Maria Schicklgruber

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Maria Anna Schicklgruber (15 April 1795 – 7 January 1847) was Adolf Hitler's paternal grandmother.

Born in the tiny village of Strones in the Waldviertel, a hilly forested area in northwest Lower Austria just north of Vienna, she was the daughter of Theresia Pfeisinger (? - 11 November 1821), and farmer Johannes Schicklgruber (29 May 1764 - 12 November 1847). Like most people throughout the region during that period, Maria was Catholic, and what little historians know about her is based on church and other public records.

She was one of eleven children, but only six of her brothers and sisters survived infancy. Her early life was that of a poor peasant child in a rural German-speaking backwater. The area she lived in is known as the Waldviertel, a hilly, forested area, picturesque but poor, in the northwest part of Lower Austria, northeast of Vienna.

Maria's mother died in 1821 when Maria was 26. She received an inheritance of 74.25 gulden and left this money invested in the Orphans' Fund until 1838, by which time it had more than doubled to 165 gulden (at that time, a breeding pig cost four gulden, a cow could be purchased for ten to twelve gulden, and an entire inn could be purchased for around 500 gulden). Werner Maser (1973)¹ wrote that she was a "thrifty, reserved, and exceptionally shrewd peasantwoman."

Other than saving her inheritance, which indicates she was not destitute during that period of her life, nothing is known about her until she was over forty. Historian Bradley F. Smith of the Hoover Institution speculates that Maria may have moved to a city and taken a job as a housekeeper, or stayed in her home village of Strones and found casual employment. However, history has no record of her life until she did something that was documented: she had a child.

In 1837 she was 42 years old, and still single, when her first and only child was born. She named the boy Aloys. Maser notes that she refused to reveal who the child's father was, so the priest baptized him Aloys Schicklgruber, and entered "illegitimate" in place of the father's name on the baptismal register. At the time, she was living with a Strones village family by the name of Trummelschlager. Herr and Frau Trummelschlager were listed as godparents to Aloys.

Maria soon took up residence with her father at house #22 in Strones. After an unknown period, the three Schicklgrubers were joined by Johann Georg Hiedler, an itinerant journeyman miller. On 10 May 1842, five years after Aloys was born, Maria Anna Schicklgruber married Johann Georg Hiedler in the nearby village of Döllersheim. Maria was 47, her new husband was 50.

Maser suggests that if Hiedler had been the biological father of Maria's son Aloys the couple would have acknowledged it when they married. There was a church procedure for such things, but Aloys remained officially born out of wedlock during their lifetimes. There is no evidence that Maria knew who Aloys' father was. Maser asserts Johann Georg Hiedler was not Aloys' biological father (and hence not Adolf Hitler's grandfather) as Aloys later claimed, but there is no proof either way. The question became important when Hitler began to seek power, and one of Nazism's principles was that to be considered a German one had to have a documented ancestry (see Alois Hitler).

Some time after Maria was married (but no more than five years later) Aloys was sent to live with Johann Georg's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, who had a modest but prosperous farm in the village of Spital. Maria and Johann Georg then moved to Klein-Motten. The reason why Aloys was sent away is not known. There is some speculation that Johann Nepomuk may have been Aloys' biological father.

Maria died during the sixth year of her marriage, at the age of 52, in Klein-Motten, where she was living with her husband in the home of kin, the Sillip family. The Döllersheim parish record states Maria died of "consumption resulting from pectoral (thoracic) dropsy" in 1847.

[edit] Burial

She was buried at the parish church in Döllersheim.

After the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938, a search failed to find her grave so she was given an "Honor Grave" next to the church wall. This grave was tended by local Hitler Youth groups. In 1942, this area became part of a military training area and the local inhabitants were moved out. Military training continued under the Soviets after 1945, and also under the Austrian Army until about 1985, by which time most of the towns and villages were in ruins. The church at Döllersheim is now preserved and undergoing reconstruction. The cemetery is being tended, but there is no grave marker there now for Maria Schicklgruber.

[edit] Footnotes

¹See list of references. (The Waldviertel region lies northwest of Vienna, not northeast.)

[edit] References

Bullock, Alan Hitler: A Study in Tyranny 1953 ISBN 0-06-092020-3
Fest, Joachim C. Hitler Verlag Ullstein, 1973 ISBN 0-15-141650-8
Kershaw, Ian Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris W W Norton, 1999 ISBN 0-393-04671-0
Maser, Werner Hitler: Legend, Myth and Reality Penguin Books Ltd 1973 ISBN 0-06-012831-3
Smith, Bradley F. Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth Hoover Institution, 1967 ISBN 978-0817916220