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1910 - 1940's Hitler: His Irish Connections
by Tony McCarthy
ADOLF HITLER'S HALF-BROTHER Alois, was working as a waiter in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, in 1909. He had been sent there by a London employment agency. His humble situation did not suit his vanity, however, and while off duty he posed as a wealthy hotelier on a European tour to study the industry in France, Belgium and the British Isles. His manner of dress reflected this fantasy. His suit and hat were of the latest fashion. A heavy gold watch-chain stretched across his cream coloured waistcoat. He wore two rings on his left little finger, one a diamond and the other a ruby. In addition he wore a pearl tie-pin. His moustache was of the handlebar variety - waxed and turned up at the ends
There was no place better than the Dublin Horse Show to display such elegance. The nobility, the English and Irish sportsmen and tourists from all over the world provided a perfect background for Alois's dashing appearance.
While admiring the horses at the 1909 show, Alois struck up an idle conversation with two locals, William Dowling and his neighbour, Mr Tynan. Soon William's daughter, seventeen year old Bridget, took an interest. She was immediately fascinated by the handsome foreigner. 'Everything he said was so new and interesting that even his broken English seemed charming'.
Later, Alois and Bridget met in the National Gallery, Dublin.
Soon they were talking about getting married. Bridget's parents were so totally against the relationship that the couple eventually eloped and married in London on 3 June 1910. William Dowling threatened to appeal to the police and to have Alois arrested for kidnapping, but his wife dissuaded him from doing so. Peace was finally made about a year later when William Dowling went to Liverpool to be present at the baptism of his first grandchild, William Patrick Hitler.
Meanwhile, Adolf was going through the worst period of his life. He was sleeping rough or living in doss houses. Eventually he took up permanent residence in a hostel for men in Vienna. He made his living by beating carpets, carrying bags, shoveling snow and doing other menial labouring jobs. As time passed and Adolf rose to prominence, both Bridget and her son did their best to take advantage of the situation.
Bridget attempted to cash in on her connection with the German Fuehrer by writing a book. She wrote My Brother-in-Law Adolf in the United States shortly after herself and her son settled there in 1939. She never managed to get it published, however. The 225 page typescript is undated and unfinished. At present it is in the manuscript department of the New York Public Library. It became widely available for the first time in 1979 when an edited version was published by Gerald Duckworth and Co Ltd
The most sensational part of the book deals with an alleged visit to Britain made by Adolf Hitler. Bridget claims that during the period November 1912 to April 1913 Adolf resided at her flat in Liverpool with herself, Alois and William Patrick.
Adolf was draft dodging at the time. He was avoiding compulsory service in the Austrian army. This is the main reason, she says, why he afterwards maintained silence about his English trip, it 'would not have made good publicity for the German prophet'. Much of his time was spent in the company of Bridget: 'he would often come and sit in my cosy little kitchen playing with my two-year old baby, while I was preparing our meals. I thought he felt very much at home then. Usually he wouldn't say much, but just sit, from time to time telling me of the different dishes his mother used to make.'
Bridget claims to have introduced Adolf to astrology, a subject in which she herself had been interested since childhood. Before Adolf's arrival, she had become acquainted with a Mrs Prentice who cast horoscopes. Again and again, she claims, Adolf asked Mrs Prentice to cast his horoscope. Reflecting on how it was said that in later life Adolf Hitler did very little of importance without consulting his astrologers Bridget says 'I thought back then to the idle words I had spoken which had served as an introduction to this absorbing interest'. In May 1913 Adolf took leave of his sister-in-law and her family and went, on Alois's advice, to Munich, where he would still be able to evade service in the Austrian army.
Before he left, Bridget advised Adolf to trim his moustache. Like Alois, he sported a handlebar moustache at that time and she suggested that he should cut off the points. Years later, when she saw his picture in a newspaper she noticed that he had taken her advice but, she comments, 'Adolf had gone too far'.
It is difficult to imagine how Bridget and Adolf managed to communicate so well on such a variety of subjects. Bridget says that Adolf hadn't enough English at the end of his stay to enable him to ask directions to the railway station. She describes her own German as 'stumbling'.
The suspicion that My Brother-in-Law Adolf is a work of the imagination is strengthened by much of the rest of the book. When Bridget meets Adolf again he is Chancellor of Germany. His only acknowledgement that they met before is the rather flattering comment 'the years have passed over your head without touching you'. The part of the book dealing with Bridget's attempts to rescue her son from Germany during the 1930s read like a third rate television spy story.
Despite the book's lack of authenticity it has been accepted as reliable by some of Hitler's best biographers. John Toland uses it as a source in his 1,000 page book Adolf Hitler, as does Robert Payne in his The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler.
Robert Waite, an American professor, provides convincing evidence in an appendix to his The Psychopathic God Adolf Hitler to show that the book is mostly fiction.
William Patrick tried to gain advantage from his famous uncle by more direct means: blackmail. At least this is the story told by Hitler's close associate Hans Frank, in the course of his trial as a war criminal at Nuremberg. In order to understand Frank's testimony it is necessary to take a look at Hitler's peculiar family background and his sensitivity towards it.
Hitler's father, Alois, was born on 7 June 1837 to Maria Anna Schickelgruber, unmarried daughter of Johann Schickelgruber from the village of Strones in Lower Austria. The entry in the baptismal register of Dollerscheim parish shows that the baby was christened Alois Schickelgruber. The space in the register for the father's name was left blank.
When Alois was five years old, his mother married a mill worker named Johann Georg Hiedler. Alois was passed over to his step-father's brother, who raised him like his own son.
by Tony McCarthy
ADOLF HITLER'S HALF-BROTHER Alois, was working as a waiter in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, in 1909. He had been sent there by a London employment agency. His humble situation did not suit his vanity, however, and while off duty he posed as a wealthy hotelier on a European tour to study the industry in France, Belgium and the British Isles. His manner of dress reflected this fantasy. His suit and hat were of the latest fashion. A heavy gold watch-chain stretched across his cream coloured waistcoat. He wore two rings on his left little finger, one a diamond and the other a ruby. In addition he wore a pearl tie-pin. His moustache was of the handlebar variety - waxed and turned up at the ends
There was no place better than the Dublin Horse Show to display such elegance. The nobility, the English and Irish sportsmen and tourists from all over the world provided a perfect background for Alois's dashing appearance.
While admiring the horses at the 1909 show, Alois struck up an idle conversation with two locals, William Dowling and his neighbour, Mr Tynan. Soon William's daughter, seventeen year old Bridget, took an interest. She was immediately fascinated by the handsome foreigner. 'Everything he said was so new and interesting that even his broken English seemed charming'.
Later, Alois and Bridget met in the National Gallery, Dublin.
Soon they were talking about getting married. Bridget's parents were so totally against the relationship that the couple eventually eloped and married in London on 3 June 1910. William Dowling threatened to appeal to the police and to have Alois arrested for kidnapping, but his wife dissuaded him from doing so. Peace was finally made about a year later when William Dowling went to Liverpool to be present at the baptism of his first grandchild, William Patrick Hitler.
Meanwhile, Adolf was going through the worst period of his life. He was sleeping rough or living in doss houses. Eventually he took up permanent residence in a hostel for men in Vienna. He made his living by beating carpets, carrying bags, shoveling snow and doing other menial labouring jobs. As time passed and Adolf rose to prominence, both Bridget and her son did their best to take advantage of the situation.
Bridget attempted to cash in on her connection with the German Fuehrer by writing a book. She wrote My Brother-in-Law Adolf in the United States shortly after herself and her son settled there in 1939. She never managed to get it published, however. The 225 page typescript is undated and unfinished. At present it is in the manuscript department of the New York Public Library. It became widely available for the first time in 1979 when an edited version was published by Gerald Duckworth and Co Ltd
The most sensational part of the book deals with an alleged visit to Britain made by Adolf Hitler. Bridget claims that during the period November 1912 to April 1913 Adolf resided at her flat in Liverpool with herself, Alois and William Patrick.
Adolf was draft dodging at the time. He was avoiding compulsory service in the Austrian army. This is the main reason, she says, why he afterwards maintained silence about his English trip, it 'would not have made good publicity for the German prophet'. Much of his time was spent in the company of Bridget: 'he would often come and sit in my cosy little kitchen playing with my two-year old baby, while I was preparing our meals. I thought he felt very much at home then. Usually he wouldn't say much, but just sit, from time to time telling me of the different dishes his mother used to make.'
Bridget claims to have introduced Adolf to astrology, a subject in which she herself had been interested since childhood. Before Adolf's arrival, she had become acquainted with a Mrs Prentice who cast horoscopes. Again and again, she claims, Adolf asked Mrs Prentice to cast his horoscope. Reflecting on how it was said that in later life Adolf Hitler did very little of importance without consulting his astrologers Bridget says 'I thought back then to the idle words I had spoken which had served as an introduction to this absorbing interest'. In May 1913 Adolf took leave of his sister-in-law and her family and went, on Alois's advice, to Munich, where he would still be able to evade service in the Austrian army.
Before he left, Bridget advised Adolf to trim his moustache. Like Alois, he sported a handlebar moustache at that time and she suggested that he should cut off the points. Years later, when she saw his picture in a newspaper she noticed that he had taken her advice but, she comments, 'Adolf had gone too far'.
It is difficult to imagine how Bridget and Adolf managed to communicate so well on such a variety of subjects. Bridget says that Adolf hadn't enough English at the end of his stay to enable him to ask directions to the railway station. She describes her own German as 'stumbling'.
The suspicion that My Brother-in-Law Adolf is a work of the imagination is strengthened by much of the rest of the book. When Bridget meets Adolf again he is Chancellor of Germany. His only acknowledgement that they met before is the rather flattering comment 'the years have passed over your head without touching you'. The part of the book dealing with Bridget's attempts to rescue her son from Germany during the 1930s read like a third rate television spy story.
Despite the book's lack of authenticity it has been accepted as reliable by some of Hitler's best biographers. John Toland uses it as a source in his 1,000 page book Adolf Hitler, as does Robert Payne in his The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler.
Robert Waite, an American professor, provides convincing evidence in an appendix to his The Psychopathic God Adolf Hitler to show that the book is mostly fiction.
William Patrick tried to gain advantage from his famous uncle by more direct means: blackmail. At least this is the story told by Hitler's close associate Hans Frank, in the course of his trial as a war criminal at Nuremberg. In order to understand Frank's testimony it is necessary to take a look at Hitler's peculiar family background and his sensitivity towards it.
Hitler's father, Alois, was born on 7 June 1837 to Maria Anna Schickelgruber, unmarried daughter of Johann Schickelgruber from the village of Strones in Lower Austria. The entry in the baptismal register of Dollerscheim parish shows that the baby was christened Alois Schickelgruber. The space in the register for the father's name was left blank.
When Alois was five years old, his mother married a mill worker named Johann Georg Hiedler. Alois was passed over to his step-father's brother, who raised him like his own son.
