
• The beer cellar coup: On November 8, 1923, Hitler, along with a group of armed men, stormed Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller, where Gustav Ritter von Kahr, a state representative, was speaking. The coup succeeded, but Hitler was duped by Kahr and the coup was defeated the very next day. Hitler was arrested a few days later
• My struggle: The trial began on February 26, 1924 and resulted in an extremely lenient 5-year prison sentence, which Hitler even served in just 5 months in the prison ‘Landsberg am Lech’. The lenient sentence was mainly due to the fact that there were many sympathizers of Hitler’s ideas in the legal system. During his time in prison, Hitler wrote the first part of the book ‘Mein Kampf’ with his secretary Rudolf Hess
• Citizenship: Hitler renounced his Austrian citizenship in 1925 and was stateless until 1932, when he was granted German citizenship. His party’s support also declined during this period as a result of strong economic growth
• The stock market crash of 1929: In the aftermath of the failed beer cellar coup, Hitler realized that the path to power was not through revolution, but through democracy. The New York Stock Exchange Crash of 1929 and the ensuing global economic crisis gave Hitler’s party a significant following
• NSDAP on the rise: At the Reichstag on September 14, 1930, the NSDAP’s vote share rose from 2.6% to 18.3%, giving the party 107 representatives. Hitler and his party had finally become a national powerhouse
• Financial support: In the time that followed, Hitler and the DAP received significant financial support from the Junkers. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor – a day known in German as “Machtergreifung” – marking the beginning of his reign
• 1933-1939: In the years 1933-1939 (i.e. until World War II), the German state transitioned from a democracy to a dictatorship. The NSDAP also underwent a number of structural changes and both individuals and entire sections of the party were removed or replaced. In addition, the rearmament of the military and some significant changes in the party’s foreign policy began

 

The end of it all

• Health: Hitler’s health deteriorated as the war progressed and it is believed that he suffered from Parkinson’s disease and possibly dementia
• Suicide: He ended up losing the war and ended his days in the driver’s bunker with his life partner Eva Braun. They had married the day before. The suicide was carried out using cyanide capsules. In addition, Hitler also shot himself in the temple with a pistol. Their bodies were burned and buried by Hitler’s guards, but exhumed by the Russians, who secretly reburied them under one of their bases in Germany. It wasn’t until 1970 that the bodies were exhumed again on the orders of the then KGB chief. This time they were thrown into the Elbe River and disappeared into the North Sea