According to Ian Kershaw the story is not true, here is a piece I wrote for others who were spreading this rather viscious myth. There are a few errors in it but they are my typos rather than Kershaw (from Hubris):
Possibility 1: The chap named on his fathers birth certificate is actually Hitlers grandfather, Johanne Georg Hiedler, though this leaves the question of why he did not naturalise Hitlers father Alois. Why did Hiedler not attempt during his lifetime to legitimise Alois as his son? Simple reason suggested by Kershaw is poverty, Alois' parents lived in poverty (sleeping in a cattle trough rather than a bed) and this is the reason usually given for the adoption of Alois by a character called Nepomuk (Johannes brother). This leaves the question of why did Maria Anna (Alois' grandmother) not clearly disclose the identity of Alois father on baptism papers and so on. More to the point why was the legitimation (which was delayed until 1876) accompanied by certain irregularities suggesting a bit of a charade on the part of Nepomuk, Alois and the three witnesses (all of whom were related to Nepomuk). It seems that the adoption took place in order that Nepomuk (who had only daughters) could have a son to carry on the family line, though this seems unlikely since by this point Alois had a 50 year old wife.
Second possibility, that Nepomuk himself was Alois father, after all, he did adopt, care for and bring up Alois. There is a strong connection between Alois changing his name to Hitler (Nepomuk used the name Huttler) and Nepomuk making him a legitimatee in his will. In fact at Nepomuks death in 1888 his heirs were told they were to inherit nothing but six months later Alois who had very little money previously was able to buy a substantial house and property for the sum of around 4,500 gulden. It seems logical therefore to conclude that Johanne had rejected Alois, the son of his brother, and Nepomuk had brought up his own son, but because of the scandle the family kept it quiet, the change of name was not possible until the death of Nepomuks wife as she was the last person the Heidler family wanted to know. There is a strange thing with Austrian records of the time in that Heidler, Hirler, Huttler and several other permutations on the name appear to have been used interchangably in official documents.
Anyhow, there is a third possibility, that Hitlers grandfather was Jewish. Rumours to this effect began to circulate in Munich in the mid 1920's amd were fostered by the journalists of the time. It was initially suggested that the name 'Huttler' was Jewish and could be traced to a Jewish family called Hitler in Bucharest, there were even claimed that Alois was the son of Baron Rothschild in whos house Hitlers grandmother had been a servant. These were little more than rumours, the most serious suggestion of a Jewish background came from Hans Frank, the Nazi lawyer and Govenor General of Poland. He dictated in his Nuremberg cell that during 1930 Hitler had shown him a letter from his nephew William Patrick Hitler (son of Hitlers half brother Alois who had married an Irish woman, his decendants are alive today) about the possibility of Jewish blood in the family. Frank was commissioned to trace Hitlers ancestory and he reported that Maria Anna Schicklgruber had concieved Alois whilst a cook for a Jewish family called Frankengruber, he had also traced payment by the Frankengrubers to support Alois until he was 14. Apparently Hitler told Frank that his grandmother had assured him that his grandfather was not the 'Jew from Graz' but that they had been so poor that they had conned the Frankengrubers into paying support.
Franks story gained wide cerculation in the 1950's and seems common even today, but it is crap. As Kershaw points out, 'there was no Jewish family called Frankenberger in Graz during the 1863's. In fact there were no Jews at all in the whole of Styria at the time, since Jres were not permitted in that part of Austria until the 1860's.' There was in fact a family called Frankenreiter but they were not Jewish, more to the point there is no evidence that Maria Anna was even in Graz, let alone employed by a butcher named Leopold Frankenreiter. Incidentally, it seems strange that Leopold should even pay to support the young Alois when he was in fact only 10 when he was born! More to the point, there seems to be little possibility that Hitlers grandmother had told him ANYTHING shice she died forty years before Hitler was born!
Anyhow, that is Sir Ian Kershaws proof that there was no truth to the story of Hitlers Jewish background. If you wish to read it yourself, check pages 6-9 of Hubris. Feel free to try to prove Kershaw wrong, but frankly I think that one of two historians to be members of the Royal Society, recognised as the worlds greatest expert on Hitler, is a far better source for such discourse than ANY web site you care to throw at it. In fact, just about the only source that you could use to counter Kershaw is a document by Kershaw from after he wrote Hubris (1998, the ISBN is 0-7139-9047-3 if you actually want to read a genuine source).
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There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
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