The Hitlers that Stalin Caught

[Music] the soviets never managed to capture adolf hitler alive when red army forces made it to the infamous fura bunker buried beneath the reich chancery garden in shattered berlin the 2nd of may 1945 it was almost empty except for the bunker's faithful master mechanic which remained at his post after the remaining members of hitler's inner circle staff and guard detail had staged a breakout the night before after some of hitler's senior adjutants and staff were captured by the soviets they were forced to help smirsh the special unit of the soviet military intelligence locate the remains of hitler and his wife ava apparently partially cremated and buried in a shell hole near the bunker's emergency exit on the 30th of april 1945. but interestingly two of hitler's nephews had already been guests of the soviets in moscow the closest relations of the fuhrer that stalin managed to apprehend alive both men were combat soldiers and their stories illustrate how being one of hitler's relations was a very dangerous situation both men being pawns in a higher diplomatic game played out between hitler and stalin at the height of the campaign on the eastern front heinrich hitler known as heinz had been born on adolf hitler's 31st birthday the 20th of april 1920. at the time hitler had only been discharged from the german army on the 31st of march after service at the front in world war 1 and working as an intelligence agent for the army in munich one of his duties had been to keep tabs on a tiny new political party that had sprung up in the beer halls of munich the german workers party hitler had joined the dap becoming its 55th member so when heinz hitler was born adolf was a nobody heinz's father was hitler's half-brother alois hitler jr hitler's father alois senior had a complex love life an austro-hungarian customs officer alloy senior had first married at the age of 36 to emma glasohura the daughter of a wealthy customs official who was 14 years his senior alois himself was illegitimate a considerable shame in the 19th century born alois shikogruba he had later adopted his stepfather's surname hitler alois's first wife was ill and he soon began an affair with a 19 year old servant girl named franziska matselsberger resulting in the birth of alois jr in 1882 his first wife anna died soon afterwards leaving aloy senior to marry his mistress legitimizing his son who became alois hitler his new wife also gave birth to a daughter angela hitler but the wife became ill and just three years into the marriage alois hitler senior started another affair this time with servant clara poetzel the 16 year old granddaughter of his own step-uncle complicated business alois hitler's wife julie died in 1884 aged 23 and alois soon made clara pregnant due to being relations special permission was requested from the church for alois and clara to marry and a special dispensation was indeed granted and they did so in january 1885. five months later a baby gustaf hitler was born and then in september 1886 a girl ida but both children died of diphtheria during the winter of 1887 to eight then on the 20th of april 1889 clara gave birth to adolf hitler alois hitler senior was now 51 years old however more children followed otto hitler in june 1892 he died after six days edmund hitler in march 1894 and paola hitler in january 1896. aloy's seniors children by his previous marriage alois jr and angela also lived with the family alois jr had a very bad relationship with his violent opinionated and elderly father and stormed out of the family house age 14. he moved to dublin in ireland working as a waiter the shelbourne hotel before serving two terms in prison for theft in the meantime edmund hitler had died of measles and in 1905 alois senior also died this time of a heart attack leaving clara to survive on a widow's pension the same year angela hitler adolf's half-sister had married leo rouble a tax inspector they had a son in 1906 confusingly also named leo hitler's two nephews heinz hitler and leo rouble jr both had interesting relationships with the future fuhrer leo raubal was the eldest and did well at school eventually becoming a white-collar worker in the steel industry in lintz as a teenager and young man he often visited hitler's huge house the berkoff located on the obersalzberg above the town of bectus garden in southern bavaria where his mother angela was employed for a while as housekeeper hitler described leo as his favorite nephew though leo apparently had no interest in politics the other nephew heinz hitler had not been born in ireland where his father had already married an irish woman and had had a son william patrick hitler in 1911. the boy being born in liverpool england his father had returned to germany and married hedwig heidemann in the process committing bigamy until this was sorted out in the courts heinz had been born in magdeburg and due to his age and background he was fully immersed in national socialism since his uncle had become leader of germany when heinz was 13. heinz hitler attended an elite national socialist political institute of education in ballenstedt while his older half-cousin leo raubel was already working one incident in leo's life was the alleged suicide of his sister gayley raubel in september 1931 when she had been in some form of intimate relationship with a half-uncle adolf hitler and shot herself in his munich apartment after a terrible row but it appears that leo did not hold hitler responsible and he repeated this several times after the war leo raubal was the manager of the lin's steel works in austria when war broke out in october 1939 he was called up for military service and joined the luftwaffe commissioned as a lightning or second lieutenant in the engineering branch he would fight in the soviet union attached to the sixth army heinz hitler was determined to join the army and become an officer and in 1941 he joined the 23rd potsdamer artillery regiment as a private reaching the rank of unter ovitzia or corporal a signals non-commissioned officer he was awarded the iron cross second class during the german invasion of the soviet union operation barbarossa in june 1941. during the invasion an interesting and somewhat unexpected event had occurred stalin's eldest son jakov jugashvili serving as a lieutenant in the 14th howitzer regiment 14th tank division was captured on the 16th of july 1941 during the battle of smolensk although the circumstances are not clear the story goes that his battery was ordered to withdraw probably bearing in mind stalin's order that no red army soldiers should surrender yakov stated i am the son of stalin and i do not permit the battery to retreat he was evidently intending to fight to the death however he and his men were taken prisoner and he was allegedly given up to the germans by disgruntled members of his own battery for refusing to pull back leading to their capture when stalin discovered what had happened the germans releasing the news on the 19th of july he was angry that yakov had not committed suicide and satisfied himself with having yakov's jewish wife arrested and thrown into prison under interrogation by the ubfair german military intelligence yakov was openly critical of his division and the red army and in particular its leadership he was also openly anti-semitic which was strange considering his wife was jewish the germans hoped to use yakov as a propaganda tool and he was moved to a guarded villa in berlin so that dr joseph goebbels propaganda minister could hopefully persuade him to make anti-soviet radio broadcasts this never happened and yakov was instead moved to zachsenhausen concentration camp and placed in a special block for important prisoners in the meantime heinz hitler also fell into enemy hands on the 10th of january 1942 he was ordered for to collect some radio equipment left near soviet lines and was grabbed by a red army patrol the 21 year old corporal was identified and handed over to the nkvd and taken to moscow for interrogation he died in the berturka prison on the 21st of february 1942 after being extensively tortured hitler was furious when he found out as he had not wanted heinz to serve in the front lines precisely because of the risk of capture however hitler's woes were not over yet as another nephew leo rouble was also headed for combat on the eastern front the luftwaffe engineering officer by now an oberlotnunt was wounded during the siege of stalingrad knowing of his family connection to the fuhrer the german commander of the sixth army field marshal friedrich paulus sent a message to hitler's headquarters the wolf's lair and asked for transport to airlift leo out of the cauldron hitler refused the request stating that as an officer leo should remain with his men leo was duly captured on the 31st of january 1943 however hitler knew that he had an ace up his sleeve for he held stalin's son hitler julie ordered that the soviets be contacted and stalin's son yakov offered in exchange for hitler's nephew leo but stalin refused such a deal or a deal put forward to exchange yakov for field martial paulus the highest ranking german officer to have surrendered so far stalin flatly refused he said just think how many sons ended up in camps who would swap them for paulus were they worse than yakov yakov died at saxonhausen on the 14th of april 1943 under very mysterious circumstances some say he killed himself by running into the electrified perimeter fence others that the ss shot him he certainly had several arguments with british prisoners held on the block and may have died attempting to flee from them following a confrontation we may never know the truth leo raubal remained in soviet captivity until 1955 a decade after his uncle's death he lived in lince austria and worked as a chemistry teacher his son peter is still alive today and is a retired engineer in lintz you may recall that heinz hitler's father alois hitler jr had been married in ireland at the turn of the century before marrying heinzer's mother in germany he later worked in liverpool england where his son william patrick was born heinz's half-brother william patrick hitler spent time in berlin before the war trying to cash in on his famous surname he was despised by hitler who called him my loathsome nephew but hitler did try to find him a good job he asked him to give up his british citizenship but william feared some kind of trap and fled to london attempting to blackmail his uncle in january 1939 newspaper tycoon william randolph hearst brought william and his mother to new york city for a lecture tour about hitler i believe that hitler's policy in europe will not bring any benefit to the human race at all i hope that the american people in this country will not uh be kidded by my moustache because after all my heart is in the right place that's the main thing and when the us entered the war in december 1941 william hitler was permitted by president roosevelt to join the u.s navy serving as a pharmacist mate until 1947 and earning a purple heart for being wounded in action after leaving the navy william hitler changed his surname to stuart houston a direct reference to one of his uncle's great influences english philosopher houston stuart chamberlain which seems a rather odd thing to do he married a german american and with his mother in tow established a laboratory that analyzed blood samples for hospitals near his home in pachogue long island he had four sons one of whom he gave the middle name adolf three of whom are still alive today william hitler died in 1987 in pachogue and is buried next to his mother in koram new york his widow passed away in 2004. none of william hitler's sons have had any children of their own the three surviving sons and leo rouble son peter are today the closest living relatives their great uncle adolf hitler thanks for watching please subscribe and share you can also visit my new audiobook channel war stories with mark felton details below you can also help support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details again in the description box you

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 2,636,031

Rating: 4.9174428 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, Hitler family, Stalingrad

Id: osqiYaiSxOo

Length: 14min 59sec (899 seconds)

Published: Sun May 03 2020