Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

42 DER FUEHRERact of legitimation went into actual force in the parish office at Dollersheimwhither Georg Hiedler-Hitler's declaration to the notary wassent from Weitra. In Dollersheim on November 23, 1876, JosefZahnschirm, the parish priest, in a rather irregular form which later gaverise to doubts, changed Alois Schicklgruber's name to Alois Hitler in thebaptismal record. Legally the whole occurrence was the repetition of anact which should have occurred when the marriage was concluded in1842; in the official language of the Austrian Church it was called:'legitimatio per matrimonium subsequens.'Thus, from 1876 on, Adolf Hitler's father bore the name of Hitler; thefuture chancellor was thus entitled to his name from birth. GeorgHiedler acknowledged paternity in legally adequate form; and Aloisactually bore this name during most of his life. His famous son, AdolfHitler himself, was never called Schickl-gruber. The obscure spot in hisancestry indicates in all likelihood not a strain of outside, henceconceivably foreign origin, but an incestuous mixture within his ownfamily. The degree of this incest can only be surmised.Apparently the ailing life of Alois Schicklgruber-Hitler's first wifedragged on much longer than her husband had expected. He took uprelations with a young hotel cook by the name of FranziskaMatzelsberger, and this broke up his marriage and family. His wifeobtained a separation in accordance with the Austrian 'bed-and-board'law of the time, and moved into a dwelling of her own; his relation withKlara Polzl was also severed; the twenty-year-old girl left the house andwent to Vienna as a servant. Alois Hitler lived with his new wife in arelation similar to marriage; she bore him, during the lifetime of his firstwife, a son, whom he likewise called Alois. When his first wife at lastdied in 1883, he married the second; after a few months she bore him adaughter named Angela. After a marriage of one year, in 1884, thissecond wife died, also of tuberculosis.In the last months of her life she, too, moved away from her husband.Klara Polzl reappeared and kept house for Alois Hitler — her stepfatheror fiance. Half a year after the death of his second wife, on January 7,1885, Alois Hitler married his third: his ward, twenty-three yearsyounger than himself.