ADOLF HITLER’S “LOATHSOME NEPHEW” SERVED
IN U.S. NAVY DURING WORLD WAR II
William Patrick Hitler was the nephew of Adolf Hitler and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He was born to Alosis Hitler Jr., the brother of Adolf Hitler, and Irish-born Bridget Dowling. Alosis was living in England in 1909 when he married and they moved to Liverpool where William was born on March 12, 1911. In 1914 Alosis reportedly left his wife and their son to return to Germany where he was unable to reconnect with them due to the outbreak of World War I. Alosis abandoned the family and remarried bigamously but in the mid-1920s he wrote to Bridget asking her to send William to Germany for a visit. She finally agreed in 1929 when William was 18. William returned to England after visiting his father but returned to Germany in 1933 in order to benefit from the rise of his uncle, Adolf Hitler, to power. His uncle obtained a job for William at the Reich Credit Bank in Berlin, then William worked at an Opel automobile factory and later as a car salesman. Dissatisfied with these jobs, William persisted in asking his uncle for a better job. In 1938, Adolf asked William to relinquish his British citizenship in exchange for a high-ranking job but fearing he would be trapped in Germany in the coming conflict, William fled back to England. By this time Adolf Hitler began calling William, “My loathsome nephew” and publicly stated, “I didn’t become Chancellor for the benefit of my family…No one is going to climb on my back.”
After William left Germany, in January 1939 he visited the United States with his mother on a lecture tour at the invitation of publisher William Randolph Hearst. William went on a nationwide lecture tour titled “My Uncle Adolf” where he told stories about Hitler and the Nazis to audiences. When World War II broke out, William was still in the United States and he tried to join the British forces but was denied. When the U.S. later entered the war William send a letter dated March 3, 1942, to President Roosevelt appealing to be allowed to join the U.S. forces and stating why he felt he was not allowed to serve in the British forces. The letter read in part:
"All my relatives and friends soon will be marching for freedom and decency under the Stars and Stripes … I am respectfully submitting this petition to you to enquire as to whether I may be allowed to join them in their struggle against tyranny and oppression?"…As a fugitive from the Gestapo I warned France through the press that Hitler would invade her that year. The people of England I warned by the same means that the so-called ‘solution’ of Munich was a myth that would bring terrible consequences….The British are an insular people and while they are kind and courteous, it is my impression, rightly or wrongly, that they could not in the long term feel overly cordial or sympathetic towards an individual bearing the name I do.”
President Roosevelt turned the matter over to the FBI who eventually decided to allow William to join the U.S. Navy, despite being a British citizen and the nephew of Adolf Hitler. Thus, William joined the Navy on March 6, 1944, became a Pharmacist’s Mate and was discharged in 1947 after three years of service. Records report that he served in the Pacific Theater and was awarded the Purple Heart for a shrapnel wound.
As much as William Patrick Hitler sought to parlay his family tree into opportunities in his young years, he did his utmost to disappear into anonymity after World War II as upon returning to civilian life he became a U.S. citizen and changed his name to William Patrick Stuart-Houston. He married German-born Phyllis Jean-Jacques and the couple settled in Patchoque on New York’s Long Island where they had four children. Because of his medical training William established a successful business that analyzed blood samples for hospitals. His laboratory, called Brookhaven Laboratories, was located in his home in Patchoque. William Patrick Stuart-Houston died on July 14, 1987, and was buried next to his late mother at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Coram, New York.
An interesting sidelight to William’s history is that he had a half-brother, Heinrich Heinz Hitler, born on March 14, 1920, in Germany to their father Alosis Hitler Jr. Unlike William, Heinrich became a strong Nazi and his uncle’s favorite. Heinrich attended an elite Nazi military academy and in 1941 joined the Wehrmacht as a signals NCO with the 23rd Potsdamer Artillery Regiment. He participated ln Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and on January 10, 1942, was captured by Soviet troops. He was sent to a Russian prison camp where he was reportedly tortured to death.
S1C William Patrick Hitler receiving Navy
discharge papers in Boston, MA
Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)
