On April 20, 1889, Adolf Hitler entered this world streaked in maternal blood. Fifty-six years later -- after a 12-year reign of terror -- he ended his life stained with yet more blood, that of the millions of people sent to their graves by his demented policies. Except for a strange twist of fate, the whole tragic rise to power may never have happened in the first place...
Heil Schicklgruber!
What’s in a name? Plenty in this case.
by W.O. Marion
Adolf Hitler’s terrible rise to power might never have happened and millions of lives would, perhaps, never have been lost, if it hadn’t been for a simple twist of fate that happened years before he was even born. For his first 39 years, Hitler’s father was known as Alois Schicklgruber. The name had been given to him by his mother, Anna Schicklgruber, who gave birth to Alois five years before she married the boy’s father, Johann Georg Heidler. Heidler was a wandering miller, which might explain why Anna had so much difficulty getting him to tie the knot after the birth of their son.
In those days, it was customary for a man who married a woman with young children to give them his last name, but for reasons unknown, Johann chose not to do so with Alois, who remained Alois Schicklgruber even after the marriage. When Anna died of tuberculosis in 1847, just four years into the marriage, Johann, reverting to his wandering ways, left the young boy in the care of his brother – the boy’s uncle – and promptly vanished.
Fast forward to 1876. Alois Schicklgruber, now nearly 40, stood to gain an inheritance from his recently deceased uncle-guardian, but only if his legitimacy could be proven. This required that he track down his prodigal father, Herr Hiedler, now 84. Absent for all these 30 years, not once returning to see his son, he was, nevertheless, the subject of a successful search. Oddly enough, he resurfaced with a new spelling of his name: Hitler.
Presented with the issue at hand, he agreed to sign an official document stating that Alois Schicklgruber was, indeed, his son. The parish priest then proceeded to officially cross out Alois Schicklgruber in the baptismal registry and to write Alois Hitler in its place. By doing so, he ensured that when Alois’ son, Adolf, was born 13 years later, he would be a Hitler, not a Shicklgruber.
This leads one to wonder that if the tables had been turned, and he had been forced to change his name from Alois Hitler to Alois Schicklgruber, would he have bothered to seek out his share of the inheritance? In any case, it’s now not at all unreasonable to assume that if this name change had not come about, and if Adolf Hitler had been born Adolf Schicklgruber, he would never have had the charisma necessary to mesmerize all of Germany and attain the rank of Fuehrer, the unchallenged and absolute leader of a nation of 62 million people.
By the time Hitler had reached his peak of power, the German populace even answered the telephone with a “Heil Hitler!” so brainwashed and bewitched were they. Would “Heil Schicklgruber!” have become as ubiquitous? Somehow, it doesn’t seem possible. After all, how could anyone have uttered "Heil Schicklgruber!" with a straight face?
Still, it’s fascinating to think that Nazi