Klara was born in the Austrian village of Spital, Weitra, Lower Austria. Her father was Johann Baptist Pölzl and her mother was Johanna Hiedler. Either Hiedler's father, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, or his brother, Johann Georg Hiedler, was the biological father of Alois Hitler, the man she would later marry. It is presumed and accepted by most that the father was Johann Georg Hiedler. Klara and Alois were first cousins once removed.
In 1876, three years after Alois Hitler's first marriage to Anna Glasl-Hörer, Klara's uncle Alois had hired her as a household servant. She was 16 years old at the time. After the death of his second wife, Franziska Matzelsberger, in 1884, Alois and Klara were married on 7 January 1885 in a wedding held early in the morning at Hitler's rooms on the top floor of the Pommer Inn in Braunau. Alois then went to work for the day at his job as a customs official. Klara still called Alois "uncle" after the marriage. Their first son, Gustav, was born four months later, on 15 May 1885. Their second child, Ida, was born on 23 September 1886. Both infants died of diphtheria during the winter of 1886-1887. A third child, Otto, was born and died in 1887.
Adolf was born 20 April 1889, followed by Edmund on 24 March 1894 and Paula on 21 January 1896. Edmund died of measles on 28 February 1900, at the age of five.[3] Klara's adult life was spent keeping house and raising children. According to Smith, Alois had little understanding or interest in raising children.[4] Historian Alice Miller later wrote, "The family structure could well be characterized as the prototype of a totalitarian regime. Its sole, undisputed, often brutal ruler is the father. The wife and children are totally subservient to his will, his moods, and his whims; they must accept humiliation and injustice unquestioningly and gratefully. Obedience is their primary rule of conduct."[5]
Klara was a devout Roman Catholic. She worshipped at church regularly with her children.[6] Of her six children with Alois, only Adolf and Paula survived childhood.
Adolf Hitler had a close relationship with his mother. He was crushed by her death and carried the grief for the rest of his long life. Bloch later recalled that, after Klara's death, he had seen in "one young man never so much pain and suffering broken fulfilled". Decades later, in 1940, Hitler showed gratitude to Bloch (who was Jewish) by letting him and his wife to leave Austria and go to the United States.[9]
References
↑ 1.01.1"The Mind of Adolf Hitler",Walter C. Langer, New York 1972 p.116
↑Vermeeren, Mar, De jeugd van Adolf Hitler 1889-1907 en zijn familie en voorouders, Soesterberg, 2007, Uitgeverij Aspekt, ISBN978-90-5911-606-1 (Note: Source carried forward and only presumed reliable)
↑"[He] had a limited understanding of children and a minimum interest in their development" Smith, p.54
