Hitler family trivia

[Dan]

I got this little tidbit from Irving's site today

Hal Bastin writes from Lancaster, Kentucky on July 5, 2002


The Hitler family tree
BACK in the Spring [2002] I saw a British journalist talking about the Hitler family in New York. Of course everyone knows that William Patrick Hitler was a nephew of Adolf Hitler. I remember reading John Toland on William Patrick and looked it up again. I always wondered what happened to him. He vanished after 1946, except for the footnote of Toland. I called Toland (an old man about 85-88) in Connecticut, but he would not tell anything. Nothing.

So I re-read the book, The Memoirs of Bridget Hitler, by Michael Unger. A lot of fiction! Adolf never visited England! However, it gave me many clues to finding this family that had vanished. Especially since William Patrick had a son by the name of Adolf.

I first started with the maiden name of Bridget. It was Dowling. As you know, they came from Ireland. It is common knowledge that William and his mother came to the USA during and after the Second War. Toland said that they lived in the NY metro area. So I started with Roman Catholic churches and cemeteries. Queens, Brooklyn, etc. I even put my children to work on it.

Finally, we came across a cemetery in Long Island that had a Bridget Dowling in it. This should be it. It was. Many phone calls later I found that William Patrick had taken on a new name. Changed from Hitler to Stewart-Houston. That's right. But Why? If you are going to change your name, why go to Houston Stewart Chamberlain? You and I both know that his position on everything would match that of Hitler.

William Patrick Stewart-Houston died in 1987. He did well in the USA. He raised a nice family, paid his dues in the service (Navy) and was wounded in action! However, when he got out of the service, he changed his name and married a German girl. She and three of her boys are alive now. One has died. All very nice people. None of the three boys is married or has any children that we know of.

Again, I don't know if you are interested in this sort of thing. The high school yearbooks in their home town have pictures of the boys in their progress through high school.

I have taken the liberty to copy a genealogy of the Hitler family.

Other than these three boys (Howard died without children) I do not believe that there are and relatives of Hitler alive except on the line of the half-sister, Elfriede Raubal (Friedle) who was Geli Raubal's younger sister.

One of Elfriede's great-grandfathers was Hitler's father. The same as with the three Stewart-Houston boys. This daughter of Angela and Leo Raubal is now deceased, but has a daughter that lives in small Austrian village not far from Braunau. She does not like the idea of an interview any more that the three "Hitler" children in New York.

[Dan]

Also something interesting from Irving himself:

David Irving replies:

THE ONLY one of this family whom I met was Leo Raubal, brother of Hitler's ill-fated niece Geli Raubal. I knocked on his door in Linz, Austria, one evening thirty years ago: To my astonishment Adolf Hitler himself opened the door, or so it seemed at first sight. Leo, Adolf's nephew, wore the same moustache, had the same black forelock and had the same oval face as his famous uncle. He had spent many years in Soviet captivity, as a proper penalty for being a blood relative of the Führer. He told me what he knew of his sister's life and death (years later, he sold Geli's letters by auction through the Hermann Historica company in Munich, including several between her and Hitler). My note on the interview is in the Irving Collection at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte.

[rkoy]

let me get this right...there are no living relatives of direct blood line from hitler? is this right........thanks rodney

[Phaethon]

let me get this right...there are no living relatives of direct blood line from hitler? is this right........thanks rodney

Yes, Adolf Hitler had no official or even rumoured children. His only full sibling to survive childhood, Paula, also died childless. The genes of the 'Long Island Hitlers' (from Alois Hitler Jnr & Brigid Dowling) and of the Raubals (from Leo Raubal Snr and Angela Hitler) are not of Adolf Hitler per se but are of his father Alois Hitler Snr. from a marriage to Franziska (Fanni) Matzelberger. Adolf & Paula came from Alois Snr's third and final marriage to Klara Polzl.

I keep coming across mentions of a possible illegitimate child of Alois Snr, born before his first marriage who would have equal gentic relation to Adolf as Alois Jnr & Angela, but haven't obtained any definitive sources yet.

Cheers,

K.
--
Ken Cocker
London

[White Leopard]

German writer Walther Maser claimed to have found an illegitimate son that Hitler had sired on a French woman during War One. This was sometime in the seventies. Needless to say it caused a great hulabaloo at the time. But after making the claim, Maser was completely unable to provide one scrap of solid evidence other than speculation and the fact that there might have been a vague likeness to the man in question and his supposed father. The testimony of Hitler's fellow soldiers portrayed him as being completely indifferent to women at the time and most of them thought he was a solid misogynist since he refused to discuss women or go with them to where women were available. Maser's claim was thrown on the slag heap where it belonged.

[Wolfchen75]

Besides the Hitler cousins, Didn't Eva Braun have two sisters ? Given her
marriage shouldn't her sisters' descedendants be as close as the Raubels ?
Also I thought that the Long island Hitlers had taken the name Heiden,
not Steward- Chamberlain. This was my interpatation of T. Ryback's
article in the New Yorker

[Phaethon]

Besides the Hitler cousins, Didn't Eva Braun have two sisters ? Given her
marriage shouldn't her sisters' descedendants be as close as the Raubels ?

They would be as closely related to Braun as any children of Paula would have been to Hitler, but Braun was not related to Hitler. Braun's sister's lines would be of no use to someone wanting to clone the new master race

Also I thought that the Long island Hitlers had taken the name Heiden,
not Steward- Chamberlain. This was my interpatation of T. Ryback's
article in the New Yorker

Initially William Patrick Hitler took that name after leaving the US Navy but when he married Phyllis they took the double-barrelled name that Gardner alludes to but does not reveal in his book "The Last of the Hitlers".

"Steward-Chamberlain" is phonetically close on the first name but way off on the second. The real name is displayed on Howard's plaque on a certain Law-Enforcement memorial in Washington DC (Howard, son of William Patrick Hitler and great- step-nephew (step-great nephew? ?) of Adolf, was an IRS agent and was killed in a car accident one stormy night whilst travelling between cases. He is, therefore, listed as killed in the line of duty). He is also listed on a memorial to LEOs in Georgia, but that's not available on the Internet (yet).

If anyone has a PDF of Rybck's New Yorker article I'd appreciate it.

Cheers

K.

[Wolfchen75]

I have corresponded with Tim Ryback and he is working on a book
about AH's cousin William Patrick, sorry I don't have capacity to make
acrobat copy of NYorker article.