William Stuart-Houston

William Patrick Hitler (later Stuart-Houston) (March 12, 1911 – July 1987), nicknamed Willy, was the nephew of Adolf Hitler and his life, and claim to fame, has become interwoven with that of his uncle. First when he is rumored to have visited his family in Liverpool, then with William's move to Germany and subsequent escape to America. His story has sparked quite a lot of interest resulting in him being featured in factual TV shows as well as fiction.

Biography

He was the only son of Alois Hitler, Jr., Adolf's half-brother, and Alois' Irish-born wife. Alois had moved to Dublin, met an Irish woman named Bridget Dowling, and eloped to Liverpool where William Patrick was born in 1911. Hitler's nephew is recalled by elderly former neighbours, and in Liverpool folklore variously as 'Billy' Hitler or 'Paddy' Hitler. The family lived in a flat at 102 Upper Stanhope Street. Ironically, the house was destroyed in the last German air-raid on Liverpool on January 10,1942, and has remained a bomb site ever since.

Alois soon abandoned the family to return to Germany leaving William Patrick to be raised by his mother.

Alois remarried, bigamously, but re-established contact in the mid-1920s writing to Bridget asking her to send William Patrick to Weimar Republic Germany to visit. She finally agreed in 1929 and William Patrick went to Germany at the age of 18 to visit his estranged father. (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 rumours that he might sell embarrassing stories about the family to the press if he wasn't satisfied; among which would have been his father's bigamous marriage.

In 1938, William Patrick was asked by his uncle Adolf to relinquish his British citizenship in exchange for a high ranking job. Fearing a trap, William Patrick panicked and fled Germany. Returning to London he wrote an article for Look magazine titled "Why I hate my uncle".

In 1939, William Patrick 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 Patrick 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 married, moved to Patchogue, Long Island and had four sons. He used his medical training to establish a business analysing blood samples for hospitals.

He worked for the Ft. Detrick Biological Weapon Research Labs under the name of William C. Patrick III between 1951 and 1969 after attending medical school, and helped develope the Anthrax used in 2001 terrorists attacks.

In about 2001 or 2002, he help broadcast the fear of Anthrax and other WMD's in a special NOVA Program about his work for BW Research, using the shortened version of his name.

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 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, 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 .

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.

William Patrick Hitler in the media

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

• In 1989, a comic based around Hitler's visit to Liverpool was published. The New Adventures of Hitler by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell sparked a lot of controversy in the early ninties 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.

See also

• Hitler in popular culture

References

David Gardner, The Last of the Hitlers, BMM, 2001, ISBN 0-9541544-0-1

John Toland, Adolf Hitler, ISBN 0-385-42053-6

External links

• Getting to know the Hitlers from the Daily Telegraph.
• Author talks about 'the Last of the Hitlers' CNN interview.
• The Last of the Hitlers by David Gardner.
• Last Of The Hitlers on The History Channel
• "The Hitler family tree", (2002) by Hal Bastin, accessed April 15, 2006