Hitler and Stalin: Their Childhoods and Their Rise to Power

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died shortly after birth, making Hitler the focus of her affections (Stalcup, p. 12). Hitler's father, Alois was born illegitimate, and adopted the surname Hitler as a spelling variant of the man he believed to be his father. His father's birth was an embarrassment to Hitler and a potential political crisis: Alois' mother had been a maid. Some believed that she had worked for a Jewish family and that Alois might have been fathered by a Jewish man. Perhaps to avoid any such rumors, during World War II, Hitler had the Austrian town evacuated and used as a firing range, which destroyed any potentially embarrassing records (Stalcup, p. 11).
Alois Hitler was a domineering man who expected immediate obedience. Some think his discipline may have included what we would consider abuse today (Stalcup, p. 13). When Adolf was 11, his younger brother died, causing all of his father's attention to be focused on Hitler. At this age he entered secondary school. This was the beginning of ...

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a shoemaker, but he later claimed that his father had been a priest, thus casting some doubt on his paternity. Their home was described as a "hovel" by one author (Tucker, p. 3). His father was a cruel man who drank too much and beat both his son and his wife (Tucker, p. 4). Perhaps to shield himself from the stark brutality of his life, Josef invented an alter ego he named "Koba," who was a warrior-avenger. This paralleled a vindictive tendency in his childhood that came out with terrifying brutality when he was head of Russia (Tucker, p. 4).
His mother wanted him to become a priest, and he attended a Russian Orthodox seminary. It was while at the seminary that he joined the Russian ...

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