Childhood of Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, at Braunau am Inn, Austria, a small town in Upper Austria, on the border with Germany. He was the fourth of six children of Alois Hitler (1837-1903), a customs official, and Klara Pölzl, Alois's niece and third wife. Of these six children, only Adolf and his younger sister Paula reached adulthood. Alois Hitler also had a son (Alois Junior) and a daughter (Angela) by his second wife. In Mein Kampf Hitler describes his father as an "irascible tyrant," although there is little indication that Alois Hitler treated his son more strictly than was usual for that time and place. Adolf's strict Catholic upbringing was typical for the region. He served as an altar boy and sang in the choir but was not a practicing Catholic as an adult, though in public discourses he continued to frequently claim he was a Christian.[1]

Mussolini (left) and Hitler sent their armies to N...

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, Germa...

English: The large leather couch on which Adolf Hi...

His father Alois was born out of wedlock and used his mother's surname, Schicklgruber, until he was 40. In 1896, he began using the name of his stepfather, Johann Georg Hiedler, after visiting a priest responsible for birth registries and declaring that Georg was his father (Alois gave the impression that Georg was still alive but he was long dead). The spelling was probably changed to "Hitler" by a clerk. Later, Adolf Hitler was accused by his political enemies of not rightfully being a Hitler, but a Schicklgruber. This was also exploited in Allied propaganda during the Second World War when pamphlets bearing the phrase "Heil Schicklgruber" were airdropped over German cities. Adolf was legally born a Hitler, however, and was also closely related to Hiedler through his mother's family.

Hitler was not sure who his paternal grandfather was, but it was probably either Johann Georg Hiedler or his brother...