William Patrick Hitler

William Patrick "Willy" Hitler (later Stuart-Houston) (March 12, 1911 – July 14, 1987) was the nephew of Adolf Hitler. Born to Adolf's half-brother Alois Hitler, Jr., and his first wife Bridget Dowling, William later moved to Germany and subsequently escaped, eventually going to the United States where he enlisted to fight in World War II.

Early life

William Patrick Hitler was born in Liverpool, the son of Alois Hitler, Jr., and his Irish-born wife Bridget Dowling. They had met in Dublin when Alois was living there in 1909, and eloped to Liverpool where William was born in 1911. Hitler's nephew is recalled by elderly former neighbours, and in Liverpool folklore variously as "Billy" or "Paddy" Hitler. The family lived in a flat at 102 Upper Stanhope Street, which was destroyed in the last German air raid of the Liverpool Blitz on January 10, 1942. It remained a bomb site for many years, but has now been rebuilt and landscaped. Dowling wrote a manuscript called My Brother-in-Law Adolf, in which she claimed Adolf Hitler had moved to Liverpool with her and Alois from November 1912 to April 1913, in order to dodge conscription in Austria. The story has been popular, but is dismissed by most historians.

In 1914 Alois returned to Germany, but Bridget refused to join him, as he had become violent. Unable to reconnect due to the outbreak of World War I, Alois abandoned the family, leaving William to be brought up by his mother. He remarried, bigamously, but re-established contact in the mid-1920s when he wrote to Bridget asking her to send William to Weimar Republic Germany for a visit. She finally agreed in 1929, when William was 18. Alois had another son with his German wife, Heinz Hitler, who, in contrast to his half-brother, became a committed Nazi and died in Soviet captivity.

In Nazi Germany

In 1933, William Patrick Hitler returned to Nazi Germany in an attempt to benefit from his uncle's rise to power. His uncle found him a job in a bank. Later, he worked at the Opel car factory and then as a car salesman. Unsatisfied, Hitler persisted in asking his uncle for a better job, and there were rumors he might sell embarrassing stories about the family to the press if he did not receive one; among the rumors would have been his father's bigamous marriage. In 1938, Adolf Hitler asked William to relinquish his British citizenship in exchange for a high-ranking job. Expecting a trap, William decided to flee Germany, then tried to blackmail Adolf with threats to allege to the press that Hitler's alleged paternal grandfather was actually a Jewish merchant. Returning to London he wrote an article for Look magazine titled "Why I Hate my Uncle."^[1]

In 1939, Hitler and his mother went to the United States on a lecture tour^[1] on the invitation of William Randolph Hearst, and were stranded there when World War II broke out. After making a special request to President Franklin Roosevelt, Hitler was cleared to join the United States Navy in 1944; according to a story printed in newspapers at the time of his enlistment, when he went to the draft office and introduced himself, the recruiting officer replied, "Glad to see you Hitler, my name's Hess."^[1]

Later life

William Patrick Hitler served in the US Navy as a Pharmacist's Mate (a term later changed to Hospital Corpsman) before being discharged in 1947, after being wounded during the course of the war.^[1] After leaving the service he changed his last name to Stuart-Houston, married, and moved to Patchogue, Long Island, where he and his wife had four sons. He used his medical training to establish a business analyzing blood samples for hospitals. His lab, which he called Brookhaven Laboratories, was located in his home, a two story clapboard house, 71 Silver Street, Patchogue. ^[2]

He was married to Phyllis Jean-Jacques, born in Germany in 1923 or 1925^[3] (d. 2004), whose sister had kept in correspondence with William via mail. After their relationship had begun, William, Phyllis, and Bridget sought anonymity in the U.S. William and Phyllis married in 1947 had their first son Alexander Adolf in 1949. They later had three more sons, Louis (b. 1951), Howard Ronald (b. 1957, d. 1989), and Brian William (1965).^[1][4]

William died on July 14, 1987 in Patchogue, New York, US, and was buried alongside his mother, Bridget, at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Coram, New York.^[5] Phyllis died on November 2, 2004.

Howard Ronald Stuart-Houston, a Special Agent with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service, died in an automobile accident on September 14, 1989^[6] without having had any children. Howard Ronald is buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Coram, New York. It has been said that these three have vowed not to have children themselves,^[7][8] and none of them have married. Alexander, now a social worker, has said that he knows of no such pact, and that if it had been made, it was made by the other two brothers without his involvement.^[1][9]

In the media

His story has featured in documentaries as well as works of fiction. Beryl Bainbridge's 1978 novel Young Adolf depicts the alleged 1912–13 visit to his Liverpool relatives (including the infant William) by a 23-year-old Adolf Hitler, finding dark humour in his maladjustment and ordinariness. Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's 1989 comic book The New Adventures of Hitler is likewise based on the supposed Liverpool visit. It sparked controversy in the early 1990s and has not been reprinted since. In October 2005, The History Channel aired a one hour documentary entitled Hitler's Family, in which William Patrick Hitler is profiled along with other relatives of Adolf Hitler.

In April 2006, Little Willy, a play by Mark Kassen examining the life of William Patrick Hitler, opened at the Ohio Theater in New York before moving on to the West End in London.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

See also

United States Navy portal

• Werner G. Goering, nephew of Herman Göring

References

• Vermeeren, Marc. "De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889-1907 en zijn familie en voorouders". Soesterberg, 2007, 420 blz. Uitgeverij Aspekt. ISBN = 978-90-5911-606-1
• Gardner, David. The Last of the Hitlers, BMM, 2001, ISBN 0-9541544-0-1
• Toland, John. Adolf Hitler, ISBN 0-385-42053-6
• Oliver Halmburger, Timothy W. Ryback, Florian M. Beierl: Hitler's Family - In the Shadow of the Dictator, Loopfilm / ZDF Enterprises, 2006.

External links

• Hitler Family Tree
• Getting to know the Hitlers from the Daily Telegraph
• Author talks about 'the Last of the Hitlers' CNN interview.
• "The Hitler family tree", (2002) by Hal Bastin, accessed April 15, 2006
• The Diocese of Rockville Centre - Holy Sepulchre Cemetery
• Kilgannon, Corey. "Three Quiet Brothers on Long Island, All of Them Related to Hitler", The New York Times, April 24, 2006

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