1889-1945
German political leader
1. Introduction
Adolf Hitler was head of the Nazi Party for nearly 24 years and Führer (leader) of Germany for nearly 11 years. He was jailed in 1924 for an attempted coup, serving one year, during which he wrote most of Mein Kampf (‘My Struggle’). He became chancellor in 1933 and Führer the following year, gaining dictator powers. He re-armed Germany, to Churchill’s great concern, and invaded Poland in September 1939, France in May 1940 and the Soviet Union in June 1941. His early military successes were reversed and he committed suicide in his Berlin bunker in April 1945 to avoid capture by the advancing Russians.
2. Stories
- The name ‘Hitler’ was a misspelling of a family name that was possibly not even part of Adolf’s ancestry.
- Hitler and Churchill never met, although they came close to doing so in 1932.
- Hitler had a soft spot for dogs, particularly German Shepherds, but did not share Churchill’s liking for other animals.
- Hitler’s and Churchill’s food and drink preferences were very different, but both were reluctant to get out of bed in the morning.
- Hitler and Churchill were both keen artists, with Hitler favouring buildings and Churchill preferring landscapes.
- Hitler’s valet Heinz Linge was the closest person to Hitler apart from Eva Braun.
- Churchill’s hope was that the main Axis leaders would be killed during the war, preventing high-profile prosecutions.
The name ‘Hitler’ was a misspelling of a family name that was possibly not even part of Adolf’s ancestry.
Adolf’s father was born Alois Schicklgruber (pronounced ‘SHICKel-groober’), whose peasant mother Maria Schicklgruber was unmarried. Alois took her family name; there is no record of Alois’s father. Five years later she married Georg Hiedler (pronounced ‘HEED-ler’). Many years later, when Alois was 29 years old, his baptismal certificate was amended to indicate that Hiedler was his father, possibly to facilitate an inheritance, but the name was erroneously spelt ‘Hitler’. The civil records were also updated and Alois used the name Hitler from then on.
There has been much speculation about the identity of Alois’s father: perhaps Georg Hiedler, or Georg’s brother Nepomuk, or Jewish Leopold Frankenberger. Adolf lived with Nepomuk as an early adolescent. The Jewish father claim is tenuous but was sufficiently concerning to Adolf that he had his Aryan credentials checked and publicised. The baptismal and civil name change saved him from his own laws about proof of racial purity, as well as enabling the snappy, alliterative salutation ‘Heil Hitler’ instead of the more cumbersome ‘Heil Schicklgruber’.
Adolf was the third child from his father’s third marriage, to Klara Pölzl. Klara was Alois’s housekeeper and possibly his half-niece or first cousin once removed. Adolf (‘Adolfus’ on his birth certificate) was sickly but survived to adulthood, unlike four of his five siblings. The other survivor was Adolf’s younger sister Paula, who lived until 1960. Neither Adolf nor Paula had children.
The Hitler name continued temporarily from Alois’s second marriage, which produced Alois Junior, who had two sons. The first, William Hitler, was born in Liverpool to an Irish wife in 1911. William made contact with his half-uncle Adolf to obtain work in Germany in the 1930s but fell out with him and wrote a magazine article entitled Why I Hate My Uncle. He joined the US navy in 1944 and changed his name from Hitler to Stuart-Houston upon honourable discharge in 1947. He had four sons, all Stuart-Houstons.1
Alois Junior’s other son, Heinrich ‘Heinz’ Hitler, was from a bigamous second marriage in Germany, born in 1920. Heinz was a keen Nazi supporter and served on the Eastern Front, dying in Soviet custody in 1942, aged 21, without children.
Hitler and Churchill never met, although they came close to doing so in 1932.
In the summer of 1932, Churchill and an entourage visited the central European battlefields where his ancestor the 1st Duke of Marlborough had fought. They stayed in a Munich hotel and met an acquaintance of Churchill’s son Randolph, Ernst ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl (Hanf-SHTENG-url), a German-American businessman who was head of Germany’s Foreign Press Bureau and a close friend of Hitler at the time.
Hitler was also staying in Munich and Hanfstaengl tried to persuade him to join Churchill’s party for dinner or to stop by during the meal. Churchill was willing (‘I had no national prejudices against Hitler at this time’)2 but Hitler made numerous excuses, which Hanfstaengl attributed to his social unease: ‘the man who would not go to a dancing-class for fear of making a fool of himself’.3 ‘In any case,’ said Hitler, ‘they say your Mr. Churchill is a rabid Francophile.’4
During the dinner Churchill asked Hanfstaengl, ‘Why is your chief so violent about the Jews? […] What is the sense of being against a man simply because of his birth?’5 Hanfstaengl tried to downplay the issue. Then, according to Hanfstaengl, Churchill said to him, very quietly so that no-one else could hear, ‘How does your chief feel about an alliance between your country, France and England?’6 Having no power at the time, Churchill could only test the waters for his own interest.
Hanfstaengl asked about including Italy. No, said Churchill: ‘You cannot have everybody joining a club at once.’7 Hanfstaengl left quickly to find Hitler and asked him to join for coffee. Hitler refused, saying he had to get up early.
‘Thus Hitler lost his only chance of meeting me’, wrote Churchill. ‘Later on, when he was all-powerful, I was to receive several invitations from him. But by that time a lot had happened, and I excused myself.’8
Hanfstaengl fell out of favour with Hitler a few years later and escaped from Germany to Britain in 1937. During World War II he was initially detained in Britain and Canada, then became a valuable informant to the USA from 1942 about Nazi leaders, returning to Germany after the war.
Hitler had a soft spot for dogs, particularly German Shepherds, but did not share Churchill’s liking for other animals.
During World War I, Hitler came across a stray white terrier which he adopted with the name Fuchsl (‘Little Fox’). Fuchsl was popular with Hitler’s fellow-soldiers and became a mascot. However, he disappeared one day, either stolen or gone astray again, leaving Hitler distraught.
Hitler was given his first German Shepherd, Prinz, in 1921, but could not afford the upkeep so had to give him away. Later he had Sirius, possibly a golden retriever, and other German Shepherds: Wolf (given away because of fighting and biting), Muck, and two called Blonda (mother and daughter). Beroll, a German Shepherd gift from a breeder, was part of his household for a while but was transferred in 1941 to help the fight against the Russians.
Hitler’s favourite German Shepherd was Blondi, a gift from his private secretary Martin Borman in 1941. She kept Hitler company in his bunker in 1945, sleeping on his bed, but Hitler’s partner Eva Braun disliked her. Likewise, Hitler was not keen on Braun’s Scottish terriers, Negus (an Ethiopian royal title) and Katushka, nicknamed Stasi (a common Bavarian name at the time, not associated with the later East German secret police).
Shortly before Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide, Hitler had his doctor test a cyanide pill on Blondi, which killed her. If it had not worked, he would have had her put down by another method to prevent her from being taken by the Russians. Her month-old five puppies were also put to death.
A few canaries were kept at Hitler’s country retreat, but otherwise he was not keen on non-canines. He appreciated the association of horses with military prowess but, unlike Mussolini, did not want to be depicted with them. Nevertheless, he endorsed a breeding programme for a military ‘superhorse’ based on Lipizzaners, white horses of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. Hundreds were stolen from around Europe and taken to Hostau in Czechoslovakia. They were saved from being shot for food by the advancing Soviets when General Patten authorised a secret mission to have them rescued.
Hitler’s and Churchill’s food and drink preferences were very different, but both were reluctant to get out of bed in the morning.
In later life, Hitler was a vegetarian, did not smoke and only had an occasional drink. From the late 1930s, he ate little more than mashed potatoes and clear broth due to severe digestion problems. Some of his senior colleagues were also vegetarians and the Nazi party introduced various pieces of animal welfare legislation, including restrictions on hunting and vivisection. Hitler planned to close abattoirs after World War II.
He was expelled from school at age 10 for smoking and as a young man smoked up to 40 cigarettes a day. However, he turned against tobacco for financial and health reasons and encouraged others to give up too. His stance contributed to a Nazi campaign to ban smoking on public transport.
He would have a Boonekamp (bitter beer) after certain dishes for digestion, and cognac in his tea for a cold, but gave up beer in 1943 to help avoid putting on weight.
On the other hand, he took cocaine (perhaps unknowingly), administered to him by his doctor Theo Morell, in the nose and as eyedrops. His supplements began innocently as vitamin injections in the 1930s. He was given an opioid for an illness in 1941 and recovered instantly, after which he developed a dependency on his doctor’s frequent injections of drug cocktails (hence later jokes about ‘High Hitler’). His noticeable tremors in 1945 were caused by stress and possibly also by withdrawal symptoms after a drug shortage. They began as early as 1942 and may also have been a symptom of Parkinson’s disease.
Hitler would usually get up at 11 a.m. after a late night’s work but was notorious for sleeping in longer and delaying lunch guests. Although Churchill often spent mornings in bed, also after late nights, he would work in bed from about eight or nine a.m. Their night-time work would often only start after a movie in their home cinemas, with one of Hitler’s favourites being Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, made in 1937.
Hitler and Churchill were both keen artists, with Hitler favouring buildings and Churchill preferring landscapes.
Hitler failed to pass the entrance exam for the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in both 1907 and 1908, mainly because of his focus on architectural features and insufficient interest in human faces. His artwork earned him some income while he was living in homeless shelters and a dormitory in Vienna from 1909 to 1913. He continued painting and sketching during World War II while serving on the Western Front, only a few miles away from Churchill in Belgium in 1916.
Hitler claimed that he completed over 1000 paintings in the early 1900s but some academics have estimated the figure to be around 300. Some of them appear at auction from time to time, although they cannot be sold in Germany if they contain a Nazi symbol. The sales tend to cause controversy and buyers are often anonymous. The record price is £103,000, for Civil Registry Office and Old Town Hall of Munich (1914), sold in November 2014. The record for a Churchill painting is £8,285,000 (US$11.2 million) for The Tower of Katoubia Mosque (1943), sold in March 2021 (see Franklin D. Roosevelt).
Hitler’s favourite artist was Adolf Ziegler whose paintings often included naked human forms, depicting ideal Aryans (see Reza Shah regarding the use of the term ‘Aryan’). Ziegler was appointed to create the Degenerate Art Exhibition in Munich in 1937 which mocked modern art as a counterpoint to the Great German Art Exhibition which displayed approved artists’ works.
Over time, Hitler became more interested in architecture and less in painting. He conceived grand designs for five Führerstädte (‘Führer cities’) including Berlin (intended to be renamed Germania, the ‘world capital’) and his home city Linz. Over thirty other cities were also to be reconstructed. Some Berlin redevelopment was undertaken but World War II brought an end to the grand plans.
Hitler redesigned his house Berghof in the Bavarian Alps, doing many of the drawings himself. It included an underground bowling alley, kept secret to avoid his being made honorary chairman of bowling clubs around the country. Like Churchill, he selected his country property mainly for the views, although Berghof’s mountain vista was far more commanding than Chartwell’s outlook over the Weald of Kent. Berghof was bombed in 1945 and fully demolished in 1952.
Hitler’s valet Heinz Linge was the closest person to Hitler apart from Eva Braun.
Heinz Linge served as Hitler’s valet from 1935 to 1945. He was an SS officer, rising to lieutenant colonel, and was also Hitler’s bodyguard and head of personal staff. It was Linge who wrapped Hitler’s body in a woollen blanket after his suicide, carried it out of the bunker and doused it with petrol to cremate him, on Hitler’s prior instructions. Linge was captured by the Soviets and held for ten years. After release he lived in Hamburg, completing his memoirs just before he died in 1980.
Linge was initially deputy to Karl Krause who was dismissed for telling Hitler that a serving of ordinary water was from a bottle of mineral water (Hitler was intensely fearful of being poisoned and had a team of over 12 tasters). After promotion, one of Linge’s tasks was to have a ready supply of coloured pencils for Hitler’s annotations on documents: red to indicate enemies, green for those he liked, and blue for caution. He also had to keep various spare items at all times, such as spectacles, which Hitler often broke by fiddling with them. Hitler’s eyesight was poor after mustard gas damage in World War I but he tried to avoid wearing glasses, which he viewed as a weakness. His speeches were printed in large lettering.
Another trusted member of staff was Theo Morell, Hitler’s main doctor from 1936 to 1945, despite being regarded by many as a quack and a social embarrassment for his bad table manners and body odour. Somewhat of a hypochondriac, Hitler took comfort in Morell’s prescriptions of a vast number of pills, injections and other treatments. The precise contents of the Führer’s invigorating injections are still not clear, despite Morell’s detailed diaries. Hitler sacked his three other doctors in 1944, then dismissed Morell himself in April 1945 in a fit of fury, concerned about what was being injected into him. Morell became unwell, was hospitalised and fell into American hands. He was interned until 1947 and died a year later.
See ‘Further reading’ for memoirs by various other staff.
Churchill’s hope was that the main Axis leaders would be killed during the war, preventing high-profile prosecutions.
Trials and executions can potentially create martyr status and graves can become shrines. Against this is the desire for justice to be seen to be done while avoiding the use of burial sites. For once, Hitler’s interests coincided with those of Churchill. Hitler did not want to be captured, nor did he want his body to become a trophy. The Soviets found his charred remains near his bunker, together with those of Eva Braun and two dogs (possibly Blondi and one of Braun’s dogs).
The remains were moved twice in 1945 and again in 1946, ending up in Magdeburg, East Germany. They were exhumed again in 1970 and fully cremated, with the ashes being scattered on the river Biederitz, together with those of the Goebbels family. Hitler’s jawbone and a skull fragment were retained. A 2017 study showed that the jaw and teeth match his dental records but a claim has been made that the skull fragment is from a female.
The main Nuremberg trials of 24 major Nazi figures were held in 1945 to 1946, resulting in 12 death sentences, seven jail sentences ranging from 10 years to life, and three acquittals. Two of the accused did not face trial, one due to suicide and the other for medical reasons. Two of the hangings did not take place: Hitler’s private secretary Martin Borman, convicted in absentia, had already died (unknown at the time), and his head of armed forces Hermann Göring committed suicide the night before execution, using a hidden cyanide pill. The Nuremberg convicts were cremated in Munich and their ashes were scattered on the river Isar in southern Germany.
Other Axis leaders had varied outcomes. In Italy, Mussolini was shot by communist partisans in 1945. Japanese emperor Hirohito was not subjected to a trial and instead played a role in the rebuilding of Japan. Japanese prime minister Tojo was tried in Tokyo and hanged in 1948 with six colleagues. Vichy France’s leader Philippe Pétain was sentenced to death but the punishment was commuted to life imprisonment by General de Gaulle.
3. Biographical summary
Occupation | Politician |
| Nationality | Austrian (citizenship renounced 1925); stateless (1925-32); German (from 1932) |
| Career | Labourer, artist (1909-1913). Army corporal (1914-18). Army intelligence agent (1919-20). Nazi party activist (1920-21). Führer, Nazi Party (1921-45). Chancellor of Germany (1933-45). Führer of Germany (1934-45). Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces) (1935-45). |
| Born | 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary (15 years younger than Churchill) |
| Father | Alois Schicklgruber, Austrian civil servant (1837-1903); adopted by step-uncle Johann Hiedler; surname ‘Hitler’ used from 1876; died when Adolf was 13. Three wives: Anna Glasl-Hörer (no children); Franziska ‘Fanni’ Matzelsberger (two children); Klara Pölzl (six children) |
| Mother | Klara Pölzl (1860-1907); m. 1885 until Alois’s death; died aged 47 from side-effects of cancer treatment when Adolf was 18 |
| Siblings | Third of six children: 1. Gustav (1885-1887), died of diphtheria. 2. Ida (1886-1888), died of diphtheria. 3. Adolfus ‘Adolf’ (1889-1945). 4. Otto (1892-1892), died of hydrocephalus. 5. Edmund (1894-1900), died of measles. 6. Paula (1896-1960), secretary; died without children. Two step-siblings from father’s second wife: 1. Alois Junior (1882-1956; born before marriage); two sons: a) William; US navy; changed family name to Stuart-Houston; four sons named Stuart-Houston. b) Heinrich ‘Heinz’; German soldier; died in Soviet custody; no children. 2. Angela (1883-1949); married twice; three children including Geli (see Relationships). One step-sibling from his father’s relationship with Thekla Penz before his first marriage: 1. Theresia Penz (1869-1932), m. Johann Ramer; six children |
| Education | Linz and Steyr secondary schools, Austria-Hungary |
| Spouse | Eva Braun (1912-1945); m. 1945 until their joint death the day after the marriage; died aged 33; suicide by cyanide pill |
| Relationships | – Possibly Geli Raubal, his half-niece; unexplained death in 1931 by gunshot, aged 23. – Eva Braun from 1932. |
| Children | – |
| Died | 1945; suicide by pistol and possibly also cyanide pill in his bunker in Berlin |
| Resting place | Burned in Chancellery garden near Führerbunker; charred remains buried by the Soviets in Magdeburg, East Germany; exhumed in 1970; burned again and ashes scattered on River Biederitz in eastern Germany |
| Nickname | ‘Der Führer’ (leader); ‘Gefreiter’ (corporal) by disapproving German generals; ‘the Boss’ (personal staff) |
| Height | 5’9” (1.75 m) |
| Time magazine | Man of the Year 1938. Front cover (six times): 1931, 1933, 1936, 1939, 1941 and 1945. |
4. See also
Nazi leadership
- Goebbels, Joseph
Axis leadership
- Mussolini, Benito
- Tojo, Hideki
Nationalists who sought Hitler’s support
- Al-Gaylani, Rashid Ali (Iraq)
- Al-Husseini, Amin (Palestine)
- Bose, Subhas Chandra (India)
Other Nazi/fascist sympathisers
- Edward VIII
- UK fascist groups
Dictators’ hobbies, habits and tastes
- Mao, Zedong (China)
- Mussolini, Benito (Italy)
- Nasser, Gamal Abdel (Egypt)
- Stalin, Joseph (Soviet Union)
Churchill’s interests
- Painting
- Pets
Churchill controversies
- Anti-appeasement
5. Further reading
Hitler
- Felton, Mark, Guarding Hitler: The Secret World of the Führer (Pen & Sword, 2014)
- Hanfstaengl, Ernst, Hitler: The Missing Years (Arcade, 1994)
- Kershaw, Ian, Hitler (Penguin UK, 2013)
- Longerich, Peter, Hitler: A Life, trans. by Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe (Oxford University Press, 2019)
Hitler and Churchill
- Roberts, Andrew, Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership (Orion, 2010)
Miscellaneous
- Letts, Elizabeth, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis (Random House, 2016)
- Sax, Boria, Animals in the Third Reich (A&C Black, 2000)
- Spotts, Frederic, Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics (Harry N. Abrams, 2018) (Hitler’s interest in the arts)
- Stratigakos, Despina, Hitler at Home (Yale University Press, 2015) (his residences)
Memoirs and diaries by personal staff
- Baur, Hans, I Was Hitler’s Pilot: The Memoirs of Hans Baur (Pen & Sword, 2013)
- Junge, Traudl, Until the Final Hour: Hitler’s Last Secretary, ed. by Melissa Müller (Arcade, 2004)
- Kempka, Erich, I Was Hitler’s Chauffeur: The Memoir of Erich Kempka (Pen & Sword, 2010)
- Krause, K., H. Döhring, and A. Plaim, Living with Hitler: Compelling Recollections of Hitler’s Personal Staff (Big Sky Publishing, 2019)
- Linge, Heinz, With Hitler to the End: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler’s Valet (Pen & Sword, 2009)
- Misch, Rochus, Hitler’s Last Witness: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Bodyguard (Frontline, 2014)
- Morell, Theodor G., The Secret Diaries of Hitler’s Doctor, trans. by David Irving (Macmillan, 1983)
- Schroeder, Christa, He Was My Chief: The Memoirs of Adolf Hitler’s Secretary (Pen & Sword, 2009)
- Von Below, Nicolaus, At Hitler’s Side: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Luftwaffe Adjutant 1937–1945 (Pen & Sword, 2010)
6. References
1 William Hitler did not give any explanation as to why he chose the family name ‘Stuart-Houston’, but some have speculated about a possible association with the name of the British-born German philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who had a major influence on Nazi racial theory. Despite his Why I Hate My Uncle article, he gave his fourth son a middle name Adolf.
2 Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: Volume 1: The Gathering Storm (Houghton Mifflin, 1953), p. 83.
3 Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler: The Missing Years (Arcade Publishing, 1994), p. 185.
4 Hanfstaengl, p. 185.
5 Churchill, pp. 83–84.
6 Hanfstaengl, p. 186.
7 Hanfstaengl, p. 186.
8 Churchill, p. 84.