"Deep Are the Roots": Adolf Hitler's parents both came from the Waldviertel, a remote rural area of Austria, not far the Czechoslovakin boarder. His father was born on June 7, 1837, in the village of Strones to an unmarried woman, Maria Anna Schicklgruber. Strones was too small to parish and so the baby was registered in nearby Dolersheim as Aloys Shickgruber, "Illegitimate." The space for the father's name was blank, generating a mystery that remains unsolved, but he was probably a man from the neighborhood. However, he might have been a wealth Jew named Frankenberger or Frankenreither, the son of the family for whom Maria Anna had worked as a house keeper. The Jewish family paid her support money for some years, and later became a family scandal. (Hitler, 1978, p. 1).
When Alois was five, Maria married Johann Georg Hiedler. Unfortunately, Maria died five years later ad the stepfather wandered off leaving Alois to be brought up by Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. At age thirteen, Alois ran away from home. He became a full inspector for customs, and the man that raised him was so proud he convinced Alois to have his name changed legally from Schicklgruber to Hiedler. On June 6, 1876, Johann Nepomuck Hiedler and three other relatives made a short trip to the town of Weitra where they falsely testified before the local notary that Hielder's brother had fathered an illegitimate son, Alois, and wanted him made his legitimate son and heir. They spelled his name "Hitler". (Hitler, 1978, p.1).
Alois Hitler was a strict father. His eldest son, Alois Jr., ran away from home. Adolf, according to his sister Paula, also "got his sound beating every day," and one night tried to leave home by escaping from the upstairs window. His father caught him as he was wriggling through the narrow opening, but instead of beating, he chose a punishment Hitler found even harder to bear, ridicule.
