An unearthed article written by Hitler’s nephew describes the Nazi dictator’s horrifying habits, from his feminine gestures and appetite for whipped cream, to his whip-cracking regime of oppression and intimidation.
William Patrick Hitler was the nephew of Adolf Hitler. He spent summers at his uncle’s mountain residence in Berchtesgaden, witnessing first hand what drove the dictator.
William wrote an article shedding light on Hitler’s violent nature and his love of entertaining ‘beautiful women’ and predisposition to suicidal tendencies – titled Why I Hate My Uncle – for Look magazine.
A segment of the now unearthed article describes William’s first visit to Berchtesgaden, reading:
I drove there with friends and was shown into the garden. Hitler was entertaining some very beautiful women at tea.
When he saw us he strode up, slashing a whip as he walked and taking the tops off the flowers.
He took that occasion to warn me to never again mention that I was his nephew. Then he returned to his guests still viciously cracking his whip. We had cakes and whipped cream, Hitler’s favorite desert.
I was struck by his intensity, his feminine gestures. There was dandruff on his coat.
William was born in March 1911 in Liverpool to Hitler’s half-brother Alois Hitler and his wife, Irish-born Brigid Dowling. He was brought up in England but looked for work in Germany upon the rise of the Brown Shirts, when it became increasingly difficult to leave peacefully in Britain with the most notorious surname in modern history.
William was accused of blackmailing his uncle, demanding a better job, and it is thought he had threatened to tell the press that Hitler’s alleged paternal grandfather was a Jewish merchant.
According to the family, William was eventually forced to flee Germany when he refused to take German citizenship, failing to comply with his uncle’s orders.
Upon his exile, William began writing about Hitler and his personal life – including a chilling account of incest.
He wrote:
When I visited Berlin in 1931, the family was in trouble. Geli Raubal, the daughter of Hitler’s and my father’s sister, had committed suicide. Everyone knew that Hitler and she had long been intimate and that she had been expecting a child – a fact that enraged Hitler. His revolver was found by her body.
William recalled Hitler’s reactions to his writing, saying:
I published some articles on my uncle when I returned to England and was forthwith summoned back to Berlin and taken with my father and aunt to Hitler’s hotel. He was furious. Pacing up and down, wild-eyed and tearful, he made me promise to retract my articles and threatened to kill himself if anything else were written on his private life.
According to William the last time he ever saw his uncle, Hitler was in a “brutal temper” and “brandishing his horsehide whip, he shouted insults at my head as if he were delivering a political oration.”
William went on to become a US citizen and fight for his adopted country with the American navy in the Pacific, according to the Mail On Sunday. Discharged with a shrapnel wound, the young man moved to Queens and changed his name in 1946.
He married and had three children, before dying in 1987. His writings are now on sale through a Canadian dealer a dealer, AbeBooks for £730.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.