Klara Hitler

Klara Hitler ( Spital , Austria , December of August of 1860 - Linz , 21 of December of 1907 ), born Klara Pölzl , was the mother of Adolf Hitler .

Biography

Childhood and youth (1860-1885)

Klara Pölzl was born in 1860 in Spital , a small town in the north of Austria . His parents were Johann Baptist Pölzl, a small farmer, and Johanna Hiedler , a marriage that had eleven children of whom only three survived to childhood: Klara, the elder, Johanna and Theresia. Klara’s maternal grandfather was Johann Nepomuk Hiedler (or Hüttler, the surname means “small landowner” and is in the documentation of the time with different spellings) whose brother, Johann Georg Hiedler , had married Maria Anna Schicklgruber , the Mother of Alois Hitler and, therefore, grandmother of the own Adolf Hitler . Since in the baptismal registry of Alois the name of the father appears in white, it is not clear that this was the own Georg but Nepomuk, who shortly after death Maria Anna took Alois to live on his farm. In any case Klara and Alois were closely related and this insecurity about the identity of one of their grandparents gave rise to baseless speculations about the possible Jewish ancestry of Adolf Hitler. ²

Klara moved to Braunau am Inn in 1876, at the age of sixteen, to serve as her maid in the home of her cousin Alois and his first wife, Anna Glassl. Alois, who was then thirty-nine years old and working as a customs officer, began shortly afterwards a relationship with Franciska Matzelberger, a young maid with whom she began to live as soon as she separated from Anna in 1880. Franciska demanded that Klara leave the house, Married Alois in 1883 and had two children, but when he died of tuberculosis in 1884, Alois brought Klara back to Braunau. ³

Marriage with Alois Hitler (1885-1903)

Klara married Alois Hitler on January 17, 1885 and in May her first child, Gustav, was born. The following year they had their second daughter, Ida, and in 1887 to Otto, who died a few days after birth. Gustav and Ida also died of diphtheria a few months after Otto. ⁴

The fourth child of Alois and Klara and the first to survive infancy, Adolf Hitler was born at half past six p.m. of 20 of April of 1889 . ⁴ In 1892, because Alois had been promoted, the family moved to Passau , a Bavarian city bordering Austria, where Klara gave birth in 1894 to Edmund, his fifth son. In Passau the family enjoyed a well-to-do position, and Klara had the help of a maid and the company of her little sister Johanna. ⁵

In 1894 Alois was transferred again, this time to Linz , but the family remained in Passau until in February of 1895 acquired a property in the village of Hafeld , Fischlham , forty-five kilometers from Linz. A couple of months later Klara met with her husband and there was born in 1896 his last daughter, Paula . Finally in November 1898, after a few months in Lambach , Alois bought his last house in Leonding , a town very close to Linz. ⁶

On February 2, 1898, young brother Edmund died of measles , leaving Adolf as the only male descendant of Alois and Clara. ⁷ Alois insisted that Adolf prepare to become an official and enrolled him in the Realschule of Linz, although his performance was quite bad. According to the same Hitler already had expressed its intention to dedicate to the art, which caused a time of tensions between father and son that ended when, 3 of January of 1903, Alois collapsed and passed away. ^{Referring to Fig.}

Final years (1903-1907)

Although Klara initially tried to get Adolf to fulfill Alois’ wishes, she was much more willing to give in to the whims of the only son she had left. He had to move Adolf to the Realschule of Steyr , where he had to stay because he was too far from home, about fifty miles away. Finally, with the excuse of an illness, Adolf convinced to his mother that he could not continue studying. By that time Klara had acquired a comfortable flat in the Humboldtstrasse of Linz where he moved in June of 1905 with his sister Johanna and with Adolf and Paula. ^{Referring to Fig.}

In the spring of 1906 Klara paid a trip to Vienna to Adolf, who insisted on studying art. For the following year and in spite of the opposition of part of his family counted also with the subsidy of his Aunt Johanna in his attempt to enter the Academy of Beautiful Arts of Vienna . ¹⁰

That same year Klara fell seriously ill and had to be operated on for breast cancer in January 1907. He took over the medical treatment Jewish family, Dr. Eduard Bloch , who told his children that Klara had little chance of survival . Adolf was greatly affected and took care of expenses and treatment decisions, but even so he went to Vienna in September to take the entrance examination at the Academy. At the end of October Bloch called him to warn him that his mother’s situation was desperate, and finally Klara passed away in Linz on December 21 , 1907 . ^eleven

Klara was buried in Leonding with her husband Alois . In March 2012 the tomb, which was a place of worship for some neo-Nazi groups, was dismantled and its tombstone removed, apparently by decision of a descendant of Alois Hitler ‘s first marriage . ¹²

Importance in the life of Adolf Hitler

Although Hitler later insinuated that his mother’s death left him virtually in poverty, the reality is that Klara’s good stewardship, the help of his aunt Johanna, the orphan’s pension, and later the father’s inheritance, Although they did not provide him with economic security, they did leave him in a momentary situation. ¹³

There are many testimonies that document the deep affection that Adolf Hitler felt for his mother, perhaps the only human relation of this type in his life. He took his photographs and portraits with him to the end in the Chancellery’s bunker and, for example, Dr. Bloch said of him that “the love he felt for his mother seemed to be his most prominent feature.” ¹⁴ When Klara died, he added that under those circumstances “I had never seen anyone as prostrate in pain as Adolf Hitler,” an opinion confirmed both by Hitler’s own memories in Mein Kampf and by his sister Paula . ¹³ Klara, a caring and devoted wife according to Bloch, was a protective mother, in contrast with the authoritarian temperament Alois. Hitler later remembered his beatings and it is very probable that Alois extended the mistreatment to his wife. With Alois also a drinker, Hitler’s rejection of alcohol may be due to that experience. ^fifteen

It has sometimes been speculated, with little foundation, that Klara’s death in the care of a Jewish physician may have been one of the causes of Hitler ‘s anti - Semitism . ¹⁶ It is unlikely in the light of gratitude that, like postcards and paintings painted by him, Bloch claims to have received from Hitler. Years later, after the Anschluss , it appealed to Hitler for a favorable treatment, thanks to which it managed to emigrate to the United States . Dr. Bloch died in 1945 in New York . ¹⁷

Descendancy

With Alois Hitler he had six children:

• Gustav Hitler ( 17 of May of 1885 - 8 of December of 1887 ).
• Ida Hitler ( 23 of September of 1886 - 2 of January of 1888 ).
• Otto Hitler (1887 - 1887). Died a few days after birth.
• Adolf Hitler ( 20 April as as 1889 - 30 as April as 1945 ).
• Edmund Hitler ( 24 of March of 1894 - 2 of February of 1900 ).
• Paula Hitler ( 21 as January as 1896 - 1 as June as 1960 ).

Of the six children of Klara only Adolf Hitler and his sister Paula reached adulthood.