In Love with Adolf Hitler

The ancestors and relatives of Adolf Hitler have long been of interest to historians and genealogists because of the biological uncertainty of Hitler's paternal grandfather, as well as the family's inter-relationships and their psychological effect on Hitler during his childhood and later life. Alois Schicklgruber (Adolf's father) changed his surname on 7 January 1877 to Hitler (derived from that of his deceased stepfather, Johann Georg Hiedler), which was the only form of the last name that his son Adolf used. Before Adolf Hitler's birth, his family used many variations of the family surname Hitler almost interchangeably. Some of the common variants were Hiedler, Hüttler, Hytler, and Hittler. Adolf Hitler's sister Paula, who died in 1960 and did not have children, was the last member of the family still bearing the Hitler surname on their tombstone. In 2025, it was reported that only five members of the Hitler family bloodline, all men who fathered no children, were still living. This figure does not include Hitler's maternal cousins, the Koppensteiners. Three of these descendants are sons of Adolf Hitler's nephew, William. William Hitler was not on good terms with Adolf Hitler, who referred to William as his "loathsome nephew". William was publicly critical of his uncle, fought with the United States Navy during World War II, and after WWII ended, changed his last name from Hitler to Stuart-Houston. None of William's sons, who all bear the last name Stuart-Houston, have had children of their own.