Journal reveals Hitler's dysfunctional family
(The Guardian)
Updated: 2005-08-05 05:58

"She goes up to the attic, covers Adolf who is lying on the floor, but cannot deflect the father's final blow. Without a sound she absorbs it."

Beierl said: "This is a picture of a completely dysfunctional family that the public has never seen before.

"The terror of the Third Reich was cultivated in Hitler's own home."

Beierl's research also led him to Russian interrogation papers, which exposed the fact that Paula Hitler was engaged to Erwin Jekelius, responsible for gassing 4,000 people during the war.

Beierl said: "Until this point, Paula Hitler had a clean slate. But the portrayal of her being a poor little creature has suddenly shifted.

"In my opinion, the fact that she was due to marry one of Austria's worst criminals means that she was also connected with death, horror and gas chambers."

And Ryback added: "To me, discovering that Paula was going to marry Jekelius is one of the most astonishing revelations of my career.

"She bought into the whole thing - hook, line and sinker."

Paula, who later lived under the pseudonym Wolf, did not marry Jekelius, as the wedding was forbidden by her brother.

Ryback said: "It was like a scene from Monty Python. Jekelius goes to Berlin to ask Hitler for his sister's hand; he is met by the Gestapo, shipped off to the Eastern front, and snapped up by the Russians."

'Starving artist' myth dispelled

Other eye-opening documents that shed light on the Hitler household include a family account book.

One entry mentions a loan of 900 Austrian crowns given to Hitler in the spring of 1908, enough for the teenager to live on for one year, and dispels the myth that he existed as a "starving artist" when in Vienna.

The historians were asked to carry out their extensive research almost six years ago for the German television station ZDF. Their findings, due to be broadcast in a 45-minute documentary in Germany next week, also include interviews with two of Hitler's relatives.

Ryback said: "This is the first time that these people have spoken publicly about living under the shadow of Hitler.

They do not romanticize their past. They are very humble and have suffered their whole lives under the curse of Adolf.

"It is an incredible closing of a loop: Hitler came from a family of poor farmers. After he rose and fell as a dictator, his family today is back where they started."

Hitler's relatives requested to remain anonymous in the documentary and their faces are digitally altered.

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