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The Patchogue Hitlers
This entry was written by Robert Koehler, posted on July 11, 2007 at 2:32 pm, filed under Asides, Completely Random Crap. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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13 Comments
What the heil?
Nostradamus predicted this:
“Histler will reside on the lengthy island.”
It’s all so mystic-crystal revelatory.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Christ, I thought this was going to be another Hongdae type “Hitler” bar post.
Slow news day?
You know, I’m from Riverhead (well, Aquebogue really) and I never knew this. You’d think I would have heard something, being so close. Go figure.
Yes, but that’s beside the point.
kkachi — That’s OK. I’m from East Islip, and I didn’t know it. A coworker emailed me the article this morning. I did know, however, that there was a Nazi summer camp in Yaphank, courtesy the German-American Bund:
http://www.newsday.com/communi.....9679.story
Hitler’s nephew living in the US is old news. The article is about the play that was written about him.
Hitler’s so-called “American connection” is well-known to Hitler scholars/biographers. In spite of the suggestive allusions the NYT reporter makes in this article (to “jazz it up” IMO), the connection really has no significance other than as a very minor footnote to history.
Unlike the original Napoleon Bonaparte (who had several adult brothers whom he gave imperial titles to and tried to use as political allies), Adolf Hitler couldn’t have been much of a nepotist even if he had been so inclined; most of his siblings did not survive into adulthood.
I don’t think it was indicated in the NYT article that Adolf Hitler’s father (Alois) was born illegitimate in 1837 in Austria, a subject of the Austrian empire (not Austro-Hungarian until after 1867). In the 1920’s rumors circulated that the father (ie Adolf Hitler’s biological paternal grandfather) was Jewish.
That’s why the NYT article mentions wanting to question these surviving “half-great-nephews” about this issue, but we’re talking what happened in an obscure Austrian village in 1837, so IMO they are unlikely to know anything more than what historians have already been able to ferret out.
And in fact, it appears probably unlikely that Alois Hitler could have been the son of a Jewish father:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Hitler
Alois Hitler became a minor AH empire customs official and was clearly a harsh father (Adolf Hitler wrote that his father beat him at least occasionally). Alois Hitler died of natural causes when Adolf Hitler was 14, in 1903.
Adolf Hitler clearly despised his father’s memory. After the German “Anschluss” with Austria in 1938, he had the town records relating to his father’s birth searched and confiscated, and the town itself (Dollersheim) turned into an artillery range.
Probably not for for simple revenge but simply to help obfuscate the old rumors (again, probably untrue) of his paternal grandmother having been made pregnant by a Jewish father.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%B6llersheim
I think somewhere I’ve seen a picture of what’s left of the village (ruins). Also a picture of the empty space where Hitler’s paternal grandmother’s grave evidently once was, but I’m going by memory so consider this as unconfirmed.
Anyone remember the ‘Hitler Diaries’? What a marvelous fraud those turned out to be. The were authenticated by experts by comparing them some of Hitler’s handwritten letters…which were later proven to have been forged by the same man who did the diaries. The man also did many of the paintings that were attributed to Hitler.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/cr.....index.html
Yeah, Someguy, although I was not anymore in Germany at that time, I do remember…
This is truly old news.
As a Lawn Guyslander, I’m surprised this is new to you, Robert.
Here’s another link on Hitler’s paternal grandmother, with some further details on her grave (or rather, the lack thereof):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Schicklgruber
Looks like the village did not in fact become an artillery range until 1942, well after the war had started. Probably because by that time “Schicklgruber” was being used as a derisive epithet in Allied wartime propaganda, to include air-dropped-over-Germany “flyer” propaganda posters (see the main Hitler article in wikipedia).
If this name is vaguely familiar to a reader here, it may be from encountering it in contemporary (WWII-era) references. Such as the newspaper dispatches (later compiled into several books) of the famous American war correspondent Ernie Pyle.
I might visit the cemetery soon.
The location of the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl.....14&t=m