Hitler's Nephews and a Niece

One nephew was born in England, lived in America and fought for the US in World war 2; one fought for Germany on the eastern Front and a third fought in the Luftwaffe as well as serving as Hitler's double, his sister being the subject of Uncle Adolf's obssession . . .

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William Patrick Hitler:

William Patrick Hitler (later changed  to William Patrick Stuart-Houston) was the nephew of Adolf Hitler, born in Liverpool in England. William’s father. Alois Hitler Jnr was living in Dublin when he met Bridget Dowling there in 1909. They married and moved to Liverpool where William was born in 1911. Bridget’s manuscript “My Brother-in-Law Adolf” records that Adolf stayed with them from November 1912 to April 1913 to avoid the draft in Austria, but her claims have been dismissed by historians. Alois went on a gambling tour of Europe in 1914 and was prevented from returning to England by the war. He abandoned his family and remarried bigamously. In the 1920’s he asked Bridget to let William come to Germany, which Bridget finally allowed in 1929 when William was 18.

With Hitler’s assumption of power in Germany, his nephew repeatedly tried to blackmail him into better and higher positions, threatening to tell embarrassing stories to the papers about his family and that Hitler’s alleged paternal grandfather was Jewish. Hitler arranged a job in a bank for him, which he subsequently left after convincing Hitler to get him a job at an automobile factory, as a salesman. Hitler's patience had worn thin by this time and he began calling William “my loathsome nephew”.  He is also reported to have commented “I didn’t become Chancellor for the benefit of my family … No one is going to climb on my back.”

Fearing that he was being set up  for reprisals, William fled Germany for London where he penned an article for Look magazine called “Why I Hate My Uncle.” Making a lecture tour of the US with his mother, he was stranded there when war broke out. 

In 1942, he penned an eloquent plea to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to let him join the Allied cause. Here is an excerpt: 

I am the nephew and only descendant of the ill-famed Chancellor and Leader of Germany who today so despotically seeks to enslave the free and Christian peoples of the globe. ...

I am one of many, but I can render service to this great cause and I have a life to give that it may, with the help of all, triumph in the end. ...

As to my integrity, Mr. President, I can only say that it is a matter of record and it compares somewhat to the foresighted spirit with which you, by every ingenuity known to statecraft, wrested from the American Congress those weapons which are today the Nation's great defense in this crisis. I can also reflect that in a time of great complacency and ignorance I tried to do those things which as a Christian I knew to be right. As a fugitive from the Gestapo I warned France through the press that Hitler would invade her that year. The people of England I warned by the same means that the so-called "solution" of Munich was a myth that would bring terrible consequences. On my arrival in America I at once informed the press that Hitler would loose his Frankenstein on civilization that year. Although nobody paid any attention to what I said, I continued to lecture and write in America. Now the time for writing and talking has passed and I am mindful only of the great debt my mother and I owe to the United States. More than anything else I would like to see active combat as soon as possible and thereby be accepted by my friends and comrades as one of them in this great struggle for liberty.

J Edgar Hoover cleared him to serve in the US Navy in 1944 where he served as a pharmacist’s mate and hospital corpsman. He was discharged in 1947 and had been wounded in action. 

After leaving the Navy, William changed his last name to Stuart-Houston, married a lady by the name of Phyllis, and moved to Long Island. He and Phyllis sought anonymity, William dying in 1987 and Phyllis in 2004. They had four sons:  Alexander Adolf (1949-), Louis (1951-), Howard Ronald (1957-1989) and Brian William (1965-).  None of their four sons had children of their own. Alexander has denied that they had deliberately remained childless so as to discontinue the Hitler bloodline.

Some pics:

With mother Bridget Dowling

Another with mother.

Enlistment

The children of William and Phyllis

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Heinrich "Heinz" Hitler:

Alois, William’s father, had sired another son in Germany after abandoning the family. (He was saved from being jailed in Germany for bigamy only by the intervention of Bridget, who advised that they had separated when he entered into the second marriage).  

The German-born son, Heinrich "Heinz" Hitler, was a committed Nazi and served on the Eastern Front, where he was captured in 1942 during Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. After being interrogated and tortured by the Russians, he died a prisoner at the age of 21.

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Leo Rudolf Rabaul:

Leo Rudolf Raubal (1906 – 1977) was a half nephew of Adolf Hitler, the son of Hitler’s half sister Angela. According to William Patrick Hitler, Leo did not like his uncle Adolf and he blamed him for the death of his sister Geli (see below).  

Leo served in the Luftwaffe during World War 2 and so resembled Hitler that he sometimes served as his double. Injured in the Battle of Stalingard in 1943, Hitler refused a request by others for a plane to fly him out. He was captured by the Russians and eventually released in 1955, returning to Austria where he worked as a teacher. He died in 1977, survived by his son Peter. 

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Angela Maria "Geli" Rabaul:

Hitler’s sister Angela, the mother of Leo and of his sister Geli, worked as Hitler’s housekeeper, Geli’s father having died when she was 2. From an early age Hitler had taken a close interest in her. 

At age 21, in 1929, she moved into his apartment after enrolling to study medicine. Hitler was controlling and possessive towards her. He cut her off from friends, made sure that she was accompanied when she went anywhere and forced her to end a relationship she was in. He kept her a virtual prisoner. There have also been accounts that she was his lover and that he forced her to take part in perverted sexual activities,

Following an argument in 1931, after Hitler departed for a meeting in Nuremburg, Geli was found dead as a result of a gunshot wound to the chest. 

Rumours immediately began in the media about physical abuse, a sexual relationship and even murder. 

Hitler later declared that Raubal was the only woman he had ever loved. Her room at the Berghof was kept as she had left it, and he hung portraits of her in his own room there and at the Chancellery in Berlin.

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