Half-brother of Hitler, William Patrick Hitler
William Patrick Hitler was born in Liverpool, the son of Hitler’s half-brother Alois and his Irish wife Bridget Dowling. Alois abandoned his family in Liverpool when he returned to Germany just before the outbreak of World War I, but William re-established contact with him on reaching adulthood and in 1933 moved to Germany to benefit from his uncle Adolf’s rise to power.
William discovered that the Hitler name opened doors to the fashionable parties of the Nazi elite, as well as the bedroom doors of many young women. His uncle found him a couple of comfortable jobs with the Reichskreditbank and the Opel car factory, but they were too low-ranking for young William’s taste. Their relationship deteriorated and Hitler began to refer to William in public as “my loathsome nephew”.
Hitler told William to put his money where his mouth was and renounce his British passport in return for a top job in the regime. William declined, instead threatening to expose the Hitlers’ “unusual family history” – a veiled threat about their supposed paternal Jewish ancestry. Blackmailing the Führer was playing with fire, and William wisely fled Germany. On his return to England he wrote a magazine article entitled ‘Why I hate my Uncle’.
When the war broke out William went on a lecture tour of the United States, denouncing his wicked uncle and the Third Reich. When America joined the war, he wrote to President Roosevelt requesting to be allowed to join the US Army, saying that the British had refused him permission to enlist because of his name. The FBI found no evidence of William’s subversion and in 1944 he was cleared to join the US Navy.
After the war, William changed his name from Hitler to Stuart-Houston, then married and settled on Long Island, where he died in 1987. The old Hitler family home in Liverpool was destroyed in the last German bombing raid of the war.
Date: approximately.