Adolf Hitler’s father, like his son, overestimated his own abilities and knowledge. According to Austrian historian Roman Sandgruber, this is evident from some letters from Alois Hitler, which were discovered in an attic in Austria.
Sandgruber, who published a book containing his findings on Monday, analyzed 31 hitherto unknown letters written by Alois Hitler to a man who sold him a farm in the Austrian village of Haveleld. A descendant of that man went to Sandgruber’s door five years ago and told him about the letters she found under her roof.
The printed pages seemed to indicate that Hitler’s father, the customs officer, knew everything. Sandgruber said that Alois Hitler “always wanted to be a knowledgeable landowner, above all.” Father and son both hate the authorities and also share anti-religious sentiments.
In his German book translated as “Hitler’s Father. How the Son Became a Dictator,” Sandgruber says that Hitler was anti-Semitic in Upper Austria from an early age. In doing so, he opposes the assumption that the deceased dictator only generated feelings of hatred toward Jews after his move to Vienna – The original biography of Hitler’s teenage friend, August Kubitschek, reveals that Hitler joined an anti-Semitic club just two months after his arrival in the Austrian capital.
