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“Hitler’s Father and How His Son Became a Dictator” is the title of a new book by Roman Zadgruber, emeritus professor of social and economic sciences at the University of Leeds. The psychoanalytic implication is obvious: an authoritarian or distant father may have contributed to what shaped Adolf Hitler and what he did. But is that really so? Zadgruber attempts to provide answers by referring to 31 handwritten letters from his father, Alois Hitler (Alois Hitler – real name Alois Sicklgruber, June 7, 1837 – January 3, 1903), addressed to Releg. He owns a farm in Huffeld, Austria, bought in 1895 by Alois Hitler.
Die Welt reports that Alois Hitler, a retired customs officer at the time, dreamed of spending the last years of his life as a farmer close to nature, but did not have the financial means to buy the farm. Banks did not lend. One possible reason for these letters was to explain to Radlerger his marital status and lack of liquidity. Eventually Alois Hitler was successful, he bought the property, but after two years he was forced to sell it again, as he could not meet the financial demands of the project.
“Hard on the submissive”
The letters were forgotten in an attic, found by chance a hundred years later and came to the hands of the Austrian professor. How do you judge them? “They have an almost pretentious courtesy, especially in the epilogue, but their content shows cruelty towards the submissive, the ignorant apprentices, the incompetent maids, the dirty horses,” Roman Zadgruber told Bavarian Radio (BR). . “Nothing can please him. He also criticizes the government, judges, notaries, surveyors, makes them useless …”
Alois Hitler was born in 1837 in Austria, out of wedlock. On the one hand, he was proud of his upward mobility, saying that as a poor village boy, with a high school diploma, he managed to become a civil servant in the Habsburg monarchy. On the other hand, he took it very hard because he had no academic education to rise to the top of the hierarchy. The result, according to Roman Zadgruber: “He is the star, the protagonist. His ideal is the self-taught who knows everything. And this ideal will be transmitted to his son, Adolf Hitler, who leaves school, dreams of being self-taught and reads a lot. , but eventually becomes a semi-apprentice who despises those with formal academic qualifications. He despises academics and law professors, but considers himself a genius. This is a clear resemblance between father and son, which is also evident in the cards “.
Strong character the mother
According to the daily Die Welt, these letters have value as a historical source, as little was known to date about Adolf Hitler’s childhood. Our information is limited to what the Austrian social democrat Franz Jetsinger had mentioned in his book “Hitler’s Youth” talking to people who knew his family, while there are also testimonies from a childhood friend, August Kubicek, but also knew Hitler when he was already 16 years old. The lyrics give a new dimension to the role of the father, Alois.
But there is also the mother. Until now, historians believed that Clara Hitler was a humble housewife limited to the fatal role of the submissive woman. However, a different picture emerges from the letters, says Roman Zadkogorber: “He had a significant part of power in the family, he made buying and selling decisions, he had transactions with banks and the post office. Alois Hitler himself wrote:” My wife has an excellent knowledge of economics. “This is confirmed by other sources. In no case was she the defenseless woman, as some claim.”
Source: DW – Clemens Ferenkote (BR) / Giannis Papadimitriou
