@Walter Hinteler,
The recently discovered letters, written in Kurrent script typical of the time, had been sent by Alois Hitler to the road master Josef Radlegger. His great-granddaughter had found them and turned to historian Sandgruber.
The recently discovered letters, written in Kurrent script typical of the time, had been sent by Alois Hitler to the road master worker Josef Radlegger. His great-granddaughter had found them and turned to historian Sandgruber.
Hitler's father Alois was considered strict and brutal. According to Sandgruber, he was often portrayed as a bumpkin who only sat in the inn and raised bees. According to the historian, the letters "open up a completely new and more accurate view of the person who undoubtedly had the greatest influence on Adolf Hitler's career".
Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889, Holy Saturday, in Braunau am Inn. His father Alois had started work there as a customs officer in 1871. In 1892 the family moved to Passau.
Despite 21 years in Braunau, Alois Hitler never felt accepted by the bourgeois society there, according to historian Sandgruber. Alois' greatest wish was to become a farmer. He had grown up in the countryside, but without his own property. Instead, he had trained himself in modern agriculture.
Given his origins as an illegitimate child from an agricultural background, Alois Hitler had made a spectacular career: although he had only attended a one-class primary schools, he earned as much as a professor at the time (as a middle-ranked customs officer).