Getting to know the Hitlers

January 22, 2002 3:18 PM

Getting to know the Hitlers David Gardner, a UK journalist, travelled to the US to chase up the family of Adolf Hitler's "loathsome nephew", William Patrick Hitler, who found himself fighting in the US Navy during WWII. Interesting enough, his four sons made a pledge to not have children, to ensure the end of the Hitler bloodline.
posted by John Shaft (13 comments total)

I always wondered what would happen to the family with a name like this. I always thought they would change it (although I doubt it would be to "Hilter" or even "Ron Vippentrop").

(I also guess this thread is over before it began, thanks to Godwin's Law.)
posted by John Shaft at 3:21 PM on January 22, 2002

There was a great article about this same topic in The New Yorker in July 2000.
posted by CosmicSlop at 3:37 PM on January 22, 2002

"Yeah, dad was a crazy psychopath who slaughted millions, but mom was nice so it balanced out.

And they left me these lovely lampshades!"
posted by fuq at 3:49 PM on January 22, 2002

Wow. William Patrick Hitler married an Irish woman, or at least a woman of Irish parentage - the name Brigid Dowling is as Irish as a name can be.

There are rumours here in Ireland that Hitler had a cousin who came here and settled down, but I never heard more than that.

There is another leading Nazi who had an anti-Nazi brother - Hermann Goering - as far as I can remember, he had a brother, whose name I can't recall, who saved some German Jews. He was later accused at the Nuremburg trials of having had a part to play in the Holocaust, but that incident of help saved him. In the documentary I saw on this, it was said that he helped other Jews where he could, using his surname as a weapon to deter SS officers and the like for getting too curious about his activities.
posted by tomcosgrave at 5:19 PM on January 22, 2002

Eh. Sorry. It wasn't William Patrick who married the Irish woman. It was Alois, his father. And I see Alois was quite the Nazi. Sorry, it's late here, I got the names wrong :-/
posted by tomcosgrave at 5:20 PM on January 22, 2002

There are apparently many Hitlers still in existence in Austria. As I have heard, the name is derived from a specific mountainous region of the country and many people whose ancestors once lived there have the family name Hitler. However, I'm sure that most of these people have changed their names...
posted by Hammerikaner at 5:25 PM on January 22, 2002

The New Yorker article was better, and not quite so breathless. You came away thinking that Patrick Hitler was quite an honorable fellow. He had his 15 minutes when he convinced FDR to let him serve in the military, after the Brits refused to take him.
posted by Slagman at 5:32 PM on January 22, 2002

Godwin's Law, this has to be really retarded, the guy posting attempted to kill his post based on crap others are insinuating and following. This is really strange, I am beginning to consider mefi an unsuccesful social experiment based on this post and it's responses...prove me wrong, please.
posted by bittennails at 5:52 PM on January 22, 2002

either that bittennails, or you can't take a joke.
posted by plemeljr at 6:05 PM on January 22, 2002

sorry that was really snarky
posted by plemeljr at 6:06 PM on January 22, 2002

Oh I can take a joke, but was it one.

Here you go,

Hitler, he had a one big ball,
Goering had two but very small,

fill in the rest...
posted by bittennails at 6:11 PM on January 22, 2002

The Lord God made them all?
Wait, no, that's something else
posted by Slagman at 7:18 PM on January 22, 2002

bittennails-

but Goebbels had no balls at all.
posted by jonmc at 8:40 PM on January 23, 2002