The Hitler pact - A cursed Bloodline

A cemetery on Long Island in the state of New York. There is a grave here, like many others around it, with nothing unusual or distinctive, yet it holds the key to one of the Second World War's biggest mysteries. In capital letters, the gravestone bears a name that has masked the truth for historians, Stuart Houston.

Rest in peace, Brigid Elisabeth and William Patrick. The family name carved in stone should be Hitler. Brigid Hitler, the wife of Alois Hitler, Adolf Hitler's brother, an unwanted legacy passed down to her son.

In his later years, he attempted to escape from his own patronymic because of his uncle Adolf Hitler, who died in a bunker in Berlin in 1945 and whose memory continues to haunt the nightmares of millions worldwide. William Patrick managed to conceal his secret but could never avoid the reality of being part of the Hitler dynasty. Is William Patrick Houston the last of the Hitlers?

In order to find out, I shall have to delve into the past of the most hated man in history. The story of William Patrick Hitler begins in Liverpool, where he was born on March 12th, 1911, the son of Brigid and Alois Hitler, Adolf Hitler's elder brother. The history of the British branch of the Hitlers resides in this birth certificate and in a few lines written by a civil service registrar.

It's testimony to Alois Hitler's life in the UK. The Hitlers were a complex family with multiple marriages and remarriages. Alois and his sister Angela were the eldest, half brother and sister to Adolf and Paula.

They all shared the same father, Alois Senior, but did not have the same mother. Alois and Angela's mother was Franziska. Adolf and Paula were born to Klara, Alois Senior's last wife.

They were brought up together over several years. Alois Senior was a customs official. He was authoritarian and violent toward his children.

He died in 1903, and Klara died in 1907. After moving to the UK and marrying an Irish woman, Brigid Dowling, Alois settled in Liverpool, then one of England's biggest industrial centers, with the world's largest port and a haven for immigrants from around Europe. Alois built up contacts in the German community, and the future William Patrick's father attempted to make money by running a small restaurant in Dale Street, a boarding house in Parliament Street, and a hotel at Mount Pleasant, all of which failed.

He was too eccentric to succeed in business. Alois Hitler and his wife lived in Toxteth, a working-class suburb of Liverpool. They lived here at 102 Upper Stanhope Street.

In 1913, Alois set up another project in which he had high hopes, creating a safety razor company and commercializing its products across Europe. He explained his adventurous plans to Brigid. At the end of 1913, Alois left Liverpool and went to Germany.

A few months later, in the summer of 1914, World War I broke out. Alois disappeared without leaving an address. Florian Beierl is a historian specializing in the Hitlers.

For years, he's been tracking down clues and evidence relating to the family history. We don't know what he did during the First World War. We do know that he was in Berlin at that time, but there is no strict record of what Alois Hitler was doing in that period of time.

Apparently, Alois had no contact with his family, notably his brother Adolf, about whom we do have historical details. When the war was declared, Adolf left Austria and was seen in Germany in this crowd photo taken in Munich city center in Bavaria. He was a simple army private, but after barely escaping death, he was promoted to corporal and became a dispatch runner.

At the end of the war in 1918, he stayed in the army, in the political chaos of post-war Germany. Embittered by the country's failure, he joined the German Workers' Party. In 1920, he helped transform the party into the National Socialist German Workers' Party, and became its leader in 1921.

Hitler himself chose the swastika as the party's emblem and created a paramilitary group, the SA Storm Troopers. Meanwhile, back in Liverpool, alone and with no news of her husband, Brigid was trying to cope. She joined a dance troupe.

William Patrick was growing up. He attended primary school in Toxteth, an English schoolboy like any other. In 1919, Brigid finally received news from her friend.

Alois had died during the war. In reality, Alois Hitler met another woman in Germany, Hedwig Heidemann, and they were married in 1916. Alois and Hedwig had a child in 1923, a boy named Heinz.

Alois was a father for the second time. His English son, William Patrick, was already 13 years old. Alois' ruse was discovered by the German authorities, and as a bigamist, he risked prison.

British historian Mike Unger has closely studied the relations between Alois and Brigid. He did ask Brigid. He wrote to Brigid, asking her to divorce him.

She said no. He wrote to her again and asked if she would give him a letter of credibility, saying that if she didn't, he'd go to jail. She felt sorry for him and didn't want him to go to jail, so she wrote this letter.

As Alois faced judicial problems in Germany, his brother Adolf launched a coup d'etat in Munich in November 1923. There were 16 casualties. Hitler was wounded by the police and arrested two days later.

The party was banned, and he was accused of high treason. His trial was held in Munich in early 1924, and he was sentenced to five years in prison. Adolf Hitler was incarcerated at Landsberg Prison but stayed there for barely nine months.

It was here that he dictated to his secretary Rudolf Hess the first draft of Mein Kampf. In just a few months, Hitler became a household name in Germany. Brigid and William Patrick moved to London, renting a small house in Highgate, a northern suburb.

She soon found work as a teacher at a dance school. William Patrick began an apprenticeship as an accountant in a company in central London. It was here that the first public photo of William Patrick appeared.

The only known photo from the period. In Germany, the economic crisis of 1929 caused chaos. Nazi Party meetings attracted ever larger audiences.

Hitler chose Nuremberg for the party congress, and it wasn't by chance. The medieval city was the perfect setting to exalt Germany's past glory and embody the project for the Nazi Reich to come. Frank McDonough is a historian specializing in the Hitler family.

Hitler stages these grand Nuremberg rallies, where he appears in front of 100,000 people. People who were at these rallies have left behind memoirs of how they felt. They say it looked as though it was some kind of religious experience.

The second Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg in August 1929 was the scene of the first Hitler reunion since the family separated in the early days of the century. Alois and his family were invited by his brother to take part in the Nazi's first great rally. Alois invited his son, William Patrick, to attend.

He was 18 years old, and it was the first time he'd seen his father since 1913. I found a letter from William Patrick to his mother recounting his experience in Nuremberg. "I'd heard a great deal about Nuremberg," "and I was looking forward to seeing the city" "almost as much as Uncle Adolf.

" "In fact, all I saw were flags. " "They were everywhere, and they hid everything. " "I heard Uncle Adolf make a speech.

" "There must have been 30,000 men there, all in uniform. " "Father went to talk to Adolf," "and I hoped to get the chance to talk to him too. " "When he returned, father said it was impossible," "as Uncle Adolf didn't want to mix family and business.

" I think when William Patrick Hitler goes to visit Hitler, he's turned not just from this uncle, he's turned into an international celebrity who's mesmerizing when he speaks. He's charismatic, and he's got hundreds of thousands of people supporting him. Therefore, William Patrick Hitler is mesmerized by this.

He now knows he's part of a family with an amazing member. Anyone would be amazed to see Hitler at this time. I think he's amazed too.

He wants to go and join in what's happening in Germany. It seems as though it's very exciting, and of course, he is related to him. Adolf Hitler was now totally invested in his pursuit of power.

On January 30th, 1933, at around midday, he finally achieved his aim and was appointed chancellor. The same evening, his militia paraded triumphantly before their new leader. This dramatic ascension affected every member of his family.

In London, William Patrick was sacked by the accounting firm Benham and Sons, as his surname was an embarrassment. Encouraged by his mother, he decided to try his luck in Germany. I think you can interpret everything William Patrick Hitler does as opportunism, but remember, he is a family member.

This is his uncle. Everybody has an uncle. Why shouldn't he want to get closer to him from a personal perspective?

It's easy to dismiss William Patrick Hitler, as he's been dismissed by many historians, as a young man on the make trying to latch onto a celebrity to make money, but this might not be true. It might be that he did genuinely want to join in what was happening in Germany, to get closer to his uncle, and maybe also to see his father, Alois, who did live in Germany as well. In Berlin, he received 500 marks from his uncle and the promise of a job as a sales coordinator with Great Britain for the Berlin department store, DeFaKa.

Otto Schlepper worked for the same store. The Nazi Party appointed him as William Patrick's chaperone. He is the only living witness to William Patrick's life in Berlin at the time.

He recalls one episode in particular which shows Hitler's nephew's behavior during that period. I saw him at a DeFaKa company party. William Patrick had been invited.

The company organized fabulous receptions. This one took place in a grand hall at the Land Volker Casino near the Bahnhof Zoo. He danced with a number of women.

The problem was that he used very inappropriate words when he said what he wanted to do with them. Clearly, his knowledge of German was not up to scratch. The story spread quickly among all the women in the company.

For the next dance, the women chose their partners. An attractive department head, who was a little older, asked him to dance. She explained to him that the words he was using were very vulgar.

William Patrick Hitler understood that it was improper to use a certain word in German, which means both to kiss and to screw. He then asked the woman what to say, and she, who was a bit of a bitch, gave him another word which was even worse. The result was that William Patrick was persona non grata with all the women at the party.

After that, I lost touch with him. He didn't last long in the company. The Nazis had him sacked for his behavior.

William Patrick was behaving opportunistically. He took advantage of his family connections and believed he could do as he liked, which greatly displeased his uncle and the Nazi Party. In 1933, Adolf Hitler's entire family gravitated toward the seat of power.

His sisters were in Bavaria. Alois opened a wine bar in Berlin with his wife. William Patrick soon found a job in a Berlin bank, the Reich Credit, where he was employed as an accountant.

In Germany, Hitler's rise to power boosted morale. Optimism returned. Berlin was once again a leading world capital and a scene of festivities, but they served as a smokescreen.

The economy was reborn through rearmament, the cult of leadership, and Nazi ideology. All of German society was submitted to mass indoctrination through the media. The first measures of exclusion affected the Jews, who were designated as the principal enemies.

In this context came the violence of the Night of the Long Knives. For several months, the SA, so valuable in Hitler's conquest of power, had been a thorn in his side. During the night of June 29th to 30th, Hitler and his new militia, the SS, brutally assassinated dozens of SA members, including their leader.

On the evening of June 29th, William Patrick was sitting on the terrace of the Kranzler café when an SS patrol appeared. They controlled every customer, clearly looking for someone. When William Patrick showed his ID papers, an SS officer said: "The Fuhrer's name must not be used for stupid games.

" "I suppose you are pretending to be related to the Führer. " William Patrick replied that he was his nephew. He was arrested and taken to Lichterfelde, a prison camp in the Berlin suburbs.

Here, he asked if he could call Rudolf Hess to confirm his identity. Finally, the British Embassy intervened for his release. William Patrick wrote: "I'm sure I was on a list.

" "Otherwise, I wouldn't have been arrested," "especially not in a café where I went every day. " However, his problems were far from over. On several occasions, William Patrick attempted to send money to his mother in London, who required his assistance.

In October 1934, he was summoned to see Hitler. He wrote: "My uncle was in an ugly mood. " "He said my mother was an able-bodied woman," "and that I could send no money out of the Reich" "to her or anybody else.

" "Then, with a curt Heil," "he turned on his heel and swept out of the room. " After these refusals, William Patrick decided to send a threatening letter to his uncle. It was discovered among correspondence belonging to his Aunt Angela by historian Florian Beierl.

Dated November 29th, 1934, it was addressed to Julius Schaub, Hitler's right-hand man. One extract says: "I intend to make a declaration to the British press" "so that my situation becomes more secure. " "I have to accept the idea" "that there is a conflict between me and my uncle.

" The very next day, William Patrick was summoned to the chancellery and presented to his uncle. When he returned to work the following morning, he discovered that his salary had been doubled and that he'd received a bank draft of 100 marks. What else was in the letter that could've been of concern to his uncle Adolf Hitler, the most powerful man in Germany?

That is where it gets a little murky, because he is suggesting that he might bring out some kind of revelations about Hitler being Jewish, which would be a bombshell. The man who really hates the Jews, the man who's built his reputation on anti-Semitism and was introducing a wide range of anti-Semitic laws, turns out to be Jewish. Obviously, there was a little bit of a blackmail threat there, and he doesn't like that.

Did William Patrick really possess compromising information about the family, perhaps pertaining to his uncle's Jewish origins? Adolf Hitler feared any revelations about his family, which he kept in the background. He knew his nephew had led an investigation into the subject in Austria several years earlier.

Hitler commissions Hans Frank, who is a key legal lawyer within the Nazi Party movement, to go and investigate this whole issue. Did Hitler have some Jewish ancestry? This was a highly secret report.

Frank found nothing compromising during his thorough research, yet Hitler remained wary and preferred to give in to his nephew's blackmail. If you decided to blackmail Adolf Hitler, your chances of survival were very likely not very big. In the case of William Patrick Hitler, it's remarkable that Hitler refrained from any dictatorial action that would have been typical for that period of time.

William Patrick was a nuisance to both Adolf Hitler and his father, Alois, who kept him at a distance. Alois opened a restaurant called "Alois" in Wittenbergplatz, only a few minutes' walk from various places frequented by his son. He'd bought the restaurant for a pittance from a Jew he had evicted.

Unable to join his uncle's inner circle and reap the benefits, William Patrick had to work. Between 1935 and 1937, he worked for Opel, first in a factory in Russelheim for several months and later in Berlin, where he was employed by the prestigious Opel dealer, Eduard Winter. He was once again harassed by the authorities.

The Gestapo blocked his work permit for two months. Opel was obliged to fire him. The police accused him of selling cars under the name of Hitler.

He found work in a Berlin restaurant until January 31st, 1939. The next day, he left Germany. It would appear that his departure was sudden.

World War II had not yet broken out, but Germany had been gearing up for war since 1938, with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland. Historians have several theories regarding possible threats and pressure applied to William Patrick. By 1939, certain dynamics must have evolved that prompted William Patrick Hitler to take off and leave Germany.

Maybe he knew something about the war preparations. Maybe he was threatened by members of the regime, the Gestapo. He must have been advised by people around him that what he was doing was ultimately going to lead to a bad end.

The version he gives for his departure is connected to the blackmail of his uncle Adolf. If he wanted to stay in Germany, he would have to change nationality, become German, or leave the country for good. He chose the latter option.

William Patrick had just signed a contract with an American agent representing the Hearst Media Group. He and his mother left London for Le Havre, where they set sail on board the Normandie in March 1939. William Patrick and his mother enjoyed a luxurious crossing on the period's finest ocean liner, a six-day first-class cruise paid for by his agent.

He arrived in New York at dawn on March 30th, 1939, and was enchanted. At the time, the USA was isolationist, but the Americans were curious about the Hitler phenomenon, widely covered in the nation's press. In the days following his arrival, numerous articles were devoted to him around the country.

William Patrick and his mother were also filmed in a very rare document of just a few seconds, but it reveals something of his personality. I hope that the American people in this country will not be kidded by my moustache because, after all, my heart is in the right place, not to mention. He became a curiosity in a country hungry for novelties.

His joke about his mustache immediately endeared him to the public. He and his mother were taken under the wing of the prestigious William Morris Agency and installed in the Buckingham Hotel near Central Park. Hitler's nephew signed a contract for a lecture tour lasting several months around the USA, focusing on his uncle and the Nazi regime.

William Patrick was relying on his newfound fame to find a lasting place in the American Dram. In Europe, widespread conflict had been imminent since Hitler invaded Poland. This only increased the appeal of the Führer's nephew's presence on American soil.

For three years, he gave many lectures across the country. He spoke of Adolf Hitler, the Nazis, Rudolf Hess, and the other dignitaries he had met during his stay in Germany. His name became his stock in trade.

Some of his lectures became famous, such as the one in Boston, where his presence caused a riot. Over the months, the interest dwindled. After speaking in prestigious halls, he had to make do with colleges and reading clubs.

At the end of 1941, his constant movements around the country and a request to prolong his and his mother's visas aroused the attention of the FBI. The FBI archives contain a file on William Patrick and one on his mother. They were declassified and made available to the public in the mid-1990s.

They reveal that J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director, closely followed the movements and declarations of Hitler's nephew. With addresses, profiles, and biographical details, the files are succinct but very precise.

Apparently, in mid-November 1941, there was no reason to refuse a visa extension. Since Great Britain entered the war in September 1939, William Patrick and his mother led a media support campaign. Brigid Hitler joined the British Red Cross in New York.

William Patrick talked of joining the Canadian Army. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, changed the course of the war and the life of Hitler's nephew. The American fleet was partially wiped out.

The day after the attack, President Roosevelt declared war on Japan. On the 11th, Germany and Italy declared war against the USA. The war was now worldwide.

William Patrick and his mother decided to stay in their new home country. On March 14th, 1942, J. Edgar Hoover received a priority memo from President Roosevelt's cabinet at the White House.

It contained astonishing news. William Patrick Hitler had written to the president, expressing his desire to join the American Army. In a letter, never mentioning his uncle's name, he explained to Roosevelt that he wanted to fight under the American flag but that it was impossible due to his British nationality.

Due to his name, neither Canada nor Great Britain were willing to accept him in their armed forces. He, therefore, pleaded with the president to help him enlist in the US Army. The letter immediately triggered a major FBI investigation, mobilizing several agents from the New York Bureau.

The inquiry took a certain amount of time. In March 1942, William Patrick was interviewed by agents from New York as this document shows. He then took part in a top-secret investigation carried out in 1942 and 1943 by Bill Donovan, the director of the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA.

This investigation, led by psychiatrist Walter Langer, aimed to establish a psychological profile of Adolf Hitler. Marc Sageman, a former CIA profiler, knows the case well. His knowledge of his uncle became a national priority.

I think Walter Langer volunteered to do a study of Hitler. At the time, it was the height of psychoanalysis. People believed it was a science capable of predicting behavior.

They thought it was worthwhile and allocated some money for this project. Walter Langer went around and interviewed quite a few people who knew Hitler. Also, he had a team of researchers looking at all kinds of documents, newspapers, and articles about Hitler.

One of the people interviewed was William Patrick Hitler. After two interminable years of waiting, keen to do battle against his uncle, William Patrick Hitler finally got what he wanted. The American authorities gave the dictator's nephew the go-ahead.

He could join the US Navy. On March 6th, 1944, he was called to the Manhattan recruitment office at 85 Vanderbilt Avenue for enlistment. Exceptionally, cinema newsreels were present to record the scene as if William Patrick were a star.

He swore allegiance and became the object of US propaganda. I'm the only living descendant of the Hitler family bearing that name, and I expect shortly to enter the United States Navy. As a member of the armed forces, I hope to take an active part in the liquidation of this man, my uncle, who has unleashed such misery upon the world.

It was a declaration of war against his uncle. Adolf Hitler's reaction is unknown, but such images would have warranted the firing squad for high treason against his family. William Patrick was posted to a medical unit until 1946.

On April 30th, 1945, Uncle Adolf committed suicide in his bunker at the chancellery. Germany capitulated unconditionally on May 8th. William Patrick's father, Alois, barely survived the chaos in Berlin.

Japan signed its surrender on September 2nd, 1945. The Second World War was over, and the world discovered the horrors committed by the Nazi regime, the millions of dead and the final solution decreed by Hitler and his SS. This photo, taken in 1946 during a demobilization ceremony, is the last image of William Patrick in public.

Now an American citizen, he disappeared. The name Hitler was a thing of the past. After the war, Adolf Hitler's name was synonymous with evil, death, war, and destruction.

You name what's negative, and he was associated with it. Nobody would like to be associated with Adolf Hitler. Where did William Patrick Hitler go?

Did he stay in the USA after taking American citizenship? Did he return to Great Britain or go to Germany to look for his father? A series of articles in the post-war British press supplied details of his father's life.

Arrested in Hamburg in August 1945 by the British Military Police, Alois Hitler was released the same day as he was not a member of the Nazi Party. After the war, Alois and his wife changed identity. The Hitlers became the Hillers.

For the British, Alois' case was finally closed after an investigation in 1946 when he was de-Nazified. His second son, Heinz, had died on the Eastern Front in 1942. Alois spent his latter days in Hamburg and died there in 1956.

He is buried in the vast Ohlsdorf Cemetery on the outskirts of the city in a grave still identified as number 209. 75. However, there is no tomb at this reference address.

The concession exists in his name but there is no gravestone. A film found in German archives provides a further clue, a film in which Alois' grave appears. Buried here are Alois and his wife, Hedwig, and two other unknowns, Erna and Hans.

Research reveals that they were Hitlers too. Hans was a cousin of Alois and Adolf. Erna, his wife, worked in a restaurant in Berlin.

Erna had a daughter called Margot, who is today deceased. Margot had a son called Michael, who is still alive. He's a cousin of William Patrick Hitler.

The discovery of his home address was a complete surprise. Michael, Erna's grandson, has been in Israel since the 1970s. He lives with his family in Jerusalem.

A Hitler living in Israel is surreal. He and his mother both knew Alois, and above all, Hans and Erna Hitler, his grandparents. He must certainly know the history of his family and perhaps have information about his cousin, William Patrick Hitler.

A few other children of Nazi dignitaries and Nazis have followed the same path to Israel. The Jewish state was born from the ashes of the Holocaust horrors, and for some, going to live there is a form of repentance. Michael converted to Judaism and became an Israeli national.

Over the years, he has become a leading specialist in Hebrew studies at the University of Tel Aviv. This is the marriage contract of Erna and Hans. When did it take place?

That was in 1942. The Reichsgesundheitsführer was there, as well as Alois Hitler. The interesting thing in the second part is that it gives you the names of both of their parents.

You see here that Hans Hitler was the son of Johann Hitler, who must be an uncle of Alois. He claims his grandfather Hans was a cousin of Alois and Adolf Hitler, which would make him William Patrick's cousin, a cousin he never met. Michael grew up in post-war Germany before seeking exile in Israel.

Living here in this country is not influenced by any relationship. What can I do for a drunken grandmother who married a man with that name? Even if he has put the past behind him, he offers some precious details about his grandparents' lives after the war.

He was not killed like other Hitler family members who had been killed by the Russians when they occupied a part of Austria. He stayed safe after the war. I wasn't interested in the precise relationship, how he came to be.

I knew that my grandmother was very proud to be Mr. Hitler. Let that be.

They changed the name officially to Hiller after the war, but everybody knew that Hiller was Hitler. Michael has heard of his cousin William Patrick but knows nothing about his life after the war. Back in Germany, another witness perhaps has information about Alois' elder son.

She claims to be Alois' adopted granddaughter and to have spent her childhood days with him. Packages arrived from America, and they came from William Patrick, granddad's son. There were lots of sweets and brightly colored clothes.

I remember some red shoes. I also remember there being some tinned corned beef, but especially candy. Apparently, in the United States, they had candies shaped like pebbles.

They were very good. Papy never talked about his American son. William Patrick stayed in the United States after the war.

In New York, his mother Brigid Hitler apparently wrote a family biography. The book was deposited at the Manhattan Municipal Library. An archivist there supplies us with further details.

Hello. Here is your book by Brigid Hitler. My brother-in-law, Adolf.

It came as part of the collection of Edmund Packer, who was a literary agent and Czechoslovakian-born playwright. His papers came to the library in 1959. It was only later that this manuscript or typescript was found among his papers.

He acquired it from Brigid Hitler. I'm not sure if he actually wrote it. Does that make sense?

He was a literary agent, so he was trying to get this book and sell it to find a publisher. The unfinished book contains a good deal of information about William Patrick and Brigid's lives before the war, with documents and photos too, but nothing about the post-war period, nothing that could help locate them. Did they stay on the East Coast, or did they head west or elsewhere in the vastness of the USA?

However, what is certain is that their lives changed radically, as if their disappearance had been organized. American Social Security records show that Brigid died on Long Island in 1969. On her card, there is an address.

It's a small suburb, like so many others in the United States. Long Island is something of a dormitory for New York City. Wooden houses in neat rows and lines, proudly sporting American flags.

At the address indicated, there is a small house. It was here that Brigid Hitler, William Patrick's mother, lived until she died. The new owners wish to remain anonymous, but they do reveal something of value.

In the house next door, lived her son, William Patrick. The second surprise is that he raised a family. This house also has a new owner, and the new inhabitants wish to remain anonymous too.

No one knows what became of the family, although they believe they stayed close to this small Long Island town. Further discussion reveals that the family didn't use the name "Hitler. " They changed their name to Stuart Houston, a name chosen by William Patrick Hitler to hide behind.

It's an odd name, and one that proves to be rather ambiguous. After the war, they decided to change their name, choosing "Stuart Houston," which clearly refers to Stuart Houston Chamberlain, who was a renowned anti-Semite. He'd regarded Hitler as the future of Germany.

Chamberlain wrote that if there were more men like Hitler, Germany would be saved. Choosing this name or pseudonym reveals a certain ambivalence, and that within him, there was an element of allegiance to National Socialist ideology and, in part, to anti-Semitic ideology. I can't understand how he could imagine that even in America, where not everyone knew about European history, no one would notice the obvious reference to his uncle that he was making by choosing the name "Chamberlain.

" The Hitler line was therefore continued and even extended after William Patrick arrived in America. However, checking through every directory possible, there are no traces of any Hitler or Stuart Houston. That means, ex-directory, they're impossible to find.

If the children grew up in this part of Long Island, they must have gone to school. Municipal libraries are often a good source of information. They notably keep school yearbooks, a sort of precursor to Facebook, published every year by colleges and high schools throughout the US.

The highlights in the students' lives and careers are featured along with photos. The yearbooks surprisingly reveal that William Patrick Hitler had four children, four boys. Alexander, Louis, Brian, and Howard.

The one with the most photos is Howard, indicating a lot of friends. Notes show that he was a member of the school band. One of the easiest of his friends to find is Joseph Silhan, Howard's best friend, but he is the bearer of bad news.

Howard died at the age of 32 on September 14th, 1989 in a terrible car accident. He had just gotten married to Marie, a girl from Quebec. Joseph and Howard met in the high school band.

Joseph has videos of his friend, with Howard conducting the band. The video was shot at a high school football game. Howard is the young man dressed in white and yellow, dancing in the foreground.

He's wearing a white hat. At the end of the game, we can see him laughing with his friends in the stands. He was the life and soul of the group as this other footage reveals at a private party.

What's with you and this camera? It's a mirror. Howard also told him of the terrible secret this apparently ordinary, middle-class American family was hiding.

At the time I knew Willy, I didn't know about his history, because that was a well-guarded secret, even from me. No outsiders knew about that, nobody. That's the way it had to be.

Howard, his son, said: "I have a little something I'd like to tell you. " We were outside, I remember it like it was yesterday. I couldn't believe it.

It was just too fantastic to believe that the man I'd known for these many years was a relative of Adolf Hitler. The more it settled in, the more a lot of things made sense as to why they were so guarded and secretive. I thought that's the way the family was.

They minded their own business. Thanks to Joseph, it is finally possible to complete the Hitler family tree. After the war, William Patrick married a young German girl, Phyllis Jean-Jacques.

They had four children, Alexander, Howard, Louis, and Brian. They are the last in the Hitler line, the last to bear a name defamed by history. During our interview, Joseph also provided valuable information about the life of William Patrick.

He was great with his kids. He was an older father. He treated me like one of his sons, and he loved talking to me.

He was very heavily into the zodiac, into astrology, knowing your sign, and telling you what your fortune may be and what's ahead of you. He was accurate too, and believe it or not, his accent hit me. He always reminded me of Michael Caine, the actor.

He had the same voice. William Patrick led two lives, one in the spotlight, where his name was an asset, and the other in secret. William Patrick worked at home.

Phyllis was a telephonist. They lived a life of discretion and isolation, the main idea being to protect their children. How'd they live with such a secret?

Was it not too big a burden for them, especially for the children as they grew up? The Hitler's secret weighed heavy on all the children. Of the three surviving brothers, Brian and Louis chose to live together in the family home on Long Island, staying with their mother until she died in 2004.

The two brothers created a gardening business together. Brian and Louis lived a cloistered existence. I'm sure a paranoia does exist for at least two of the remaining brothers, because they still live together, still very guarded.

They have a business together, and that's all they do. They do their business, and they go home. Brian and Louis have reinforced their isolation, building a wooden fence around their house against any prying eyes, a barrier against any curious visitors.

There have been no photos taken of the last Hitlers since they left high school, but during our preparatory work, we managed to get some unique shots of all three surviving descendants. In this photo, we can see Brian, the youngest, at 49 years old. This is Louis, 63, putting away his gardening tools.

The third and eldest brother is Alexander, who is 65. He has chosen to live alone. Alexander also has a terrible secret to conceal.

William Patrick and Phyllis' eldest child has a middle name, a name with an ambiguous, despicable significance. His parents baptized him Adolf. Alexander Stuart Houston is also called Adolf Hitler, yet, of the last three Hitlers, he seems to lead the most normal life, if still discreet.

Alex was more like Howard. He found humor in everything, and he was very laid back. He was a social worker, for Pete's sake.

You can't work with other people and be paranoid yourself. In my opinion, I believe he took the lineage of his history or the Hitler thing, and he put it on the shelf. "All right, that's part of my life.

It had nothing to do with me. " "I didn't do it. I didn't do anything wrong.

" That's how he lived his life. Whether or not he had other things to keep from people, I don't know. It'd appear that William Patrick Stewart Houston cut all ties with his uncle and his own past, but appearances can be deceptive.

Certain indications contradict this notion. The first clue is this book, co-written with his mother, now available at the world's biggest library. The second, the first name of his first son is in homage to the uncle he claimed to hate.

The third indication is the ambiguous family name he chose. Why so much mystery? Did he want us to find traces of the Hitler family's past?

Did he perhaps hope his own story would not be forgotten? Wherever you start penetrating this family history, you always see some hidden hints, which makes it easier for us historians nowadays to look at the whole matter, but it doesn't make it easier for us to profile him psychologically because William Patrick Hitler appears as an individual who was continuously drawn back and forth into different ways of thinking and perceiving the country he was born in, the country he decided to go to, Germany, and the country he ended up living in, and where he died, the United States. We will never get an answer.

William Patrick died after a long illness in 1987. His will has remained secret, much like the second part of his life. The only clause we can guess at is his request to be buried in the US, on Long Island, next to his mother.

Did William Patrick die as Stuart Houston or as Hitler? Apparently, there was a great dilemma when William Patrick died because they felt very awkward and uncomfortable burying him under the name he'd made up. It wasn't his real name.

There was a strong feeling within the family that perhaps this was the time to bury him as William Patrick Hitler. I think at the end of the day, they decided that would negate everything they'd done to keep their lives private. I think that had he successfully left that old life behind, then he would have been William Patrick Stewart Houston, but he didn't really.

The fact that we're still talking about it today, I think he kind of failed, if you like. His children are still living with that name. His wife lived with it until the day she died.

Thinking about it, I think he was buried "William Patrick Hitler. " Unbelievably, at the death of their father, the four brothers, Alexander, Louis, Howard, and Brian are believed to have taken an oath to never have children, a pact to put an end to the Hitler lineage. A close family friend has confirmed this, a reliable source whose identity cannot be revealed.

In order to verify this, we would have to meet the last three surviving Hitlers, but it is impossible to talk to or even see Louis and Brian. They don't want to talk. That leaves Alexander Adolf.

By chance, heavy snows the day before meant William Patrick's eldest son was clearing the driveway in front of his house on Long Island. With a hidden camera in my glasses, I approached Alexander and tried to talk to him. Hello?

Are you Alexander Stuart Houston? Yes, who are you? My name is Emmanuel.

I'm a French film director. Oh, I don't want to talk to you. I won't talk to you.

I know what you're here for, and I'm not talking to you. I just wanted to let you know that I'm making a film on your father. Nobody knows anything about my father, but thank you very much.

It's nice, I'm glad. Do you know what? Our policy is.

. . My brothers and I had a talk, and we said not to talk about it to anybody.

Okay. It's not important to us, and we don't know anything anyway. Okay.

I haven't said anything to anybody yet, and I don't intend to. I read the book that your grandma and your father wrote. Why?

What good did it do us? Nothing, he wrote a book about it, and it was mostly made up. Do you mean what he wrote isn't true?

No. We're not going to say anything that's going to. .

. We'll not change the story. His book is one of the only sources… I would say at least 50% of it is wrong.

-Really, is it that bad? -More than that. That's what writers do.

They recoup, rewrite, and change the way they want to. Do you want to know something? Have fun.

Not you directly, but your family is part of history. Yes, I know, unfortunately. It's not a good part either.

To have the story told once and for all. . .

Do you want to know something? I only had 1,000 calls. If I wanted to tell it, I could talk to anyone.

To avoid people coming from time to time. . .

I can't stop people from coming, but I can choose not to talk to them. I don't want to talk. Did you make a pact with your brothers not to have any children?

My brothers and I have a policy of not talking to any kind of filmmakers or reporters. . .

Okay. That's what you want, so that's what you'll get, not much. No, that's okay.

Why did your father call you Adolf? You do your story, I hope it comes out good. That's it, the end of the story.

Okay, all right. I'll see you. To this day, Alexander, Lewis, and Brian have no children, and that situation looks likely to continue.

They're getting older. We may never know why they would have taken this oath. Perhaps one day they will say, but they grew up with secrets.

Secrecy is part of their lives, yet there is a certain paradox. Their father grew up as a Hitler and founded a family despite the burden of his background. Why do the other Hitlers not grant themselves the right to live like ordinary people?

Is it a form of punishment? Are they the victims of their own bloodline? It's difficult to imagine a generation of family deciding to put an end to the lineage.

It wasn't William Patrick Hitler's choice. He felt quite legitimately that he could have a family and continue the lineage, regardless of the name. The idea that the next generation almost deliberately decided to refrain from having children is possible to imagine.

It's a hypothesis that makes you think since it means they believed there was something rotten in their family's blood. It means that within themselves, they were convinced by Adolf Hitler's pre-genetic theories, which goes to show that bad ideas can sometimes live on.