William Patrick Hitler

William Patrick Stuart-Houston (born William Patrick Hitler; 12 March 1911 – 14 July 1987) was a British-American entrepreneur and the half-nephew of Adolf Hitler. Born and raised in the Toxteth area of Liverpool to Adolf's half-brother Alois Hitler Jr. and his Irish wife Bridget Dowling, he later relocated to Germany in the 1930s to find work with the help of his half-uncle until he got into some issues with him and later returned back to London. He later emigrated to the United States, where he received American citizenship (in addition to his British citizenship) and ended up serving in the United States Navy against his half-uncle and Nazi Germany during World War II, changing his surname after the war.

Biography

Early life

Stuart-Houston was born William Patrick Hitler in the Toxteth area of Liverpool, England on 12 March 1911 to an Austrian born father Alois Hitler Jr. and his Irish wife Bridget Dowling. His father was the older half-brother of Adolf Hitler. The couple met in Dublin when Alois was living there during 1909 and was working as a kitchen porter at Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel; they married in London's Marylebone district in 1910 and relocated to Liverpool. The family lived in a flat at 102 Upper Stanhope Street, which was later destroyed during the last German air raid of the Liverpool Blitz on 10 January 1942. Dowling wrote a manuscript titled ''My Brother-in-Law Adolf'', in which she claimed that Adolf had lived in Liverpool with her from November 1912 to April 1913 to avoid conscription in Austria. The book is largely considered a work of fiction, as Adolf was residing in the Meldemannstraße dormitory in Vienna at the time.

Alois attempted to make money by managing a small restaurant in Dale Street, a boarding house on Parliament Street and a hotel on Mount Pleasant, all of which failed. It was also reported that Alois was abusive to William, like Alois's father had been to him. In 1914, Alois left Bridget and William for a gambling tour of Europe. He later returned to Germany. Unable to rejoin his family due to the outbreak of World War I, he abandoned them, leaving William to be brought up only by his mother. William would also be supported by his mother's family in Ireland. Alois also set up a safety razor business in Germany, which did not last long. He remarried bigamously, but wrote to Bridget during the mid-1920s to ask her to send William to Germany's Weimar Republic for a visit. She finally agreed in 1929, when William was 18. William first travelled to Germany in 1931. By this time, Alois had another son named Heinz with his German wife. Alois and his wife also adopted a daughter whose name was never revealed. Alois also had become a restaurant owner and this time his business was a success. Heinz, in contrast to William, became a committed Nazi, joined the , and died in Soviet captivity in 1942. When William was 18 he and his mother moved to North London and settled in Highgate, renting a house, 26 Priory Gardens. William joined an apprenticeship as an accountant in an accounting firm called Benham and Sons, but after Hitler rose to power, William was fired because of his surname.

Nazi Germany

In 1933, encouraged by his mother, William travelled back to what had become Nazi Germany in an attempt to make money and benefit from his half-uncle's growing power. Adolf, who was now chancellor, found him a job at the in Berlin, a job that he held for most of the 1930s. He later worked at the Opel automobile factory as a car salesman in a factory in Rüsselsheim and later in Berlin where he was hired by Eduard Winter. Hitler also did not trust William because of the way he was acting in public and how he was fooling around with women and taking advantage of his power, so he sent spies to watch him. William then got arrested in a cafe one day, and when he showed his ID, the officers did not believe that he was related to Hitler and sent him to a prison in Lichterfelde. He was finally released because of the British Embassy. The Gestapo also forbade William from working for two months and later William was fired from Opel as the police claimed he was selling cars under the name of Hitler. Hitler would also not allow William to send money to his mother in England who was struggling and needed money. William then asked his half-uncle for a better job, writing to him with blackmail threats of selling embarrassing stories about the family to the newspapers unless his "personal circumstances" improved. Hitler actually listened and had William's salary doubled. William later found work at a restaurant in Berlin and continued to work there until 1 January 1939.

In 1938, Adolf asked William to relinquish his British citizenship in exchange for a high-ranking job. Suspecting a trap, William fled Germany in 1939 and returned to England. He again tried to blackmail his uncle with threats. This time, William threatened to tell the press that Adolf's alleged paternal grandfather was actually a Jewish merchant. He returned to London, where he wrote the article "Why I Hate My Uncle" for '' Look'' magazine.Brown et al (2006)

Emigration to the United States

In January 1939, the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst brought William and his mother to the United States for a lecture tour. He and his mother were stranded when World War II began. After making a special request to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, William was eventually approved to join the United States Navy in 1944; he relocated to the Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens, New York. William was drafted into the Navy as a pharmacist's mate (a designation later changed to hospital corpsman) until he was discharged in 1947. On reporting for duty, the induction officer asked his name. He replied, "Hitler". Thinking he was joking, the officer replied, "Glad to see you, Hitler. My name's Hess." It is claimed William was wounded in action during the war and awarded the Purple Heart.

Later life

After being discharged from the Navy, William changed his surname to "Stuart-Houston". In 1947, he married Phyllis Jean-Jacques, who had been born in Germany in the mid-1920s. After their relationship began, William and Phyllis, along with Bridget, tried to live a life of anonymity in the United States. They moved to Patchogue, New York, where William used his medical training to establish a business that analyzed blood samples for hospitals. His laboratory, which he called Brookhaven Laboratories, was located in his home, a two-story clapboard house at 71 Silver Street.

Stuart-Houston and his wife had four sons: Alexander Adolf (b. 1949), Louis (b. 1951), Howard Ronald (1957–1989), and Brian William (b. 1965). None of his sons have had children of their own. In his 2001 book ''The Last of the Hitlers'', journalist David Gardner speculated that the four brothers had made a verbal pact not to sire children. Eldest son Alexander denied this claim, stating that before his death Howard Ronald had been engaged and intending to have children, while another brother had been engaged once, but family notoriety had destroyed the relationship. As of 2013 Alexander worked as a social worker; the second oldest child Louis and the youngest child Brian William ran a landscaping business together. His third son, Howard Ronald Stuart-Houston, worked as a Special Agent with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and died in a car accident on 14 September 1989 while driving on Route 25, New York, near to Dietz Avenue, in a head-on collision, while en route to subpoena for a money laundering investigation.

William Patrick Stuart-Houston died in Patchogue on 14 July 1987. He was buried next to his mother's at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Coram, New York. His widow, Phyllis, died in 2004.

In the media

The family's story and Bridget's memoirs were first published by Michael Unger in the '' Liverpool Daily Post'' in 1973. Unger also edited Bridget Dowling's memoirs, which were first published as ''The Memoirs of Bridget Hitler'' in 1979; a completely updated version, titled ''The Hitlers of Liverpool'', was published in 2011.

See also

* Hitler family

References

* Brown, Jonathan and Oliver Duff
"The black sheep of the family? The rise and fall of Hitler's scouse nephew"
in ''The Independent'', 17 August 2006
* Gardner, David. ''The Last of the Hitlers'', BMM, 2001,
* Green, Jesse.
The Search for the Long Island Hitlers
'', ''The New York Times'', 9 April 2006
* Halmburger, Oliver, Timothy W. Ryback & Florian M. Beierl: ''Hitler's Family – In the Shadow of the Dictator'', Loopfilm / ZDF Enterprises, 2006.
*
* McCarthy, Tony
"Hitler: His Irish Relatives"
; ''Irish Roots Magazine''; no. 1, First Quarter 1992 (Retrieved: 10 March 2016)
* Royden, M.W
"Your Story: Adolf Hitler – did he visit Liverpool during 1912–13?"
, BBC Legacies; Liverpool, February 2004
* Toland, John. ''Adolf Hitler'',
* Vermeeren, Marc. "De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889–1907 en zijn familie en voorouders"; Soesterberg, 2007; Aspekt B.V. publishers; (in Dutch)

Notes

External links

Getting to know the Hitlers
from ''The Daily Telegraph''

Author talks about 'the Last of the Hitlers'
CNN interview.

The Diocese of Rockville Centre – Holy Sepulchre Cemetery
* Kilgannon, Corey

''The New York Times'', 24 April 2006

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stuart-Houston, William Patrick
1911 births
1987 deaths
American people of Austrian descent
American people of Irish descent
English emigrants to the United States
English people of Austrian descent
English people of Irish descent
Hitler family
Military personnel from Liverpool
Military personnel from New York City
People from Coram, New York
People from Patchogue, New York
People from Sunnyside, Queens
People from Toxteth
United States Navy personnel of World War II
United States Navy sailors