William Patrick Hitler

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William Patrick Hitler (later Stuart-Houston) (March 12, 1911 – July 1987), nicknamed Willy, was the nephew of Adolf Hitler. Born in Liverpool, United Kingdom to Adolf's half-brother Alois Hitler, Jr. and his first wife Bridget Dowling, William later moved to Germany and subsequently escaped, eventually coming to the United States where he fought against his uncle in World War II.

1 Biography
2 William Patrick Hitler in the media
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Biography

William Patrick Hitler was the only son of Alois Hitler, Jr. and his Irish-born wife Bridget Dowling. They had met in Dublin when Alois was living there in 1909, and eloped to Liverpool where William was born in 1911. Hitler's nephew is recalled by elderly former neighbors, and in Liverpool folklore variously as "Billy" or "Paddy" Hitler. The family lived in a flat at 102 Upper Stanhope Street, which was destroyed, ironically, in the last German air raid of the Liverpool Blitz on January 10, 1942. It has remained a bomb site ever since. Dowling wrote a manuscript called My Brother-in-Law Adolf, in which she claimed Adolf Hitler had moved to Liverpool with her and Alois from November 1912 to April 1913, in order to dodge conscription in Austria. The story has been popular, but is dismissed by most historians as fanciful.

In 1914 Alois returned to Germany, but Bridget refused to join him, as he had become violent. Unable to reconnect due to the outbreak of World War I, Alois abandoned the family, leaving William to be raised by his mother. He remarried, bigamously, but re-established contact in the mid-1920s when he wrote to Bridget asking her to send William to Weimar Republic Germany for a visit. She finally agreed in 1929, when William was 18. (Alois had another son with his German wife, Heinz Hitler, who, in contrast to his cynical half-brother, became a true-believing Nazi and died in Soviet captivity.)

In 1933, William Patrick Hitler returned to Nazi Germany in an attempt to benefit from his uncle's rise to power. His uncle found him a job in a bank. Later, he worked at the Opel car factory and then as a car salesman. Unsatisfied, William Patrick persisted in asking his uncle for a better job, and there were rumors he might sell embarrassing stories about the family to the press if he did not receive one; among the rumors would have been his father's bigamous marriage. In 1938, Adolf asked William to relinquish his British citizenship in exchange for a high-ranking job. Fearing a trap, William panicked and fled Germany. Returning to London he wrote an article for Look magazine titled "Why I Hate my Uncle".

In 1939, William and his mother went to the United States on a lecture tour on the invitation of William Randolph Hearst, and were stranded there when World War II broke out. William joined the United States Navy in 1944; when he went to the draft office and introduced himself, the recruiting officer replied, "Glad to see you Hitler, my name's Hess."

William Patrick Hitler served in the US Navy and the Naval Medical Corps before being discharged in 1947. After leaving the service he changed his last name to Stuart-Houston<ref name="Stuart-Houston">"Führer's Family Tree Without Branches", (April 2006, German) Online FOCUS, accessed May 20, 2006</ref> married, moved to Patchogue on Long Island, New York and had four sons. He used his medical training to establish a business analysing blood samples for hospitals.

He worked for the Fort Detrick Biological Weapon Research Labs under the name of William C. Patrick III between 1951 and 1969 after attending medical school. He died in 1987 and was buried alongside his mother, Bridget, in a cemetery in Long Island.

One of his four sons, Howard, died in an automobile accident in 1989<ref name="Howard">"The Officer Down Memorial Page", accessed April 15, 2006</ref> without having had any children, leaving his other sons (Alexander Adolf, Louis and Brian) as the last three members of Adolf Hitler's paternal bloodline. It has been said that these three have vowed not to have children themselves<ref>"Hitler's Great-Nephews Writing Book on Long Island, NYT Says," Bloomberg News, April 24, 2006</ref>, but Alex has stated that he knows of no such pact, and that if it had been made, it was made by the other two brothers without his involvement. <ref name="Brian">"Getting to know the Hitlers", The Daily Telegraph, January 20, 2002</ref>

Despite his public disapproval of his uncle's ideology, not only did William Patrick give his eldest son (born in 1949) the middle name of Adolf, but his adopted name Stuart-Houston is remarkably similar to that of famous British anti-Semitic ideologist Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

[edit] William Patrick Hitler in the media

His story has featured in documentaries as well as works of fiction:

Beryl Bainbridge's 1978 novel Young Adolf depicts the alleged 1912–13 visit to his Liverpool relatives (including the infant William) by a 23-year-old Adolf Hitler, finding dark humor in his maladjustment and ordinariness.
Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's 1989 comic book The New Adventures of Hitler is likewise based on the supposed Liverpool visit. It sparked controversy in the early 1990s and has not been reprinted since.
In October 2005, The History Channel aired a one hour documentary entitled Hitler's Family, in which William Patrick Hitler is profiled along with other relatives of Adolf Hitler.
In April 2006, Little Willy, a play by Mark Kassen examining the life of William Patrick Hitler, opened at the Ohio Theater in New York.