thecat
|
The myth surrounding Hitler's visit was not helped by the novel Young Adolf by Beryl Bainbridge. This was a work of fiction where Bainbridge took the idea of Adolf visiting Liverpool, as recounted in the memoir, and developing the idea further. Later it was made into a two part television drama, thus reaching an even wider audience. Although she made it clear at the time that it was a product largely of her own imagination, many observers, especially Liverpudlians, accept the visit as historical fact. Talking to the Washington Post in 1979 about non-fiction, Bainbridge said, "I haven't really got the education for that sort of thing. The bit of what I laughingly call research that I did on young Adolf I quite enjoyed. I felt rather educated rushing around looking in libraries... the part of them [the memoirs] that seems the most real is the part about Adolf coming to Liverpool. It's the most understated, whether it’s true or not. There's no proof that he came, but there's no proof that he didn't.†|
Gazpode55
|
There is a story that surfaces from time to time which meets with a flurry of activity between believers and disbelievers, which then disappears until enough time has lapsed for the story to gather credibility again and thus cause interest.
And it is this: Adolf Hitler lived in Liverpool before World War One with his half brother Alois. It conjures up many images - the young artist studying the architecture, improving his mind and learning the language, standing on the Kop. In fact, what has been published is even more ludicrous - idling away the time learning about his future with an astrological mystic neighbour, followed by a quick shufftie down to the docks to make a note of the shipping using the port for future reference should Germany ever go to war with, say, Britain for example.
So aside from the elaborations, is there any truth at all in this story?
Much of the interest has stemmed from the publication of a memoir in the 1970's written by Bridget Hitler, the wife of Alois. This was met with the inevitable reporting in England, especially in the Liverpool press. It also influenced local writer Beryl Bainbridge to produce Young Adolf, a fictionalised story about his visit to Liverpool as told in the Memoir. She followed this in 1981 with a drama commissioned by the BBC called The Journal of Bridget Hitler, and starring Maurice Roeves, Siobhan McKenna and Julian Glover. Dramatised with Philip Saville, it portrayed the 'pre-war visit' to half brother's Liverpool home as featured by his Irish sister-in-law in her memoir.
Since then, there have been many corruptions of the story, including a version by a local writer who also featured a fake photograph on his web site of a young Hitler standing in front of the William Brown Street Galleries and Library buildings, just to muddy the waters still further.
The story came to the fore again in 2002, when David Gardner, a former crime writer and senior foreign correspondent on the Daily Mail published a book entitled The Last of the Hitlers. Although it deals primarily with his story of how he traced the last remaining relatives of the Nazi Dictator, he discusses the Liverpool connection, and this was followed by a Channel 5 documentary which consequently reawakened interested in the story. Most recently in December 2003, the story was featured on Radio 4's Making History, where a further objective approach was taken to get to the truth of the matter.
So much for the background. The story itself begins in pre-war Liverpool when young Adolf, still hoping for a career as an artist came to stay at the house of his half brother and his wife in Upper Stanhope Street, in Toxteth, Liverpool. There he stayed for around six months before returning to the men's hostel in Vienna. As the only source for this is Bridget's own memoir, it has inevitably undergone thorough analysis.
The Toxteth Hitlers
According to an interview given to the Daily Express in the thirties, Bridget may have met Alois at a staff dance at the Royal Hibernian Hotel in Dublin (1). This contrasts with the version she gave in her memoirs where she states she met Alois for the first time at the Dublin Horse Show in 1909. There she said her father and neighbour began talking to a stranger. The young man cut a dashing figure in his smart suit and waxed, turned up handle bar moustache. He introduced himself as Alois Hitler from Austria, and with his 'fine foreign manners and his debonair Viennese ways'(2) he made a great impression on the teenage Bridget. "He fairly won my heart with his sugary talk and foreign ways", she declared(3).
They agreed to meet and a close friendship soon developed between them. However, Alois had already created suspicion in the family with his fancy talk about being in the 'hotel business' and being there on a fact finding trip covering France, Belgium, and the British Isles to study the trade. It wasn't long before they discovered he was actually a waiter at the Shelbourne Hotel, sent there by a London employment agency. Despite this, Bridget was 'head over heels in love' and they began to see more of each other.
The Dowlings clearly did not approve of the relationship, especially once they became aware of his true station. Having decided to marry, the couple then eloped to London where they were married at Marylebone Registry Office on 3 June 1910. William Dowling, Bridget's father and a farm labourer from Kilnamanagh, was so incensed he even wanted the police to arrest Alois for kidnapping.
"My father - rest his soul - was a real Irishman", said Bridget. "He would not hear tell of a wedding to a foreigner. Alois and I used to meet every afternoon in the museum and make plans to elope. Four months later when Alois had saved enough money we went to England on the night boat and came to London. I wrote to my mother and said I would not return until we got permission to marry. She talked my father around and he gave his consent".
Bridget was reunited with her father the following year when she presented him with a new grandson. By now the Hitlers had relocated to 102 Upper Stanhope Street in Toxteth, Liverpool, where their baby was born on 12 March 1911. He was christened William Patrick.
Alois found it difficult to settle in Liverpool and changed his source of income four times in their first two years of married life. He ran a restaurant on Dale Street, a boarding house on Upper Parliament Street, and then a hotel in Mount Pleasant. When he became a salesman for a disposable razor firm, he began to have grand ideas about developing his own business in the same field. This, he hoped, would involve his sister Angela and brother-in-law Leo Raubal back in Austria. He then sent them money to cover their travelling expenses in the hope they would come to Liverpool for a visit where he could discuss his ideas further. According to Bridget, "...we were looking forward with pleasure to their visit. When we went to Lime Street Station to meet them I eagerly scanned the couples descending from the 11.30 train, wondering if I would recognise our relatives. Instead of Angela and Leo Raubal, however, a shabby young man approached and offered Alois his hand. It was my husband's younger brother, Adolf, who came in their place"(5).
A row then broke out between the brothers and Bridget left them to it. When they returned to the flat later that evening the tension was gone, and once Adolf had retired to bed Bridget berated her husband for the way he had treated him. What then followed was a diatribe against Adolf and how Alois portrayed himself as the classic mistreated step-child, while all favouritism went to the true off spring of the mother. He described to his young wife his unhappy childhood and the way he was constantly beaten by his father, especially when he came home the worse for wear after yet another night at the local tavern.
Despite his uncomfortable memories, Alois was not going to turn his half-brother away and this was to be the beginning of a stay that would keep Adolf in Upper Stanhope Street for almost 6 months, from November 1912 until April 1913. |
Travel
Forum 
United Kingdom 
No Spam
Adult 
Gambling
Unfinished
Deception
Plagiarism
Not English
