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Children are not responsible for their parents - but the reverse is not true.
Because, of course, fathers and mothers have a strong influence on their offspring.
Klara and Alois Hitler certainly also shaped their son Adolf.
Many character traits are based on early childhood experiences, for better or for worse.
Therefore, it makes sense to concern yourself with someone's family if you want to understand their life.
Of course, that only works if you know enough about it.
In the summer of 1938 Joseph Goebbels followed in the footsteps of Adolf Hitler: “Drive to Leonding.
The Führer lived there.
Visit to the grave of his parents ”, he noted in his diary on July 22nd:“ A shuddering feeling that the parents of such a great historical genius are resting here. ”Then the guest went to the house“ where the Führer lived.
Very small and primitive. "In his notes, which were always intended as a basis for future publications, Goebbels imagined what it might have looked like here four decades earlier:" I am taken into the room that was his realm.
Small and low.
Here he made plans and dreamed of the future. "
Adolf Hitler in 1938 at his parents' grave in Leonding not far from the Danube
Source: picture alliance / arkivi
Finally there was a meeting with Hitler's former classmates from the elementary school.
“I feel very big and solemn,” wrote the Propaganda Minister of National Socialist Germany: “The mother, say his childhood friends, was kind and good-hearted, the father harsh, silent and strict.
Just like the Führer often described his parents to me. "
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These passages in Goebbels' diary are only one of numerous accounts of Hitler's childhood that have long been known and that have been incorporated into most of the biographies about the dictator.
But are these and similar descriptions even true?
In view of the great role that childhood plays in the life of every person, in the case of Hitler for his tremendous will to destroy, historians have surprisingly rarely questioned the apparent certainties about father Alois and mother Klara Hitler.
A portrait of Alois Hitler from his time as a pensioner
Source: picture alliance / Everett Colle
There was of course a simple reason for this: without meaningful evidence, known as sources in guild jargon, even knowledgeable historians can only speculate.
So far, however, there have essentially only been three different sources for Hitler's childhood.
First, the self-portrayal in his inflammatory pamphlet “Mein Kampf”, which is known to be highly unreliable, especially in the autobiographical passages.
Second, the descriptions of his childhood friend August Kubitschek, who did not get to know Hitler until the age of 16, but who claimed in his book, first published in 1953, that he portrayed the earlier period based on his stories at the time - a statement that, due to principle, does not confirm, but hardly either could be refuted.
Thirdly, the book by the Austrian Social Democrat Franz Jetzinger about “Hitler's Youth”, published in 1956. Unlike Kubitschek, he did not know the subject of his research personally, but he had spoken to many contemporary witnesses who had been acquainted with the Hitler family.
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But so far there has not been much more material about the childhood and adolescence that were presumably also formative for Hitler.
That has now changed: Roman Sandgruber, historian and emeritus professor for economic and social history at the University of Linz, received a bundle of 31 letters from private ownership that Alois Hitler had sent to Josef Radlegger between January and July 1895.
That was not a friend, but the seller of the Rauscherhof in Hafeld (Upper Austria near Linz), which the newly retired Austro-Hungarian customs officer Alois Hitler acquired in 1895 to live here with his wife Klara, two children from his first marriage (Alois Junior and Angela) and two survivors from the third marriage (Adolf and Edmund, Paula was born in 1896) to live a productive retirement as a farmer.
One of the letters from Alois Hitler that has now emerged - his signature was very similar to that of his son
Source: Molden-Verlag / Harald Eisenberger
But the financing of the property purchase wavered, because the Sparkasse Lambach refused the requested mortgage and wrote to Alois Hitler: "Your request for a loan of 1000 guilders ... cannot be accepted." A disappointing decision.
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So Alois Hitler described the conditions of his family to the seller in detail in order to arouse his understanding: "My wife likes to work and has the necessary joy and understanding for an economy, and I don't stay idle either." Accordingly, Adolf's mother was Klara a smart woman who lend a hand in the running of the farm and independently took care of family things - "not or not just the submissive, oppressed and loving housewife she was usually portrayed as", writes Sandgruber.
Despite the financing problems, Alois made plans to expand his property.
On March 13, 1895, he wrote to Radlegger and signaled his interest in further properties: “Your well-born!
From your esteemed letter of yesterday I gather that the reason that protrudes into my field is for sale.
However, I would not be averse to buying it. ”After a close inspection of the property and a renewed rollover of his finances, Alois canceled the additional investment.
It was too high for him.
Roman Sandgruber taught in Linz for a long time
Source: Molden-Verlag / Harald Eisengruber
The Hitler family bought the Rauscherhof for the reason it was originally offered, but Alois and Klara did not make enough efforts: they had to sell the property again in 1897 - presumably at a loss, even if the selling price has not been recorded.
The family moved into a rented apartment in the small town of Lambach;
Alois' plan to use his remaining life as a farmer had failed.
After all, in 1899 he was able to buy a simple house in the Linz suburb of Leonding.
But already on January 3, 1903, Alois Hitler died at the age of 65 - from a lung haemorrhage, as it said on his death certificate.
The decisive question is, of course, how Alois shaped his son Adolf and whether this had an influence on the affects that the later NSDAP leader and dictator experienced to the detriment of millions of people.
So, on the one hand, is the assumption correct: a strict, presumably violent father leads to such a deeply ruthless son?
On the other hand, what about the delusional idea that shaped Adolf Hitler's entire political life from 1919 to 1945: radical anti-Semitism?
The power of Hitler's mendacious self-portrayal
Adolf Hitler as a hard-working construction worker?
Or as a model student?
The dictator's youth actually looked completely different.
But just like him, his sympathizers had a tendency towards stylization.
Source: The World
Despite the previously unknown sources found, Sandgruber can of course only come close to the answers.
At least the bundle of letters allows him to characterize his father as a supposedly “omniscient autodidact”: “Alois Hitler obtained his knowledge from lectures, newspapers and books.
When he bragged about the knowledge he had read to experienced farmers, he was not always taken for full. ”In fact, this is quite clear from the 31 letters to Radlegger.
It is therefore understandable if Sandgruber identifies at least one reason for a formative character trait of the son and concludes: "His son Adolf Hitler, on the other hand, was able to live out this know-it-all in view of his abundance of power."
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The second question, that of Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitism, is not quite as clear-cut.
The Linz historian is certainly right when he states about Alois: "Everyday anti-Semitism certainly fit into his world of thought because it is inseparable from 'harsh nationalism'." Also correct: "Before 1914, anti-Semitism was a cultural code" in German Austria.
The book by Roman Sandgruber
Source: Molden-Verlag
But was that why Adolf himself was eaten up by hatred of Jews in his youth?
Despite Sandgruber's newly found sources, there is no convincing evidence of this.
And it's not really about the question of whether Adolf rejected Jews in the sense of everyday anti-Semitism.
Rather, what was specific to him was the overflowing, delusional fixation on “the Jew” as the enemy.
For the time being, there is no evidence of this from before spring 1919.
But that in no way diminishes the value of Sandgruber's book.
What he does with the newly developed sources is often substantial, at least debatable.
Perhaps you don't have to call the find “spectacular”, but it is definitely a win.
Roman Sandgruber: “Hitler's father. How the son became a dictator "(Molden Verlag 304 pp., 29 euros)
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